By Greg Connors
Todd
Christensen was the NBC analyst in the booth for the Buffalo Bills’ comeback
game against the Houston Oilers 20 years ago, working with the late
Charlie Jones.
The broadcast was blacked out in Western New York that day, because the game did not sell out.
Christensen
shared some vivid memories of the comeback game in a phone conversation
on Wednesday evening, beginning with Don Beebe’s touchdown, on which
the Bills receiver may have illegally stepped out of bounds.
"It
was 35-10 at the time," Christensen said. “I remember at the beginning
of the second half Bubba McDowell had picked off that ricocheted pass
and [scored to make it] 35-3. And
I remember as we headed into commercial break I remember either Charlie
or I said, 'It's time for our B or C material,' you know, because you
can't fool the audience and say, 'Onside kick and they can go for a
25-point conversion.' It's not going to work like that.
"Buffalo
scored what seemed to me to be a token touchdown, the psychology of
Houston being so far ahead in a playoff game. They went down and scored
to make it 35-10. That was a blip on the screen. But then, as I recall
the cornerback pushed [Beebe] to get him to the outside, to kind of feed
him to the safety, and from our vantage point, and from the replay, I
thought it would reveal that he had stepped on the chalk and had stepped
back in bounds, but the official missed it.
"That
still made the score 35-17, but what I do recall about it, I remember
saying to David Neal, our producer, could you just save [tape of] that
just in case? It's an 18-point game, so I don't know, but to the credit
of David Neal and Dick Klein, both excellent producers, directors, they
did save it and so when the game became competitive, and at that point
in the fourth quarter when Buffalo went ahead, David showed a replay of
the Beebe touchdown, with Jones saying on air, 'Is the comeback
tainted?' "
Christensen added a footnote to the Beebe non-call.
"The
next week I was in New York and a gentleman from the officiating office
came to me and went into great detail to explain to me that [Beebe
stepping out of bounds] is not what happened," Christensen said. "What happened was his foot
was above the chalk, but it didn't actually land on it. The temptation
was immense for me to say, 'So you're telling me what IT is, is that
what we're doing here?'" (a reference to some famous presidential
hair-splitting).
"Again,
the replay seemed to me to be pretty clear. Then again, you don't want
the facts to get in the way of a good story. Like [the Titans’] Frank
Wycheck throwing from the 19 and a half and a guy catching it at the 21,
and we're supposed to believe that that's backwards.”
Christensen
won two Super Bowl rings as a tight end with the Oakland Raiders. He
had retired a couple of seasons before the Bills’ famous 51-3 bashing of
the Oakland Raiders in the 1991 AFC Championship Game. I asked him if that game
was tough to watch, as a former Raider.
"I
don't think it [was tough to watch]," Christensen said. "Now had I been on that
team that got beat 51-3 then maybe that's a different story. I was
actually there at that game [working for NBC]. I was the sideline
reporter, along with O.J. [Simpson]. They actually put me on the Bills'
side and O.J. was on the Raiders' side, which seems odd because we
played for the opposite teams.
“I
remember what a thrill it was -- for me anyway, I'm sure it wasn't for
him -- that after the game I was in the locker room interviewing Ralph
Wilson as he was about to get the Lamar Hunt Trophy. Mr. Wilson had on
his trench coat -- it was a cold day in Buffalo -- and he couldn't get
up on the pedestal where you stand so he said, 'Can you give me a
boost?' And so I put my hands underneath his arms and lifted him up,
like one of my grandchildren. I remember being amused to myself
afterwards, thinking, 'Wow, this is pretty cool, Mr. Wilson asking me to
help him and then proceeding to do the interview.' "
How improbable was the Bills’ comeback that day?
"People
forget the machine-like efficiency of the Oilers in the early '90s,"
Christensen said. "They might have been for that five-year period of
time the best team to not play in the Super Bowl. They ran that
run-and-shoot just the way Mouse Davis diagrammed it. They ran it to
perfection. They had a terrific crew of receivers. They had a couple of
really good running backs in Lorenzo White and Gary Brown.
"Offensively
they were as good as any team. It was a cold and calculating
efficiency. OK, you're gonna do this; we'll do this. And Buffalo just
flat out could not stop them. And then when they got that gift
interception, 35-3, I don't think anybody in the place believed [in the
Bills' chances]. But after the Beebe touchdown there started to be a
little bit of an energy.
"I
think one thing about the Oilers during that period of time, if you
could question them or say there was a little bit of a flaw, they seemed
somewhat emotionless. And football requires at certain points in time
for you to reach down for a something a little extra. And their level of
excellence, they actually remind me a little bit of the Cowboys in the
'60s. They were coldly efficient, but for some reason there was always a
team that kept them out of the Super Bowl until the early '70s. So I
think that in retrospect, I think that's why [the Oilers] hired Buddy
Ryan as their D-coordinator the next year because they wanted a little
more energy.
"After
the Beebe touchdown, for whatever reason that Houston offense which had
been such a juggernaut in the first half, I don't know what the number
is, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the neighborhood of three or
four three-and-outs that they just couldn't afford to do. When they
go three-and-out -- not unlike the K-Gun when Kelly operated it and
Buffalo would go three-and-out -- when they go three-and-out, ouch! The
defense barely has time to get a drink of water, and they're back on the
field again.
"Houston's
defense was just really getting fatigued. And in retrospect I'm sure
that Kevin Gilbride, if he had it to do all over again, might have not
just tried to run the clock out, but might have said, 'Look, we've been
attacking and this is working, let's continue to do this, let's not just
bleed the clock,' because they started to do that a little too early."
