Super Bowl XXV lives in football folklore for the Buffalo Bills’ kicker, Scott Norwood’s infamous field goal miss in the dying seconds of the game.
It was Buffalo’s first-ever Super Bowl appearance and Hall of Famer, Thurman Thomas, was set to become the game’s MVP. The score was 19-20 to the Giants when Norwood was given the seemingly simple task of kicking the ball between the sticks.
He missed and the rest, as they say, is history.
There’s a political buzz around the present Super Bowl (LI). President Trump, now two weeks in office, took the shine away from Media Night on Monday.
The last time politics dominated football’s biggest game was January 27, 1991. It was Super Bowl XXV; the Buffalo Bills vs New York Giants. It was the height of the Gulf War and the USA stood united in patriotism.
Joe Staysniak was a rookie offensive lineman playing for the Bills. In a recent interview with the 5thDownUK podcast he shared his memories of that game, “In Super Bowl XXV Desert Storm had (just) started up, so there was an enormous feeling of patriotism with the Bills wearing red, white and blue uniforms and the Giants had red, white and blue uniforms,” Staysniak recalled.
You can hear Joe Staysniak’s Super Bowl memories here:
“Whitney Houston singing the national anthem, it was the greatest rendition that people had ever seen and it was such an awesome game” he added.
Staysniak played in Super Bowl XXVI the following year, a game that the Bills lost to the Washington Redskins 37-24.
He acknowledged that the players felt that the game versus the Giants was more than just football, “you know, everything that was going on we were doing our own little part just as football players, because we knew the world was watching, to help the military folks that were overseas to bring them a little bit of something from back home.”
“I don’t think I will duplicate anything that feeling we had for that game. That and, in addition, the way we lost it was extremely painful.”
5th Down UK 