The Music City Miracle: Story of the Homerun Throwback (forward) Titans v Bills ’99 AFC Wildcard

As we make our way to the NFL’s 100th season, we have to take a look back at the great moments over the last century. These great games that go on to impact careers, eras and Hall of Fame legacies often take place in the NFL playoffs. At times, you’ll have something momentous happen during the regular season, but it’s the finality and visibility of postseason play, where everyone is viewing an individual event at the same time, that allows these moments to grow into lore.

It was the first playoff game for a team in a new city and stadium, where the Titans had been 8-0 during the regular season. The ’99 campaign had a collegiate-type spirit as the Titans finally had a home after bouncing around like nomads for two seasons.

At the time, the Oilers were nearing the end of a frustrating era in which their Run and Shoot offense had been the scourge of the league. Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon had put up video game numbers as he and his trio of 1,000-yard receivers in Ernest Givins, Haywood Jeffires and the late Drew Hill torched defenses in the regular season. Yet in the postseason, the football gods weren’t so kind.

Between 1987-1991, the Oilers had made the playoffs all five years yet never seemed to have that signature game from Warren Moon to get to an AFC Championship Game. Injuries and timely defense from their opponents seemed to undo this team in the postseason, and their window for a championship run was nearing its end.

Moon was turning 36, and how long could he play at a high level?

The ’92 team went 10-6 and had to take on the two-time AFC Champion Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park. They had beaten the Bills 27-3 in the finale to set up the Wild Card tilt. In that game, the Oilers knocked out Jim Kelly with a knee injury and wouldn’t have to face him in the Wild Card round.

In what should have been his signature win, Moon blistered the Bills, going 19 of 22 for four TDs as the Oilers took a commanding 28-3 halftime lead. In the second half, the Bills turned the tables, coming back from a 35-3 deficit to win 41-38 in overtime. The greatest comeback in NFL history.

The collapse was devastating, and the doubt and discourse whittled away fan support as the team descended into mediocrity over the next couple of years.

Finally, owner Bud Adams decided to move the team in 1996. He had watched Art Modell pull the plug in Cleveland and move the Browns to Baltimore the season before. Why try to win back a city that had tired of your failures when you can win anew elsewhere? The Houston Oilers were no more, and the Tennessee Oilers wandered the desert in search of a home.

They played the ’97 season in the Liberty Bowl and ’98 in Vanderbilt Stadium. Both were college arenas where they weren’t the main tenants. It didn’t have the look and feel of an NFL ball club as Eddie George and Steve McNair emerged as the team’s new stars. Then they made the decision to change the name of the team to reflect a new identity… the Tennessee Titans. They would play in their own brand-new stadium as Nashville became their new home.

The team went 13-3 on the strength of Eddie George (1,304 yds / 9 TDs), Steve McNair (337 yds rushing / 8 TDs) and a smash-mouth rushing offense, while super rookie DE Jevon Kearse burst onto the scene with a rookie-record 14.5 sacks.

The Freak was the playmaker on an aggressive, physical defense and turned in the most impactful rookie season since Lawrence Taylor in 1981. He was voted to his first Pro Bowl, named All-Pro and took home the ’99 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Award. They won seven of their last eight, including a 41-14 win over division winner Jacksonville in Week 15. They were primed to make a run, and first up in the Wild Card round?

Those Buffalo Bills.

Yes, those Buffalo Bills were nearing the end of their run with future Hall of Famers Bruce Smith, Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas. Jim Kelly had already left the building after ’96, and the Bills began this strange odyssey of who should be quarterbacking?

Wade Phillips had taken over for Hall of Fame Head Coach Marv Levy and, by all accounts, favored Doug Flutie. He brought an energy to the team and an excitement even at his advanced age. Things seemed to pick up when he would go on a long serpentine run or scramble, then hit an open receiver. An excitement christened “Flutie Magic.”

Eric Moulds was the new big threat in the Bills offense after a breakout ’98 (1,368 yds rec / 9 TDs), which was only bolstered by an NFL playoff-record 240 yards in a Wild Card loss to Miami. Moulds was the future, yet Andre Reed was still there to provide punch in the passing game.

Antowain Smith had become the featured runner as Thurman Thomas had shown wear after a Hall of Fame career. In ’99, Thomas was injured with a lacerated liver that allowed him to return with fresh legs late in the season as Smith and Jonathan Linton had worn down toward season’s end.

One thing the Bills could bank on was the league’s #1 defense, as Bruce Smith, Phil Hansen and Marcellus Wiley provided a solid pass rush.

Yet all that paled in comparison to the ultimate betrayal that haunts Buffalo to this very day.

In an attempt to get a leg up on the franchise quarterback derby, the Bills signed Rob Johnson before the ’98 season. He had started one game for an injured Mark Brunell while playing for Jacksonville. The offense would sputter under his leadership as he was often sacked for holding the ball too long. This is what prompted Phillips to replace him in ’98, and Flutie beat him out and started the first 15 games of ’99.

With a Wild Card berth wrapped up and unable to improve their playoff position, the Bills decided to rest Doug Flutie for the finale. It looked and sounded suspicious as Rob Johnson played the finale against a playoff-bound Colts team also resting their starters. Then Coach Phillips dropped a bombshell and named Johnson the starter going into the Wild Card Game.

What?!?!?!?!!? The fanbase went bonkers, blew up switchboards and discussed Flutie vs. Rob Johnson on talk shows all week. Why would you disrupt the team’s momentum to satisfy a front office pressuring you to start the $25 million free agent? Facing a Defensive Rookie of the Year coming off the ball with the intensity of a young Lawrence Taylor, you decide to face him with an immobile quarterback? What could possibly go wrong?

Less than five minutes into a game destined to be a defensive struggle, Kearse came screaming off the corner and sacked Johnson, causing him to fumble out of the end zone. Safety, 2-0! The Titans received the free kick and drove for a TD on a short field, making it 9-0 just 7:00 into the game. It allowed Adelphia’s rowdy fans to stay at a fevered pitch as Buffalo fought uphill the entire game. Bruce Smith, in his last playoff appearance, kept Steve McNair under wraps, sacking him 2.5 times.

The Bills clawed their way back into it and found themselves down 15-13 with 1:41 to go. Johnson had the chance to be a hero. Although he had completed just eight passes going into this final drive, he knew a playoff win could be the launching pad for his career.

Johnson appeared calm amid the chaos and drove Buffalo to a last-second field goal and a 16-15 lead! It appeared he had done it!! On one play, he escaped his nemesis, Kearse, and zipped his last completion to Peerless Price, all while scrambling with just one shoe on.

Once Steve Christie’s kick was good, the Bills sideline exploded with emotion as the team brass scrambled to make reservations to go to Indianapolis for a rematch with Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James and the 13-3 upstart Colts… all they had to do was get through the final :16.

It was The Immaculate Reception of the new millennium since we were in January of 2000. The parallels were there as a city was hosting its first playoff game, a last-second touchdown when the home team had no hope, and a long delay where the officials had to discuss the legitimacy of the scoring play. Only this time, Instant Replay was used as an officiating tool. As a Bills fan, I was screaming forward lateral and did so right before writing this…

The conclusive evidence is the fourth replay as Joe Theismann, Paul Mcguire, and Mike Patrick exalts “From THAT angle…” and I tried to argue for years it was a forward lateral.

It was the end of an era as Hall of Famers Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed and Bruce Smith were let go at the end of the season. They were the last of the Bills who had played in the four Super Bowls at the beginning of the decade. The football gods struck back for doing Flutie dirty and benching him going into the playoffs. It was only the second time in NFL history that a backup was named to start the playoffs without an injury.

The only other occasion was the Jets in 1986, when Pat Ryan was named to start the ’86 AFC Wild Card over Ken O’Brien after the Jets lost their last six games.

As for the Titans… they rode this incredible momentum all the way to Super Bowl XXXIV, where Kevin Dyson wound up in another famous play. Mike Jones tackled him at the 1-yard line as time ran out. Over the next eight seasons, the Titans were an elite team as Eddie George and Steve McNair became household names. Kevin Dyson had a good NFL career and is now principal of a local school in the Nashville area.

The Music City Miracle didn’t become as famous as The Immaculate Reception… however, had the Titans won a Super Bowl in the years that followed, it would have.

In January of 2000, it was played on ESPN and NFL shows for the rest of the month, as it was truly a great play. One for the ages for everyone who wasn’t a Bills fan.

We still bristle.

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