It's Been Colder

So, from what I read on Facebook and saw on the local news, it was a little frigid around here this week.

Which got me thinking about the then-Los Angeles Raiders came to Orchard Park in January 1994, poised to spare America from a fourth straight Super Bowl appearance by the Bills.

Buffalo's mustachioed arch-nemesis at the time, Jeff Hostetler, had engineered a 25-24 upset at Rich Stadium less than a month earlier, and it wasn't a stretch to imagine the opposing quarterback in the Bills' first Super Bowl loss four years earlier finally putting an end to what had become a late-January tradition.

That December win had sparked a playoff run by the Raiders, who beat John Elway and Denver 33-30 in the season finale to earn a wild-card berth, then thrashed the Broncos again a week later, 42-24, to reach the Divisional Round. With a game-time temperature of zero degrees and wind chills estimated at more than 30 below for the rematch with Buffalo, a much lower-scoring rematch made sense.

By the 1993 season, the rest of the NFL was wising up to Buffalo's K-Gun offense, and the Bills' core was getting older. The combination produced the fewest points the team had scored since 1988, the first time it reached the playoffs with Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas and the rest in uniform.

But the defense compensated for the drop-off, giving up less points than it had since '88, as well.

Steve Tasker's 67-yard return of a squibbed Raiders kickoff in the second quarter set up Kenneth Davis' 1-yard plunge for the game's first touchdown, but Los Angeles answered with a pair of 1-yard runs by Napoleon McCallum to build a 17-6 lead. Hostetler's mobility and short passing were befuddling Buffalo, just as in Super Bown XXV and during the Raiders' win a month earlier.

But after Thomas' 8-yard run pulled the Bills within four at halftime, defensive coordinator Walt Corey did something seemingly impossible for his most recent successor -- adjust and adapt.

The Bills trailed 17-13 when defensive coordinator Walt Corey went to an eight-man front that he seldom uses and had just updated Friday. But he needed to contain quarterback Jeff Hostetler's ad-lib runs, and the power blasts of McCallum. 

Except for an 86-yard touchdown pass from Hostetler to Tim Brown, the Raiders were hardly heard from in the second half. 

"It wasn't a gamble at all," Corey said of the improvisation. "I felt if other things weren't working like I felt they should, I had no recourse except to do it. 

"The eight-man front gave us enough people on both sides of the ball. No matter which side they ran, we were able to balance it off, and still play our regular coverages."

Kelly, meanwhile, connected with Billy Brooks for two touchdowns. When it was over, the Bills had once again found a way to advance, 29-23. A week later, they beat Joe Montana's Kansas City Chiefs to reach yet another Super Bowl, where ... well, you know the rest.