COMMENTARY : These Bills Are Stacking Up Big Time

As stunning as the outcome of Super Bowl XXV seemed on that Sunday night in late January, it is even more remarkable when viewed from the perspective of a new season. That’s due less to the current performance of the New York Giants, reigning National Football League champions, than that of their opponents in Tampa Stadium. After the first two weeks of the 1991 campaign, it’s clear the Buffalo Bills are every bit the irrepressible force they appeared to be eight months ago.

What’s more, they may well be unstoppable. That was one of the league’s better defenses Jim Kelly & Co. shredded in the 52-34 romp over the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday. In fact, the Steelers had yielded fewer yards than any other NFL club, including the Giants, in 1990. At the conclusion of the onslaught at Rich Stadium, the Bills were credited with 537 net yards.

Nor did that rank as an extraordinary effort. Only the previous week, the Bills gained 583 yards in a 35-31 victory over the Miami Dolphins. Furthermore, in its two American Football Conference playoff tests preceding the Super Bowl, the Bills accounted for 497.5 yards and 47.5 points per game. Discounting the showdown against the Giants, they are averaging 528.8 yards and 45.5 points since the no-huddle offense kicked into high gear with the return of Kelly from a knee injury suffered at Giants Stadium in mid-December.

That makes what the Giants accomplished in Tampa on the evening of Jan. 27 all the more amazing. But don’t credit the celebrated Giants defenders for damming the flood. The 20-19 victory over the Bills was largely the work of the Giants’ offense, which not only scored the exact number of points necessary to win (no more and no less) but maintained possession of the football for more than 40 minutes. It appears to be the only adequate defense for what offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda has wrought in Buffalo.

Consider that while the Bills held the ball for only 19 minutes, 27 seconds in the Super Bowl, they still managed to gain 371 yards, or 19.25 yards per minute. Stretch that mark over 28:39 minutes, the average time of possession for the team in the 1990 season, and Buffalo would have amassed 547 yards, a figure surpassed only once in the 24 previous showcase games.

For preventing such a calamity, the Giants’ offensive line, Ottis Anderson and especially Jeff Hostetler deserve everlasting admiration. The team ran successfully, passed efficiently and, best of all, never relinquished the football other than on a punt or a kickoff. Perhaps the most significant play of the game was Hostetler’s safety after Bruce Smith clamped a hand on his right wrist during a second-quarter sack in the end zone. A fumble there might have represented a five-point swing, too much for the Giants to overcome.

It was the ultimate example of former Giant Coach Bill Parcells’ philosophy, that the most heinous of football crimes is the turnover. The Giants were guilty of such transgressions only 14 times in 1990, a record for a 16-game season. They followed that performance with a single turnover in the postseason, a fumble by Hostetler in the 31-3 conquest of the Chicago Bears. They played flawlessly against both the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo when anything less would have been fatal.

Not much has changed with the Giants despite the retirement of Parcells and the ascension of Ray Handley. The team still operates with such a small margin for error that it is not prepared to overcome self-induced adversity. In their opener against the 49ers, they didn’t commit any turnovers and won on a field goal in the final seconds, just as they had eight months earlier in the National Football Conference title game. But an interception and two fumbles doomed them Sunday versus the Los Angeles Rams.

Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect any team to execute as consistently as did the Giants in 1990. That team benefited from the presence of an experienced quarterback for most of the season, a brilliant if wounded tight end and a coach who harped on the matter almost without let-up. It takes nothing away from Hostetler, an exceptional athlete, to note that he lacks the precision of Phil Simms.

Handley may find -- sooner, rather than later -- that this group requires riskier play-calling than that with which Parcells was comfortable. The Giants ran the ball on eight of their first 10 first-down opportunities Sunday, which wouldn’t have been out of character for the former coach.

Meanwhile, the Bills continue to operate in the same fashion as they did late last season, with devastating results. The Bills’ defense, with All-Pro end Bruce Smith and nose tackle Jeff Wright recovering from injuries, has been even more vulnerable to the run than it was against the Giants in the championship game. But Marchibroda used the off-season to refine and improve the no-huddle offense, adding additional running plays and passing routes for dynamic Thurman Thomas.

Against Pittsburgh, the superb running back rushed for more than 100 yards for the fifth consecutive game (including the Super Bowl, where he was the outstanding player on the field) and Kelly threw six touchdown passes, including four to Don Beebe, who is not even a front-line receiver. Kelly is operating on a tender ankle after a preseason injury. If the high-powered Bills attack is a gimmick, a passing fancy such as the shotgun or a limiting strategy such as the run-and-shoot, someone better let Buffalo’s opponents in on the secret.

“This is not a fad,” Marchibroda declared at the outset of the season. “We are running the same plays out of it that we would run if we used a huddle. It’s solid, basic, fundamental football and it’s not going away.”

Neither are the Bills. In fact, they’re going to the Meadowlands Sunday but not to play the Giants. It will be the New York Jets’ turn to formulate a defense that can befuddle the no-huddle. A long line of future Buffalo opponents wishes them well.