photography by James D. Smith
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| KICK, KICK, HOORAY!: Nick Folk’s near-perfect onside kick set up his game-winning 53-yard field goal. |
The west-southwest wind swept into Orchard Park, New York, carrying with it, at 11 miles per hour, the scent of destiny. As the crowd of inebriated Buffaloans filed into Ralph Wilson Stadium that unseasonably warm fall day on the 8th of October 2007, they had no idea that the meteorological symmetry—73 degrees, 73 percent humidity—was a portent of the gridiron calamity to come. They did know, however, that this was Week 5 of the National Football League season, and that their team, the underdog Buffalo Bills, would do battle with the undefeated and mighty Dallas Cowboys under a partly cloudy sky. The Bills boasted the second-worst offense in the league. Defense: the worst of 32 teams. But back to what the fans did not know: on the 1.32 acres of AstroPlay before them, some seriously crazy mess was about to go down.
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| THAT CHAMPIONSHIP-ISH TEAM: The Dallas Cowboys’ 2007 Roster. |
Beyond the attendant drama and pageantry that come with Monday Night Football, there were hints, even before referee Peter Morelli blew the opening whistle, that this would go down in the books as more than just a game. The night marked the first start for Bills rookie quarterback Trent Edwards, an archetypal field general out of Stanford who fans hoped would revive the early-’90s heyday of Jim Kelly and his K-Gun offense. The Cowboys had twice bested those Kelly-led Bills teams in the Super Bowl, which surely led to more than a few extra bottles being hoisted in Orchard Park in preparation for this night.
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On the opposite sideline, Wade Phillips, the avuncular Falstaff of our drama, was making his return to Buffalo as head coach, after his unceremonious sacking following the 2000 season. Quarterback Tony Romo was still doing his best to put the Cowboys’ stunning playoff defeat at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks (and his own slippery grip) in the past. His best had been more than enough during the first four games of the season. The signal-calling lothario had already thrown for more than 300 yards three times, which is partly why the Cowboys entered the game as the ironclad 10-point favorite.
And then the Bills came storming out of their locker room, wearing O.J. Simpson-era throwback uniforms. The crowd let out a mighty yawp, and the balmy air became charged with possibility.
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| FALLEN STAR: Tony Romo didn’t complete more passes to the Buffalo defense than he did Cowboys receivers in the first half. It just felt that way. |
After a short buffalo drive to start the game, that yawp became a rumbling boulder of emotion when Romo’s first pass attempt sailed over Jason Witten’s head and nestled in the eager arms of Bills safety George Wilson, who returned it 25 yards for a touchdown. In Dallas, a cold shiver went through the Cowboys faithful, many of them watching in sports bars and gentlemen’s clubs. Collectively, they dismissed that shudder as a meaningless after-effect of the light rain falling throughout the city. Surely, this interception was a fluke, soon to be overcome by the mighty Cowboys offense.
Buffalo’s Rian Lindell kicked the ball deep, to the Cowboys’ 2-yard line. For Lindell, it was more than just another kickoff. He had been signed and released by the Cowboys seven years earlier. Now he was booting moon-shots to those who had spurned him. If not quite redemption, his kick was pure payback—even though it was returned 23 yards to the Cowboys’ 25-yard line.
As the offense took the field, seemingly in slow motion, there was no panic on the Cowboys sideline. With a gunslinger like Romo at the helm, interceptions were simply the cost of doing business.
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Unfortunately, the price he would have to pay for a chance at victory had just gone up.
Dallas ran the ball twice, the second one a 15-yard charge by Julius Jones through the soft underbelly of the Bills’ defense. Now, with Buffalo on its heels, the time had come for Romo and his strong right arm to unleash hell. Especially since cornerback Ashton Youboty was out with an injury.
Romo took three steps back from center and looked again toward his stellar tight end, Jason Witten, who was running a short out-route. He let loose with a tight spiral. But somehow—impossibly, amazingly, magically—Angelo Crowell stepped in front of the pigskin missile and snatched it. After throwing only three interceptions through the first four games, Romo had thrown two with his first two passes. The slight chill in the air for Cowboys fans suddenly turned into a massive cold front of doubt.
But on the sideline, the dimpled pride and joy of tiny Burlington, Wisconsin, had not yet succumbed to despair. “I learned a long time ago that if you think you’re going to be perfect every time, you’re drunk,” Romo would say later.
The Cowboys, so impressive, so fearsome, so—yes—perfect during the first four weeks of the season, needed to sober up. Fortunately, it was still hours from last call.
By the next quarter dallas was at midfield, driving. Romo had begun to find the rhythm that had the Cowboys offense dancing all season long. But at times he looked as though he were throwing off both left feet. A deep pass down the left sideline intended for Patrick Crayton was badly under-thrown and nearly intercepted by Jabari Greer. Summoning the warrior-spirit that had entranced those who prayed to the blue star, he righted himself and found Terrell Owens for a 14-yard gain to the Buffalo 17. Even the ridiculous 5-yard delay of game penalty charged to Owens couldn’t stop the offense this time. On the next play, Romo found Witten, galloping like a bighorn sheep through the wide valley of the Bills’ secondary, 4 yards deep in the end zone for a touchdown. For the extra point attempt, Louis-Philippe Ladouceur snapped the ball to Brad Johnson, who placed it on the ground, laces out, for Cowboys kicker Nick Folk. Contact. The ball split the uprights, almost literally. And, with that, the score was tied.
Coach Wade Phillips’ words from earlier in the week rang through the ears of every player on the team. “We have been at least a 10-point winner in every game [this year],” he said. “That is not going to continue to happen, I don’t think.”
Indeed, at halftime, the opposite was true. After a long Buffalo drive ended in a redemptive Lindell field goal to put the Bills ahead 10-7, the Cowboys took over at their own 11-yard line. It took all of one play for every fan in that stadium, every person watching on television, and everyone who had laid the points to realize even a one-point Cowboys victory might be asking for too much. For Tony Romo took the ball from center, scanned the field, and threw a pass toward the meaty paws of defensive end Chris Kelsay, who batted the ball into the air and then simply wanted it more than anyone else. When he landed, ball in hand, he found himself on the business side of the goal line. Buffalo 17, Dallas 7.
The echoes of the anguished cries of Cowboys fans had not yet died when Romo buckled like a belt. On third down with three yards to go for a first down, with two minutes, 16 seconds left until halftime, wobbling in the shotgun like a battered prize fighter hoping for the bell to save him, Romo threw a pass to the left side intended for the long, soft fingers of Sam Hurd. Instead, the ball once again—how was this possible?—found Jabari Greer. His fourth interception of the night. Even though Nick Folk would end the half with a 47-yard field goal to bring the Cowboys to within seven points, Romo’s performance suggested he had little chance to salvage the season, much less this scheduled contest.
“That doesn’t happen in your worst nightmare,” Romo later said. “It just all piled on tonight. Hopefully, I got [the interceptions] all out of the way.”
But as Lord Byron said of hope: it is nothing but the paint on the face of existence. The least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
Halftime provides not only a chance for weary warriors to nurse their wounds and patch their battlefield scars, but it also gives the commanding officers time to re-evaluate their plan of attack. In the Dallas Cowboys locker room, the grand architects of the team’s second-half mission conferred, brought to bear their decades of experience, and, once decided, informed the team just how it would overcome this William Wallace-like effort of the Braveheart Bills.
“Keep playing,” offensive coordinator Jason Garrett told his charges. “The theme for our team is, ‘Keep playing.’ ”
Nodding slowly, confidently, dimply, the captain of this 53-man battalion, Tony Romo, understood the challenge that lay before him. “I just had to get back on the horse in the second half,” he said, employing an apt metaphor, because cowboys ride horses. “I just knew when I was out there the game wasn’t going to go smoothly.”
And yet, go smoothly it did—at least for the opening six minutes of the second half.
Employing a perfect balance of between-the-tackles rushing and prudent forward passing, the Cowboys moved from their own 17-yard line to Buffalo’s 11. Romo only completed half of his eight passes. But though some of his throws were off the mark, he was able to locate his misplaced confidence and ready smile. The 14-play, 72-yard drive culminated with a 29-yard Folk field goal that brought Dallas to within four points of its surprisingly feisty nemesis. There was a sudden stiff wind on the field, the result of the 71,575 in attendance collectively sighing. They had been in this position far too many times. The team on the field—their team—had shown the strength of the mighty beast rendered on their bygone-era helmets. But only for one half. Would this be the first block removed from their precariously constructed Jenga tower of improbable victory?
If the next play was an indication, the answer was no. Indeed, theirs seemed to be a magnificent skyscraper moored by the super-adhesive hopes of an entire city of blue-collar underdogs.
The powerful Sherman Oaks, California-bred leg of Nick Folk boomed the ensuing kickoff three yards deep into the end zone. Conventional wisdom suggested return man Terrence McGee take a knee and let Edwards and the offense regroup at the 20-yard line.
But tonight, fortune favored the bold.
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| Not so much after Jabari Greer broke up his two-point conversion attempt to Terrell Owens. |
McGee sprinted up the middle, made a cut to the right, then made a hard cut to the left, racing diagonally across the field. By the time he crossed midfield, McGee was only pursued by Folk and backup wide receiver Sam Hurd, and neither was fleet-footed enough to stop McGee from completing his terrible task. A 100-yard return for a touchdown. Or, since he started three yards deep in the end zone, a 103-yard return. Football scholars continue to debate the point.
Buffalo kicker Rian Lindell found the courage to nail the extra point, and the Bills were once again comfortably in the lead, 24-13. The Bills, a team who had not seen Monday night’s worldwide glare in 13 years, a team with a first-time starting quarterback and a longtime history of heartbreak, a team without injured cornerback Ashton Youboty, had taken the Cowboys’ hardest punch and come back throwing haymakers.
For the next eight minutes, 48 seconds of the third quarter, the two teams went up and down the field in a sort of 22-man tango: 2 feet forward, 1 yard back. Finally, shortly before the end of the third quarter, Tony Romo began to recapture the swagger that, according to multiple best-selling supermarket magazines and TMZ.com, weakened the knees of country music sensation Carrie Underwood. From his own 9-yard line, he found Terrell Owens on the left sideline for 11 yards. He scrambled up the middle for 5 yards. Two plays later, he threw to running back Marion Barber for 13 yards. Three plays later, he tossed it to fullback Deon Anderson for 17 yards, to the Buffalo 19. His expert carving of the Buffalo secondary put the team in position for a Nick Folk field goal just two plays into the pivotal fourth quarter, pulling the Cowboys to within eight points, 24-16. The stage was set for one of the greatest Week 5 Monday night fourth quarters in the entire league that week.
After another solid nick folk kickoff, DeMarcus Ware and the Cowboys defense did their part, holding the Bills to just five plays while twice dropping Trent Edwards in the backfield for long losses. Romo and his posse of Cowboys took over on their own 27-yard line with 11:18 left in the game. The quarterback, who grew up idolizing Green Bay’s Brett Favre and had been emulating the Packers icon’s late-game heroics since Bill Parcells handed him the reins midway through the 2006 season, had certainly done more with less.
Instead, on the third play of the ensuing drive, Romo’s first-half demons once again demanded playing time. After Romo seemed to salvage a broken play by scrambling for three yards, Bills defensive end Aaron Schoebel stripped the ball from the normally sure hands of the once undrafted free agent from Eastern Illinois. The fumble was recovered by defensive tackle Kyle Williams.
This play seemed to snatch the will to compete from the Cowboys’ collective sternum, which is where the will to compete is seated. Surely now all was lost. The hope had been rubbed off, and this game had revealed itself as Byron’s hollow-cheeked harlot.
A series of Trent Edwards pinpoint passes and strong runs by Buffalo’s rookie star running back, Marshawn Lynch, brought the Bills to the Cowboys’ 11-yard line, the doorstep of certain victory. But just as the Bills were about to turn the handle on that door—or depress the lever, if you prefer a lever-style door handle—Terrence Newman intercepted an errant pass from Edwards at the 5-yard line and sprinted back toward the Buffalo end zone.
That’s when things got crazy.
Because the receiver for whom the pass was intended, lanky Lee Evans, chased Newman down and stripped the ball from him 70 yards later, causing a fumble. The stands roared with bloodlust. If Buffalo recovered this ball, it would be as if they reignited the ’Boys’ will to compete, only to re-snuff it again, just to prove they could. Miraculously, though, burly defensive lineman Jay Ratliff had rumbled down the field in pursuit, and he fell on the loose ball, preserving the Cowboys’ possession, keeping alive the tealight of hope that flickered within them. They had the ball at the Buffalo 17-yard line. They would prove, with this score, that they could overcome anything.
Two plays later, Romo threw his fifth interception.
Seriously.
Sweet Jiminy Christmastime.
At this point, all hope drained from Cowboys nation. Every drop of it. Which seemed, then, a good thing. Because, to quote Red from The Shawshank Redemption: hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. And now, with all hope vanquished, Cowboys fans could ready themselves for bed and their inevitable calls to sports radio stations the next morning, proclaiming how much Romo sucked.
At this point, only two things kept Cowboys fans tuned into the game: overwhelming, almost unimaginable masochism, and that slim, eight-point lead. Though the Cowboys had done much to lose this game, the Bills still hadn’t done enough to win it. Using a conservative game plan, owing to the fact that it was a rookie’s hands resting underneath center Melvin Fowler’s generous rump, Buffalo had yet to pull away. If Romo could just complete a few more passes to receivers instead of defensive backs, there was a chance.
The Cowboys defense once again stood tall, holding the Bills to a crucial three-and-out. Punter Brian Moorman’s kick sailed through the end zone, giving the Cowboys the ball back on their own 20, with 3:45 left to play. It would be the most memorable three minutes and 45 seconds in Cowboys history, as far as you know.
The drive got off to an inauspicious beginning, with a false start by tackle Marc Colombo that set the team back 5 yards. It would have to be an 85-yard drive, then. Completion to Crayton for 12 yards. Barber off right tackle for 8 yards. Incompletion. A Witten catch for 10 more. A shovel pass to Barber that took the Cowboys to the Buffalo 47-yard line and the game to the two-minute warning.
The Cowboys continued rolling after the short breather. Witten gobbled up another Romo pass for 9 yards. Crayton picked up 11 yards on a crossing pattern, then Barber added another 7 after hauling in a Romo toss in the flat. After an incompletion, it was Witten for 6 more, then Barber for 10, Romo finally looking like the quarterback who, with his cocksure attitude and dimpled smile, had erased all the bad memories of Quincy Carter, Drew Bledsoe, Chad Hutchinson, Steve Pelluer, Kevin Sweeney, Drew Henson, Vinny Testaverde, Tony Banks, Bob Beldon, Babe Laufenberg, Glenn Carano, Reggie Collier, Sonny Gibbs, Anthony Wright, Ryan Leaf, Clint Longley, Paul McDonald, and, of course, Clint Stoerner. Then, finally, with 24 seconds left, Romo found Crayton at the goal line. When P-Cray went in for the touchdown, the team was now one two-point conversion from pretending this on-field nightmare never happened.
Ralph Wilson Stadium fell silent as, 1,376 miles away in Dallas, the heavens shook. True, their conversion attempt would only tie the score. But victory seemed as inevitable and impending as the clichés such a win would elicit. Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Playing until the final whistle. Mission accomplished. Once the Cowboys moved the ball 2 yards into the end zone for a two-point conversion, momentum suggested it was just a matter of time before America’s Team would find victory in overtime.
The Cowboys offense lined up like greyhounds in the slips, straining at the start. Empty backfield, Romo in the shotgun, six gassed Buffalo defenders set to rush him. Far to the left, All-Pro receiver Terrell Owens lined up against Jabari Greer. No one knows if, had he been able to play, Ashton Youboty would have guarded him. Youboty was now irrelevant. The task was Greer’s.
At the snap, Owens ran four steps into the end zone and turned around. Romo lofted the ball in his general direction. There it hung, waiting for a hero to snatch it from the sky, cementing his and his team’s place in the annals of Week 5 glory. Owens leapt, securing the ball with his strong hands, and began to pull it toward his impossibly taut, ripped, crazy-hot body. It was then that Jabari Greer threw his arms over Owens’ frame and toward the ball, releasing it from Owens’ grasp with a hatchet-like swipe. The ball fell harmlessly to the AstroPlay surface, mocking all those who were foolish enough to believe a comeback was possible, who dared hope. The crowd roared.
In times long past, warriors who fought to their deaths in the face of insurmountable odds were lionized. Were this the Battle of Thermopylae, we would remember the effort of the Dallas Cowboys, not that the final score wouldn’t favor them this day. But not one letter in Leonidas is found in Romo, except for one “o,” and such comparisons were the stuff of simpler times. Now, all that mattered was, with only 20 seconds left in the game, victory had surely eluded the team. The Cowboys had failed. Damn them all.
The onside kick is a misunderstood vixen, the hot, willing woman at the corner of the bar who turns out to have a softball-sized Adam’s apple. Oh, sure, it seems a simple and rewarding enough maneuver: kick the ball 10 yards, recover it before the other team, and you get excellent field position.
As if. In fact, only about 20 percent of all onside kick attempts are successful when the other team is expecting it. So even though ESPN play-by-play man Mike Tirico quickly reminded viewers that Dallas still had a shot at recovering an onside kick, those who knew football didn’t put much stock in this possibility. It was as likely as Wade Phillips winning a sit-ups bet with T.O.
Still, the words of ESPN analyst Ron “Jaws” Jaworski played low in the Cowboys fans’ collective conscience, a sweet melody that carried in its notes the intoxicating hum of possibility: “It’s the National Football League. It’s Monday night. Anything can happen.”
The Cowboys lined up for an onside kick. Nick Folk booted the ball down into the turf. Somehow, perhaps on the wings of a prayer, it sailed over the front line of the Buffalo return team, allowing the charging brigade of screaming Cowboys a chance at the fluttering pigskin. That’s when Sam Hurd blasted from the earth’s surface and soared into the Indian summer night.
Hurd was too far away to snare the ball, but he was close enough to punch it, sending the ball into the scrum, where reserve tight end Tony Curtis hugged it to his body. “Unlikely” became “perhaps,” even as replay official Howard Slavin reviewed the images upstairs.
When referee Peter Morelli announced to the Bills faithful that the ruling on the field stood, it left the Cowboys with 18 seconds, no timeouts, and one quarterback with a heart full of vengeance and a right arm made of gold. Showing his metal, Romo whipped the ball 20 yards downfield to Owens, who made a miraculous grab. The clock counted down! Four seconds left, three seconds, two—Romo spiked the ball with one second left to give the team a shot at a field goal. Unbelievable.
But Howard Slavin would have none of it. The replay official declared that the ball had bounced on the turf before Owens had caught it. The play was nullified. Dallas once again had the ball at the Buffalo 47-yard line, but now with 13 seconds remaining.
No matter. Romo calmly hit Marion Barber, who ran out of bounds after a 4-yard gain. Then, with just seven seconds left, he found Patrick Crayton along the right sideline. Crayton stepped out of bounds at the Bills’ 35, setting up a potential 53-yard winning field goal with just two seconds left.
Nick Folk, the rookie 6-foot-1, 225-pound kicker from the University of Arizona by way of Notre Dame high school in Los Angeles, jogged confidently onto the field. In warm-ups before the game, he had kicked field goals from 58 yards. During warm-ups, however, the Super Bowl hopes of his team didn’t rest on his surprisingly broad shoulders.
The snap. The hold. The kick. It sailed through the Buffalo night sky, splitting the uprights. It was good. The team stormed the field. And then—
But wait! No. Just before the snap, the wily Bills had called timeout. Crafty Dick Jauron, Buffalo’s head coach, had employed this borderline sneaky tactic. It enraged Cowboys fans. It shook a fist at the Gods of Fair Play. But, in the end, it worked. Folk would have to kick that kick again.
And he did. Ball game.
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| Tony Romo’s dimpled smile was in full effect post-game. |
As Folk ran off the field with his stumpy right arm thrust into the air, the cameras pulled back on this scene at the stadium. From above you could see an entire arena filled with depressed, fat Buffalo fans. You saw a valiant squad of Bills who weren’t quite good enough when it mattered. And you saw a whirling dervish of Cowboys, drunk on victory, the stadium lights glinting off their star. It seemed the perfect end to a season that, to that point, had been utter perfection.
The next week, the cowboys got served by New England. They’d go on to win 13 regular season games, though Romo’s fallibility would resurface. This time, it was off the field, in the form of blonde temptress Jessica Simpson, whose late-season romance with the quarterback was roughly as distracting as Jerry Jones signing a bear from the Dallas Zoo to play rush linebacker. Once again, the Cowboys failed to win a playoff game, extending the team’s streak to 10 long seasons.
But in the cool reflective mirror of time, we can look back on that Bills game and see that nothing that happened afterward really mattered—with the exception of the playoff loss. Because that Monday night game gave us the knowledge that hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies. In fact, it was a game worthy of eternal tribute. For proof, take the words of offensive coordinator Jason Garrett: “This was a team effort until [Romo] settled himself down. A tribute to him, a tribute to them.”
Leave it to Romo to put that tribute in perspective with talk of even more tributes. “I’ve never seen a team have six turnovers, two interceptions for touchdowns, and a kickoff returned for a touchdown, and come out with a win. That’s a tribute to our guys.”
It’s a tribute no one will ever forget. Until next season, maybe the season after that. Maybe even this season. Hard to say.
