01/27/1991 • 5 views
Bills Lose Super Bowl XXV After Scott Norwood's Wide Right Field Goal
On January 27, 1991, Scott Norwood's 47-yard field goal attempt for the Buffalo Bills sailed wide right as time expired, handing the New York Giants a 20–19 victory in Super Bowl XXV and denying the Bills a championship.
The Giants took a 12–3 lead into halftime, but the Bills rallied in the second half. Buffalo tied the game late in the fourth quarter when kicker Scott Norwood converted a 21-yard field goal to make it 20–19. The Bills then marched 69 yards in eight plays to set up a final attempt. With eight seconds remaining, head coach Marv Levy sent Norwood onto the field for what proved to be a 47-yard kick. The attempt veered to the right of the goalposts, and the Giants celebrated the one-point victory.
Context mattered: the Giants’ strategy, orchestrated by head coach Bill Parcells and offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt, emphasized short, methodical gains and long, clock-consuming drives—most notably a 9-minute, 29-second drive in the third quarter that kept the Bills' offense off the field. The contest unfolded amid concerns about Hurricane Hugo earlier in the week, which had damaged the stadium; the game was played as scheduled despite a charged atmosphere.
Norwood had been the Bills’ primary kicker through the 1990 season and had converted numerous field goals during Buffalo’s run to the Super Bowl. The miss intensified scrutiny on the role of special teams in championship games, and Norwood became the focal point for both criticism and empathy. Teammates, coaches, and many analysts have noted over the years that the miss was a single moment in a game the Bills could have won in other ways—turnovers, third-down conversions, and red-zone execution were all factors in the outcome.
The result denied the Bills their first Super Bowl title. For the Giants, the victory capped a season defined by staunch defense and situational execution; defensive end Leonard Marshall and linebacker Lawrence Taylor were among the key contributors. For Buffalo, the defeat marked the first of four consecutive Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s, as the Bills reached the game again each of the next three seasons but failed to secure a championship.
Historically, the game has been analyzed in multiple dimensions: play-calling decisions, time management, and special-teams preparation. Norwood’s kick remains a touchstone moment in NFL lore, often summed up by the phrase “wide right,” which entered the sports lexicon as shorthand for narrowly missed, high-stakes kicks. While Norwood's miss is the most enduring image from Super Bowl XXV, historians and analysts emphasize that the final score reflected the cumulative impact of both teams’ performances across four quarters, not a single play alone.
In later years Norwood and others connected with the game have reflected on the pressures of that moment and the broader careers that followed. The game continues to be revisited in retrospectives examining how narrow margins and single plays can shape legacies and team histories in professional sports.