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'68 Colts deserve goat horns more than Norwood does

Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal would have given the Buffalo Bills a win over the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV if it hadn't sailed wide right. A recent Internet poll named Norwood the
ANNETTE LEIN
Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal would have given the Buffalo Bills a win over the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV if it hadn't sailed wide right. A recent Internet poll named Norwood the"biggest goat in NFL history."

By Bob Matthews
Democrat and Chronicle

(Sunday, February 3, 2002) -- Poor Scott Norwood.

Perhaps -- 20 years from now -- people will have cut him some slack and taken him off the hook for missing the 47-yard field-goal attempt that would have made the Buffalo Bills the winners of Super Bowl XXV.

Apparently it took that long for the 1968 Baltimore Colts to fade from the collective memories of football fans.

ESPN.com this week asked readers, "Who is the biggest goat in NFL history?"

Norwood was among the six nominees provided. That was logical. And it was no surprise that he was the "winner". His kick was on the final play and the game was played only 11 years ago.

But Norwood's margin of "victory" was a shocker:

1. Norwood 48.8 percent.

2. Neil O'Donnell 17.3 percent (he threw three interceptions in the second half in Pittsburgh's 27-17 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl XXX).

3. Marv Levy 14.8 percent (his Bills lost four straight Super Bowls by a combined score of 139-43).

4. The 1968 Baltimore Colts 8.8 percent.

5. Jackie Smith 7.7 percent (he dropped a sure Roger Staubach TD pass in the end zone, forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal in a 35-31 loss to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XIII).

6. Bud Grant 2.3 percent (his Minnesota Vikings were 0-4 in Super Bowls by a combined score of 98-37).

Don Shula's Colts were 15-1 and had outscored opponents 460-148 entering Super Bowl III. They were favored by 171/2 points over the New York Jets, who had the third-best record in the supposedly inferior AFL.

Green Bay had crushed Kansas City and Oakland by a combined 68-24 in the first two Super Bowls and most experts and fans expected more of the same.

Jets quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory on the Thursday before the Super Bowl and he delivered the upset. Colts quarterback Earl Morrall threw three first-half interceptions as the Jets rolled to a 16-0 lead before Johnny Unitas came off the bench with a sore elbow and guided his team to a late fourth-quarter TD.

The Colts had most of the big names (including Bubba Smith, Billy Ray Smith, Fred Miller, Mike Curtis, Bob Boyd and Lenny Lyles on defense and NFL MVP Morrall, John Mackey, Tom Matte and Willie Richardson on offense) but the Jets made most of the big plays.

Norwood had kicked a first-quarter field goal to give Buffalo an early 3-3 tie with the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV. His potential game-winning kick in the final seconds slid wide right by a slim margin. It wasn't an impossible chore but it was no gimme. He was only 6 of 10 from beyond 40 yards in the 1990 regular season.

I would have made the Colts my No. 1 pick. They didn't have one goat. They had an entire herd.

Newest Rochester Americans Hall of Famer Bob Mongrain was one of my all-time favorite Amerks. He was a dangerous AHL scorer (339 points in 322 games), played aggressively on both ends of the ice and was a fine skater. I never understood why some players of similar size who produced less at this level than Mongrain were promoted to Buffalo while he was stuck here.

During Mongrain's five seasons with Rochester (1979-80 through 1983-84), the NHL had only 21 teams -- nine fewer than today. Had he been born 15 years later, I believe he would have appeared in at least 810 NHL games instead of 81.

How much stronger is the NBA's Western Conference than the Eastern Conference?

I'd take five of the West's reserves headed to the Feb. 10 All-Star Game (Chris Webber, Karl Malone, Dirk Nowitzki, Gary Payton and Steve Nash) over the East's five starters (Vince Carter, Antoine Walker, Dikembe Mutombo, Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson).

This probably is the make-or-break season for the af2 in Rochester, which might help explain why the league office this week assigned a batch of solid beefy linemen to the second-year Brigade. Rochester has been regarded as a potential key city for the indoor football league and it wouldn't look good if the Brigade were to fold after this year.

This is the 70th anniversary of Detroit's NHL team becoming the Red Wings. In the summer of 1932, industrialist James Norris purchased Detroit's six-year-old team and renamed it the "Red Wings". The team's previous nicknames were the Cougars and Falcons.

If Norris had taken the name five years earlier, Rochester's Triple-A team wouldn't be called the Red Wings today.

One of the criteria for Rochester's name-the-team contest in 1928 was that it would be unique in pro sports. Frank Spofford was the first of three people to suggest the winning name "Red Wings" and was designated winner of the contest. He won $50 and a season pass.

No surprise, but Pro Football Weekly's list of the "NFL's 50 Top Players in 2001" did not include a single Buffalo Bill.

The top 10 (based 50-50 on performance and value to their teams) were Marshall Faulk (St. Louis), Kurt Warner (St. Louis), Brett Favre (Green Bay), Michael Strahan (New York Giants), Curtis Martin (New York Jets), Jeff Garcia (San Francisco), Brian Urlacher (Chicago), Jerome Bettis (Pittsburgh), Rich Gannon (Oakland) and Aeneas Williams (St. Louis).

The 161-day 2002 Finger Lakes Race Track live thoroughbred season begins Saturday, April 13. The best news for fans is that FLRT will run only four live programs per week until the week of May 19. That is a strategic move designed to create fuller fields and expanded cards.

In recent years, FLRT had too many fields with six or fewer starters and couldn't conduct 10- or 11-race programs due to a shortage of horses. Small fields hurt attendance and the betting handle because competing tracks offer consistently larger fields and bigger payoffs.

The problem with small fields at FLRT is compounded by the fact that the two winningest trainers are father and son and more than occasionally each have at least one horse in the same race. The Ferraros are competitive and enjoy beating each other but there is a perception that any "insider information" provides an edge and makes it tougher for bettors to make a profit.

Historical flashback: The 1980 gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic hockey team had a reunion Friday in Los Angeles in conjunction with the NHL All-Star Game. Three players on that team went on to play with the AHL Rochester Americans:

John Harrington (1979-80 season) -- 4 goals and 4 assists in 8 games.

Rob McClanahan (1980-81) -- 9 goals and 13 assists in 22 games.

Eric Strobel (1979-80 season) -- 4 goals and 4 assists in 13 games.

The Houston Texans are targeting OT Tony Boselli for the No. 1 pick in the expansion draft Feb. 18 which suggests they plan to select a quarterback (probably David Carr) No. 1 overall in the college draft.

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