I watched the Music City Miracle game in full last night on the NFL Network for the first time in 20 years. It changed my opinion on the game.

[RobbRiddick]

35 minutes ago, fansince88 said:

I was 29 and still had all my hair. My wife was pregnant for the daughter I walked down the isle a couple months ago.

 

 

Do you know what I love about this place? I just read your post, this pretty poignant, thoughtful post that nods to the passing of time, hints at the inevitability of old age, and finds the silver lining of the next generation starting their married life together.

 

Than I look down and see that your post was liked by MILF HUNTER. 

 

I genuinely laughed out loud

[ThurmasThoman]

4 minutes ago, dhg said:

It was an illegal forward lateral. Who was the better team that day doesn't matter. The better teams on any given day don't always win. The Titans were gifted a win from the head ref. He had to go to the sideline and review it in front of all the fans. He wasn't getting out of that place with his life if he reversed it. 

Bro, I respect that opinion because I held it for 20 years.

In fact, when the replay started last night, I thought to myself "IDK why I'm doing this, when the announcers tomorrow will bring up this game 20 times."

All I can really say is, the part I bolded in your response matters a little bit more to me now. The Titans were simply a better football team, and it became obvious as I rewatched it.

I don't feel as if Buffalo was robbed of a Super Bowl that year. I'll concede that maybe (maybe) they were robbed of that game. But if the Titans could dominate them in all three phases of football like that, all day, from start to finish.. I can no longer take it as a given that the Colts wouldn't have been able to do the same. Or the Jaguars. Or the Rams.

The Bills just weren't the elite defensive juggernaut that year that I've built them up to be in my mind over the past 2 decades. And considering the Rams, Colts and Titans all went on to have great success over the coming seasons, and the Bills went into the toilet bowl, lends credence to the fact that the Bills weren't in that elite echelon of teams that could have won the Super Bowl that year.

They were good, yes, but not historically great.

[fansince88]

7 minutes ago, RobbRiddick said:

 

 

Do you know what I love about this place? I just read your post, this pretty poignant, thoughtful post that nods to the passing of time, hints at the inevitability of old age, and finds the silver lining of the next generation starting their married life together.

 

Than I look down and see that your post was liked by MILF HUNTER. 

 

I genuinely laughed out loud

Yes. Thst is disturbing.  By the way OP, great post.

[That's No Moon]

I was sitting in my parents house all by myself as I had my wisdom teeth pulled the day before and the rest of my family was at a function for my sister.  I pulled the knot on one of my stitches through the gum I was screaming at the TV so much at the end of that game in my oxycodone induced haze.  I don't remember more than 3 plays from that game. Johnson running with 1 shoe on, making the field goal, and the ensuing kickoff.

[GRHater69]

I thought our defense was quite good that season and worthy of a playoff team. My biggest memory of that game was the overwhelming feeling that we were in deep trouble with Phil Luckett as the ref. He was one year removed from blowing the coin toss on Thanksgiving Day which cost the Steelers. I remember thinking if there's a critical decision in his hands we're screwed. 

 

[Bookie Man]

There were A LOT of bad and missed calls that day. Kurt Schulz decleating Eddie George in the 3rd Q might be my favorite hit ever. 

[gjv001]

Bottom line; It was an illegal forward lateral, and the Bills got robbed.

[JESSEFEFFER]

Checked with Football Outsiders and they had Titans #5 and Bills #6 that year.

 

[Bob in STL]

1 hour ago, JohnnyGold said:

Like most Bills fans my age, I've spent the last 2 decades convinced that Buffalo had a Lombardi trophy ripped from their hands that day, with a terrible call on what was clearly a forward lateral. I vividly remember watching that game and being absolutely devastated when they lost--I was 15 at the time, and it was right up there with Jim Kelly's retirement following the Jacksonville loss as my most disappointing sports moment. Re-watching the game in it's entirety last night didn't necessarily change my view on the throwback, but it put the entire contest in a better context. Here are my thoughts from it (in no particular order  )

 

1) The Tennessee Titans were a VERY GOOD football team.

Somehow, 15 year old me didn't understand this at the time. (In fact, it makes me wonder how many posters on here may be 15 years old and also missing this point about last week's Patriots game, but I digress) The Titans went into that game 13-3, which as they stated during the broadcast was the best record for a wildcard team in history. This was also a point in NFL history when the conferences only had 3 divisions, so the division winner ahead of the Titans, the Jaguars, were even better at 14-2. Buffalo has had only two 13 win seasons in their history, and both times made the Super Bowl--the Titans obviously made the Super Bowl that season. The Titans had young talent all over the field: Air McNair at QB, Eddie George at RB, "the Freak" Jeavon Kearse on D. They had stars, they had a great regular season, and they were a yard away from winning the Super Bowl. What's more, this season marked their arrival as a franchise, and they entered a period of dominance for the next 5 years where they would have campaigns of 11, 12, and 13 wins again, making it as far as the conference championship game. Buffalo, on the other hand, went from this loss to one of the longest runs of futility in NFL history, missing the playoffs for 18 straight seasons.

 

2) The Buffalo Bills were a team in complete disarray.

This was the death of their "dynasty", or at least their years of being a contender, and the self destruction was on complete display. Maybe because those guys were my heroes I was oblivious to it at the time. Maybe the lack of social media/24 hour news cycles didn't catastrophize their collapse as it surely would today. Whatever the case, that Bills team had issues, from top to bottom. As we learned years later, it was Ralph who insisted Johnson get the start over Flutie. Knowing that, it was interesting to hear the response of Wade Phillips when asked by Solomon Wilcox at halftime if he would bench Johnson for Flutie: quote "he said something to me that I can't repeat on TV, but it wasn't very nice." That's not a response you hear from McDermott very often, right? Then there was Andre Reed, who had apparently posted on his website a few days earlier that he felt disrespected and wanted to go to a team that appreciated him. Playing with that hanging over his head would be one thing, but he also wasn't on speaking terms with Flutie, who he said had changed as a man over the course of the previous year. Hmmm... I had never heard that--but it puts the benching into a new context.

 

3) Bruce Smith was the best player on the field, he's the all time sack leader, and the best Bill of all time

I wish I was old enough to appreciate that man's career. Seeing highlights of the greats doesn't do them justice, you need to see them on every play dominate a game. And boy, that's what Bruce did. A pure physical freak. At one point spun around the O lineman and got pressure on McNair with a move that would be replayed 10 times today, but was just a typical play for him in that game. Maybe younger me took it for granted that he was a Bill, or didn't realize how good he was compared to the rest of the league, or hadn't watched enough football yet to appreciate it, or all of the above, but wow. If the rest of his career looked like that (and I'd be willing to bet it was better), you could make a case that he's one of the 10 best players to ever play professional football. Am I crazy for saying that?

 

4) The Buffalo Bills were sloppy that day, the Titans were disciplined. 

The Titans didn't commit their first penalty until well into the second half, the Bills were jumping off sides with reckless abandon from the opening gun. This isn't a conspiracy theory either, in that the refs weren't calling it both ways. No, the Bills had 2, 3, maybe 4 defensive linemen literally jumping off sides anticipating snap counts. At one point Bruce ran across the LOS, made no attempt to get back and negated an Eddie George fumble. There was an egregious holding call ON THE DEFENSE of a field goal attempt that the Titans missed going into the half--they then made the retry. Obviously, every defender was out of position on the Homerun Throwback. Hey, I can say with confidence from posting here: If a McDermott team showed up to a playoff game like this---it would be a long offseason on here.

 

5) The Titans were a better team, and played a much (much) better game.

First: Rob Johnson was terrible. Absolutely, unequivocally awful. I don't know what his final stats were and it doesn't matter. He didn't throw a single pass with zip, with touch, or with accuracy. He didn't move the ball all day. Both touchdowns were the results of the ground game and field position. Were people open? I have no idea. But it was, maybe, the worst performance from a Bills QB that I have ever seen. Second: McNair didn't do much better, but their ground game was significantly better than ours. They were picking up big chunks with ease. Yes, their drives stalled (often), but they had bursts and "the momentum" for almost the entire game. They didn't protect the football well, and turned it over a bunch (some negated by Bills penalties), but they moved the chains and scored the ball all day. Many here hang on to the notion that that Bills defense was elite--Super Bowl worthy, even, but the Titans D outclassed us that day. 

 

6) The Universe righted itself with that Homerun Throwback--it was almost cosmically right. Not a pox on our house, but fair just dues for the Titans.

There's no other way to put it. I don't mean to sound like I believe in Atlantis, but that Homerun Throwback almost had to happen. When the greatest comeback ever took place, Buffalo was the better team than the Oilers, and how would we have felt if they nailed a field goal in overtime to beat us? Terrible right? The same could be said if Christies "game winner" bounced the Titans from the playoffs that year. They were the better team. They played better all day. They dominated us. They deserved to win for all of the above reasons, and that was their season to make the Super Bowl. We can dissect the rest of the conference for the rest of our lives: would the Bills have beaten the Colts the next weekend? The Jaguars? Even the Rams in the Super Bowl? What I finally came to the realization of last night is: it doesn't matter, because they DIDN'T beat the Titans, and didn't deserve to! The Titans were the better team, and beat the Bills all day long up and down the field. Somehow, someway, the Bills took the lead, for about 6 seconds of game time, and then lost it in historic fashion again--but they never should have had the lead to begin with, really. 

 

 

So there it is. Sorry if I need to hand in my fan card after this, but I have to admit, it's nice to make peace with that loss. Watching it again, after 20 years of accumulated football knowledge, makes me see it the way the rest of the NFL has seen it. A great play for the Titans in the context of their Super Bowl run. As a Bills fan, I've always viewed it as emblematic of the curse on our franchise, and a day when we were robbed of what may have been a championship season. But it's not that. We were simply a dysfunctional wild card team that got outcoached and outplayed on the road, and lost to a better team in heartbreaking fashion. Oh well. Life goes on.

 

If it makes you feel better so be it. 

 

No doubt the relationship between Ralph, Wade, and Butler had crumbled but you completely dismiss that a beat up veteran Bills team, playing in hostile road  environment, against a team on the rise was winning the game with just seconds left.   

 

Wade choked and left time on the clock.   Players on the Kickoff Team blew their assignments.  The lateral  was an illegal forward pass.   The best Evidence is the thrower was behind the line, the receiver was over it.  No amount of review can change the optics.  No way the ref should have ruled it any other.  The ref blew the call and that’s all there is. 

Edited October 6, 2019 by Bob in STL

[Charles Romes]

Yes Bruce was the best player on the field that game.  He was unstoppable that day at the age of 36 1/2 and the main reason we had the game won.  Yes the Titans were a great team and the best wild card team of all time.  That’s what made winning the game in the road and having it ripped away by an illegal forward pass as painful as it was. 

[nedboy7]

So you are saying by blatantly making a bad call to give the win to the wrong team the refs actually righted the universe. 

That is absurd. 

[ALLEN1QB]

I seen Doug Flutie doing a male enhancement commercial last night I lost all respect for the guy what a weirdo

[BUFFALOKIE]

It was a forward pass. You never even denied it. Maybe the Tennessee Thumbtacks played better that day, maybe they deserved the win, but they did not earn the win. They won due to an erroneous call, period.

[123719bwiqrb]

1 hour ago, HOUSE said:

Nice work Johnny, I can't watch that game anymore, gives me Lupus

It's never Lupus.

[Little Dog]

44 minutes ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

The Andy Dalton play somehow appeased a lot of my pain from that game. Once we finally made the playoffs again, it doesn’t hurt as bad. If the Bills won that game, they certainly weren’t going to bench Rob Johnson and we were going nowhere with that loser. So the super bowl thing wasn’t happening.  If Flutie never got benched, it’s a different story.

You have no clue how that game would’ve ended with Flutie playing in that game. The year before Flutie played in the playoff game against Miami and the Bills lost 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

Just now, Little Dog said:

You have no clue how that game would’ve ended with Flutie playing in that game. The year before Flutie played in the playoff game against Miami and the Bills lost 

I know he wouldn’t be worse. So does probably every other person that was a Bills fan at that time. I’m not trying to be rude and I have a problem doing this in life, but it was 20 years ago...it’s over, agree to disagree. I’m not going to bother trying to convince you, it doesn’t matter now. We have a good thing going this season. I’m over the Flutie Johnson thing.

[ThurmasThoman]

19 minutes ago, nedboy7 said:

So you are saying by blatantly making a bad call to give the win to the wrong team the refs actually righted the universe. 

That is absurd. 

Ehhh, IDK if it was a bad call, tbh.

It has always appeared to me that the ball is thrown further ahead of the thrower, and caught further behind the receiver, making it perfectly lateral.

Using the 20 yard marker as a gauge, the ball is thrown directly on that line, regardless of body position.

It's a matter of inches, with 1 camera angel and standard definition replay.

Maybe it was slightly forward, but nothing that could be overturned in the moment.

I'm saying that it was an appropriate culmination of events from that day, in that the Titans outplayed Buffalo on special teams, offense and defense. And just like when we beat them 7 years earlier in a ridiculous comeback that maybe never should have happened, they got one over on us.

I know not every fan will see it that way, but the entire point of this thread was that after watching the entirety of the game last night, I changed my perspective on it, seeing how thoroughly they were outclassed that day. Like it or not: the Titans deserved to win and even though for a few minutes it looked like Buffalo had stolen victory, it wasn't meant to be.

[ThurmasThoman]

5 minutes ago, BUFFALOKIE said:

It was a forward pass. You never even denied it. Maybe the Tennessee Thumbtacks played better that day, maybe they deserved the win, but they did not earn the win. They won due to an erroneous call, period.

 

They definitely earned the win, which is again, what I realized last night.

As a kid, I viewed them as a "new" franchise, and it was a fluke for them to even be in the playoffs.
What I realized last night is: that was a good, legitimate football team, that went on to have great success, that beat an aging, dysfunctional Bills team that played very poorly that day.

I held on to the anger of being "ripped off" on that call, and "robbed of a Super Bowl" for 20 years, and never really watched or had any interest in re-living that moment, as it was pretty much my most painful sports memory of all time.
It helped to see it with fresh eyes, and an extra 20 years of football knowledge that I've accumulated.

If the pass was a forward pass, you're talking mere inches of ball movement across 30 yards in the air--tbh, I don't know if it would even be overturned today. 100 officiating crews wouldn't throw a flag in the moment, and 100 wouldn't overturn it based on that video evidence.

I think it's easy to say they won on a fluke, but go back and watch the Bills comeback win over the Oilers: how many noncalls did Buffalo benefit from that day? Our historic (and in some ways, maybe franchise high water mark) could just as easily be discredited by Titans fans saying we only got back into it because the refs didn't want to make calls against the home team that was rolling.

Really, that's the essence of my post: watching the game as a whole--not just analyzing inches of ball movement, no *****, on a lateral pass--puts that play into context. The Bills got worked that day by more than the refs. The entire Titans organization beat them, from start to finish.

[NewEra]

I was 26 then.  Stuck at work, luckily a very slow day.  Watched the game in the Hotel Lobby while on the clock.  Talk about a terrible experience.  GeeeeeZ

 

never rewatched.  Never will.  Won’t accomplish a dam thing but boost my blood pressure when I watch that forward pass

[nedboy7]

5 minutes ago, JohnnyGold said:

Ehhh, IDK if it was a bad call, tbh.

It has always appeared to me that the ball is thrown further ahead of the thrower, and caught further behind the receiver, making it perfectly lateral.

Using the 20 yard marker as a gauge, the ball is thrown directly on that line, regardless of body position.

It's a matter of inches, with 1 camera angel and standard definition replay.

Maybe it was slightly forward, but nothing that could be overturned in the moment.

I'm saying that it was an appropriate culmination of events from that day, in that the Titans outplayed Buffalo on special teams, offense and defense. And just like when we beat them 7 years earlier in a ridiculous comeback that maybe never should have happened, they got one over on us.

I know not every fan will see it that way, but the entire point of this thread was that after watching the entirety of the game last night, I changed my perspective on it, seeing how thoroughly they were outclassed that day. Like it or not: the Titans deserved to win and even though for a few minutes it looked like Buffalo had stolen victory, it wasn't meant to be.

 

For me it is not about who "deserves to win".  If you are arguing the actual call was good then that's fine.  But imo there is no such thing as to who deserved to win based on previous plays or history.  Otherwise they would base wins on performance and not points.