The Best of One Bills Drive: Sept. 21, 2008

(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 has been published by Reedy Press (https://reedypress.com/shop/one-bills-drive-the-buffalo-bills-greatest-home-games/). 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

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

Buffalo (W, 3-0)              0        7       0       17      24

Scoring Summary:

Quarter – Team – Play

1 – Raiders – Janikowski 23-yard field goal

1 – Raiders – Janikowski 35-yard field goal

2 – Bills – Lynch 14-yard run (Lindell kick)

2 – Raiders – Janikowski 32-yard field goal

3 – Raiders – Russell 1-yard run (Janikowski kick)

4 – Bills – Lynch 3-yard run (Lindell kick)

4 – Raiders – Russell 84-yard pass to Higgins (Janikowski kick)

4 – Bills – Edwards 14-yard pass to Parrish (Lindell kick)

4 – Bills – Lindell 38-yard field goal

Recap: The Bills of the mid-2000s were not only mediocre, but they were boring. The team went 7-9 in 2006 and 7-9 in 2007. They’d win some and lose some, and then pack up and go home before the playoffs began.

What was needed was a reason for optimism. Happily, they earned a bit of that quality with a pair of wins to open the 2008 season – one against Seattle, and another versus Jacksonville. The latter saw Buffalo score 10 points in the final five minutes to steal a road win. Trent Edwards may not have been the next Jim Kelly at quarterback, but he was managing the game well enough to give the Bills a chance at winning. That sounded good at that point in team history.

“Yeah, around town, people are getting excited,” defensive back Donte Whitner said.

Next up was a game with the Oakland Raiders at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Raiders hadn’t had a winning season since 2002, and there was talk that coach Lane Kiffin was in serious jeopardy of being fired. But Buffalo was in no position to be fussy about its victims at this point in its history. A 3-0 record might just open up some possibilities for a team that needed them.

The Raiders didn’t start off the game particularly well, but they did manage to take an early lead. Oakland’s two first-quarter field goals were the only scoring in the first quarter. Marshawn Lynch put Buffalo in front with a 14-yard scoring run, but Sebastian Janikowski’s third field goal gave the Raiders the lead back at halftime. Oakland must have felt even more confident after a third-period score gave it a 16-7 lead. Along the way, kicker Rian Lindell missed a 46-yard field goal try that would have been helpful in the second half.  

To put this one in perspective, the game had five scoring plays (touchdown or field goal) in the first 52 minutes of play. Then there were four in the final eight minutes.

Lynch scored again on a short run to get the Bills within two points. Oakland responded with a shocking 84-yard TD pass from JaMarcus Russell to Johnnie Lee Higgins. Buffalo was down by nine with about six minutes left. “I like our chances when you go in with a two-score lead in the fourth quarter,” Kiffin said.

“In the past, that would have sunk us,” Whitner said.

Same old Bills? Not quite.

Edwards completed a touchdown pass to Roscoe Parrish, and the Bills again were within two points. After a defensive stop, Buffalo moved down the field. Edwards was in the process of completing 14 of 18 passes for 183 yards in the fourth quarter.

“Big,” Bills wide receiver Lee Evans said about the team discovering a way to move the ball. “You see three quarters of us not really doing anything, and then coming through in the fourth quarter with those two drives. It’s unbelievable.”

On the last play of the game, Rian Lindell kicked a 38-yard field goal to give the Bills the 24-23 win. It was only the second time in team history that the Bills had rallied for a win on the last play of the game. The other was in 1989, when Jim Kelly ran it in to beat the Dolphins in Miami.

“I can sleep tonight now,” Lindell said after the game while still thinking about that early third-quarter miss.

When it counted, Edwards had guided the team to three scoring drives in the fourth quarter when they were needed for victory.

“I’ve said this all season,” defensive end Chris Kelsay said. “Trent is mature beyond his years. You’d never guess he was a second-year quarterback, because he’s got complete control of his huddle, and he has the respect of the entire team. It’s good to have a quarterback like that.”

Buffalo was 3-0 for the first time since 1992 – 16 years before. Fans who learned their history lessons knew that the 1992 team won 11 games and went on to the Super Bowl.

“Now they are in first place,” said general manager Marv Levy, who coached that 1992 team. “How about that? There are great signs. I tell you, I’m becoming a big fan.”

In other words, it was time to dream.

Noteworthy: Lindell’s game-winning kick was his 42^nd straight field goal from inside the 40-yard line. He also improved to 10 of 11 on game-winning kicks. … Edwards threw for a career-high 279 passing yards. He had a streak of 102 passes without an interception come to an end when DeAngelo Hall picked one off in the third quarter. … Marshawn Lynch ran for 83 yards, and personally produced nine first downs on the day. … Oakland only had 10 first downs in the game. … Higgins added a 69-yard kickoff return to go with his long touchdown catch. … The Raiders’ defensive coordinator this day was Rob Ryan, brother of future Bills’ head coach Rex Ryan and later an assistant coach in Buffalo. … Bruce Smith was enshrined on the Bills’ Wall of Fame at halftime.

Legacy: The Bills moved to 4-0 a week later, and were an impressive 5-1 after six games. But Buffalo then lost four games in a row and seven out of eight. The team finished with a familiar record: 7-9. Head coach Dick Jauron survived that collapse, but only until November 2009 when he was fired.

Kiffin received one more week on the job with the Raiders, and was fired on September 30. Owner Al Davis said Kiffin was “a flat-out liar” and had brought “disgrace to the organization.”