The Best of One Bills Drive - Dec. 23, 1990

(Greg D. Tranter and Budd Bailey have written a book about the history of the football stadium in Orchard Park called "One Bills Drive." It is scheduled for publication by Reedy Press around October 15. The books covers the top 50 games played in the stadium's history from 1973 until January 2025. However, there are several other games that qualified as thrilling - but they couldn't crack the top 50. Those contests deserve to be remembered too, so we'll offer them in this space a couple of times per week during the season.)

Score by Quarters

                                           1       2       3       4       Final

Miami (L, 11-4)                       0        0        7        7        14

Buffalo (W, 13-2)                    0        7       10      7        24

Scoring Summary

Quarter – Team – Play

2 - Bills – Reich 7-yard pass to Lofton (Norwood kick) 

3 – Bills – Reich 11-yard pass to Reed (Norwood kick)

3 – Dolphins – Marino 30-yard pass to Duper (Stoyanovich kick)

3 – Bills – Norwood 21-yard field goal

4 – Bills – Thomas 13-yard run (Norwood kick)

4 – Dolphins – Marino 11-yard pass to Clayton (Stoyanovich kick)

Recap:

It didn’t take long in the 1990 season to figure out that the Bills and Dolphins were going to be battling each other for the AFC East championship. Both teams had started the campaign strongly, while the Colts, Jets and Patriots showed almost immediately that they couldn’t keep up with their powerful division rivals. In a sense, everyone was simply waiting for Miami’s game in Buffalo near the end of the season to determine the division winner.

Sure enough, when December 23 arrived the 12-2 Bills needed a win to wrap up the AFC East for the third straight year. Meanwhile, the 11-3 Dolphins could take the division with two straight wins (or two straight Buffalo losses). Miami had the tiebreaker, thanks to a 30-7 stomping of the Bills in Week Two. There was some gloating by the Dolphins after that game, which did not go unnoticed in the Buffalo locker room.

“They’ve been doing a lot of talking so far as saying they’ve embarrassed us,” Bills’ defensive end Bruce Smith said. “Yeah, they did. We came back and licked our wound and from that we had to rebound and regroup and get back on the road – which we did. This is one game that’s sticking in the back of our minds since that particular loss to the Miami Dolphins.”

While words wouldn’t decide the game, an injury might. The Bills would be playing back-up quarterback Frank Reich as Jim Kelly was out with a knee injury suffered against the New York Giants the week before. Could Reich and the Bills offense keep up with Dan Marino? The answer to that question might decide the game.

Reich had a history of doing well in replacing Kelly. He steered the Bills to a win over the Giants following Kelly’s injury. And in 1989 when Kelly missed three games, Reich was 3-0 as the starter. But this was the most important game Reich would be starting in his career to that point.

“All I want to do is go out there and do my part on the team,” he said. “I’m not looking to be the hero of this game. I’m just looking to go out and do what’s asked of me and just to play well enough just to win.”

The game did not start out for Reich as he would have scripted it. His first drive ended when he attempted a run and fumbled the ball away. “I stepped up into the pocket, decided to run and got careless with the ball,” he said. Reich again moved the Bills into Miami territory, but this time he was sacked for an 11-yard loss on third down and Buffalo punted. “We were a little frustrated,” Reich said. The good news was that he was moving the team and the Bills defense was keeping Marino and Miami in check. Buffalo received a little help from Miami kicker Pete Stoyanovich, who missed a 28-yard field goal attempt.

Reich moved the Bills into Miami territory again and he finished it off with a scoring pass to James Lofton. Buffalo took a 7-0 lead to halftime. The game was evenly balanced. Buffalo had 12 first downs, Miami 10. Both teams had one turnover and the Buffalo defense had not given Marino any big plays in his 20 pass attempts.

The Dolphins fumbled the second-half kickoff and Carlton Bailey recovered for Buffalo. Six plays later, Reich hit Andre Reed for a touchdown. Three plays after the kickoff, Mark Duper caught a 30-yard touchdown pass from Marino. That was quickly followed by a 43-yard pass from Reich to Don Beebe to set up a Norwood field goal, and Buffalo went to the fourth quarter with a 17-7 lead.

Reich then engineered the game-clinching 76-yard drive in 13 plays with Thomas scoring on a 13-yard run. Thomas carried the ball on the final seven plays for 46 yards. The Dolphins got a garbage touchdown with a minute left for the final score. As the clock ran out, many of the record crowd of 80,235 stormed the field and tore down the goal posts.

“We feel wonderful, but this isn’t our ultimate goal,” Bills’ head coach Marv Levy said. “This was the most butterflies I had before an event since I was in the second grade play for the PTA. I was a tree.”

With the 24-14 win in the books, it was time for the Bills to do some gloating of their own. “Anytime you have statements about how we can’t run the ball and how they embarrassed us in the second week of the season, it always fires our guys up,” Thomas said.

“(Jeff) Cross went out and said not only we wouldn’t but we couldn’t run the football,” Hull said. “But in the second half, I think maybe he wasn’t saying that anymore.”

Buffalo rushed for 206 yards on 47 carries on the day. “I think we could have run the ball anywhere we wanted,” Thomas said. “You’ve been hearing a lot of things about Jim being gone and the offense not being as effective as when Jim was in there, but today, Frank did everything right. Like Marv and Ted said, we weren’t going to change anything. We ran the ball effectively and when Frank had to throw, he did a helluva job.”

“It didn’t hurt playing behind one of the best offensive lines in football,” Reich said. “He says, ‘Ask and you shall receive.’ I asked and I received. I told Jim before the game I’m not going to try and be the hero. I’m just trying to go out and get this thing back in Jim’s hands.”

The offensive unit wasn’t alone in enjoying the outcome. The Bills’ defense rebounded nicely from its early-season performance against the Dolphins.

“We had to redeem ourselves from that first game,” defensive lineman Mike Lodish said. “Getting beat 30-7 doesn’t help your ego as a defensive player. But we came in trying to neutralize their run and neutralize Dan Marino as well as we could, and we did that.”

“They were able to run with it … and we couldn’t run with it,” Miami head coach Don Shula said.

While the division title had been decided with the outcome, the Bills and Dolphins still looked like the class of the AFC. That meant the teams might not be done playing each other.

“The road to the Super Bowl comes through Buffalo,” Dolphins’ defensive end Cliff Odom said. “The series is tied 1-1 and I’ll tell you something, it will be continued. The rubber game is yet to come. It’s not over yet.”

Noteworthy: Reich completed 15 of 21 passes for 234 yards and two touchdowns. … Thomas rushed 30 times for 154 yards and one touchdown and also had 29 yards receiving. … The Bills dominated time of possession keeping the ball for 36:41, while outgaining the Dolphins 429 yards to 309. … Miami gained only 35 yards on the ground. … Marino attempted 43 passes and completed 24 for 287 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. … The Bills sacked Marino three times, the most times he had been sacked in a game since 1988.

Legacy: The Bills won their third consecutive AFC East title, but more importantly they clinched home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. That meant the Bills would have to win two games at home to make the franchise’s first ever Super Bowl. Since 1988 Buffalo was 23-2 in Orchard Park. “It’s going to be sweet playing the playoffs here,” Bills guard Jim Ritcher said.

Two weeks hence the Bills would play a rematch with the Dolphins. Miami defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 17-16 in the Wild Card playoff round to set up the rematch.