DICK HELLER: Reich mastered the comeback

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By Dick Heller

The Buffalo Bills' No. 2 quarterback had just seen an interception returned 58 yards for a touchdown that put his team 32 points down in the third quarter when No. 3 quarterback Gale Gilbert trotted over and patted him on the back.

"He told me what I needed to hear," Frank Reich recalled after the game. "He said, 'Hey, you did it in college, so there's no reason why you can't do it here.'"

Gilbert had a good memory. In 1984, Reich replaced Maryland starter Stan Gelbaugh in the third quarter with the Terrapins trailing Miami 31-0 and ignited a furious rally that produced an implausible 42-40 victory at the Orange Bowl.

And now, unbelievably, he did it again.

On Jan. 3, 1993, career backup Reich, playing only because All-Pro Jim Kelly was out with a knee injury, threw four touchdown passes in the second half as the Bills erased that 35-3 deficit and stormed to a 41-38 victory in an AFC wild card playoff game before a mostly ecstatic throng of 75,141 at Buffalo's Rich Stadium.

What are the odds of the same quarterback engineering what then were the biggest rallies in both college and pro football history? When the word "comeback" appears in dictionaries, Reich's picture should be alongside.

He threw a touchdown pass to Don Beebe and three more to Andre Reed, and the Bills switched from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 to better contain Houston's Warren Moon, who completed 19 of 22 passes for 220 yards and four touchdowns in the first half. Slowly and surely, the Bills rallied to take a 38-35 lead before a field goal by Houston's Al Del Greco sent the game into overtime.

There was no way Reich and the Bills were going to lose this one, however. After an interception and a face-mask penalty put Buffalo at the Houston 20, Steve Christie delivered a 32-yard field goal three minutes into the extra period to let the Bills advance in the playoffs.

In fact, they advanced all the way to Super Bowl XXVII 28 days later, when Kelly returned and led, if that's the word, the Bills to the third of their record four consecutive defeats in the championship game. The Dallas Cowboys did the honors this time by a lopsided 52-17 margin after rolling to a 28-10 halftime advantage. But if Bills coach Marv Levy had put Reich back in the lineup, who knows what might have happened?

"Without question, this [victory over Houston] was the game of my life," Reich said afterward. "I was pretty emotional when I got to the locker room. I couldn't hold back the tears."