As the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to start a backup quarterback in Super Bowl LII, New York Giants fans are reminded of a similar situation 27 years ago.
Fans of the New York Giants have seen this Super Bowl before. A team races out to a great record, the starting quarterback gets hurt before the playoffs and the backup does just enough to reach the Big Game against a future Hall of Fame quarterback.
In 1990, the G-Men, like this year’s Philadelphia Eagles, won the NFC East with a 13-3 record. The team had a dominant defense that featured linebacker, Lawrence Taylor, and yielded just 13 points a game during the regular season. New York opened the season with 10-straight victories and held their opponents to single-digits in half of them.
But then, things started turning against the Giants. They lost three out of four games and starting quarterback, Phil Simms, broke his leg. Enter William Jeffrey Hostetler, a 29-year old with just two career NFL starts to that point.
After a pair of three-point road wins to close out the season, the Giants’ defense really stepped things up in the playoffs. They allowed a total of 16 points to the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers (a combined 25-7 en route to winning their respective divisions).
In the Super Bowl, New York faced a high-powered Buffalo Bills offense that featured superstars Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. While the Giants eked out a 15-13 victory over Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Conference Game, the Bills were back east, thrashing the 12-4 Los Angeles Raiders, 51-3.
New York’s defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick (you may have heard of him) came up with a game plan to shut down Buffalo’s attack by allowing Thomas to “get his yards.” The key was to limit the damage Kelly could do through the air — and it worked. The Bills only had 212 passing yards, partly because of the Giants defensive strategy and partly because New York’s offense possessed the ball for over 40 minutes.
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The game was tight throughout; there were five lead changes and a sixth nearly occurred, but for Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt that famously sailed wide right as time expired. The Giants had won their franchise’s second Super Bowl, 20-19.