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Our Throwback Thursday posts here on Rayonsports span the decades of classic NFL games, but every once in awhile we are compelled to take short trips back in time to find a gem to highlight. That is the case this week, week 6 of the NFL schedule, as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Buffalo Bills. We travel back a short distance in time, only a matter of months in fact, to the epic AFC Divisional playoff game the 2 franchises staged on January 23  of this year.

The game was a rematch of the previous season’s AFC Championship game, and the Bills had somewhat avenged that defeat by beating the Chiefs in the regular season. This was a win or go home scenario, however, and Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes is tough to beat in those situations. Buffalo struck first on a 1 yard Devin Singletary run, but Mahomes answered that with a pair of scoring drives, scrambling 8 yards to the end zone to finish off the first one, then finding Byron Pringle from 2 yards out to give the Chiefs a 14-7 lead. In a portent of things to come, Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen threw an 18 yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis to tie the score at halftime.

The Chiefs took control in the third quarter. Harrison Butker kicked a field goal and speedster Mecole Hardman took a jet sweep 25 yards to paydirt, and after Butker missed the extra point K.C. had a 23-14 lead. Allen and the Bills were far from finished, however. The fiery Bills’ leader immediately launched a perfect 75 yard rainbow into the waiting arms of Davis for a score that shortened the deficit to 23-21. Butker opened the fourth quarter scoring with another field goal, but Buffalo then took the lead as Allen and Davis hooked up again, this time from 27 yards out. A successful 2-point try gave the Bills a shocking 29-26 lead and the shootout was clearly on. Doing his part to advance his club to the AFC title game, Mahomes answered with a drive ending on a 64 yard catch and run with the “Cheetah”, wide receiver Tyreek Hill. Hill took a short pass and whizzed past the bewildered Bills’ secondary to retake the lead at 33-29 with a little over a minute left. The game appeared over, but Allen had other ideas. Coming off a near perfect outing in the wild card round against New England in which he guided 7 touchdown drives in 7 possessions, the rising star from Wyoming calmly led the Bills downfield and hit Davis again to put Buffalo ahead 36-33 with only 13 seconds left on the clock.

Bills’ Gabe Davis torched the Chiefs’ secondary

Those 13 seconds will live in infamy in Buffalo Bills’ lore for the utter failure the team produced in that short span of time. Inexplicably, they kicked off into the end zone for a touchback rather than put the ball into the field of play to force the Chiefs to use a few precious seconds. They then employed a very questionable defensive strategy as they played soft and had their cornerbacks protecting the sideline even though Kansas City had all 3 time outs left. This left the middle of the field wide open and Mahomes deftly exploited it, moving his club easily into field goal range, where Butker connected on a 49 yarder to tie the game at 36-36 and send it into overtime. The Chiefs won the coin toss and Mahomes shredded the Bills’ defense, moving his team downfield and hitting All Pro tight end Travis Kelce for the winning score from 8 yards out. The touchdown ended one of the greatest games played in NFL history as K.C. prevailed 42-36. The fallout from this classic battle caused a fury of backlash about the league’s overtime rules, as Buffalo and Allen never had a chance to answer the Chiefs’ drive. Ironically, Mahomes lost to Tom Brady and the Patriots in the same manner a couple of years prior. The resulting anger from fans and even rival GMs led to a rule change beginning in the 2022 season that allows both teams to possess the ball in overtime. Also, the 13 second gaffe resulted in the Bills’ special teams coach, who supposedly didn’t relay the message to his kicker not to boot the ball into the end zone, to quietly leave the organization for a lateral job in Jacksonville.

Lost in the craziness of the game’s ending was the record-breaking performance of Davis, who caught 8 passes for a massive 201 yards and 4 touchdowns. Helped by the extra attention the Chiefs paid to star receiver Stefon Diggs, Davis’ four scores set an NFL playoff record.

A forlorn Josh Allen after the final gun

In past NFL history, the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants, two of the oldest NFL franchises, have met in some memorable games. They play each other again on this week’s NFL schedule, so we will travel back in time to highlight a game they played against each other. Although they have clashed multiple times in the league championship game in the 1930s, ’40s, ’60s and ’90s, our featured game is a regular season meeting, played on November 1, 1959. The significance? It marked the first game that Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi, a Brooklyn native and former Giant offensive assistant, returned home to face his former team.

Giants/Packers program from 11/1/59

In the mid to late 1950s the Giants were an NFL juggernaut under head coach Jim Lee Howell. They reached the title game 3 times and won it in 1956 over the Chicago Bears. Howell’s main offensive assistant was Lombardi, and the architect of the defense was Tom Landry, who was destined to move on and become the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in their inaugural season in 1960. Howell, keenly aware of the combined genius of his top 2 aides, used to joke that his job was to just roll out the footballs to the team and then get out of the way.

That, of course, was an exaggeration, and on this day it was proven that Howell deserved a lot of credit also for the success of his team. New York limited the Packers to just 9 first downs and 160 total yards as they pounded out a 20-3 win over Lombardi’s troops. The Giants’ offense didn’t exactly shine either, but fullback Alex Webster, who would go on to coach the team in future years, had a respectable day to lead the club. He totaled 90 yards combined rushing and receiving, and scored the game’s only 2 touchdowns on runs of 3 and 7 yards. Future broadcasting legend Pat Summerall completed New York’s scoring with two 49 yard field goals. The Giants had one big advantage over the Packers in the game. Their quarterback was Charlie Conerly, a veteran who had guided them to a title. Green Bay’s signal caller was journeyman Lamar McHan. Bart Starr was on the team’s roster but hadn’t yet convinced the coach he was ready to lead the team. That would change later in the season, and Starr would then go on to take the Pack to 6 championship games in 8 years, winning the last 5. Included in the title run were 2 victories over the Giants, in 1961 and 1962.

Lombardi strolls the Packer sideline

As the NFL enters week 4 of it’s 2022 schedule, the always entertaining NFC East rivalry between Dallas and Washington is on the menu. For this week’s Throwback Thursday feature we’ll reach way back to November 4, 1962 for a matchup between the 2 clubs. It was week 8 of the season, and both the Cowboys and Redskins were competitive in the NFL’s tough Eastern Division. The New York Giants and Cleveland Browns were dominant forces in the division, and even the lowly Pittsburgh Steelers were playing well that season. Washington came into the contest with only a single defeat at 4-1-2 (ties were common in those days with no overtime) while Dallas was still in it’s infancy, in only their third season under coach Tom Landry. Still, Landry had guided them to a respectable 3-3-1 mark.

Landry, always the innovator, implemented a system on his offense in which he alternated his quarterbacks, something that would be scoffed at in today’s game considering the fragile egos of today’s signal callers. Playing 2 quarterbacks was relatively common in those days, but mostly coaches would make an in-game change solely due to poor performance or injury, since the quarterbacks took brutal beatings back then. Landry took the ploy to extremes as he changed QBs at will regularly during a game. Whether it was a sound strategy or not, it worked out well for the Cowboys on this day. Young Don Meredith got the first kick at the can. After the teams traded first quarter field goals, he connected with Lee Folkins on an 11 yard touchdown pass. Old soldier Eddie LeBaron got his turn next, and he delivered with a 23 yard scoring toss to fullback Amos Marsh. Meredith then took another turn and found J.W. Lockett on a short 4 yard throw to put Dallas in front 24-3. In the final quarter Amos Bullocks scored on a 4 yard run, then LeBaron returned and led a drive culminating in a 14 yard TD toss to Frank Clarke.

Now the rout was on. Redskin coach Bill McPeak then made the move common to the era, replacing the ineffective Norm Snead at quarterback with backup Galen Hall. Hall put together a scoring drive that he finished off himself with a touchdown scamper from a yard out. Marsh was the offensive star for the Cowboys with 10 carries for 109 yards on the ground and 3 receptions for 53 yards and the TD through the air. Dallas left town with an impressive 38-10 victory in tow, but as the season wore on both teams took a nosedive in the standings, finishing fourth and fifth respectively in the 7 team East, each with losing records.

Coach Landry eventually settled on the younger Meredith as the full time starter later in the decade, but he did revert to the alternating tactic again in the early 1970s with Craig Morton and Roger Staubach. The Cowboys finally shed their “can’t win the big one” label in 1971 when he gave Staubach the job full time. They defeated Miami that season for their first Super Bowl title.

1960 Cowboy QBs LeBaron, Meredith, Don Heinrich