THE START OF THE K-GUN OFFNESE

BROWNS BEAT BILLS IN LAST SECONDS

January 6, 1990 - Cleveland Stadium - Just as Super Bowl XXV will be known as the one that Scott Norwood kicked wide right to lose the game for the Bills, this one a year earlier will forever be known as the "Big Drop" by Ronnie Harmon. The Bills had the ball on the Browns 12 yard line and were trailing 34-30 with just a few seconds remaining when Bills QB Jim Kelly hit Harmon in the right corner of the end zone with a perfect pass. But it bounced off Harmon's finger tips for an incompletion. On the very next play, Browns linebacker Clay Matthews picked off Kelly's 11-yard pass on the 1-yard line with 9 ticks left on the clock to win and send the Bills to the dressing room wondering what if.

The Bills opened the scoring in spectacular fashion. Kelly linked up with Andre Reed for a 72-yard touchdown. Four minutes later, the Browns got a 45-yard field goal by Matt Bahr. Then Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar threw a 52-yard bomb to wide out Webster Slaughter putting the Browns on top 10-7. The game became a shoot-out, just like in the old AFL days, when Kelly ripped off a 33-yard touchdown pass to James Lofton.

Kosar connected again for paydirt when he hit tight end Ron Middleton for three yards and a TD, putting the Browns up at halftime, 17-14. The Browns opened the second half the way they ended the first. Bernie Kosar, now resembling a gun slinger with his side-arm passing, connected again with Slaughter, this time a 44-yard slinger from Bernie and the Browns now led 24-14.

The Bills finally launched a drive and it ended when Thurman Thomas caught a 6-yard pass from Kelley to narrow the Browns lead to 3. But the ensuing kickoff went to Eric Metcalf, and he galloped 90 yards to score an electrifying touchdown for the hometown Browns.

The Bills pounded away and were able to get a 30-yard field goal by kicker Scott Norwood. The Bills had gone into the "no-huddle" offense early in the game as it started to resemble a basketball game rather than football. Kelly seemed to shine in the no-huddle and this game marked the beginning of the famous No-Huddle reign of the Kelly "K-Gun" offense.

After Bahr made a 47-yard field goal to put the Browns up 34-24, Kelly pulled out his six-shooter and operated the Bills offense in the run-and-gun no-huddle like in his old Houston Gambler days of the World Football League. Kelly seemed like a gun-slinger from the wild west as he shot off 23 consecutive passes and brought the margin between the two Lake Erie cities to 4 when he lobbed a three yard pass to Thomas. However, Norwood's kick failed and that was instrumental in the loss. Had Norwood made the extra point, the Bills could have settled for a tie instead of going for it all at the end. That would have put this wild game into a sudden death overtime and who knows what would have happened.

The drop by Harmon was bad, but if Norwood had made the extra point, he wouldn't have had to catch that ball. This game in Cleveland has to go into the annuals as one of the most exciting playoff games in NFL history. Only the Greatest Comeback in History, the Bills wild comeback over Houston a few years later, would top this one.

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