I had Houston Oilers +3 in this game. Not a bad beat because I got a push but thought I had it locked up with a 38 point lead in a playoff game in the 2nd half.
It seemed like a logical decision at the time. It was a cold, windy day at Rich Stadium in suburban Buffalo in 1993, and the hometown Bills were behind, 35-3, in the second half of a first-round playoff game against the Houston Oilers. With the outcome seemingly no longer in question and the weather rather uninviting, many fans simply chose to go home.
For Buffalo, a Victory for the History Books (January 4, 1993)
Bill Sikes/Associated Press
A field goal in overtime sent the Bills, and fans, into a frenzy with a 41-38 win against the Oilers.
The score was not the lone reason for pessimism. The Bills were playing without Jim Kelly, their franchise quarterback; linebacker Cornelius Bennett, the N.F.L.?s defensive player of the year; and running back Thurman Thomas, the offensive player of the year, who injured his hip early in the third quarter. And the Oilers had crushed Buffalo, 27-3, the week before.
?I almost never, ever, ever give up, but at that point, I kind of did give up,? said Barb Beebe, who was at the game and is the mother of Don Beebe, then a receiver for Buffalo.
But just as it looked as if all hope was lost, the Bills proceeded to mount the largest comeback in N.F.L. history, a victory that two decades later ? Thursday will mark the game?s 20th anniversary ? still resonates in western New York.
Some of the fans who left early did not realize until much later that the Bills came back to win. Others heard it unfold on the radio. The game did not sell out, so it was not televised locally. The Bills did not allow fans who left the game to re-enter the stadium. The only way for those who left to get back into the stadium was to climb over an imposing fence. Many did just that until late into the game, when the team began to allow fans with ticket stubs back in the stadium.
Frank Reich, who was filling in for Kelly, said that when the Bills were facing the seemingly insurmountable deficit, a teammate reminded him that when Reich was in college, he led Maryland back from 31 points down to beat Miami.
?I knew it could be done, but I don?t think anyone was thinking about winning the game at that point,? Reich said recently. ?It was about being a professional and not getting embarrassed.?
The improbable comeback was propelled by two botched kicks, a shanked punt, a bobbled snap and a noncall by the officials. A short kickoff set up a 50-yard scoring drive by Buffalo that cut the lead to 35-10. Then Bills kicker Steve Christie recovered his own kickoff ? Marv Levy, then Buffalo?s coach, still insists the play was a flub and not a planned onside kick.
Three plays later, Beebe caught a 38-yard touchdown pass on first down to make it 35-17. Replays show that he stepped out of bounds before making the catch. Barb Beebe, who insists her son never stepped out of bounds, said that was the point when she regained hope. Cris Dishman, who was a cornerback for Houston, still says the noncall cost the Oilers the game.
?Why didn?t someone think of instant replay sooner?? he said. ?Then that greatest comeback never would have happened.?
Reich threw three touchdown passes in seven minutes against the N.F.L.?s third-best pass defense to cut the deficit to 35-31. He then threw another touchdown pass to Andre Reed for the third time to give Buffalo a 38-35 lead.
The Oilers soon had a chance to tie, but holder Greg Montgomery bobbled the snap to botch a 31-yard field-goal attempt. Warren Moon drove the Oilers to the Bills? 9 in the waning moments of regulation, and Houston kicked a field goal with 12 seconds left to send the game to overtime.
The Oilers got the ball first, but Nate Odomes picked off Moon?s pass at Houston?s 37, leading to a Christie field goal that gave the Bills a 41-38 win.
The Bills poured onto the field in celebration, and the fans who stayed ? or returned ? hugged and kissed one another, cried tears of joy and sang ?Shout,? the team?s theme song, for the seventh and final time in the game.
At the postgame news conference, Reich recited lyrics to a Christian song that he said inspired him before taking questions.
Dishman was more direct.
?It was the biggest choke in history,? he told reporters. ?Everyone on the team, everyone in the organization choked today.?
Dishman, now an assistant secondary coach with the San Diego Chargers, has not changed his opinion. ?I stick with that statement because that?s what happened,? he said recently. ?We didn?t finish the game.?
Dishman said that the Oilers lost the game more than the Bills won it, but one of his former teammates, Don Maggs, an offensive lineman who is now an analyst at Progressive Insurance, did not agree. ?The Bills earned it,? he said, refusing to cite bad calls or bad luck for the loss.
In Buffalo and elsewhere around the country, the game came to be known as ?The Comeback,? but in Houston, it is still referred to as ?The Choke.?
The Oilers fired the defensive coordinator Jim Eddy and the defensive backs coach Pat Thomas the day after the game, and a local radio station held a funeral for the team, complete with coffins and servers from Hooters as pallbearers.
Bills fans were convinced that the team?s luck had changed, but after road victories against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Miami Dolphins, they were routed by the Dallas Cowboys, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII and again the next year.
The Oilers, who made the playoffs seven years in a row, started the next season 1-4 but won 11 straight before losing in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth time in five years.
The franchise moved to Tennessee in 1997, and Rich Lord, a longtime host at Sports Radio 610 in Houston, said he believed that ?The Choke? ? along with other Oilers playoff failures ? paved the way for the team?s departure. Lord said that the Oilers? playoff collapses lingered in the city?s collective psyche, and that even now, Texans fans expected their team to come up short at this time of year.
Two years after the Oilers moved, the franchises again met in the playoffs. This time, the Bills were the hard-luck losers, going down to the Tennessee Titans on a disputed kickoff lateral play in the final seconds of a game now called the Music City Miracle. The Bills have not been back to the playoffs since.
The Bills? comeback was voted the fifth-most memorable game in league history in an NFL Films poll in 2000, and ESPN in 2004 rated it the third-biggest collapse in sports history.
Maggs, who said he hoped another team would break the comeback record, also acknowledged it was a game for the ages.
?They came back from 32 points down with Kelly out,? he said. ?You have to admit, it?s one of the greatest games in history ? for the Bills, but not for us.?
Steve Tasker, a standout special-teams player for the Bills who is now an analyst for CBS, called ?The Comeback? part of the heritage of western New York, a game that proved once and for all that leaving early was never a good idea. ?It was the ultimate it?s-not-over-till-it?s-over clich?,? he said.
