One thing I am super glad about is that Frank Reich got a (winning) Super Bowl ring, as offensive coordinator for the Eagles.
Frank Reich was the backup when the Bills lost 4 Super Bowls in a row, and he played a majority of Super Bowl XXVII.
Frank Reich is the answer to a fairly common football trivia question: what quarterback led the biggest comeback in both college football and the NFL? (Do note that it’s now the second biggest college football comeback).
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Yes, this is a navel-gazing appreciation from a Bills fan.
We didn’t know Reich was any good either. Then Kelly went down for 3 weeks early in the 1989 season.
Reich had played a few downs in 1985 (pre-Kelly) and 1986. Then he had gotten no snaps at all for 2 straight seasons.
And he got the start on Monday Night Football against the top team in the league, the Los Angeles Rams. He won. In a comeback during the 2 minute warning. Then he won 2 more games. And went back to the bench. The Bills flamed out that year, losing 3 of the last 4, and their playoff game to a dropped touchdown in the last minute.
It was clear to everyone by mid-October that 1990 might be the Bills year. Many people forget that the Bills went to the Meadowlands and beat the Giants before the Super Bowl. The Bills also knocked out Phil Simms for the season. Funny that: the Giants knocked out Jim Kelly for a few weeks later in that quarter. In came Frank Reich for about 40 minutes to preserve the lead. The next week was against Miami in Buffalo, for both the division title and the number one seed in the AFC playoffs. I was there. No one had any doubts. Reich won by 10 points, and it wasn’t that close. Reich got a losing ring that year.
Another year of mop-up duty followed, and Reich got another losing ring.
The Bills started showing signs of coaching weakness in 1992. Reich did backup until the final game. The Bills and Oilers had a heated rivalry at the time, and Kelly was injured in the final game, and the Bills ended up as a wild card. The next week they played … the Oilers.
The Oilers had won the previous week 27-0, and got up 35-3 on the Bills halfway through the third quarter. Then Reich led 4 touchdown drives in 7 minutes. The Bills came coming, and won the game with a 5th Reich-led touchdown drive a quarter later.
People forget that Reich started the next game too. The wild card Bills went to Three Rivers Stadium to play the top seeded Steelers (who had already beaten the Kelly-led Bills in mid-season). Reich beat them too, 24-3.
People also forget that Reich played most of Super Bowl XXVII. The Cowboys knocked out Kelly in the second quarter. That was the blowout game, when the Bills had 9 turnovers. The Bills were losing the game 14-7 and the turnover battle 3-0 when Reich came in. And you know what? There was hope for the Bills. Yes, I was an optimist, but I made the point towards the end of the third quarter that if you’re winning the turnover battle 5-0 and your only up by 2 touchdowns on a top team … you might be in more trouble than you guess. Maybe the Cowboys needed those 4 more turnovers. If it helps to get your mind on this, the Bills fumbled 9 times and recovered 4 of them. Do ya’ think they thought they were jinxed?
He went back to the bench for 1993, and played in a few games in 1994 too.
In 1994, Reich went in the expansion draft, and became the Carolina Panthers first starting quarterback. He didn’t last too long, had an OK season with the Jets, and closed out his career with the Lions.