It appears to be almost official. The missed field goal by placekicker Tyler Bass at the end of the Chiefs-Bills divisional round playoff game this past Sunday is already being referred to as "Wide Right 2," or "Wide Right Part 2." Apparently, it is just the latest in what seems to be a series of playoff heartbreaks by the Buffalo Bills franchise.
Okay, so before I go much further with this, let me say something that might be surprising to anybody who doesn't know me, or this blog entry, too well. When placekicker Tyler Bass missed that field goal this past Sunday, and everyone was talking about that other field goal miss by a Buffalo placekicker many years ago (over three decades now!), a part of me felt a bit guilty.
Guilty? Why on earth for?
Well, you see, I am a Giants fan, and have been for a long time, including the "wide right" field goal. When Buffalo was suffering that heartbreak, I was actually celebrating, and wildly. Yes, I was rooting for the Bills throughout this season. And yes, the loss this past weekend hit me harder than the "13 Seconds" a couple of years ago, or other playoff losses that the team has suffered in recent years. I even remember the Super Bowls decades ago, when the Bills kept losing, and I felt a bit sad and depressed for the Bills, a great team that will seemingly forever be remembered for losing four straight Super Bowls.
Yet, in that most important, crucial moment in Buffalo Bills history, the moment that still seems to define them more than thirty years later, I was celebrating as a Giants fan. It was not that I hated the Bills, or Scott Norwood. But I was in high school, and wanted to much to see the G-Men win that second Super Bowl, that I jumped up for joy when Norwood missed. I remember how he handled himself well, but at the time, I was more interested in celebrating the Giants having actually upset favorites, including the 49ers and, yes, the Bills (who were favored by 6 1/2 points going into that Super Bowl, if memory serves correctly).
To be honest with you, it took me years to really understand, or come to terms, with certain things. Things like the Bills probably being the better of the two teams that season, but just having lost that particular game. I remember one guy - a sports pundit - claiming not to know what it would mean to think that the Bills would have won more than five of ten meetings between the two teams had they somehow had that opportunity. That, however, is not difficult to understand. After all, in literally every other major sports league in North America (other than the final in soccer), the playoffs are series. In baseball, hockey, and basketball, you have a best of seven series most of the time (and best of five on other occasions in baseball), and the first to win four clinches the series. So it's not difficult to understand. If the Bills and Giants had met in a best of seven series, I believe now (although I would not have admitted it at the time) that Buffalo would have won.
Also, and this also took me years to fully appreciate, Buffalo placekicker Scott Norwood handled himself wonderfully, with grace and dignity and almost startling honesty. He did not shy away from the television cameras, although nobody would have blamed him much if he had. The way that he handled that, both that evening as well as in the weeks and months and years to follow, is inspiring. On the biggest possible stage, with almost the entire North American continent (north of Mexico) watching, he missed the biggest field goal of his life, by just a few feet. It cost his team a Super Bowl win, because no other kicker in Super Bowl history has been faced with a kick of that magnitude.
Yes, there was a lot of pressure on Adam Vinatieri, Harrison Butker, and Jim O'Brien to split the uprights on those late field goals to win the Super Bowl. But the pressure was not nearly as intense, because the Patriots, Chiefs, and Colts would not necessarily have lost those games. They would simply have gone into overtime. Norwood, by contrast, had a field goal that would decide the game, win or lose. With the Giants leading, 20-19, with just seconds left in the game, a successful field goal conversion would have given the Bills a 22-20 win. If he missed - and we know that he did - the Giants would preserve the 20-19 win. To this day, no Super Bowl has ever been decided by such a close margin. Frankly, it is almost shocking that there has not been a second Super Bowl yet decided by such a field goal attempt, with the fate of both teams riding on the outcome.
Norwood infamously missed that kick. Then the Bills kept getting back to the Super Bowl, but kept losing. They got blown out by Washington in the next Super Bowl. They got humiliated by Dallas in the next Super Bowl. Then, in a rematch against Dallas, Buffalo appeared like they might really have a chance in their fourth and final Super Bowl of the nineties, as they were leading at halftime, 13-6. But a turnover on a Thurman Thomas fumble resulting in a defensive touchdown the other way seemed to provoke another Buffalo collapse. Ultimately, they lost that fourth straight Super Bowl, which has become a defining part of the team's legacy.
Only after many years had passed - and of course, once I could access more than just the one postgame interview that ABC aired of Scott Norwood that evening with numerous interviews available on Youtube - did I fully appreciate just how well Norwood handled himself. Again, very few names come to mind who was in comparable position. In North America, there was Bill Buckner, who's unforced error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series prevented the Red Sox from winning the World Series, giving the hometown New York Mets the win in Game 6, which they followed up with clinching the championship in Game 7. In soccer, Roberto Baggio's bad miss in the 1994 World Cup Final shootout cost Italy any chance at winning against Brazil. Probably you could put Zinedine Zidane in that category, as well, for getting a red card following a flagrant headbutt, which cost his team any chance of winning the World Cup title in 2006, although at least Zidane had lead France to a World Cup championship eight years earlier. Possibly Steve Smith of the Edmonton Oilers, who accidentally scored against his own team in the 1986 Western Conference Finals, although again, like Zidane, the Oilers enjoyed glory, having won Stanley Cups both before and after this incident, so it did not define the franchise quite like those other failures had.
There are others, of course, but they are not quite as famous, because the games were not quite on that level of determining a championship. There was Joseph Ossai of the Cincinnati Bengals, who's late hit just barely out of bounds on Patrick Mahomes suddenly put Kansas City in great position for a field goal, which they made to clinch the Super Bowl. Chris Webber calling for timeout inexplicably, in what still is regarded as the event which ended the Michigan dynasty of the early nineties. Greg Norman blowing a six shot lead at the 1996 Masters (admittedly, I am not all that familiar with golf, but understand that this is evidently a huge collapse).
Now, I cannot say precisely how all of those guys handled themselves afterwards. But Scott Norwood handled it exactly the way you would want a role model to handle it. I only really came to appreciate that many years later, probably once maturity reached me. Also, when I was able to actually see more than just that one interview, which Youtube made possible.
So far, Tyler Bass has handled himself with dignity and grace as well. Let's hope that he has the strength of character to face the adversity and challenges the way Norwood did, and has since that unforgettable moment.
Jim Nantz’s call of Tyler Bass miss evokes memories of Scott Norwood by Michael Dixon on 01/21/2024:
"The two most dreaded words in Buffalo have surfaced again." CBS announcer Jim Nantz was praised for his call of a missed field goal in Sunday's divisional round game between the Bills and Chiefs.
https://awfulannouncing.com/cbs/jim-nantz-bills-chiefs-wide-right.html
Bills: Tyler Bass takes strong stance on 'Wide Right 2' miss MAURICIO RODRIGUEZ23 HOURS AGO Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK
https://atozsports.com/buffalo/bills-tyler-bass-reacts-wide-right-miss-chiefs-divisional-round-playoffs/
Scott Norwood kick haunts Buffalo Bills again with Wide Right (Tyler’s Version) by Geoff Herbert, Updated: Jan. 22, 2024, 9:22 a.m.|Published: Jan. 22, 2024:
https://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/2024/01/scott-norwood-kick-haunts-buffalo-bills-again-with-wide-right-tylers-version.html
The Buffalo Bills have a painful history of kicks going wide right 😔
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