I became a steelers fan in the early 90's and re-watching these brings back some frustrating memories. How the defense was so good but so often was stuck on the field so much because of a mediocre offense all the time. How different things could have been in the second half of the 80's and 90's if they drafted Marino. Probably would have won a couple of SB's
I've been a Steeler fan since about 1980 and living through the 80s and the early part of the 90s were pretty tough and it was a lot of fun to see them come back the way they did starting around in 92
This was actually the first time the Bills had lost an AFC playoff game since 1989. The crazy part is that since the #5 seed Colts won the other divisional game, had the Bills won this they would have hosted the AFC title game again as the better seed and very well may have gotten the third Super Bowl matchup against the Cowboys.
So many subplots running through my head. This loss ended the great Bills hold on the AFC. They came to three rivers in an ambulance and clawed back in the game on pride. They never threatened the AFC top again for many yrs. The Steelers defense was never the same after. Kevin Greene (RIP) was not resigned and Greg Lloyd tore his knee in the 96 opener. Woodson returned but was not the same player. O Donnell left and Pittsburgh also struggled for a stretch after 97. Marv was a great play by play Of course Three Rivers...the new stadium isn't as loud and I don't know why...no place fit the identity of city and team like Pittsburgh and Three Rivers. Thanks for sharing.
All that goes through mine is the memories of how good the defense was and how mediocre the offense was with Neil and other QB's rather than having Marino where we could have won 2 SB's with Marino at QB
This Steelers defense was really great, I think they deserved to win a super bowl. I had to wait more than 10 years to at last watch them win one against the cardinals. Thank you Steelers!!
I was at this game with my grandpa. We drove from Rochester and when our limo bus arrived we got pounded by eggs from Steelers fans bc they knew we were Bills fans lol. I was only 10 at the time but I remember the crowd was wild! I saw a girl with her shirt off and I remember the Here We Go Steelers chant echoing throughout the stadium
I was there. My parents had season Tix since 72 and I started going in '92. I went to every home Steelers game from 92 until COVID. Three Rivers was great. We could make so much more noise compared to open end Heinz Field. Fun memories!
Bills were my second favorite team in the 90’s. They had a much better offense than the Steelers did in the 90’s. Steelers were and still are my favorite but I first became a Steeler fan in 1992
Ted marchibroda and Marv levy installed the system after the loss to Cleveland in da playoffs....the k gun and the run and shoot have similar concepts only difference is the run and shoot didn't use a TE..I loved the stutter draw and that counter....oilers were my second fave team
@@jamesroberts1810 The Oilers with those Buddy Ryan defenses were stout! Wade Phillips was a great defensive coach as well. The Steelers in the 90s needed a talent like Jim Kelly, that was their weakest spot at the QB position.
Bills showed a lot of character to come back from 26-7 to 26-21 on the road, and they even had momentum, but the 3rd and long Steelers reception to Hastings late in the game was the turning point.
Yup...then the next season they got Chris Spielman...Had a real good defense but offense was mediocre and they lost to the Jags in the first round i believe. I could be wrong but i think Kelly's career ended in 96...that playoff game vs Jacksonville.
Quincee 33 yup. I honestly think they could’ve gone to the SB in 99 if it wasn’t for the music city screw job. The defense they had was probably the best in franchise history
I agree. This game provided a blueprint for decimating Buffalo's offense and defense. The year before was really kind of a down year (teams have them) but this season in 1994 ('95 playoffs) saw them return to their form.. only to have it ripped out of them. Of course a few years later and they summon up Flutie to save them... he does.. until they bench him vs Tennessee in that year's playoff game. That pretty much was the death nail until recently years.
Kids these days... that's not broadcast static from the on-air transmission, it's tape warping from the bad quality of the vhs tape it was recorded on. But what do you kids these days know about these hardships? Youse kids with your snapchats and your tiktoks and your twerking. Get off my damn porch!
That's likely the video quality from the VCR recording on analog VHS tape. What u expect this video from that yr is 25 yrs now cause this game was January 1996 and its January 2021.
6:15 - O'Donnell to Thigpen 9:36 - Williams TD 27:19 - O'Donnell to Mills - TD 1:27:36 - nice screen to Pegram 1:31:31 - INT Lake 2:08:58 - O'Donnell to Thigpen 2:11:47 - Bam Morris to the house 2:18:53 - INT Kirkland 2:22:52 - Bam to the house again
This Divisional Playoff Game was truly the end of the Bills Dynasty in terms of AFC Dominance. The Bills didn't go down without a fight but the Steelers were clearly the better team. This was the last time the Bills won the AFC East until the 2020 Season.
Thigpen will be Forever etched into my mind till my last day. I'll Never forget and be forever grateful to Thigpen for his end zone drop-Christmas gift he gave to us. 1 of the Best and memorable Christmas's. Dallas was just to good then and stopped us from advancing to the Superbowl.
I coached with a few guys that played on that Dallas team . Two things they said. The book on Neil is that teams with good pass rushes could rattle him ( Dallas had one). Second, the Steelers made a huge mistake taking Kordell out of the 5 wide and running bam Morris. “ we didn’t have anybody to stop Kordell and if he had stayed on the field, the Steelers would have eventually figured that out...”
@@Biggdoom344, I remember Paul Maguire harping on that point, That the Steelers should play the 5 wide sets more...because the Cowboys had no answer for it, I guess.
@@EdmacZ I was all set to disagree with you, but then I remembered what Cowher did with mediocre QBs in the 90s. What if they'd drafted Marino? Imagine him with that defense, during his early 30s.
Oddly enough, I think even Bills fans were ready to see someone else go to the Super Bowl. 4 losses in a row were heartbreaking but 5 would have been catastrophic.
@harold mccoy + I am all for the crowd noise, but not the silly "Here we go Steelers" being piped in. My friend and I would laugh our asses off at that.... I mean here is this big and bad team using fake cheer music. Not cool, but I digress.
Yeah. That stadium that ended lots of careers with its extremely hard (concrete-like) playing turf. Nah.. Lots of history there yeah.. I get it. But the current one has a lot of good new history to it and its nice to see them play there on that field... Of course there was that one year.. where the grass turned into a bog-in.. lol
That was alot closer than I remembered...only the fourth year of success for younger Steeler fans, so a 6 point 4th quarter lead seemed like a huge lead back then. Now I don't feel comfortable unless they r up by 20 lol. U could also see the effect 3 Rivers had that Heinz field doesn't . Teams used to fall apart in the blast furnace late in games. As I remembered this as a comfortable win that ended a lot closer.
This steelers team deserved a title or more....Neil Odonnell gift rapped 2 ints for Brown. What's bad is he missed a wide open rec down the sideline on that 2nd int that would have more than likely won it for the steelers.
@@ThatDoesntWorkForMeBrother the NFL return to CBS in 1998 showing the AFC won me over with Fox coverage of the NFC that's sees them cross flexing games
@@ThatDoesntWorkForMeBrother the 2001 NFL season was the final run that Pat Summerall & John Madden had on FOX they'll always be the gold standard for how announcing pro football with Summerall letting the picture tell story while Madden had the booms & bams that duo made my Sunday afternoons in the fall whether on CBS or FOX
In Super Bowl XXVIII,the Bills had the lead 13-6 at halftime.Thurman Thomas doesn't fumble on the 3rd play of the 2nd half,the Bills continue to wear down the Dallas defense(Thurman was making plays,he had 82 total yards right before the 2nd fumble),force the Cowboys to abandon Emmitt Smith's rushing and the Bills win that Super Bowl. In Super Bowl XXVII,the turnovers made the score look worse than it was. Entering the 4th,the Bills were down by 14,force Emmitt to fumble and Aikman recovered. They get that fumble,they have all the momentum. After the Bills went 3 and out,only then did Dallas score 21 more points. Andre Reed had 8 catches for 152 yards and Kenny Davis had some good runs but Thurman couldn't get going and the Bills couldn't spread the ball around. Also,the Bills did beat Dallas in the 1993 regular season!
Pentiumboots I didn't use the word "if". Thurman Thomas doesn't fumble on the 3rd play of the 2nd half,the Bills continue to wear down the Dallas defense and score more points and win that Super Bowl!
The rule was that "If the receiver is contacted after making the catch, while one or more of his feet are off the ground, and is forced out of bounds, it is a catch, regardless of anyone's opinion that he would or wouldn't have gotten both feet down if the contact hadn't occurred. It is NOT, as some people believe, up to the official to make any assumptions.
For the poster to use if he wants to copy n paste into the info: ;) Some plays referenced are defensive plays of importance or plays that set up scores or ended drives. I tried to find one of Cowher's "spitting* moments to link to... couldn't. (generally put 15 yard runs and 25 yard passes (non scoring) unless it seems significant or interesting*) 6:13 PIT - O'Donnell 34 yard pass to Yancey Thigpen 8:10 PIT - Ericc Pegram 13 run. 9:35 PIT - TOUCHDOWN - John L. Williams 1 yard run; Steelers 7, Bills 0 15:38 BUF - Derrick Holmes 13 yard run. 17:36 BUF - Derrick Holmes tackled for a loss of 13 yards by Carnell Lake. 19:02 BUF - Christie misses 52 yard field goal. 19:42 PIT - Bam Morris 12 yard run.* 24:36 PIT - Bam Morris 13 yard run (from 32 to 19).* End of 1st quarter 27:15 PIT - TOUCHDOWN - O'Donnell 11 yard pass to Ernie Mills; Steelers 14, Bills 0 34:17 PIT - O'Donnell 18 yard pass to Kordell Stewart on 3rd down and long.* 44:20 PIT - FIELD GOAL - Norm Johnson 45 yards; Steelers 17, Bills 0 46:37 BUF - Kelly stripped by Kevin Greene, Bills recover and go to punt (at 47:30) but it is mishandled and Mohr is sacked at the 12 by Levon Flowers. 52:02 PIT - FIELD GOAL - Johnson 38 yards; Steelers 20, Bills 0 1:00:07 BUF - Thurman Thomas rushes for 10 yards and fumbles. Recovered by PIT Carnell Lake. 1:07:10 BUF - Kelly 26 yard pass to Steve Tasker to 1 yard line. 1:07:32 BUF - Touchdown - Thurman Thomas 1 yard run; Steelers 20, Bills 7 1:11:50 PIT - O'Donnell 23 yard pass to Mills. 1:15:18 PIT - FIELD GOAL - Johnson 34 yards; Steelers 23, Bills 7 End of 2nd quarter 1:21:36 BUF - BRAWL - Kelly Incomplete pass. Fight between Kelly and Ray Seals erupts. 1:27:33 PIT - O'Donnell 23 yard pass to Pegram to 4 yard line.* 1:29:55 PIT - O'Donnell intercepted by Greg Evans. 1:31:31 BUF - Kelly intercepted by Carnell Lake. 1:34:35 PIT - FIELD GOAL - Johnson 45 yards; Steelers 26, Bills 7 1:37:35 BUF - Kelly sacked by Joel Steed & Greg Lloyd on 3rd down. 1:42:02 BUF - Kelly knocked out of game by Jackson and Greg Lloyd. 1:45:05 BUF - Steve Tasker 40 yard run. 1:46:30 BUF - TOUCHDOWN - Alex Van Pelt 2 yard pass to Tony Cline; Steelers 26, Bills 14 1:52:42 PIT - O'Donnell incomplete to Corey Holiday. Holiday gets nailed by Matt Darby of Bills so hard his ear piece comes out. No Penalty? End of 3rd quarter 2:01:42 BUF - Thurman Thomas 14 yard run. 2:03:00 BUF - TOUCHDOWN - Kelly 11 yard pass to Thomas; Steelers 26, Bills 21 2:08:57 PIT - O'Donnell 22 yard pass to Thigpen on 3rd down.* 2:10:58 PIT - O'Donnell 18 yard pass to Andre Hastings.* 2:11:45 PIT - TOUCHDOWN Morris 12 yard run; Steelers 33, Bills 21 Begin 3 straight interceptions- 2:14:56 BUF - Kelly intercepted by Jerry Osalvsky. 2:17:56 PIT - O'Donnell intercepted by Matt Darby. 2:18:50 BUF - Kelly intercepted by Levon Kirkland. -End 3 straight interceptions ;) 2:20:40 PIT - Morris bruising 12 yard run gets him over 100 yards for the game. 2:22:53 PIT - TOUCHDOWN - Morris 2 yard run; Steelers 40, Bills 21
Thinking about the athleticism of this defense. What other team moves their Strong Safety (Carnell Lake) to Cornerback in one year for Rod Woodson, and move their Inside Linebacker (Chad Brown) to outside linebacker the year before for Greg Lloyd and have NO drop-off in play? Only this team.
Chris Spearline I agree, except for one key component. We didn't have Big Ben. I sincerely believe if we had Big Ben during my era, we'd won at least 2 Super Bowls.
I think the 2005 team was better because they had a better quarter back and a better defense. And besides,they won three games in a row on the road just to get to the super bowl while the 95' team struggled to beat the 9 and 7 colts at home in the AFC Championship game.
It was a bad call and Levy had a legit argument, but those are 2 totally separate rules; there was a time in the NFL when the refs/officials could say" if the player in mid air was not touched by the defender, he maybe could have landed in bounds whether or not he gets 1 or 2 or no feet down in bounds" the JJ play has to do with maintaining control of the ball through contact with the ground
really???? I didn't know that. #ffs I KNOW they are 2 separate rules. My apologies, i thought my dry sarcasm would have jumped the pond to the USA. I remember this rule. I remember the Art Monk catch in Superbowl 26 which was the death knell of this rule, an example which i hope gives an idea of the breadth of my understanding of this game. The point i am trying to make is that the NFL makes rules that look fine on the printed page, but it seems when they get to enforcing them on the field of play, common sense seems to go out the window. Like the catch rule, which is now defunct following this offseason. and it will be VERY interesting as to how the NFL polices this Helmet-to-helmet contact rule. which will come under the spotlight the first time Tom Brady sneaks on 4th Down using his head. which is a different rule again. all totally separate rules, all of them 'open to interpretation' by any officiating crew on any given Sunday. or as UrinatingTree puts it: "Time to play this week's episode of 'What the F**k is a Catch?' enough? enough.
LiI remember this game felt good we were gona win championship game was going to be tough I new Indianapolis was very dangerous that year they easily looked like a Cinderella type team that was dangerous
Wow, I had recorded most, but not all of this game. The Steelers were clearly the better team in this game, but there were so many fluke plays/unforced errors that hurt the Bill's. -Holmes tries to reverse field, loses 13 yards, and Christie misses a 52 yard FG. -Mills was not pushed out of the end zone. It was only 2nd down, so maybe Pit scores anyway. -Bad long snap to Mohr, who tries to run, but gets tackled. Hands Pit a FG. -At the end of the half, Buf gets down to the 1 and rushed to the line. They score on the next play, but Pit has time to drive for a FG. -Greg Evans intercepts a pass and I always thought he was headed for a TD, but I see here Leon Searcy may have caught him. Regardless, he drops the ball and falls on it. Lake intercepts Kelly 2 plays later to set up another FG. Even forgetting the bad call and the Evans drop, without the Holmes run backward, the bad snap, and the rush to the line, that removes 2 FG's for Pit and adds one for Buffalo. They are ahead 24-20 in the 4th.
Blah! Remember Kelly's three interceptions! And Thurman's two fumbles. Go Steelers! Go Kirkland! Lake! Greene! Morris! I miss Pegram! Cowher Power! Not let the opponent back into the fight w conservative play.
@@Thomas-wx4ti One of Kelly's INT's was referenced above, after the DB just dropped the ball while running. The other two were late in the game, after Pit had re-established a double digit lead. Thomas only had one fumble. Pit punted, and Buffalo promptly drove again for their first score.
I always point to this game as the beginning of the end of the Buffalo Bills as the AFC powerhouse. Although they did make the playoffs several times (and in some they were competitive)... they just didn't have the same personnel or style) Basically, their stars dimmed after this butt-smokin' ;)
d0nKsTaH everyone got older. Jim Kelly would retire after next season, Bruce Smith was still productive but not what he once was. Andre Reed was productive still, Thurman Thomas started to decline.
avoid Lloyd they used to say,.. trying to see what made football much better back then ,..one thing they didn't have annoying score box ,and overlays telling you scores and updates from every other game on earth ,instead of letting you enjoy one game at a time , plus didn't have all the stupid unnecessary rule changes, 🏈
@@CKWolf-kq5wz oh, and one more thing. The steelers have more super bowls than any other team. Until some team matches that, we can talk all the sh-t we want !!!!! Dont be jealous !!!!
Steelers left tackle John Jackson didn't finish the game, but I never saw him get injured. Justin Strzelczyk entered the game with 6:36 left in the 3rd quarter and finished the game at left tackle. Does anybody know what happened to John Jackson?
Cleveland fan here but ya'll Pittsburgh fans still on that one for the thumb in 81 bull cause no one talks about you losing 22 straight seasons or combing with the Eagles to become the Steagles?
Mark A. Lewis Jr. Hey buddy take good care of Tyrod. He's got plenty of talent the Bills didn't utilize him good enough. Good luck this season. I hope the Bills win it all but if not maybe your Browns can make a run.
@@JeanPaulMueller no problem. thank you for posting , I love watching these games when you could still have hard hits! today it's like they are playing two hand touch!
The Bills always beat the Dolphins because Miami was just Dan Marino...The AFC division has always been a crappy division...dominated by a single Team. The Bills dominated it for half of the 90s ..then Patriots for 20 yrs we'll see which team will dominate the AFC division for the 2020 decade🏈🏈🏈
Overrated Dick LeBeau once again trying to take the thrill of defeat from the jaws of victory until his offense saved him in the fourth quarter as usual.
@@robbie192 To be fair, he did say that the Bengals (who I think have the best uni's in the NFL) still had the same training equipment in 2016 that they had when he was a rookie. And he was a very good receiver! He just doesn't like the Steelers!??
@@robbie192I can't say I haven't seen that game in YEARS! Having said that I prefer Al Michaels, and Chris Collinsworth is a great announcer compared to some of the new guys like, Tony Romo! Would you agree with that?
