3. Buffalo Bills at Tennessee Titans, AFC Wild Card playoffs -- January 8, 2000

If you can believe it, even in retrospect, the Titans were just scrambling for an option to get themselves into field goal range. Down 16-15 with just 16 seconds on the clock, Tennessee special teams coach Alan Lowry leafed through his options and decided on a play to get them as far down the field as possible.

It was called "Home Run Throwback."

Having tumult to close the game was only fitting considering the way the Bills regular season had gone, and ended. The Bills lost big at Indianapolis to open the season, only to reel off four wins. At 4-1, Buffalo proceeded to drop two-in-a-row before winning six of nine, enabling coach Wade Phillips to rest his starters in Week Sixteen.

Problem is, backup quarterback Rob Johnson embarrassed the Colts, 31-6, and someone decided it was a great idea to start the kid over 15-game starter Doug Flutie. To be fair, "Flutie Magic" didn't really translate to stat sheet that year -- Flutie had tossed a modest 19 touchdowns to go with 16 interceptions.

Still, step back and imagine this scenario happened this week in the NFL -- Arizona's Matt Leinart lights up Green Bay in a meaningless Week 17 game, and Ken Whisenhunt installs Leinart over Kurt Warner as the starter for their Wild Card match-up. ESPN would actually start on fire. Merrill Hoge and Mark Schlereth would be in studio playing dodgeball with throwing stars.

That would be more exciting than the way the game began, with no scoring in the first quarter. A Jevon Kearse-sacking of Rob Johnson in the end zone was worth two points, and kick-started a 12-point second frame for Tennessee. Antowain Smith scored twice for the Bills to make it 13-12, but a two-point conversion failed, allowing the Titans to take a 15-13 lead on an Al Del Greco field goal.

Then Johnson, having a miserable day to that point -- and to be fair, overall -- lead the Bills on a thing of a beauty that culminated in a 41-yard Steve Christie field goal. Forget his 10-of-22 for 131 yards stat line, Johnson and the Buffalo Bills appeared headed to the next round, barring a miracle.

%$^&*%.

"You will never be able to convince me that the Bills would not have won the Super Bowl that year," WGR's Dan Cave writes. "Sure, there was the whole Johnson/Flutie thing that would have remained unsettled. I can't imagine Flutie keeping quiet had they adavanced much further, and as we know in retrospect, Johnson didn't exactly have a penchant for big games...or just games. But it's still fun to pretend."

It's fun to pretend, but it would be better if what happened could be erased from the history of Buffalo sports. Frank Wycheck heaved the ball across the field to Kevin Dyson, who raced 75 yards for a 22-16 lead. The feeling of futility while watching Dyson race down the sideline immediately following the thrill of Buffalo taking the lead made the loss even more gut-wrenching. There was a lengthy review that proved useless for Bills fans, and in the days that followed, newspapers would have physicists, professors and witch doctors detailing how the Earth's rotation and revolution made it the play a forward pass. That really happened.

"I don't presume to know whether the ball went forward or backward, but I do know this: That was the worst way to lose a game in the history of anything," Cave wrote. "If you are a Bills fan, the good news is, it will never get worse than that. If you are not a Bills fan, I pray you never go through that. It was a worse feeling than the Norwood miss because it's not as if Super Bowl XXV had been locked up and you were practically assured of victory. Norwood still had to kick the ball!"

I could tell you about the Bills firing 13-year special teams coach Bruce DeHaven and hiring the defensive coordinator of the team that beat them, but Mr. Cave is on a roll.

"This gets the top spot (in Cave's poll) for those reasons and because we all know what happened next," Cave continues. "Thurman, Andre, and Bruce were unceremoniously dumped, Cowart got injured, Johnson won the Great QB Derby, Tom Donahoe took power, Gregg Williams got hired (and Marvin Lewis and John Fox did not). Bledsoe got here, McGahee got here, Ruben Brown got unceremoniously dumped, Williams got fired, Mularkey arrived, J.P. Losman got drafted, it became obvious that Bledsoe and McGahee would not be what we hoped, Donahoe called us jerks, Moulds got into a shouting match on the sideline, Marv Levy took over (huh?), Mularkey agreed to come back, Mularkey quit, Jauron took over, and that should about bring you up to speed."

%^^**^(* Music City Miracle, man.

Email: nick@wgr550.com