- 2 days ago
Lame excuse after lame excuse, Whitney Houston is apparently why Buffalo has never won
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00:22Hi everybody, I'm Brian Kenney and welcome to ESPN Classics Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame.
00:26From 1990 to 1993, the Buffalo Bills won an unprecedented four straight AFC titles.
00:34Their high-scoring K-Gun offense was triggered by the strong arm of quarterback Jim Kelly and powered by the
00:39legs of Thurman Thomas.
00:41On defense, pass rusher Bruce Smith led a swarming gang that usually shut down the opposition.
00:46In the 1990 and 92 seasons, 10 Bills were selected for the Pro Bowl.
00:51Yet for all its weaponry, Buffalo could not win the big game.
00:54Before we count down the top five reasons you can't blame the Buffalo Bills for losing four straight Super Bowls,
01:00let's go back to the beginning of the franchise's quest for a title.
01:07Kelly in the shotgun on second and seven, throws, it's good there, it is complete the read!
01:13The Buffalo Bills were the high-powered offense, the unstoppable team that no one could really contend with.
01:20Kelly for the end zone!
01:22Touchdown!
01:23They allowed me to do playground football in the National Football League and that's exactly what it was.
01:29Behind Kelly's freewheeling style, the Bills led the league in scoring and were the AFC's top seed in the 1990
01:36postseason.
01:37After racking up 95 points and 995 yards in two playoff victories, Buffalo was favored by a touchdown over the
01:45Giants in Super Bowl XXV.
01:48Even though they were going to face a Giants team that had allowed the fewest points in the league,
01:53you couldn't help but feel that Buffalo was on the verge of something big.
01:58There was arrogance, cockiness, and confidence. We were all free. I mean, we just didn't feel like we'd be stuck.
02:07By contrast, Bill Parcells' aging Giants, who would field 18 players from their victorious Super Bowl team of the 1986
02:14season, appeared ready to fall.
02:17I can tell you for a fact that Bill Parcells, while addressing his team early in the week, said,
02:23When you talk to the media, I want you to just blow smoke up the Bills. You know what? Make
02:29them seem like the greatest team ever.
02:31You can't say a lot of bad things about them. They do a lot of things well.
02:35I remember talking to Bill Parcells at the beginning of the week. I said, how are you going to beat
02:40that team?
02:40And he goes, and I'll never forget this as long as I live, he goes, well, if they have the
02:45ball as long as we do, he goes, they're going to kill us.
02:47So, I got to figure out a way to shorten the game.
02:52With the Bills up 10-3 in the second quarter, Bruce Smith trapped Giants quarterback Jeff Hostetler in the end
02:58zone.
03:00Hostetler, on the heat, sacks for the safety.
03:03Late in the first half, the Giants retaliated with a 10-play drive, moving 87 yards.
03:09We wore their butts out. And when you become physically fatigued, you become mentally fatigued.
03:16And that caused errors to be made.
03:18A second throw! Touchdown!
03:24Touchdown pass to Steven Baker cut the Giants' deficit to 12-10 at halftime.
03:29Taking the second half kickoff, New York continued to play Parcells' possession ball.
03:34Their 75-yard drive, which lasted a Super Bowl record 9 minutes and 29 seconds, was kept alive by the
03:42tenacity of wide receiver Mark Ingram.
03:45I'm one of the guys that miss the tackle.
03:47It was frustrating because we had an opportunity to get them off the field and turn the ball over to
03:50our offense.
03:51If I make the tackle in the backfield on Ingram when he caught the ball, they don't go down and
03:55score the touchdown.
03:56Touchdown, Anderson!
04:00As the fourth quarter wound down, the Bills, trailing 2019, went on a desperation drive and reached the Giants' 29
04:08with 8 seconds left.
04:10Scott Norwood was called on to try a game-winning field goal.
04:13Now Norwood tries to kick his longest ever on ground, 47 yards.
04:20Myself and Cornelius Bennett, we just put our heads down on the bench and when we heard the roar of
04:25the crowd, we just kind of looked up at the players and the players were like,
04:28Oh, God!
04:33No good!
04:36Wide right!
04:37I saw it rise, I looked at it, and when you realize it went outside, certainly it's crushing, it's devastating.
04:43The Buffalo Bills were the most talented team in the NFL.
04:46It shouldn't have been 20 to 19 at the time that they lined up to kick that field goal.
04:53In January of 1992, after winning their fourth consecutive AFC East title, the Bills were back in the Super Bowl.
05:01Only this time, they were underdogs to the high-flying Redskins.
05:05Super Bowl XXVI had hardly gotten underway when Thurman Thomas missed the first two plays because he couldn't find his
05:12helmet.
05:13The Bills went on to commit five turnovers, four of which cost them 20 points in a 37-24 route
05:19by the rampaging Capital Gang.
05:22I thought it was really a case where the Bills went into this game mentally all wrong.
05:29They assumed, because of how much they were this high-flying offense, that they could just sort of turn it
05:37on.
05:38And it ran up against a hard-hitting, very physical team that took this punishing approach.
05:46The next season, the Bills and backup quarterback Frank Reich overcame a 35-3 playoff deficit to Houston
05:53in the wild-card game on Buffalo's way to winning a third straight AFC title.
05:58But the team's momentum took a blow in the second quarter of Super Bowl XXVII
06:03when Dallas knocked Kelly out of the game.
06:05Without their leader, it was all downhill for the Bills.
06:14We ended up having nine offensive turnovers, and I threw two interceptions, and we lost 52-17.
06:22I look back on that, and I say, how can you go from the highest of highs to the lowest
06:27of lows in the course of a month?
06:30In Super Bowl XXVIII, Buffalo again faced Dallas.
06:34After leading 13-6 at the half, the Bills imploded four plays into the third quarter on a carry by
06:41Thomas.
06:42Picked up by Washington! Touchdown, Dallas!
06:47Buffalo's biggest stars came up small in their last three Super Bowls.
06:52Kelly committed nine turnovers, and Thomas averaged less than two yards per carry and fumbled three times.
06:59I didn't have a very good Super Bowl in the last three, and I take the blame for losing all
07:04three of those Super Bowls.
07:05None of us did what we had to do to win those games.
07:08We all contributed to losing, but we never had that big play that we needed to win one.
07:13If you've managed to lose four straight times, then you've taken that achievement to another level.
07:18I mean, you've managed to create tragedy out of triumph over and over, and they mastered the art of losing
07:27the Super Bowl.
07:30You've now heard the arguments against Marv Levy and company.
07:34In a few minutes, we'll make our case by counting down the top five reasons you can't blame the Buffalo
07:38Bills for losing four straight Super Bowls.
07:40But first, consider some points in their favor that didn't make the short list.
07:44We call them the best of the rest.
07:48James Washington.
07:49In Super Bowl XXVIII, the Cowboys' free safety led all players with 11 solo tackles, made an interception, forced a
07:57fumble,
07:57and his 46-yard fumble return for a touchdown ignited a second-half turnaround for Dallas.
08:03James Washington! Touchdown, Cowboys!
08:06We started the second half off with a bang because James Washington made a big play, picked it up, and
08:11ran it back for a touchdown.
08:12We always say turnovers and touchdowns.
08:14We knew that we'd have to get turnovers.
08:17And as long as our defense is playing well, Emmitt's going to rake up the yards.
08:23Our other best of the rest, defense.
08:26In each Super Bowl, the Bills ran into a wall.
08:29The first was the Giants, led by a brilliant assistant coach whose hold'em tactics are now the stuff of
08:34legend.
08:36Bill Belichick is running a two-man rush against the Buffalo Bills' vaunted spread offense.
08:42He's like, Jim Kelly, you can have all the time you want to throw the ball.
08:46But, fact of the matter is, I got nine guys dropped back.
08:50The space that you're going to have to fit it in, no one could do it.
08:53I went out on the backfield sometime and had two or three people on me.
08:56So, they did a great job of scheming, of trying to get pressure on Jim and try to take me
09:01out of the ball game.
09:02Although the Bills didn't turn the ball over against the Giants, over the next three Super Bowls, they committed 17
09:08turnovers.
09:0913 of which led to the opposition scoring 79 points.
09:14That's Martin, who else? Give him a touchdown!
09:18The four years the Bills went to the Super Bowl, their defenses were ranked in order 8th, 27th, 12th, and
09:2827th.
09:28And the defenses of the teams that beat them had defenses ranked 2nd, 3rd, 1st, and 28th.
09:39Unheralded quarterbacks.
09:41Both Jeff Hostetler and Mark Rippon came up big.
09:44In Super Bowl XXV, backup Giants quarterback Hostetler played mistake-free as Bill Simms' replacement,
09:52completing 20 of 32 passes for 222 yards under a battering Buffalo assault.
09:58In the second quarter, he made a pivotal play by not fumbling when Bruce Smith sacked him in the end
10:04zone.
10:05I felt a big old hand on my wrist and knew that I was in trouble and did everything I
10:11could to bring the ball back in.
10:13When you look at it after and years after, you realize what a huge play it was.
10:17Had Buffalo recovered it for a touchdown, that would have been a 17-3 Buffalo lead.
10:22No team in Super Bowl history has ever lost a game in which it led by 14 or more points.
10:29In 1991, Rippon, the Redskins quarterback, had the best season of his 11-year career.
10:35He continued his outstanding play in Super Bowl XXVI, dissecting the Bills for 292 yards passing and two touchdowns.
10:45Going deep. He's got Clark in the end zone. Touchdown!
10:48Rippon was not a star by any means, and he played just sound enough, solid enough to allow a superior
10:58Redskins team in many other ways to win the ball game.
11:01We're going to Disney World!
11:02In a game like this, to play at that level, you can only say, hey, I got it done when
11:08I counted.
11:09Whether you're Jeff Hostetler or Mark Rippon, something that you can say for the rest of your life, they can't
11:15take away from you.
11:17Wow.
11:19All right, we just got started. Here now is reason number four.
11:24There's no place like home, especially in Buffalo.
11:28We knew it was really difficult for teams to come in here and win in their own building.
11:33Here in Buffalo, weather is always a story.
11:36Wednesday's high was minus one. Today, we're up to a balmy 11 degrees.
11:41In their four AFC Championship seasons under head coach Marv Levy, the Bills were 7-0 at home in the
11:48playoffs, where the average temperature was 31 degrees.
11:51The coldest contest was the 1993 AFC Divisional Playoff, when the Mercury was 0 at game time.
12:00Man, it is cold.
12:02Well, the Los Angeles Raiders certainly not delighted to be playing in the cold weather.
12:06One of the things we pointed out was a saying that I had gotten from my father, who had been
12:12in the Marine Corps,
12:13when it's too tough for them, it's just right for us.
12:18The Bills' weather advantage melted.
12:22Yeah, well, that makes them frontrunners.
12:26What, you can't win on the road? You can't win on the neutral site?
12:30The other team doesn't get to play at home in the Super Bowl either.
12:36You can't win unless you ever...
12:38...in their four Super Bowls, where the average temperature was 69 degrees.
12:43Now, Super Bowl XXVI was played in a city much colder than Buffalo, Minneapolis, where daytime temperatures ran in the
12:49teens.
12:50The fact that they're in the winds, it felt like the single digits on your skin, plus a little snow.
12:54Good recipe for the Bills to win, except they play in a dome, where the temperatures are controlled.
12:59We're in the 70s. Weather like that, we lose again.
13:03Rippin' hands to Riggs over the right side. Touchdown, Washington Redskins.
13:07There's no question that in Buffalo, the weather was a weapon for us.
13:11And now, all of a sudden, you're in a 72-degree domed stadium, and now we've just lost one of
13:18our biggest allies.
13:22A jinx of geography.
13:24Remotely situated on Lake Erie, Buffalo provided an environment that worked against the Bills' championship aspirations.
13:32One of the smallest markets in pro sports, the city has never fielded a world champion, although it did win
13:39two AFL titles in the mid-60s.
13:41There's something weird about Buffalo. The Jumbotron fell in the new stadium.
13:46Our leading scorer for the Sabres one year was named Satan, Timothy McVeigh.
13:51Arguably our greatest domestic terrorist. He's from the Buffalo area.
13:57Sometimes between comedy and tragedy, the difference is just a fine line.
14:01The Bills in the Super Bowl, that may lie somewhere in between.
14:06Four straight Super Bowl losses. How do you make that worse? Best player in franchise history? Crime of the century.
14:14Whatever inequality the Bills seemed to lack, their opposition had in spades.
14:20New York, Washington, and Dallas, all glamour cities, account for 11 Super Bowl titles.
14:27With the star you're helping, man, it changes everything.
14:30Perception and the way that you're looked at is different because the Dallas Cowboys is such a powerful brand that
14:38when you're tied to it, I mean, it's just an awesome thing.
14:43Being a part of an identity is one of the factors that really motivates the players.
14:48What community, what team, what the logo is, what the history is, that is an important part of your self
14:53-concept, your self-identity as an athlete.
14:56If a city's size and stature are keys to Super Bowl success, then Buffalo never had a chance.
15:03Oh, they lost because of...
15:05That's a stupid reason. They lost because the other teams were bigger cities with better history.
15:14Why didn't the Ravens lose to the Giants in the Super Bowl?
15:24Why didn't the Patriots lose to some of those teams?
15:27Charlotte's a lot bigger than Boston.
15:30Philadelphia's a lot bigger than Boston.
15:35I'm just saying.
15:39The AFC lost 10 NFL championships to teams from larger markets.
15:45I think it became maybe even a little more of a distraction for them than it would have been for
15:50another team that was used to this process, i.e. the New York Giants.
15:55Hi, this is Chris Hale from...
16:00Oh, the, the, the, what's because they're, they're a small market.
16:05The next year after 93 and 94 season Super Bowl 29, San Francisco 49ers beat the Chargers.
16:16San Diego had 400,000 more people than San Francisco did.
16:21Over a million.
16:24Over a million people in that city.
16:27Uh, it's, it's a lame excuse.
16:32Julie Brown, this is what we go to the Super Bowl for.
16:36There's no question.
16:38It was, there was the temptation for every player on our team.
16:40This is now your time.
16:42You better get it while you can.
16:44Because, uh, we're going to go back after this game's over to obscurity in Western New York.
16:51With three strong reasons in the books, here's reason number two.
16:55How about them Cowboys?
16:59Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones took over a dismal Dallas team in February of 1989.
17:05And four years later, dominated the Bills in the Super Bowl.
17:08The Cowboys were just too good.
17:12Emmett on the toss.
17:14Touchdown!
17:15There is no God.
17:17They already had the whole Tom Landry here.
17:19Now they're reloading?
17:21That's effed up.
17:23There's not many teams that can have a guy that's catching 100 balls,
17:26a guy who's running for 1600 yards,
17:27and a quarterback whose completion percentage is one of the best in the history of the NFL.
17:32I'm a little humbled by the fact that Michael and Emmett and I are kind of the ones singled out.
17:39None of us had enjoyed any success without the other.
17:42And so our success together paralleled the team's success.
17:47Bursting with talent, swagger, and hubris,
17:50the newly renovated Cowboys reflected the personality of their city and their coach.
17:56Jimmy had no loyalty to anything or anybody.
18:00Just winning.
18:01Jimmy would always say, I don't need any friends.
18:04I need wins.
18:05We had been last in the league the year before I got there and then last my first year.
18:11There was a lot of pressure to get the Cowboys back on top.
18:14And for that reason, I expected their very best.
18:19And Johnson got it with speed and youth.
18:23They could run everybody down that we had on the field.
18:26They had some speed in the linebackers and the safeties.
18:29Those were the defenses that were the difference for us.
18:32I don't mean to oversimplify,
18:34but the Dallas Cowboys of Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin and Emmett Smith
18:40was a great football team.
18:43The Buffalo Bills, they were a good team,
18:46but they weren't as good as the team that they were playing.
18:56What?
18:59...rendition of the national anthem prior to Super Bowl XXV.
19:03She stood with her back to the Bills and her voice and heart to the Giants.
19:08Whitney Houston looks at the New York Giants as if she is offering out,
19:14you know, the energy of all pop hood and all America to that.
19:21That's the excuse they're using?
19:24...right even before the opening kickoff.
19:26I think there's no question that she set the tone.
19:29Uh, the sound keeps cutting off.
19:33...was salivating almost like Pavlov's dog.
19:35They were just waiting for her to ring the bell.
19:37She's a huge giant fan.
19:40Huge giant fan.
19:41Instead of recovering...
19:43Whitney Houston is from Jersey.
19:47...from the crushing defeat by Whitney's Giants,
19:50the Bills seemed to slip deeper into what would be their 0-4 malaise.
19:54It began with five turnovers against the Redskins,
19:58then nine more in Super Bowl XXVII.
20:01That's the one time when you could almost see the whole team's attitude,
20:06particularly offensively, or a whole attitude just crumbled at the same time.
20:10I tried not turning the ball over 14 times in two Super Bowls.
20:17Maybe they could have won.
20:18I think the losing on the world stage must have crawled into the psyche.
20:23A little bit of that, oh God, can it happen again?
20:26No, we're good, right?
20:27Well, catastrophe theory in sports psychology says that under certain conditions,
20:31when a game is very, very important, it's almost like a perfect storm.
20:35That pressure to make a few mistakes, it becomes a catastrophe.
20:40And before you know it, you have a blowout.
20:42The tasker, and he fumbles!
20:45Not another.
20:47It was astonishing how much this team unraveled.
20:52I think this was the classic case of the Bills really carrying the burden
20:58of snapping this losing streak.
21:01The burden was too much for them to handle.
21:04In the rematch with Dallas, the Bills led at the start of the second half.
21:08But another key turnover was converted into points for the opposition,
21:12turning Buffalo's Super Bowl dreams into one long nightmare.
21:17In many ways, I think sports psychology theory might say that it was that first game
21:21against the New York Giants that really set everything else up.
21:25It was like a deck of cards where it starts falling and the whole house falls down.
21:29I think that the Bills were fatally wounded after that first game.
21:33Because that was the game that they were supposed to win, and what they understood.
21:38It was just going to get harder and harder.
21:41Because they had finally reached the top of the mountain, and they weren't good enough.
21:51Well, there you have it, the top five reasons you can't blame the Buffalo Bills for losing four straight Super
21:56Bowls.
21:56I'm Brian Kenney. Thanks for joining us.
22:01Just a list of complete BS, BS excuses.
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