DALLAS — Twenty years ago, they were all Buffalo Bills. That meant something then, but given the judgment of time, means even more now.

The only man to ever be a head coach in four straight Super Bowls will have his first novel published soon, at the age of 85. “The protagonist,” Marv Levy said over the phone, “is a sports writer.”

The only general manager to ever put together a team that went to four straight Super Bowls now is president of the Indianapolis Colts and understands how the modern ways of the NFL make such a thing nearly unimaginable, for his team or anyone else’s. “It’s not likely to be repeated,” Bill Polian said. “It’s a standalone accomplishment.”

The only quarterback to ever start four straight Super Bowls has never watched any of them. Jim Kelly was riding in a car with 15-year-old daughter Erin the other day and said, “You know what; daddy has never watched any of those Super Bowls. One day we’re going to get them out and look at them.”

“Dad,” Erin answered, “you sure you really want to do that?”

Twenty years ago, the Bills went to their first Super Bowl. And lost. They would go to three more in succession. And lose. They made elation and pain parts of every Buffalo winter.

First was the 20-19 heartbreaker, when the New York Giants kept the ball more than 40 minutes and Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal slipped just right at the end.

Then the 37-24 whipping by Washington.

Then a 52-17 mashing by Dallas, which included nine Buffalo turnovers.

Then a 30-13 loss in a Cowboys rematch, when the Bills led 13-6 at halftime but were outscored 24-0 in the second half.

How could it happen to a powerhouse that won its four conference title games by a combined score of 120-33, beating Joe Montana, John Elway and Dan Marino? The Bills had future Hall of Famers in Levy and Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas, receiver James Lofton, and defensive end Bruce Smith. They owned the AFC.

“We were like the Brooklyn Dodgers of the ’50s,” Polian said, “a great team that didn’t win it all. Except the Dodgers did win one.”

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And yet, the Bills kept coming back for more, even as the nation turned them into a punch line for futility. “Time tends to soften that some,” Polian said.

“The further we’re removed from those games,” Kelly said, “the more people appreciate what we were able to do.”

They had struggled with chemistry in the 1980s. The Bickering Bills became an unwanted nickname. “We realized we had talent, but we were never going to get anywhere unless we pulled together,” said Kelly, who started having players and families to his house after every home game to watch highlights on ESPN.

Glued together, the Bills prospered in an amazing way — except when the game had a Roman numeral. But 20 years later, history should applaud. If what they did wasn’t extraordinary, how come no one else has done it?

Polian: “They had incredible resilience as individuals. Marv cultivated that. He made them aware of the fact that we always had tomorrow. One loss didn’t define them.”

Levy: “The formula we used was there was a period where we mourned, a period when we owned up and thought about what we could do different, a period where we recognized the good. Then you made a plan and went to work again.”

Kelly: “As time went by, people started realizing how hard it was to go back year after year, and lose. If you talk to any player about that, I guarantee 99 percent of the players would say that would never be done again, and probably say they don’t know how we did it.”

Levy: “I remember our locker room after the (Giants) game, and Scott (Norwood) was sitting there. I walked over to console him and I hardly knew what to say. But Darryl Talley and Nate Odomes came up and said, “If we would have made that tackle on third and long, it wouldn’t have come to that.’ One guy after another came by.”

Polian, on a draw play just before the Norwood attempt, when Thomas had room to get Norwood much closer, but stepped out of bounds because the Bills were low on timeouts. “We looked at the tape the next day with Marv and we both stopped and took a deep breath. He could have run 15 more yards.

“Sometimes, it was just fate that happened.”

Levy: “I had a call-in show, and after the third one, a fan called in and said, ‘Please don’t go back to the Super Bowl next year. I can’t stand it. I get so depressed, I can’t go to work the next day.’

“I said, ‘Sir, I understand. But I’m glad that you’re not on my team.’ “

Kelly: “People always ask, would you rather win one time or go four times and lose? It’s a hard question. But to be honest with you, I would rather go four times and lose.”

Polian: “The way things have turned out in Buffalo (no playoffs for 11 years), in a strange and ironic way, that team has taken on even greater significance.”

Levy: “They’ll always hurt a little bit. But we’ll remember the good times more. That team has stayed very close personally through the years. Those guys I directed, they’re my friends.

“There’s one way to assure you’ll never lose a Super Bowl. Don’t go.”

Buffalo Bills fans will wince at the idea, but I encourage them to check out a Buffalo News package that looks back 20 years on Super Bowl XXV, the first and most heartbreaking of the Bills’ four consecutive trips to the NFL championship game.

Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan, beat reporter Mark Gaughan and editor Greg Connors presented a compelling retrospective of a bittersweet event that began with Whitney Houston’s moving national anthem and F-16s whooshing overhead.

“Then I remember the Apache gunship flies over,” Bills special-teams star Steve Tasker told Sullivan. “They weren’t supposed to fly low, but it seemed to me I could see the whiskers on the guy hanging off the sides. It was as though he wasn’t just flying for the ceremony. He was watching over us, like, ‘Go ahead and play because I’m on guard.’ That was awesome.”

The game, however, will forever be remembered for how it concluded.

Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field-goal attempt sailed wide right. The Bills lost by a point.

The Buffalo News spoke with two dozen members of the team and uncovered intriguing new information.

For instance, holder Frank Reich revealed for the first time that Norwood kept hooking his practice kicks to the left before the game, possibly impacting his fateful kick. Long snapper Adam Lingner told the story of how Norwood’s successor, Steve Christie, noticed the laces were not spun to the proper place, suggesting Reich’s hold wasn’t as good as believed.

Sullivan also wrote about the brotherhood that was forged and how much the 1990s Bills loved to party. Another piece laid out all the “what-if” scenarios that could have made the difference. The two biggies for me: Bruce Smith’s inability to strip Jeff Hostetler on a second-quarter safety and failing to stop Mark Ingram on third-and-13 in the third quarter.

In the style the Buffalo News now handles its Monday coverage of games, Gaughan breaks down Super Bowl XXV with a quarter-by-quarter report of how the game unfolded.

Connors added a feature on Van Miller, “the man who will forever be known as the voice of the Bills,” and his recollections of the Bills’ heyday. The story includes Miller’s call of Norwood’s kick.

DALLAS — Twenty years ago, they were all Buffalo Bills. That meant something then, but given the judgment of time, it means even more now.

The only man to be a head coach in four straight Super Bowls will have his first novel published soon, at the age of 85. “The protagonist,” Marv Levy said over the phone, “is a sports writer.”

The only general manager to put together a team that went to four straight Super Bowls now is president of the Indianapolis Colts and understands how the modern ways of the NFL make such a thing nearly unimaginable — for his team or anyone else’s. “It’s not likely to be repeated,” Bill Polian said. “It’s a stand-alone accomplishment.”

The only quarterback to start four straight Super Bowls has never watched any of them. Jim Kelly was riding in a car with 15-year-old daughter Erin the other day and said, “You know what; daddy has never watched any of those Super Bowls. One day we’re going to get them out and look at them.”

“Dad,” Erin answered, “you sure you really want to do that?”

Twenty years ago this month, the Bills went to their first Super Bowl. And lost. They would go to three more in succession. And lose. They made elation and pain parts of every Buffalo winter.

First was the 20-19 heartbreaker, when the New York Giants kept the ball more than 40 minutes and Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal slipped just right at the end.

Then the 37-24 whipping by Washington.

Then a 52-17 mashing by Dallas, which included nine Buffalo turnovers.

Then a 30-13 loss in a Cowboys rematch, when the Bills led, 13-6, at halftime but were outscored, 24-0, in the second half.

How could it happen to a powerhouse that won its four conference title games by a combined score of 120-33? The Bills had future Hall of Famers in Levy and Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas, receiver James Lofton and defensive end Bruce Smith. They owned the AFC.

“We were like the Brooklyn Dodgers of the ’50s,” Polian said, “a great team that didn’t win it all. Except the Dodgers did win one.”

(Page 2 of 2)

And yet, the Bills kept coming back for more, even as the nation turned them into a punch line for futility. “Time tends to soften that some,” Polian said.

“The further we’re removed from those games,” Kelly said, “the more people appreciate what we were able to do.”

Glued together, the Bills prospered in an amazing way — except when the game had a Roman numeral. But 20 years later, history should applaud. If what they did wasn’t extraordinary, how come no one else has done it?

Polian: “They had incredible resilience as individuals. Marv cultivated that. He made them aware of the fact that we always had tomorrow. One loss didn’t define them.”

Levy: “I had a call-in show, and after the third one, a fan called in and said, ‘Please don’t go back to the Super Bowl next year. I can’t stand it. I get so depressed, I can’t go to work the next day.’

“I said, ‘Sir, I understand. But I’m glad that you’re not on my team.’ “

Kelly: “People always ask, would you rather win one time or go four times and lose. It’s a hard question. But to be honest with you, I would rather go four times and lose.”

Levy: “They’ll always hurt a little. But we’ll remember the good times more. That team has stayed very close personally through the years. Those guys I directed, they’re my friends.

“There’s one way to assure you’ll never lose a Super Bowl. Don’t go.”

Super Bowl XXV

Even if you’ve never heard the story, you probably know the ending.

With seconds left in Super Bowl XXV in Tampa, Fla., Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood got plenty of leg into his field-goal attempt from 47 yards away, but the kick went wide right. The Bills lost to the New York Giants, 20-19, in the only Super Bowl ever decided by one point.

After an exhilarating 51-3 home victory over the Los Angeles Raiders in the AFC Championship Game, the Bills boarded planes to Tampa, where the Super Bowl would be played seven days later.

The game, on Jan. 27, 1991, was set against a backdrop of patriotic fervor and national security tensions due to the Persian Gulf War. Before the game, Whitney Houston sang a rousing version of the national anthem that was recorded and later released as a single, where it reached No. 20 on the Billboard pop chart. Military jets did a flyover above Tampa Stadium that left many of the players brushing away tears before kickoff.

Had the Bills found a way to win, Thurman Thomas would have been an easy choice as game MVP. In the biggest game in the franchise’s history, the future Hall of Famer ran for 135 yards on 15 carries and caught five passes for 55 more. New York’s Ottis Anderson, who at 34 was the NFL’s oldest running back, was voted MVP after running for 102 yards.

The Bills’ high-powered no-huddle offense had made them seven-point favorites. Giants head coach Bill Parcells came up with a game plan to use a stout defense and steady running game to control the clock and keep the Bills’ offense off the field. It worked. New York held the ball for 40:33 of the game’s 60 minutes.

“That was our whole plan,” Parcells said. “We wanted the ball; we didn’t want them to have it.”

For as much attention as Norwood’s kick has gotten over the years, his teammates point to their other shortcomings in the game. Missed tackles and lost opportunities plagued the Bills’ defense.

Midway through the second quarter, Bills defensive end Bruce Smith sacked the Giants’ Jeff Hostetler in the end zone for a safety while wrapping his hand around Hostetler’s wrist. The Giants quarterback almost miraculously held on to the ball, rather than fumbling.

On the opening drive of the third quarter, Giants receiver Mark Ingram made a 14-yard catch by breaking several tackles that kept alive a 75-yard drive that resulted in New York’s second touchdown.

“I think, defensively, we made a lot of mistakes by trying to overcompensate for certain things, and they hit us with some big plays,” Bills linebacker Darryl Talley said after the game.

Broadcaster Van Miller refers to Super Bowl XXV as “the one that got away.” It was the first of four consecutive trips to the NFL’s title game for the Bills, and was their best chance to win the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

“I don’t think we realized how much the [Super Bowl] experience would impact the rest of our lives,” Bruce Smith told The News. “It makes you a better person.”

Giants 20, Bills 19

Buffalo 3 9 0 7 — 19

N.Y. Giants 3 7 7 3 — 20

First Quarter

NYG—FG Bahr 28, 7:46.

Buf—FG Norwood 23, 9:09.

Second Quarter

Buf—D.Smith 1 run (Norwood kick), 2:30.

Buf—B. Smith safety, 6:33.

NYG—Baker 14 pass from Hostetler (Bahr kick), 14:35.

Third Quarter

NYG—Anderson 1 run (Bahr kick), 9:29.

Fourth Quarter

Buf—Thomas 31 run (Norwood kick), 0:08.

NYG—FG Bahr 21, 7:40.

A—73,813.

Quarterbacks have been the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft eight of the past 10 years and there is speculation that the Carolina Panthers are seriously considering Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert in the 2011 draft. Buffalo fans should be rooting for Gabbert to wow the Panthers in the next few months. If he goes to Carolina, the Bills would have a shot at Auburn defensive tackle Nick Fairley or Clemson pass-rushing defensive end Da’Quan Bowers.

• Pro football continues to lead baseball as America’s most popular spectator sport, according to the annual Harris Interactive Poll released this week.

  The NFL was No. 1 with 31 percent, followed by baseball (17 percent) and college football (12). Last year, the NFL’s lead over baseball was 35 percent to 16 percent.

  Twenty-five years ago, the No. 1 NFL’s lead over No. 2 baseball was 24 percent to 23 percent.

• Another example of parity in the NFL: The NFC has sent 10 different teams to the last 10 Super Bowls: St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, New York Giants, Arizona, New Orleans and Green Bay. Dallas owner Jerry Jones hopes his team extends that streak in Super Bowl XLVI. … The AFC has had only four different teams in the Super Bowl over the last 10 years: Oakland, New England, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.
• The NFL is offering parking for Super Bowl XLV at Six Flags, about one mile from Cowboys Stadium, for $71.40, plus tax and shipping. Free shuttle service is part of the deal, but it does not allow tailgating. A lot one-tenth of a mile from the stadium offered parking spots for $990, with rest room facilities, on-site security and the ability to tailgate. … There will be no cheerleaders for Super Bowl XLV. The Steelers don’t have any and the Packers won’t bring the Wisconsin small-college cheerleaders they have for regular-season home games. … Sports Illustrated cover jinx candidate this week’s cover subject is Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison: “Men of Steel — the fearsome James Harrison brings the hammer as Pittsburgh goes for its seventh title.”