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Buffalo, New York – September, 2006 When Bills' owner Ralph Wilson, who turns 88 next month, announced the hiring of 81-year-old Marv Levy as his new general manager, he introduced him by explaining, "I wanted to inject some youth into the organization." Parched by his team's six-year absence from the NFL playoffs, Wilson has reached out to a man whose football history is a litany of rebounds from the depths to the heights. If there is one word that describes Levy's career it is "resilience." Any NFL coach could confirm that it is more difficult to return to the Super Bowl the next season than it was to reach it in the first place. In the early ‘90s, the Levy-coached Bills made four consecutive trips to the Super Bowl. As any late-night TV comic will tell you, they also lost all four Super Bowls, but Don Shula, Levy's longtime rival, friend and fellow Hall of Famer, says, "I doubt if anyone will ever match that accomplishment." Late in the 1992 season there was slim chance that the Bills would make it to their third consecutive Super Bowl. They lost three of their final five games, including a 27-3 humiliation to the Oilers in Houston. They had to settle for a wild-card spot in the playoffs and had to compete without their star quarterback, Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, who was injured. To make their task even more daunting, their opening playoff game at home was against Houston just a week after the Oilers had beaten them soundly. At halftime of the playoff game Houston led, 28-3. Then, 1:41 into the third quarter, Oiler safety Bubba McDowell returned an interception for a touchdown, inflating the lead to 35-7. The Oiler defense had held Buffalo without a touchdown for more than six quarters.  Levy joined six other football legends inducted into the Pro Football HOF in 2001. Levy gathered his players about him and gave his best impersonation of a personal hero, Winston Churchill, telling them they still had a chance to win. Afterwards he joked, "I also could have told them they had a chance to win the New York State lottery." Levy had led them so well in the past that all but a few cynics bought what he said about victory remaining a possibility. One genuine bit of hope was that the Buffalo quarterback was Frank Reich. Reich had almost always played in the shadow of a superior talent. At the University of Maryland, it was Boomer Esiason, at Buffalo, it was Kelly. There was also a precedent for a miracle comeback. It happened Nov. 10, 1984, when the Hurricanes held a 31-0 lead in the third quarter, but Maryland came back to win, 42-40. The Terrapins' starting quarterback was Stan Gelbaugh, but in the second half Reich replaced him. On the sidelines, in what loomed as a Buffalo debacle, Reich collected his thoughts. "Your thought is to take it one play at a time and not force anything," Reich said later. "I wasn't thinking in terms of winning, just taking it one play at a time." Houston tried to squib the kickoff after McDowell's touchdown but botched it, setting up Buffalo's first touchdown. The Bills tried an on-sides kick after their touchdown, and Steve Christie recovered his own kick. Four plays later Reich threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Don Beebe, and the score became 35-14, stirring the crowd. The Bills' defense was also stirred. For the first time in two straight games against the Oilers, the defenders became very aggressive and forced Houston to punt after three unsuccessful downs. Reich's 26-yard touchdown pass to Andre Reed cut the Oiler lead to 11 points, 35-24, with more than four minutes remaining in the third quarter. On the first play of Houston's next possession, Henry Jones of the Bills intercepted the Oilers' Hall of Fame quarterback, Warren Moon. Then strange things began to happen. What was left of the original crowd began roaring constantly. On the Old Lake Shore road, a Western exit from the stadium, a man who had turned his radio off in disgust (the game was blacked out on TV) was sitting on a hill in front of his cottage enjoying the spectacle of sailboats on Lake Erie. Suddenly the man noticed car after car turning around and heading back east, toward the stadium. He thought there must have been an accident, blocking traffic. There was no accident. The cars were full of Bills' fans with their car radios on, bent on seeing something special in person. NFL tickets do not allow for re-entry to stadiums once a ticket holder has left. Stadium security workers attempted to enforce the rule but were overwhelmed as fans climbing the chain-link fences to reclaim their seats ruined many expensive shoes. Those fans that refused to turn on their car radios were in for a shock once they reached home. A young couple drove home in glum silence, but as soon as the pair opened the front door to a family gathering, a blast of sound greeted them from screaming relatives listening to the excitement. After Henry Jones intercepted Moon's pass on the Houston 23 yard line, three plays could gain just five yards. Levy called timeout to discuss the fourth-and-five situation with Reich on the sidelines. As soon as the quarterback reached him, the coach said "we're going for it," but he allowed Reich and offensive coordinator Jim Shofner to call the critical play, another pass to Reed. Other Buffalo assistant coaches disagreed, but Levy shot a look of confidence at Reich and Shofner and said, "if that's the play you want, that's the play we're using." Reich returned to the field and threw a touchdown pass to Reed, cutting the Houston lead to 35-31. Van Miller, Buffalo's veteran play-by-play radio voice, described the scene perfectly: "It's Fandemonium!" Houston's poise, which had evaporated in the hair-raising third quarter, was finally re-discovered in the last period. Reich and Reed collaborated on their third touchdown pass late in the quarter to give Buffalo an 38-35 lead, but Al Del Greco kicked a 26-yard field goal with 12 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime. Anything less than a Buffalo victory would have been a violation of poetic justice. Houston won the toss, but on the third play, Moon overthrew his pass and Nate Odomes of the Bills intercepted. Christie ended the historic game with a 32-yard field goal three minutes, six seconds into overtime.
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