SUPER BOWL NOTES : Bills’ First Offensive Series Takes On Giant Importance

Both the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills are placing extraordinary importance on Buffalo’s first offensive series in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

If Buffalo marches inexorably to a touchdown with its no-huddle offense the way it has on its first possession game after game this season, the tone would be set.

“It’s very essential to score right away,” Bills star receiver Andre Reed said as the teams met the massed media for the first time. “Everybody wants to start off and score, not so much to set the tempo but to find out what works.

“We want to exploit everything. We want to find out what we can exploit. Sometimes it surprises me the way it gets geared up.”

“If we stop them the first time,” Giants linebacker Pepper Johnson said, “it would benefit us a lot. They would not give up, but we would have confidence by slowing them down.

“If they get it rolling, by the time it’s the fifth play, we’re still wondering what happened on the first and second plays.”

In their regular-season meeting, a 17-13 Bills victory at Giants Stadium, New York drove for a score on its first possession. But the Bills came right back with two touchdowns.

Bills Coach Marv Levy apologized this morning for missing Tuesday’s mandatory press conference and explained that he was busy making his game plan for the Super Bowl.

“I started working on the game plan and I became immersed in it,” he said.

“I lost track of time somewhat,” Levy said. “By the time that I was aware that we were a little bit late, I felt we were behind in our preparations . . . and made the decision--maybe it isn’t one that was very popular--that our first priority was to prepare for the game.”

The NFL said Tuesday that Levy’s failure to appear at a news conference that day was “a clear breach of club obligations” but said any decision on whether he would be fined wouldn’t be made until after the Super Bowl.