Back Again

In 1991, a year after losing pro football's championship game by one kick, Buffalo's football team did the hardest thing in the sport. It went back.

The quarterback ran the no-huddle K-Gun and threw 33 touchdown passes. The running back gained more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage and was named the league's Most Valuable Player. Two receivers went over 1,000 yards, one of them at age 35. The team won thirteen games, beat Kansas City and Denver in January, and headed to Minneapolis for a second straight trip to the big game.

Back Again tells the 1991 season game by game: a six-touchdown afternoon against Pittsburgh, a 220-yard Monday night, the first snow against New England, overtime in the Los Angeles Coliseum, a 10-7 conference title won by a tipped pass, and a missing helmet under the Metrodome roof.

Every game chapter has the score, the crowd, the weather and the story, a full-page chart drawn from the box score, and Ray's Take, a few lines of opinion from a lifelong fan from Buffalo's Old First Ward. At the back you'll find fifty bar-trivia questions (four quarters and an overtime) and a complete stats appendix.

A warm, funny, fact-checked holiday gift for anyone who remembers the early-'90s teams that made Orchard Park the loudest place in football.