Hostetler Shows What Burns Within

Some of the New York Giants couldn’t watch as their fate passed before their eyes. They hid their faces like children at a horror movie. But Jeff Hostetler watched.

It was their game and it was his career and he wanted to watch that kick every last one of its 42 yards off Matt Bahr’s shoe.

When it went through the uprights in front of the big scoreboard clock showing all zeroes, the Giants had won the game, 15-13, and they had ended the marvelous reign of the San Francisco 49ers and the legendary Joe Montana. The Giants had won one of the most dramatic championship games of all time, in any sport.

And the Giants are going to the Super Bowl.

They’re going with Jeff Hostetler at quarterback, and isn’t that some stuff!

It was one of the more implausible stories in football. No true backup quarterback has ever taken his team to the Super Bowl until this bony-faced fellow with the thin mustache, the pale blue eyes and -- apparently -- a whole lot of grit that just had to be seen to be appreciated.

“I mean,” Hostetler stammered in the din of the locker room, “everybody can make their own history.”

As long as it took him, he may as well have been making “The History of Western Civilization” in longhand. It took seven years as a backup to get any kind of a chance and nothing in sports offers quite the opportunity for frustration as being a backup quarterback. Even a backup catcher gets to show what he can do; even a backup goalie gets to show what he can do so that another team might want him.

For the first four years, this guy did nothing at all. For the next two, he did next to nothing.

And now he’s going to the Super Bowl. This is a guy who studied Joe Montana, tried to copy him, and sat behind Phil Simms, whose style is not at all like Hostetler’s. Maybe he didn’t stop thinking his chance would come, as he said. “I never believed it would be at this magnitude when it did come,” he said.

Of course, he said, he didn’t see the game as a man-to-man with Montana, the paragon of quarterbacks, but that was what it had to be. Hostetler completed 15 of 27 passes for 176 yards, and he didn’t throw a touchdown pass. He didn’t throw an interception, either, or fumble or make the mistake that would cause his team to lose.

In the end, he did what Montana could not: Jeff Hostetler quarterbacked the winning team in the National Football Conference championship game.

The Giants still don’t have a touchdown against the 49ers in eight quarters this season, but Sunday Hostetler was the holder on five field goals. The last hold was, well, he said, “it’s been my worst fear.”

Not quite the worst fear; that came in the fourth quarter with the Giants trailing, 13-9, and San Francisco nose tackle, Jim Burt, a former Giant, crashed his helmet on Hostetler’s left knee. Hostetler was helped to the sideline and Matt Cavanaugh was in the game, the backup to the backup. The knee hurt like anything, but Hostetler was more upset. He thought the opportunity he had waited for was gone.

He tested the knee on the sideline and decided, “at that point of the season, at that point of the game, at that point of my career, I wasn’t coming out,” Hostetler explained later, his knee wrapped in ice.

“Bill,” he said to Coach Bill Parcells, “I’m going.”

“Well,” Coach Bill Parcells explained, “y’know, players play.”

Then the courage Hostetler had shown for teammates’ eyes was a value.

This is a team where defense and not making mistakes carries the greatest premium, and this game -- these two teams -- was their prototype. “You guys just saw a hell of a game,” he said, in case somebody hadn’t noticed.

“We hit their guy (Montana); they hit ours. Both went down. That’s championship football.”

Hostetler came back after one series and got the Giants, however unsteadily, to the San Francisco 21, where Bahr kicked a 38-yard field goal to cut the 49ers’ lead to 13-12.

The Giants needed another chance and the defense got it for them, Eric Howard forcing a fumble. They recovered on their own 43. Hostetler passed for 19 yards to Mark Bavaro and the Giants were down to the 49ers’ 38. After a sweep lost yardage Hostetler rolled to the right and passed complete to Stephen Baker for 13 yards. The Giants were down to the 29 and Hostetler could feel the pulse of the team in the huddle.

It was a matter of time: Kill off a minute, don’t lose the ball and then kick for it. “We all said, ‘This is it,’ ” he said. Or something like that. “I can’t remember,” he said. “In the huddle -- it was -- everybody was focused. It was intense. You could tell; you could just tell. There was a look, a feeling in the huddle, you could just sense it.”

And so it was. This is a quarterback who begged to be traded. “Jeff, the person he is just won’t allow himself to quit,” said Bart Oates, a lawyer as well as a center. “I’ve never been in his situation; I’ve always played. I don’t know how he does it, watching (while) maybe his skills are decaying.

“I know he’s been doing it for the last five weeks, and I know a lot of guys would have had a knee blown out by the hit he took.”

Last week he had a big game against the Chicago Bears to get the Giants to this game. But he had to do it again to be meaningful. Sunday, he had his encore. While Simms paced the sideline with a walking cast, Hostetler enabled the Giants to win the NFC Championship. He didn’t lose his poise or the football.

And now he’s made his own history.

Hostetler is one of one. “You guys have never seen me play, so you can’t say I can’t do it,” he said.