The Best of One Bills Drive - Sept. 18, 1983

(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

Baltimore (L, 1-2)           6       3       7       7       23

Buffalo (W, 2-1)              0       7       7       14     28

Scoring Summary:

Quarter – Team – Play

1 – Colts – Allegre 28-yard field goal

1 – Colts – Allegre 49-yard field goal

2 – Bills – Ferguson 3-yard pass to Cribbs (Danelo kick)

2 – Colts – Allegre 45-yard field goal

3 – Bills – Cribbs 1-yard run (Danelo kick)

3 – Colts – Pagel 72-yard pass to Dickey (Allegre kick)

4 – Bills – Ferguson 27-yard pass to Lewis (Danelo kick)

4 – Colts – Dickey 33-yard run (Allegre kick)

4 – Bills – Ferguson 2-yard pass to Cribbs (Danelo kick)

Recap: Joe Cribbs was in the middle of a lengthy contract dispute with the Bills that caused him to hold out for two games in 1982, and it had still not been resolved as the 1983 season began. He had signed a contract with the Birmingham Stallions of the USFL for the 1984 season on July 3, but said he would finish the season with the Bills. And he was still Buffalo’s best offensive player.  

The franchise itself was in a bit of turmoil. Following the end of the 1982 strike, the Bills’ locker room fractured and the team lost four of its last five games to miss the playoffs in a season they had Super Bowl aspirations. Head coach Chuck Knox quit at the conclusion of the season and the Bills lost their quarterback of the future, first-round draft pick Jim Kelly, to the USFL.

Kay Stephenson, former Bills backup quarterback and the team’s offensive coordinator in 1982, was the new head coach. Buffalo had split its first two games of the season, a loss to Miami and a win over Cincinnati, but nobody really knew what to expect from this team in the long term – let alone in their next game with Baltimore. Stephenson, at least, had a goal: “We’re going to keep on improving.”

To add a bit of legal suspense to the situation, the Buffalo News reported on the morning of the game that Cribbs had added his name to the lawsuit dealing with the veteran’s contractual status. The key question in the old contract was whether the Bills’ “right of first refusal” in terms of matching an offer only applied to NFL teams, or if USFL teams also had to abide by it. If nothing else, the story reminded everyone that day that Cribbs’ time in Buffalo could be running out.  

Baltimore dominated the first quarter, gaining 108 yards to the Bills’ paltry 19 yards, but Buffalo held the Colts to two field goals. The Bills took the lead midway through the second quarter, culminating a 67-yard drive with a Joe Ferguson to Cribbs touchdown pass. The Colts took a 9-7 halftime lead with a late second-quarter field goal.

The Bills and Colts traded third-quarter touchdowns. Buffalo’s score capped the opening drive of the second half. A short while later Colts signal-caller Mike Pagel threw a short pass to Curtis Dickey and the swift former Texas A&M star broke two tackles on his way to an electrifying touchdown. It was the first touchdown the Bills defense had allowed that season and snapped a streak of 18 consecutive quarters at home not allowing a touchdown.

The teams continued to trade scores as the fourth quarter got underway. The Bills went first, with a Ferguson to Frank Lewis touchdown pass, and then Dickey answered that with a 33-yard scoring run that put the Colts ahead 23-21.

With 5:54 remaining, Buffalo linebacker Chris Keating fell on a Pagel fumble at the Colts’ 14-yard line. “I took the snap and stopped and remembered I forgot the ball. It was weird. I just dropped it I guess,” Pagel said. Three plays later Ferguson passed to Cribbs for the go-ahead score.

The Colts still had time, but the Bills defense rose up and forced a punt. Then it was Cribbs left, right, and up the middle. He ran the ball on four of six plays, with fullback Booker Moore carrying the other two, and the tandem earned three first downs. They had done the job. Ferguson knelt out the final seconds for the Bills’ come-from-behind 28-23 win.

“We had a few things happen early and came back and made some plays which we had to do,” Stephenson said. “Defensively, I thought we played well. We had a couple of breakdowns and let them make some big plays on us. When we had to stop them and get the ball back, we did that. It was a tribute to our whole football team.”  

“For the past couple of weeks, everybody has been talking about the offense not scoring (only 10 points in the Bills first two games),” Cribbs said. “I’m an important part of the offense, and I felt so good about scoring for the first time this year, I just wanted to throw the ball to the fans. On both touchdown passes, my pattern was the same, but the plays were different. They were simple flat patterns. Nothing fancy or anything like that.”

“The offense really took up the slack today. We (the defense) gave up a couple of big plays but the offense came right back and didn’t let Baltimore get an emotional edge,” Keating said. 

Ferguson, despite some nagging injuries, was only sacked once. “We (the offensive linemen) had a meeting last night and said ‘Hey, Fergy’s banged up, so we gotta protect him.’ We played just a little bit better on offense and we had some cohesiveness,” Stephenson said. 

Noteworthy: It was Ferguson’s 90^th consecutive start at quarterback, tying him with the Eagles’ Ron Jaworski for the most consecutive starts by an active NFL quarterback. The Bills quarterback had a solid day, completing 18 of 27 passes for 189 yards and three touchdowns. …  Butler caught his 200^th career pass, the fourth Bills’ receiver to reach that number. … Cribbs had an excellent all-around game. He rushed 24 times for 82 yards and a touchdown, and he caught three passes for 14 yards and two more scores, including the game winner.

Legacy: This would be the last time the Bills would host the Baltimore Colts. The franchise left Baltimore in the middle of the night on March 28, 1984, and moved to Indianapolis to become the Indianapolis Colts. … Cribbs played for the Stallions in 1984 and 1985 and had two very successful seasons in Birmingham, compiling 2,534 rushing yards with 15 touchdowns and 787 receiving yards with six touchdowns. He was certainly missed in Buffalo as the Bills tumbled to 2-14 records in those two years. … Ferguson finished the season with career highs in touchdown passes (26) and interceptions (25).