The set-up: The 1995 season represented something of a rebirth for the Bills. After the Drive for Five resulted in a 7-9 record, a lot of experts thought the Bills were finished. However, aggressive moves by John Butler, resulted in the signings of Ted Washington and Bryce Paup, had turned the Bills from an afterthought to AFC East Division champs. Damn, can you believe that was the last time we won the division? UGH. This Bills season was all about the defense. Wade Phillips defensive scheme resulted in the league leading 49 sacks. The cornerstones of the defense were Bruce Smith and Bryce Paup, who combined for 28 sacks and were terrors on the opposite sides of the defensive line. The offense was decent, but the days of the No-Huddle offense dominating were over. The offense took on more of a grind it out approach, as the team ranked 6th in rushing, with the 1-2 punch of Holmes and Thurman Thomas. The Bills finished 10-6 and drew a wildcard match-up against the rival Dolphins. The Bills destroyed Miami, rushing for a NFL playoff record 341 yards. Miami didn’t know what hit them as the Bills raced out to a 24-0 lead at halftime. With Miami once again eliminated from the playoffs, the Bills were off to play the Steelers in Pittsburgh.
What happened: I remember around Thursday of the week leading up to the Pittsburgh game, I started hearing rumors that Bruce Smith was really sick. However, I kept thinking, “It’s only the flu or a cold. It can’t be that bad.” Oh, it was bad. The Bills ended up having an empty seat on the Bills charter to Pittsburgh, as Smith had a 103-degree fever. I remember hearing that the Bills had a plane on stand-by, just in case it was only a 24-hour flu bug. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Months later, Smith was on ESPN and he talked about how having this flu bug was worse than any knee injury he ever had. He talked about how he was so out of it, that he couldn’t even walk. Obviously, his absence was a huge blow to the team.
The Steelers ran all over the Bills, gaining 147 yards rushing. Neil O’Donnell, of all people, was 19-35 for 262 yards and 1 touchdown. The worst part of the game, had to do with the way the Steelers raced out to a 26-0 lead. The Bills were game, as the scored 21 unanswered points, but the Steelers were just too much. How much did the Bills miss Smith on that day? Well, O’Donnell dropped back to pass 35 times and the Bills couldn’t even get a sack. Nothing. zip. With Smith out of the game, it meant that the Steelers could just double team Paup and let guys like Phil Hansen and Smith’s back-up, Karl Wilson, beat them. Yeah..fat chance.
The biggest play of the ball game came with the Bills trailing 21-26 and the Steelers were facing a 3rd and 7. O’Donnell dropped back to pass and had about all day and half of the night, and about after his 20th read it seemed like, he found Yancy Thigpen, who made a great catch for a 1st down. That play, pretty much cemented the Steelers victory. Maybe if Bruce Smith is there, O’Donnell doesn’t have all day to complete a pass.
What if Bruce Smith didn’t have the flu? If you don’t believe that Smith wouldn’t have made a difference, consider that the Bills allowed more than 30 points only once during the regular season. The Bills had sacks in 15 of their 16 regular season games. Now, this could have ranked higher on my countdown, but honestly, I still don’t think the Bills would have won this game with Smith in the line-up. From 1993-1996, the Steelers always seemed to kick the crap out of the Bills. Here were the scores of the three regular season outings during that time frame: 23-0, 23-10 and 24-6. The strange part was that all of these games came on Monday Night. Hmmm..no wonder we never get on MNF anymore! We just always sucked in Pittsburgh. In fact, we haven’t beaten the Steelers in Pittsburgh since the 1992 playoffs.
Even though my confidence wouldn’t have been that high, I do think Bruce would have had some sort of an impact. The “What if?” that seems to sit with me is that if we beat the Steelers, we would have faced the Colts in Buffalo for the AFC Championship. We had swept the Colts during the regular season and we always seemed to have their number over the years. Frankly, I think we would have beaten the Colts and gone to the Super Bowl against Dallas. Now, does Bruce Smith get us to the AFC Championship Game? Again, it’s tough to call because the Steelers always matched up well against us. However, I don’t think Pittsburgh gains 400 yards on us with the way our defense played that season.
John Boutet’s POV: As for the Smith game, I don’t know how much of a factor he would have been in the outcome. Without a healthy Kelly, it seemed the Bills were always trailing and trying to get back into the game. The Steelers were content to keep running the ball and it seemed if they really needed to score they would. I was at the Miami game the week before, where we ran all over the Dolphins but the Steelers were in another league that year. Give it up to the Colts the next week, to hang with them and take them until the final play, it was a testament to how good Harbaugh was at that time. It would have been fun to see him up against the Bills in the Championship Game, but as usual the NFC dominated the Super Bowl again. It’s highly doubtful the Bills could have made it past the Colts and then the Cowboys. We’ll never know.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
