The takes would have been wild.
A seemingly insurmountable lead blown. A new (at least for the NFL) offensive system that had been under scrutiny by real football men had failed on the playoff stage, as those real football men had predicted. A backup quarterback — with a history of leading improbable comebacks — had done it again. Multiple questionable calls that ultimately turned the result of the game.
The Bills-Oilers wild card game in 1993 had it all. It would have dominated the sports conversation for an entire week.
NFL Twitter would have descended into madness at about the two-minute mark of the third quarter. Oilers fans would have demanded coach Jack Pardee be fired on the spot after Steve Christie’s game-winning field goal cleared the uprights in overtime, giving the Bills a 41-38 win in a game they had once trailed 35-3. The Frank Reich-Jim Kelly debate would have torn #BillsMafia apart. Whoever 1993’s version of Skip Bayless was — it may have been Skip Bayless, now that I think about — would have combusted on live television after firing off a stream of incoherent opinions.
The game was fuel for the hottest of takes. I’m almost happy that it didn’t happen in this age of sports media.
That’s not to say sports coverage was better three decades ago. It wasn’t. I believe we’re currently in a golden age of coverage. At the very least, it’s a more enlightened age. While the hot takes are more amplified than ever, there’s more competition for the sports fan’s attention. We no longer have to rely solely on national columnists for a post-mortem on a particular game. Now we have film breakdowns and advanced metrics readily available not long after a game’s conclusion. Instead of saying so-and-so choked or the losing team just didn’t want it enough, we can point to a particular strategic decision or an illuminating metric as an explanation for why things went the way that they did.
That wasn’t the case even a decade ago. It certainly wasn’t the case in 1993, when the Bills pulled off the biggest comeback in the history of the NFL playoffs.
If you were an NFL fan who grew up in the 1990s, you’re probably familiar with the story of the Bills erasing a 32-point deficit to beat the Oilers. At the very least, you know what happened. But do you know how it happened?
I’m sure you’ve heard the prevailing narrative: Houston got cocky after jumping out to a big lead. Buffalo, the two-time defending AFC champs, used that cockiness as motivation to keep chipping away at the lead. When Buffalo pulled within a few points, the pressure was just too much for an overhyped and underachieving Oilers team — which relied on a gimmick offense — and it eventually cracked.
Those narratives make for good column headlines, but they don’t explain how Buffalo actually pulled it off. So I set out to fill in that gap by looking back at one of the wildest football games we’ve ever seen through a more analytical lens. How did Houston’s offense get off to that start? What changes did Buffalo’s defense make to stop it? How did its offense adjust after failing to find the end zone in the first half? What should the Oilers defense have done differently?
Those are the questions I had, and in looking for the answers, I found that the Bills and Oilers didn’t just provide us with a ridiculously entertaining football game; they gave us a glimpse at the future of football.
The pre-game narrative
By 1993, the Oilers were no strangers to the playoffs — this was their sixth trip to the postseason in as many years — but they had not found much success, having failed to get past the divisional round in each of those trips. As we’re wont to do when teams repeatedly come up short in the playoffs — especially when that team takes a unique strategic approach — Houston’s failure was seen as a philosophical one.
That philosophy was, of course, the Run n’ Shoot offense. Kevin Gilbride’s promotion to offensive coordinator in 1990 brought the system to the NFL and gave Houston a truly unique approach to offense. This was back when two-back systems were still widely popular and tight ends wouldn’t come off the field. And here comes Gilbride basing out of 10 personnel (1 RB, 0 TE, 4 WR). Unlike in the meticulously designed West Coast passing game, receivers had more freedom. Based on the coverage, receivers would adjust their routes and try to find open space. More important than the design of the plays was the philosophy behind the shoot. While teams across the league were set on establishing the run, Gilbride would take the opposite approach.
“The emphasis, as opposed to most offenses, where you will run, run, run to set up the pass,” Gilbride told NFL Films, “it’s the exact reversal of that: You pass, pass, pass.”
Gilbride sounded like a man after the heart of analytics nerds everywhere — and this was decades before their spreadsheets started infiltrating NFL front offices. And Gilbride backed the talk up. Especially in 1992 when Houston led the league in passing attempts and finished ahead of only Atlanta (another Run n’ Shoot team) in run attempts. It got results, too. The Oilers finished third in offensive DVOA, per Football Outsiders (which has gone back and applied its metric measuring a team’s efficiency to past seasons), despite Warren Moon missing five starts at the end of the season.
While the Run n’ Shoot was seen as a fun-but-ultimately-flawed offense, the Bills’ famed K-Gun had seemingly earned its stripes by 1993. Nevermind the fact that the offense borrowed a lot of concepts from the Run n’ Shoot, thanks in large part to Jim Kelly, who helped expose pro football fans to the ‘Shoot during his time playing for the Houston Gamblers of the USFL (the Bills offense, though, based out of 11 personnel and featured a more diverse run game). Buffalo was coming off two consecutive Super Bowl appearances, so there was no questioning the K-Gun’s viability in January.
Kelly, who famously called the plays for Buffalo’s no-huddle attack, would not be playing against the Oilers, though. He had sprained his knee the previous week in Houston during a 27-3 loss that cost the Bills home-field advantage in the playoffs. Instead of enjoying a week off, Buffalo would have to take on Houston once again and do so without its starting quarterback. Frank Reich, who had struggled in relief of Kelly in that costly loss, would be starting in his place.
Even with Kelly out, there still wasn’t a lot of confidence in the Oilers. Houston was a two-point underdog and the oddsmakers must have bought into the talk of the Run n’ Shoot’s ineffectiveness in postseason play, as the over-under was set at 37.0.
How the Oilers built their lead
After winning the toss, the Oilers put their offense on the field immediately and we got our first glimpse at how Buffalo would try to defend their four-receiver sets. The Bills came out in their dime package. Here’s how the teams typically matched up when Houston’s offense was on the field in the first half. (And here’s a link to the Bills’ full roster and the full Oilers roster if you need to jog your memory.)
Back then, a team’s nickel package was reserved for passing downs only. So putting a sixth defensive back on the field really tested the depth of a secondary. That was certainly the case for Buffalo, which gave special teams player Clifford Hicks the start as the third corner. He’d play in the box for the most part and was joined there by Pro Bowl safety Henry Jones, who typically played deeper.
The Bills wanted speed on the field to deal with Houston’s receiving corps, which featured three Pro Bowl receivers in Hayward Jeffires, Curtis Duncan and Ernest Givens. They were sacrificing strength for quickness, and to make up for they had to adjust the structure of their defense accordingly: Even with Houston playing with just five blockers in the run game, Buffalo dropped a safety down and played with an extra man in the run box.
With only one safety deep, Buffalo’s coverage options were limited. They played either Cover 1 or Cover 3. Gilbride used pre-snap motion to help Moon diagnose the coverage before the snap. If the defender ran with the motioning receiver, it was man; if the defense just shifted over, it was likely zone.
Buffalo’s secondary immediately had trouble holding up in man coverage. Jeffires skied over Nate Odomes on third down for a 37-yard gain that sparked the first touchdown drive. And Hicks was having trouble sticking with whichever receiver he got matched up with in the slot. But Cover 3 wasn’t any more effective. With the strongside corner bailing (which means he turns his hips toward the middle of the field and runs, rather than backpedaling and trying to read the receiver’s route) and the slot defender running with the no. 2 receiver to the three-receiver side, the flats were exposed and Moon had no problem taking those easy throws over and over again on early downs.
Those gimme throws were, for all intents and purposes, Houston’s run game in the first half. Unless Buffalo decided to go to a two-high shell and present a favorable run look, that is. In which case, Moon would check to a run play. This was Gilbride’s “pass to set up the run” philosophy at work. The Oilers ran the ball 18 times during the game; only one of those runs came against a loaded box and Houston’s run game finished with a success rate of 55.5%.
Though the Oilers were known for their passing game, they were one of the league’s most efficient run teams at the time. In ‘92, they finished third in rushing DVOA. That should not come as a surprise. At least now that we know that one of the biggest factors in deciding whether a run play will be successful is the number of defenders in the box. With defenses spreading themselves thin in order to defend Houston’s four receivers, a strong running game was inevitable.
One of those successful runs came on a fourth-and-2 conversion that kept the opening drive alive. In that situation, you might expect a team to put more blockers in the game and try to pick up the first down on the ground. Not our Oilers. Gilbride stuck with his four-receiver set and called a pass. When Buffalo kept two safeties deep — the Shoot made you defend every inch of the field in every situation — and clogged the interior gaps with a four-man line, Moon checked to an outside zone run.
Spreading out the formation to run is now a common feature of offenses, but at the time, that wasn’t the case. It also wasn’t common for teams to go for it on fourth down in those situations when coaches like Jack Pardee were far more conservative.
“That’s not like Jack Pardee, taking chances like that,” Hayward Jeffires would tell NFL Films years later. “I couldn’t believe we were running the ball on 4th-and-2 when we got four receivers out there.”
White picked up the first with relative ease and five plays later the Oilers found the end zone after Moon bought time in the pocket and found an uncovered receiver for the game’s opening score.
Buffalo should have gotten Houston off the field multiple times during the drive (and that near-success might have convinced the coaching staff to stick with its initial defensive game plan) but it was clear that adjustments were needed.
As the defensive staff discussed those possible changes on the sideline, Buffalo’s offense took the field. With Kelly out injured, the Bills understandably leaned on Thurman Thomas early and put an extra running back out on the field to help in the run game. Houston was still wary of Buffalo’s potent passing game and matched with a nickel defense. After two modest gains on the ground, Buffalo went to its three-receiver set and would stick with it for most of the game. Here’s how the teams matched up for most of the day…
Reich mostly operated out of the gun. James Lofton and Don Beebe lined up outside with Andre Reed lined up in the slot.
The Bills kept the drive alive after Reich found tight end Pete Metzelars for an 11-yard gain. With a new set of downs, Buffalo started to mix up its early-down play-calling. Just kidding … the Bills went with another run-run-pass sequence, which we now know is a deathwish for an offensive drive.
On this third down, Reich couldn’t connect with a well-covered Lofton and the Bills had to settle for a field goal.
Though they gave up points, the Oilers defense had to be encouraged after the opening drive. It had successfully defended the run with its nickel defense and Buffalo didn’t seem interested in utilizing its biggest strength: Its loaded receiving corps.
On Houston’s second drive, the Bills defense made a minor adjustment, switching from a three-man line to a four-man line. Everything else pretty much stayed the same, with the Bills remaining in dime personnel. The changes weren’t effective, as Houston used the same formula to march down the field. Buffalo attempted to play more man coverage, but that just made those draw plays even more successful and gave Houston more matchups to exploit.
When Houston would pass against those man looks, Jones, typically a strong safety, and Hicks, who rarely saw the field on defense, were the targets for Moon. Jones got beat for a big gain on a corner route by Givens. The drive ended when Hicks was embarrassed by Webster Slaughter and gave up the game’s second touchdown.
The Bills defense had no answer for whatever the Oilers decided to do on offense. If Buffalo was going to stand a chance, it needed its offense to put up points and do so in a hurry. You wouldn’t know it based on the play-calling.
The Bills offense returned to the field in 12 personnel and, once again, called runs on both first and second down. The first one went for three yards; the second went for one. Buffalo had run three series of downs to that point and had gone run-run-pass on all three. Marv Levy may have wanted to keep his backup quarterback in third-and-manageable situations, but, as we’ve learned from the nerds, there’s really no such thing.
On third down, the Bills came to their senses and brought a third receiver, Beebe, onto the field. It didn’t help in this instance though, as Reich short-armed a throw to an open Beebe, giving the ball back to Houston’s red-hot offense.
The Bills stuck with their initial game plan and nothing changed. After two draw plays gave the Oilers a fresh set of downs, Moon found Givens deep over the middle. Once again, Hicks had been beaten. The next play, he was called for defensive holding. And, finally, the Oilers victimized Hicks again for a deep touchdown pass to Givens
At this point, the Bills had no choice but to give up on the dime experiment. Hicks had no business being on the field and the usually solid Jones was struggling in a role he wasn’t suited to play. The Bills couldn’t stop the run and Moon was doing whatever he pleased in the passing game, completing 13-of-15 passes for 160 yards and three touchdowns to that point. Buffalo’s secondary just couldn’t match-up with the Oilers’ receiving corps and the Bills’ three-deep zone coverages were surrendering easy throws to the perimeter.
Changes were needed on both sides of the ball.
Reich had attempted only four passes up until that point. Given the situation, you’d think Levy would be ready to rip off the training wheels and start pushing the ball downfield to his star receivers.
Nah.
The Bills called a conservative play-action pass that targeted a tight end in the flat. They followed that up with two consecutive runs to grind out a first down. Buffalo seemed content to chip away at the lead four yards at a time. A miracle play on 3rd-and-22 would extend the drive two plays later but it eventually fizzled out when Reich threw into coverage on fourth down.
The Bills’ first major defensive adjustment came on the next drive. They scrapped the dime defense and brought two more linebackers on the field. Buffalo decided it would match the Oilers’ four-receiver sets with their base defense. It did not last long — at least on this drive. Moon hit an out-breaking route against a bailing corner.
The Bills stuck with their base defense, but Moon was still finding cracks in their Cover 3 looks as Houston’s offense continued to move the ball downfield. Another first down completion scared Buffalo back into its dime defense, which worked initially, forcing Houston into third-and-8 at the Buffalo 27. Wanting to stretch the lead out even further, Gilbride dialed up a Run n’ Shoot staple: X Choice.
Here’s a diagram of what might be the Shoot’s most famous concept from an old playbook. The X-receiver has the “Choice” route, which allows him to alter his route based on what the defense is doing.
In this particular case, the Bills had Odomes pressed up on the X-receiver Jeffires, giving him the green light to go deep. After freezing the corner with a slick release, Jeffires slows down a bit to provide Moon with a window between the corner and safety playing the deep half.
In this NFL Films clip from the 1991 season, you can hear Moon telling Jeffires to settle down on the sideline against a two-high zone look.
That’s exactly what happens on the play above, which gave Houston a four-score lead headed into the break.
The story at halftime
The Bills ran into the locker room to a chorus of boos. They trailed 28-3 — the most dangerous lead in football, it turns out — and it didn’t take much thought to figure out how they had fallen so far behind. Or, from the other point of view, how Houston had built such a big lead.
The Oilers had been just the right amount of aggressive — on both sides of the ball. The offense had kept on throwing until the Bills defense adjusted accordingly and that’s when they’d run. On defense, they were playing single-high safety looks, essentially daring Reich to beat them but the Bills coaching staff would not let him try. When Reich did pass, it was typically in an obvious passing situation and the Oilers were playing tight man coverage, forcing him to make precise throws to beat the coverage. He just couldn’t do it in the first half.
Houston’s initial game plan was working and there was no need to adjust. The Bills, on the other hand, had plenty of adjustments to make. They would have to be more aggressive on offense. That was the easy part. Defensively, they’d have to figure out how to defend the Oilers passing game while not leaving themselves vulnerable in the box. They’d also have to find a way to take away the easy throws Moon had been making on early downs to keep his team ahead of the chains.
With the Bills offense taking the field to start the third, we’d have to wait before seeing what adjustments the defensive staff would make.
How the Bills adjusted and pulled off the greatest comeback ever
Buffalo’s comeback got off to a rocky start. After a first-down completion, the Bills went right back to their conservative ways, handing the ball to Thurman Thomas, then checking it down to him on the following play, bringing up another third-and-long situation. With the Oilers backing off into a soft-zone coverage, Bills tight end Keith McKeller found an open void in the zone past the first down marker … he just couldn’t catch the ball. It ricocheted off his hands into the arms of Oilers safety Bubba McDowell, who had an unimpeded path to the end zone.
You don’t erase a big lead without catching some breaks. And you don’t erase a 32-point lead without catching A LOT of them. That was certainly the case in this game, and it started with the ensuing kickoff when Al Del Greco’s kick hit a Bills player and somehow just died on the turf, giving Buffalo a chance to recover it.
That near-disaster gave Buffalo good starting field position and Reich nearly wasted it on the first play of the drive, throwing the ball right to linebacker Kenny Robinson. It somehow slipped through and Metzelaars was able to reel the ball in and pick up a big chunk of yards to get the drive going.
Protecting a four-score lead, Oilers defensive coordinator Jim Eddy went into prevent mode. Those aggressive man coverage calls we saw in the first half were replaced by soft zones. The Bills started to attack the corners who had backed off in coverage and were giving up the stop routes on the perimeter. Reed, who was playing the slot, would attack the deep seams and find openings over the middle against Houston’s linebackers.
Reich eventually got into a rhythm and led the Bills down near the goal line, setting the table for a one-yard touchdown run by Kenneth Davis, who had replaced Thomas in the backfield after the Pro Bowl back tweaked a knee injury that would keep him out for the rest of the game. Buffalo was now missing its entire starting backfield.
The touchdown had given the Bills some life, but the next play gave them real hope. Christie sprung a surprise onside kick and went headfirst into the pile to recover the ball himself. Buffalo’s offense was back on the field, and, more importantly, Houston’s offense would remain on the sideline. Can’t score from the bench.
It wasn’t long before the Bills caught another break. This time from the officials, with a little help from the Oilers secondary. A coverage bust by the cornerback and safety left Beebe wide open for a touchdown. McDowell, the safety who had intercepted Reich earlier in the half, misread a sign from the corner and rotated down into the flat. The corner, who was playing Cover 2, remained in the flat as well, leaving nobody deep to take Beebe.
The Oilers nearly got away with it. Actually, the Oilers should have gotten away with it, but the sideline referee missed Beebe stepping out of bounds as he ran down the field.
“There was two breaks right there: Onside kick [and] Beebe’s out of bounds,” Reed later said. “[He] should be ineligible, can’t come back in and touch the ball. They missed that, so, you know, all those planets were lined up. They were lined up right.”
The comeback was officially on, but the Bills defense had yet to prove it could do its part.
After a 30-minute break, Buffalo finally had a chance to show what adjustments it had made at the half. The base defense was back on the field, and with those two extra linebackers in the box, the Bills were able to drop a safety deep and push their corners up into the flats.
This change solved two issues:
- The extra linebackers allowed Buffalo to adequately defend the run with only seven in the box.
- With two safeties deep, the corners could take away easy throws to the flat and flood the underneath areas with five zone defenders. That would force Moon to make deeper (and more difficult) throws to the perimeter.
That’s how it all played out in that initial drive. On first down, a pass to the flat went for a minimal gain. White was stuffed for no gain on a second-down run. On third down, Moon failed to fit a pass into a tight window down the sideline.
For the first time all day, the Oilers punt team marched onto the field.
The lead had been nearly cut in half in about eight minutes of game time, but Eddy didn’t seem to be too concerned. The Oilers went right back to those soft zones, and the Bills kept taking advantage. Reich hit Lofton on a deep comeback for 18 yards to get the drive started.
After a screen pass picked up another huge chunk of yardage, the Bills went back to a play that nearly resulted in a touchdown early in the third quarter: A post-wheel concept designed to get Reed a favorable matchup downfield. The first time around, Houston was in man coverage and slot corner Steve Jackson was in position to make a play on an under-thrown pass by Reich.
This time, the Bills caught the defense in Cover 3, and when Jerry Gray ran with the post route, Reed was left wide open.
“It looks like Steve Jackson, who’s playing the flat, like that’s his responsibility but it’s actually the corner,” Reich told NFL Films. “But instead he jumped on the slant. Those were the type of breakdowns that started happening on the other side of the ball that we just started taking advantage.”
Another coverage bust had allowed the Bills to find the end zone in a hurry and the lead had been cut to 11 with just over four minutes left in the third quarter.
It wouldn’t be long before Buffalo’s offense was back on the field. The defense stuck with their base defense and was back in that two-high coverage shell. Moon tried to fit a pass over the second-level defenders but sailed it right into the arms of Jones, who was now playing in a more natural spot as a deep zone defender.
The interception had provided the Bills with a short field. Down only two scores with plenty of time remaining, the coaching staff decided to go back to its conservative ways. Two consecutive runs led to a third down play that ended with a throwaway by Reich. Now it was fourth down. After getting a look at the Oilers defense, Buffalo called a timeout and convened on the sideline to come up with a play call.
“Marv basically says to me ‘What do you like, Frank?’ ” Reich said. “I told him I like ‘Bull 65.’ If they play a soft Cover 2, we got a chance of hitting Andre down the middle.”
“Bull 65” is a play the Bills liked in their no-huddle package, which typically forced defenses to go with simple, more conservative coverage calls. The “Bull” part refers to the protection. “65” is the pass concept, which is similar to something you’d see in a Run n’ Shoot playbook:
The primary receiver was Reed in the slot, who would adjust his route based on how the defense decided to defend the deep middle. If there was a free safety in the deep middle, he’d run a deep dig route. If not, as was the case here, Reed would run a post route into the void between the two deep safeties.
The Bills got the matchup they wanted and Reed won it. The lead had been cut to four before the third quarter had ended.
Buffalo had figured things out on both sides of the ball. Now it was Houston’s turn to adjust. The offense wasn’t able to do so on the ensuing drive. Moon made a difficult throw to get the drive going but took a sack and threw another incomplete pass into tight coverage on third down.
The switch to base defense was paying major dividends. Moon had averaged 9.0 yards per attempt against Buffalo’s dime defense with a success rate of 66.7%. Against its base defense, he averaged 5.9 yards per attempt with a success rate of 53.5%. The big difference was the ease of passes Moon was attempting. In the first half, his passes traveled 10.6 yards in the air on average. That number jumped to 16.8 during the three drives to open the second half.
With the Oilers offense back on the sideline, it was up to the defense to stop the onslaught. After stuffing another first-down run by the Bills (sigh) and giving up a short completion underneath their zone coverage, Houston went back to its Cover 1 call that had been so successful in the first half. Reich was not ready for it and nearly threw an interception to the free linebacker lurking over the middle. The Bills would have to punt for the first time in the second half.
Houston’s offense hadn’t been on the sideline for very long but it was apparently enough time for it to figure things out. Moon started to attack the middle of the field where those linebackers were having a tough time covering ground against quicker receivers. He was throwing shorter, easier passes and allowing his receivers to do the work after catch. On the final two drives of regulation, Moon’s average depth of target dropped to 8.7.
That approach worked until Houston made it to the red zone. With space constricted, Buffalo’s linebackers had less ground to cover and eventually forced the Oilers to settle for a short field goal. That’s when the Bills caught another break.
The botched snap gave Buffalo a chance to take its first lead of the day. After a screen pass picked up six yards, Reich couldn’t find an open receiver against the Oilers man coverage, setting up third-and-medium. Houston, expecting a pass, put its dime defense on the field and played with two safeties deep. Reich called a timeout and went to the sideline to discuss the call. Buffalo eventually decided on a run concept that, even by today’s standards, might be considered a more modern run call: A counter run from the gun.
Counter runs have become the favored call of college coaches who are seeing more dime defense on base downs. Modern defenses are looking to clog the interior gaps and funnel running backs to the outside where the defense has more speed. With Houston playing two defensive backs on the edges, the Bills were up against a similar look. The down blocks would wash away the line, leaving the lone linebacker and strong side slot defender for the pulling guard and tackle. If they could make those blocks, Davis would have a wide open alley to run.
They made the blocks…
A shoestring tackle saved a touchdown. Well, it delayed a touchdown. Three plays later, the Bills found the end zone when they caught the Oilers in another three-deep zone. Buffalo ran two players down the seams and Reich was able to fit a pass into the tightest of windows to cap off the 32-point comeback.
Buffalo had the lead but there was still plenty of time for the Oilers to mount a game-tying drive. Moon continued to attack the Bills linebackers and it wasn’t long before Houston was back in field goal range. There was just one issue: On the previous field goal attempt, Del Greco had been slammed to the ground head first during the scramble for the ball.
“He kind of fumbled the ball and I got it,” Del Greco told NFL Films. “I kind of pitched it to him, and I don’t know who it was that grabbed me but they kind of tackled me to the ground and my head hit the turf. I didn’t know where I was for about five minutes after that.”
After the drive stalled in the red zone, a woozy Del Greco was back out there to attempt a 26-yard field goal to force overtime. Given his state of mind, this was no sure thing.
“I usually always know how far a field goal was that I attempted in a game,” Del Greco said. “When I got home that night, I asked my wife, ‘How far was that last field goal?’ Thank goodness it was a relatively short field goal.”
Del Greco managed to put the ball through the uprights and take the game to overtime.
Houston finally caught a break and won the coin toss. The offense, which had found its rhythm, was back on the field and was just a field goal away from rendering everything that happened in the second half meaningless. It was also one field goal away from giving the Run n’ Shoot a monumental playoff win over one of the NFL’s premier teams.
That field goal would never happen. After two short passes, the Oilers faced a third-and-3 from their own 27-yard-line. Knowing the Bills would likely stick in that two-deep zone they had so much success with in the second half, Moon targeted Givens in the slot, who had only linebacker Darryl Talley to beat. A desperate Talley held on to Givens, holding up his route and causing Moon’s pass to sail past its intended target and into the hands of the cornerback manning the flat area.
The referees either didn’t see the hold or didn’t want to make a call at that point in the game. Either way, Talley clearly got away with a hold that would set up the game-winning field goal. Not that he’d admit it.
“I got five yards in which to put my hands on the guy,” Talley told NFL Films. “I could beat you up and mug you and punch you, as long as I keep you right in front of me in that five-yard period. So the way I see it, there was no laundry thrown at me.”
Nice try, but Givens was well past the five-yard mark and Talley still had him in his grasp.
“It clearly looked like Talley held Ernest Givens,” admitted Reich years later. “Probably not much doubt about that. It’s a legitimate gripe on their part.”
After two short runs, Christie nailed the game-winning kick and the biggest comeback in postseason history had been completed.
Reich would lead the Bills to another playoff win the following week and they’d ride that momentum to the Super Bowl, where they’d lose to the Cowboys.
The aftermath and how it shaped football for decades to come
The Oilers somehow bounced back the following season and managed to go 12-4 despite a locker room divided by the feud between Gilbride and new defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan. But another devastating loss in the postseason — this one at the hands of Joe Montana’s Chiefs — brought an end to the Run n’ Shoot experiment in Houston. Three years later, the team moved to Tennessee.
Gilbride would eventually take the offensive coordinator job in Jacksonville where he’d blend his Run n’ Shoot concepts into Tom Coughlin’s more traditional system. The Jaguars made it to the AFC Championship under Gilbride’s watch, which earned him a head coaching job in San Diego. That didn’t last long, though. He was fired after two years. A decade later, he’d reunite with Coughlin in New York, where they’d win two Super Bowls using some of those old Run N’ Shoot staples.
The ’93 Oilers were the last pure Run n’ Shoot team we saw in the NFL. The scheme was ultimately considered a failure, but the impact it had on the league is undeniable. Every pro offense features elements of the Shoot. Gilbride’s pass-first approach to play-calling, which was once considered radical, is now the norm. More enlightened coaches have adopted a similar approach and those that are still trying to Establish the Run have fallen behind — as the Bills did in the first half using the same approach.
Teams did not learn from the Oilers teams. At least initially. It would be two decades before a majority of NFL offenses started to learn the value of spread formations, the use of pre-snap motion and the pass-first mentality that made up the Run N’ Shoot philosophy. Maybe that evolution would have come sooner if Houston had caught a few more breaks. Instead, their unfortunate failures in the postseason convinced the media that this was no way to win. The team blowing a 32-point lead on the postseason stage only reinforced those widely held beliefs across the league.
But more enlightened postgame coverage may have stopped that belief from spreading. At the top of this piece, I posed four questions on how the comeback actually happened. We can now answer them:
- How did Houston’s offense get off to that start? By passing and passing and passing some more, only running the ball when the defense loaded up to stop the pass.
- What changes did Buffalo’s defense make to stop it? It focused on taking away the Oilers’ underneath routes and forced Moon to make more difficult throws down the field. A few fortunate bounces (and calls) also helped.
- How did its offense adjust after failing to find the end zone in the first half? The Bills finally gave up on establishing the run and let Reich take advantage of a loaded receiving corps.
- What should the Oilers defense have done differently? Played more aggressive coverage instead of going into prevent mode early.
So it wasn’t the Run n’ Shoot philosophy that cost the Oilers this game. It was a Bills offense that finally adopted a similar approach in the second half, a defensive that found a way to slow down the Oilers just enough — and an old-school defensive coordinator who got too conservative at the wrong time.
