Bills Sadness Week – Scott Norwood Finds A Genie
In case you didn’t read my last post, this is the comic that I foolishly abandoned for some reason. Better, right? I think so.
Since this will be the first of 4 comics about the 90’s Bills, we can separate the topics a bit and spend this one on poor Scott Norwood. Poor poor Scott Norwood. He might be the most famous NFL kicker in history. Seriously, think about it. If you are a casual, mild sports fan (not even football specifically), what Football Kickers might you have heard of? Justin Tucker? Not likely. Gary Anderson? Possible. Adam Vinatieri? There’s a decent chance there, although two decades later I feel his importance to those early Patriots championships has been slightly diminished and absorbed into the Tom Brady mythos. Scott Norwood? I knew who Scott Norwood was as a child simply through cultural osmosis. I was exactly 2 years old when that game happened so I don’t remember it, but I knew Norwood’s name and Wide Right from my earliest sports memories.
Not that you want to be the most famous kicker for this. The Bills of the early 90’s were a powerhouse and Norwood was a solid (not brilliant) kicker. Wikipedia states that he had difficulties at ranges over 40 (citation needed) and was just 1 for 5 on 40+ yard attempts on grass. 40+ yard field goals are not easy, I think any fan gets a bit nervous at any kick attempt over 45 yards, but those are pretty bad numbers that weren’t great at the time and would be borderline unacceptable now. The kick also wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t a shank. He almost had it. Wide right kind of feels mean. Just Right might be a more appropriate term. Regardless, he missed, and the game is now a classic.
I can’t imagine the level of emotional trauma that miss caused him. It’s the biggest missed kick in NFL history. It was for everything. Instead, that foot or so to the right of the goalpost is the closest the Bills have ever come to a championship. It hurts even worse in retrospect with the next three years going the way they did. I don’t know if Bills fans gave Scott grief or were kind to him (my guess is he got plenty of both). It seems now though that he’s largely come to terms with his infamy, which is the best you could hope for. It sucks to be famous for a failure, but in some ways, it might still be nice to have a legacy.
If I was a fan of any other team, I’d have wished he made it. The Bills deserved to get at least one of those rings. But that game is an utter classic for more than just the unfortunate ending. Bill Belichick’s defensive gameplan is literally in the hall of fame for that game. He sold out against the pass completely and the Bills just couldn’t figure it out until it was too late. The Bills absolutely got outcoached that game. A Giants team with no real stars on offense did just enough to pull it off. Jeff Hostetler became the most fortunate backup QB in history (until Nick Foles) by leading that team through to the end. Otis Anderson ended his career with some joy. Mark Ingram had arguably the most critical play of the entire game for the Giants and probably deserves to be better remembered in team lore.
As a rather new football fan I’m not super familiar with a lot of historical NFL moments like this, so I really appreciate these Laterals. But man, that must have sucked big time for Norwood and the Bills. Even as a Pats fan I feel sorry for them, no team deserves that much heartbreak.
I take that back, the Browns and Deshaun Watson absolutely deserve it. Imagine Watson gets suspended this year and they lose the Super Bowl the other four years of his contract. That would be both depressing and incredibly hilarious.
No, think about all the great moments the Browns will have on the road to those losses. They deserve to go 0-16 for as long as Haslem is still the owner
I was 12 for this one. I still remember it like yesterday. My dad refused to let anyone in the house speak for most of the 4th quarter. His cheering when the kick sailed right sent all of the cats into the basement. And then for like a week after, he would just erupt into giggling fits for no reason. He knew what we got away with.
From what the guy is famous for, you wouldn’t think he was an All-Pro at one point nor the fact that the Giants played a part on his miss by possessing the ball for over 40 minutes which ate up enough time to the point the Bills barely had enough (as well as Levy wasting time outs like SUVs wasting fuels) when their final drive began.
The Bills really got outcoached so hard that game. It’s really funny to go forward almost 20 years and Billy’s great gameplan ends up being used against him by the Giants when they did effectively the same thing in 2007 to stop the Patriots. Control the clock, sell out on the pass and smash Brady, and it worked all over again.
Not only is this a better comic than yesterday’s (not that that one was a bad one), but I really like Trasho, Genie of the Dumpster, and I hope he makes future appearances.
If Scott Norwood wished to always be right, then wouldn’t all his kicks go right?
This is a comic with a literal trash genie. Don’t think about it too hard
While this has been the butt of many jokes for years, Scott Norwood was cheered by a rally of Bills fans when the team returned to Buffalo:
https://www.buffalobills.com/video/niagara-square-bills-rally-january-28-1991-12536514
Trasho is a good name.
I wonder if Donnie Beeber will be a star in one of those upcoming comics.
“I was exactly 2 years old when that game happened” Damn, I was a freshman in college. Stupid march of time, can Trasho restore my youth?
Double damn. I was almost 29 at the time….
(am I the Old Guy here???)