'96 Memorable Bills Game & the NFL Rules then

[PUNT750]

The Bills set an NFL record previous to this game with 9 straight play-off wins at HOME.  On December 28th 1996 the Bills lost to the  upstart Jacksonville Jaguars 30-27 at Rich Stadium in an AFC Wild-Card Game. It turned out to be Jim Kelly's last game.  

 

The Bills had Bruce Smith, Ted Washington, Bryce Paup and Chris Spielman on defense.  Jacksonville had Mark Brunell , Natrone Means and Tony Boselli on offense.  It was a great, back and forth, exciting  game.    

 

WHY were the rules and officiating so different then???

 

-There was 1 (one) defense holding  in the backfield penalty

-There were 2 (two) defensive line holding penalties

-No calls on tackling a player going out of bounds

-One (1)Pass Interference penalty

-No helmet-to-helmet calls

-No personal foul penalties although there was pushing and shoving

-NO REPLAYS

 

Personally I miss that type of game!

Edited December 29, 2018 by PUNT750

[row_33]

How many penalties were called in recent playoff games?

 

you aren’t comparing the 2018 Bills stumbling and bumbling and fumbling to the Bruce days....

 

[Boatdrinks]

Agreed, although the title says ‘76 not ‘96. The game was more enjoyable and watchable then for sure. Far too many ticky tack penalties that influence the outcome now. The rules changes haven’t been for the better. Most were put in to increase scoring, shorten the game ( lol) and supposedly protect players. It seems every critical passing play is either a catch or a penalty these days. It’s difficult to watch. 

Edited December 29, 2018 by Boatdrinks

[row_33]

Agreed that 1976 was a better time of football than 1996 or 2018

 

 

[PUNT750]

4 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

Agreed, although the title says ‘76 not ‘96. The game was more enjoyable and watchable then for sure. Far too many ticky tack penalties that influence the outcome now. 

Thanks for the heads up on the title!

4 minutes ago, row_33 said:

Agreed that 1976 was a better time of football than 1996 or 2018

 

The title should have said '96 - sorry!

 

[DBilz2500]

Had replay been around back then Jim Kelly’s late fumble, in which he was obviously down with both knees before the fumble, would’ve been overturned and the Bills may end up winning that game and who knows past that. Many people that season had them pegged as a possible Super Bowl contender. So Replay hasn’t been all bad 

[row_33]

6 minutes ago, DBilz2500 said:

Had replay been around back then Jim Kelly’s late fumble, in which he was obviously down with both knees before the fumble, would’ve been overturned and the Bills may end up winning that game and who knows past that. Many people that season had them pegged as a possible Super Bowl contender. So Replay hasn’t been all bad 

 

All replays would have gone the Bills way and let them have a lot more wins?

 

gee, can you edit the tapes of our lives to make sure we did a lot less bad things?

 

 

[DBilz2500]

21 minutes ago, row_33 said:

 

All replays would have gone the Bills way and let them have a lot more wins?

 

gee, can you edit the tapes of our lives to make sure we did a lot less bad things?

 

 

Ok?

Edited December 29, 2018 by DBilz2500

[Patrick Duffy]

1 hour ago, DBilz2500 said:

Ok?

You'll have to try and excuse row. He has been spending way too much time in the Uranus thread in off the wall.

[Utah John]

5 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

Agreed, although the title says ‘76 not ‘96. The game was more enjoyable and watchable then for sure. Far too many ticky tack penalties that influence the outcome now. The rules changes haven’t been for the better. Most were put in to increase scoring, shorten the game ( lol) and supposedly protect players. It seems every critical passing play is either a catch or a penalty these days. It’s difficult to watch. 

Every point Boatdrinks made about the rules changes is correct.  I have some tapes of Bills games, including commercials, from the 90s and before, and it was amazing how much more football was played in 3 hours when there were only 60 second breaks for commercials instead of 90 seconds.  All those half minutes add up to 10 minutes or more of time out of the 3 hrs, and the way to generate 10 extra minutes of commercial time was to reduce the amount of football plays actually run.  With the clock running more often, and officials eyeballing close calls on first downs (and often being very generous on spots when a runner is tackled a little short of the line to gain), the game is shorter and teams behind in the fourth quarter have a really hard time catching up. 

 

The rules aren't really about increasing scoring, they're about increasing passing and opening up the game with the intent of increasing scoring. Defenses were getting really good, and the last thing the NFL wanted was something like soccer, where a 1-0 game could be considered a very exciting one.  The NFL is about big hits, big catches, not about grind it out football anymore.

[Freddie's Dead]

8 hours ago, PUNT750 said:

The Bills set an NFL record previous to this game with 9 straight play-off wins at HOME.  On December 28th 1996 the Bills lost to the  upstart Jacksonville Jaguars 30-27 at Rich Stadium in an AFC Wild-Card Game. It turned out to be Jim Kelly's last game.  

 

The Bills had Bruce Smith, Ted Washington, Bryce Paup and Chris Spielman on defense.  Jacksonville had Mark Brunell , Natrone Means and Tony Boselli on offense.  It was a great, back and forth, exciting  game.    

 

WHY were the rules and officiating so different then???

 

-There was 1 (one) defense holding  in the backfield penalty

-There were 2 (two) defensive line holding penalties

-No calls on tackling a player going out of bounds

-One (1)Pass Interference penalty

-No helmet-to-helmet calls

-No personal foul penalties although there was pushing and shoving

-NO REPLAYS

 

Personally I miss that type of game!

 

I had almost forgotten this ***** game.  I had season tickets on the goal line and had a front row seat to Brunell's quick out to Jimmy Smith that sealed the game.  Damn you OP!!

[DBilz2500]

8 minutes ago, Freddie's Dead said:

 

I had almost forgotten this ***** game.  I had season tickets on the goal line and had a front row seat to Brunell's quick out to Jimmy Smith that sealed the game.  Damn you OP!!

Quick out to Jimmy Smith that sealed the game? Todd Collins, subbing in for injured Jim Kelly, got sacked and fumbled from own 30 yard line with seconds left that sealed the game. Jacksonville took a knee on next play and officially ended the game. 

[Freddie's Dead]

6 minutes ago, DBilz2500 said:

Quick out to Jimmy Smith that sealed the game? Todd Collins, subbing in for injured Jim Kelly, got sacked and fumbled from own 30 yard line with seconds left that sealed the game. Jacksonville took a knee on next play and officially ended the game. 

 

Jimmy Smith doesn't get in, we win.

[RiotAct]

8 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

It seems every critical passing play is either a catch or a penalty these days.

except when it’s the Bills passing

[billsfanmiami(oh)]

It really is sad now that after every “big play” you spend a few seconds looking for the flag. 

[DBilz2500]

25 minutes ago, Freddie's Dead said:

 

Jimmy Smith doesn't get in, we win.

That only tied it up in early 4th quarter. We still had plenty of time to win. We didn’t take Jacksonville serious that day and we paid for it simple enough. 

[Rico]

9 hours ago, row_33 said:

Agreed that 1976 was a better time of football than 1996 or 2018

 

 

Especially 2018. Watered-down football.

[Steve O]

3 hours ago, Utah John said:

Every point Boatdrinks made about the rules changes is correct.  I have some tapes of Bills games, including commercials, from the 90s and before, and it was amazing how much more football was played in 3 hours when there were only 60 second breaks for commercials instead of 90 seconds.  All those half minutes add up to 10 minutes or more of time out of the 3 hrs, and the way to generate 10 extra minutes of commercial time was to reduce the amount of football plays actually run.  With the clock running more often, and officials eyeballing close calls on first downs (and often being very generous on spots when a runner is tackled a little short of the line to gain), the game is shorter and teams behind in the fourth quarter have a really hard time catching up. 

 

The rules aren't really about increasing scoring, they're about increasing passing and opening up the game with the intent of increasing scoring. Defenses were getting really good, and the last thing the NFL wanted was something like soccer, where a 1-0 game could be considered a very exciting one.  The NFL is about big hits, big catches, not about grind it out football anymore.

All good points, but the highlighted one really irks me the most. Know what the running time of the longest game ever was? The 82 minute / 40 second Christmas Day game between the Dolphins and Chiefs? The game actually took 3 hours 21 minutes to play. Add to that, back in those days the clock stopped on every out of bounds and every incompletion, none of this last 5 minutes of the half stuff. Commercial breaks occurred when there was a break in the game, they didn't stop the game for commercial breaks.

[JESSEFEFFER]

11 hours ago, PUNT750 said:

The Bills set an NFL record previous to this game with 9 straight play-off wins at HOME.  On December 28th 1996 the Bills lost to the  upstart Jacksonville Jaguars 30-27 at Rich Stadium in an AFC Wild-Card Game. It turned out to be Jim Kelly's last game.  

 

The Bills had Bruce Smith, Ted Washington, Bryce Paup and Chris Spielman on defense.  Jacksonville had Mark Brunell , Natrone Means and Tony Boselli on offense.  It was a great, back and forth, exciting  game.    

 

WHY were the rules and officiating so different then???

 

-There was 1 (one) defense holding  in the backfield penalty

-There were 2 (two) defensive line holding penalties

-No calls on tackling a player going out of bounds

-One (1)Pass Interference penalty

-No helmet-to-helmet calls

-No personal foul penalties although there was pushing and shoving

-NO REPLAYS

 

Personally I miss that type of game!

I also remember, often a flawed endeavor,  a crucial intentional grounding call on JK for throwing the ball out the back of the endzone.  You don't see that call made very often in any era.  The instructional phrase "throw to the cheap seats" is incompatible with a potential penalty.  Well, I just did a search on this and could not find a clip or reference to it, so maybe it is flawed in this case.

Edited December 29, 2018 by JESSEFEFFER

[BillyWhiteShows]

I remember this game and the 1996 season quite well.  I recall Jim Kelly as having an extremely shaky year and Thurman really appeared to be slowing down.

 

I can recall that this playoff game was home and didn’t even sell out.  It was actually blacked out in Buffalo and surrounding areas.  We had to go to a bar who was showing the game illegally.

 

Kelly was having a pretty lousy game struggled against a good Jags defense.  I remember a debate between two people sitting near me about whether he was done or if he still had it.  The person who said Kelly was done would constantly says “See...see I told you.”

 

Then once Kelly was out Todd Collins came in with about a minute left and he looked a lot like Nate Peterman in last year’s playoff game.  The anti-Kelly guy was like “THAT’S your future!?!?!?”