If there is a “bad call” in a game we most often bring to mind the officials making it. Not always, we have seen some boneheaded decisions by coaches that rank with any of the bad calls officials have made.
One of the worst was done even before kickoff. In the 1999 season, Doug Flute was the starting quarterback for the Buffalo Bills and in his 15 starts the Bills had clinched a playoff berth while winning ten games. In a meaningless last game of the season, playing an Indianapolis Colts team that had nothing to play for, Buffalo Head Coach Wade Phillips decided to start backup Rob Johson in place of Flutie.
Seemed a logical call, rest your starting quarterback in a meaningless game and protect him from an injury before entering the postseason. But, that seemingly right call went south when Johnson led the defensive oriented Bills to 31 points in a romp win over the skeleton crew the Colts were using that day. The 31-6 victory so impressed his head coach that Phillips made the controversial decision to bench his season starter and give the starting assignment for the playoff opener in Tennessee to Johnson.
From my office I saw the mistake as massive. I had numbers to show why the Bills got the easy win against the Colts and it had little to do with what would happen the next week. Flutie was also popular among his teammates, and the decision sent an uneasiness throughout the Bills roster.
Still, the coach and quarterback almost got away with it, until God intervened with his first miracle since the 1969 New York Mets. The Bills converted a field goal with 16 seconds left on the clock to inch to a one-point lead, 16-15. The ensuing pooch kick was fielded by Lorenzo Neal, who lateralled it to Frank Whycheck, and when the Buffalo defenders descended on him, he passed the ball across the field to Frank Wycheck, who took the backward pass to the house and a 22-16 Tennessee victory.
The play is remembered as the Music City Miracle and it allowed the Titans that year to advance all the way to Super Bowl XXXIV, where they fell inches short in a loss to Kurt Warner and his St. Louis Rams squad.