1988 AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

January 8, 1989 - Riverfront Stadium - The Buffalo Bills made it to their first AFC Championship game and it happened to be against the Cincinnati Bengals, who had prevented the Bills from advancing in 1981 with a 28-21 victory over the Bills led by Joe Ferguson and Joe Cribbs. This time the Bills had Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas as weapons, but it didn't help as the Bengals defeated the Bills in their first AFC title dance, 21-10. It was a wild and crazed crowd at the Jungle, officially known as Riverfront Stadium. A total of 59,747 wild animals dressed as fans made life miserable for Kelly and Thomas.

With Jim Kelly at the throttle, the Bills offense had their backs against the wall for most of the second half, or in this case, their own goal line, as they failed to make a first down when they were faced with any third down. The Bengal defense shut the Bills down.

Remember the name Ickey Woods? If you do, I'm sure you remember the Ickey Shuffle! He did it in this game following a 1-yard touchdown run to put the Bengals on the scoreboard first. The Bengals got possession of the ball when Eric Thomas intercepted Jim Kelly and they drove down to the Buffalo one. The shuffle proceeded.

Kelly, determined to amend for his sins, completed 4 straight passes which included a nine yard pass to Andre Reed, who made it to the endzone. Then the Bills defense stiffened and made the Bengals punt. Kelly continued his march down the field, driving the Bills all the way to the Cincinnati 26. In comes Scott Norwood for a 43-yard attempt. Norwood, who must have been born under a bad star, sailed his kick WIDE LEFT! An omen of things to come!

Boomer Esiason, Bengal quarterback, decided that the Bengals had better attack their prey while they were down. He drove his team down to the Bills ten, and then hit paydirt when his pass to James Brooks was true and the Bengals led 14-7.

The Bengals got the ball again, but Mark Kelso stopped their drive with a 25 yard interception of a Boomer pass. This time Norwood was able to connect on a 39-yard field goal to narrow the margin down to 4 points at halftime.

But that was as close as it got. In the second half, the Bengals came out like caged animals. Their defense took control of the game and allowed the Bills only 2 first downs in the entire half. In fact, thanks to great punting and special team work, the Bills began all of their 5 starts in the second half inside their own 23.

Buffalo defensive back, Derrick Burroughs, committed a personal foul that really caused the roof to fall in. The Bengals drove down to the one yard line and Ickey Woods was dancing in the endzone again as he waltzed in from there.

With the score 21-10, Kelly tried to battle against the odds and lead the Bills to a score with time running down. However, David Fulcher intercepted Kelly on fourth down in the endzone to finish off the Bills.

Cincinnati proceeded to meet the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl and played the closest game in SB history until the Bills lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XXV when Scott Norwood chipped a 47 yard field goal attempt WIDE RIGHT!

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