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1992 Buffalo Bills

1992 Buffalo Bills: The Road To A 3rd Straight AFC Crown

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In the great four-year run the Buffalo Bills had from 1990-93, when they won four straight AFC championships, no run had more drama than in 1992. The 1992 Buffalo Bills didn’t win their division, faced an insurmountable deficit in the first playoff game and then a difficult road thereafter…but somehow they got it down and reached the Super Bowl for a third straight year.

The usual suspects from the first two Super Bowl runs were still on hand. Jim Kelly had a Pro Bowl year, thanks mainly to a 7.5 yards-per-attempt stat that was fourth-best in the NFL. Thurman Thomas ran for nearly 1,500 yards and was second on the team in catches with 58. Thomas also went to the Pro Bowl.

Andre Reed continued to be the leading receiver and he also punched his Pro Bowl ticket, with a 65 catches/913 yards performance. James Lofton was 36-years-old, but still a valuable second threat, with 51 catches for 786 yards. On the defensive side, Bruce Smith was still the anchor, getting 14 sacks from his end position and making the Pro Bowl.

These five players—Kelly, Thomas, Reed, Lofton and Smith—all made the Hall of Fame. And they led the ‘92 Bills to top five finishes in both scoring offense and scoring defense.

And the talent didn’t stop there. Howard Ballard had a Pro Bowl year at right tackle. Phil Hansen and Jeff Wright joined Smith on the defensive front and combined for 14 sacks themselves. That’s a lot of pass rush production to get from the defensive line in a 3-4 scheme and made blocking the linebackers all the more difficult.

Speaking of those linebackers…Cornelius Bennett had a Pro Bowl campaign on the outside. Stalwarts Shane Conlan, Darryl Talley and Carlton Bailey rounded out the unit. In the secondary, Henry Jones was the top strong safety in the league in 1992 and intercepted eight passes. Mark Kelso picked off seven more from his free safety spot. Nate Odomes, a Pro Bowl corner had five picks.

Buffalo came rolling out of the gate when the season began, winning their first four games. The highlight was a Week 2 visit to San Francisco. The 49ers were on the way to a great season themselves and it was a shootout. Kelly threw for over 400 yards, with both Reed and tight end Pete Metzelaars clearing the 100-yard mark in receiving. San Francisco missed a couple key field goals and the Bills won 34-31.

The winning streak ended with a terrible home performance against Miami, the principal competition in the AFC East. Kelly threw four interceptions in a 37-10 rout that was the low point of a two-game skid.

Buffalo bounced back and ripped off five straight wins, including showcase wins over the Steelers and Dolphins. Pittsburgh was headed for the 1-seed in the AFC and came to Rich Stadium for a late Sunday afternoon kickoff. Kelly was brilliant, going 26/33 for 290 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Wide receiver Don Beebe caught eight balls for 101 yards, while Thomas ran for 155 yards on the ground. The final was 28-20.

The revenge trip to Miami came on a Monday Night and the defense stepped up. They sacked Dan Marino four times and shut down the Dolphin running game. Kelly, after his four-INT disaster in the first meeting, played mistake-free football and Buffalo’s 26-20 win gave them the edge in the AFC East.

But with the record at 9-2, the Bills stumbled. They lost at Indianapolis in overtime and then suffered an inexplicable home loss to the lowly Jets. The Dolphins also lost both of their games in this two-week stretch, but the losses were not created equal. Buffalo’s losses to AFC teams meant that they slipped behind Miami in the tiebreakers.

When the Bills beat the Broncos and then delivered a tough 20-16 road win over a really good New Orleans Saints team, they were still in position to win the division when they went to Houston on the final Sunday Night of the season.

Earlier in the day, Miami had won to complete an 11-5 season. The tiebreakers now loomed large, as it meant Buffalo needed the win. But Kelly was hurt early on and the game was a complete disaster. The 27-3 loss ended the Bills’ four-year run atop the AFC East and sent them into the wild-card round.

Kelly wasn’t done for the year, but he needed recovery time and would be on the shelf for a rematch with Houston the following week. The Oilers (today known as the Tennessee Titans) came to Buffalo for the early Sunday afternoon game of wild-card weekend. And they picked up where they had left off in the regular season finale.

Houston led 28-3 at the half and even the strongest-willed of Buffalo fans had to lose hope when Oiler safety Bubba McDowell returned an interception 58 yards to the house. It was 35-3. The quarterback was Frank Reich. And over the last six quarters-plus, the Bills had been outscored by the Oilers 62-6.

Reich quietly went to work, leading a touchdown drive that at least stopped the bleeding. Then he ripped off three consecutive touchdown passes. And these weren’t chintzy TD passes from down near the goal line. Reich hit Don Beebe from 38 yards out. Reed caught a 26-yard strike and a TD pass to Thomas came from the Houston 18. By the time the third quarter was over, the score was 35-31 and there was still life in Buffalo.

One more touchdown pass to Reed—this one from 17 yards—gave the Bills a stunning 38-35 lead, but Warren Moon rallied the Oilers for a field goal that sent the game to overtime. But Reich hadn’t led his team this far to lose this one and a 32-yard field goal in overtime completed the greatest comeback in the history of the NFL playoffs.

There was no time to celebrate and the Bills had to be feeling a sense of destiny after the Houston game. They went to Pittsburgh and cruised to a 24-3 win, sacking Steeler quarterback Neil O’Donnell seven times and getting 104 yards rushing from Kenneth Davis.

Round 3 with Miami was set for the AFC Championship Game and Kelly was back in the saddle. The game was tied 3-3 after a quarter, but the Buffalo defense never let Marino get untracked. They sacked him four times, twice by Smith. The Bills got five turnovers. They dominated the trenches, winning rush yardage 182-33. The second half was more a coronation party in South Beach, as Buffalo cruised home 29-10.

It was time for a third straight Super Bowl trip. After losses in 1990 to the New York Giants and 1991 to the Washington Redskins, Buffalo would draw another opponent from the NFC East. This time it was the Dallas Cowboys, who had won at San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game.

Buffalo struck early, when their great special teams player, Steve Tasker, blocked a punt and the Bills took a 7-0 lead. But Dallas, with Jimmy Johnson on the sidelines and the Big Three of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin in their first Super Bowl, were a dynasty in the making. The rest of the game was a disaster. The Bills turned the ball over nine times, a Super Bowl record. They trailed 28-10 by halftime and lost 52-17.

Buffalo was far from finished—they won an unprecedented fourth straight AFC title in 1993…and lost an unprecedented fourth straight Super Bowl, again to Dallas. These Bills were an extraordinary team and over a four-year stretch were easily the best in the NFL. They were just never the best in any one individual season.

The 1992 Super Bowl: Dallas Buries Buffalo

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The Buffalo Bills came to the end of the 1992 NFL season the same way they’d reached the previous two—as AFC champions. But the Bills yet to win the sport’s ultimate prize and the pressure was on in the 1992 Super Bowl to win their first title.

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Even though they had the experience, oddsmakers liked the Dallas Cowboys. They were young and for some the youth was a concern. But the Cowboys had also been a better team all year long, and were favored by 6 ½ points when they arrived in Pasadena.

Dallas had gone 13-3 during the regular season and won big battle in San Francisco to claim the NFC Championship. Buffalo, unlike its previous runs through the AFC, had not been head and shoulders above the rest. The ’92 Bills came the wild-card route.
They started by producing the greatest comeback in the history of the NFL playoffs, falling behind the Houston Oilers 35-3 and ultimately winning 41-38. More decisive victories against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins on the road followed.

The fact the Cowboys would win this game 52-17 and force a Super Bowl record nine turnovers can make it seem like this game was a fait accompli from the beginning. Certainly, then-Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson does his best to convey that notion in his book Turning The Thing Around.

I have hard time thinking Johnson was really that cocksure—while he’s never lacked for confidence, this is also a coach who six years earlier on the college level had been completely outcoached when leading Miami into a national championship battle with Penn State. If Johnson could blow that game, with a vastly superior talent edge than what he had in 1992, how could he be so sure now?

Nor did the game play out like a mismatch, at least early on. Buffalo’s brilliant special teams player Steve Tasker blocked a punt and set up a quick touchdown. The Cowboys started to force the turnovers, one that set up a touchdown and one that produced the points directly. Even so, trailing 14-7, Buffalo drove to a 1st-and-goal at the 4-yard line.

It was here that the superior talent of Dallas really began to show. The Cowboys came up with a goal-line stand. The ensuing Bills’ drive got them to 3rd-and-1 at the four-yard line and Dallas stopped that play to. Possessions that should have given Buffalo 14 points had resulted in just three.

Meanwhile, Troy Aikman was getting in rhythm. He’d rifled a 19-yard touchdown pass to Michael Irvin on the first real drive the Cowboy offense put together. Dallas now led 21-10. Then came the sequence that realistically decided the game.

Buffalo running back Thurman Thomas took a swing pass and fumbled it away late in the first half. Aikman immediately took complete advantage and gunned another touchdown pass. A game in which the Bills had their share of chances, saw them trailing 28-10 going into the locker room.

The Bills remained nominally in the game. Even though starting quarterback Jim Kelly was injured, it was backup Frank Reich who’d led the epic rally against Houston, and it was 31-17 after three quarters. But Aikman came through again, with a 45-yard-touchdown pass to Alvin Harper to finally blow it open for good.

All that was left was for Dallas defensive tackle Leon Lett to get himself remembered in a less than positive way. Lett recovered another Buffalo fumble and took off for the goal line. In the open field and near the goal line he started to stretch his arms out in celebration. A hustling Buffalo receiver, Don Beebe, stripped the ball. By now, the score was 52-17 so it didn’t matter, but Lett’s hotdogging made him the subject of more than a few jokes. Though we should note in fairness that it’s not all that different from what most players do today. Lett just got busted on the game’s biggest stage.

And Dallas had busted Buffalo on the biggest stage. It was the Cowboy organization’s first Super Bowl title since 1977, and the 1992 Dallas Cowboys were leading the way for a dynasty just getting started.