Death. Taxes. Bills. Certain things even Joe Montana can’t avoid.
Still, he’s luckier than the rest of the country. He doesn’t have to forget what he doesn’t remember. America wanted Montana and his Kansas City Chiefs to win Sunday’s AFC championship game in the worst way, but America got its worst nightmare instead.
The Buffalo Bills romped 30-13. They’re going to the big game again. Super Bowl XXVIII. Or Poltergeist IV. Take your pick. The Berlin Wall has been reduced to a ton of bricks. The Soviet Union is dissolved. Michael Jordan thinks he can play right field. The White House belongs to Bill and Hillary instead of George and Barbara.
But votes don’t count in football. Four more quarters of the Bills for your Super Bowl dollar. And no change. They’ve been to the last three, with exponentially inferior results.
`It’s difficult to get there once,” Montana praised, “let alone all the times they’ve been there. It says a lot about them.”
Montana, so often the unconscious quarterback, could not add to the legend Sunday. He could not even add up the score after his head slammed to the rock-hard surface of Rich Stadium early in the third quarter. For a few moments, everything went white, he said, and it wasn’t snow. The coast was clear, clearer than his vision. A half-hour after the slaughter, he was escorted to a podium by six bodyguards, better protection than the Chiefs provided when it mattered.
“I don’t remember feeling anything when I got hit,” Montana said, speaking deliberately but lucidly. “I just remember, right after that, grabbing my head. I had a real severe pain in my head. I don’t remember what had even happened, let alone what was going on. I was trying to pay attention, but I couldn’t even remember what the score was.”
The Bills did not win because Montana departed early. From the outset, he threw as though he were wearing all four Super Bowl rings on his right hand. He had little time to throw, and when he had room, he lacked radar. His passes floated and wobbled. His next tight spiral will be his first. He just couldn’t get a grip on the ball, a dilemma that didn’t jibe with what he saw of Jim Kelly. His Buffalo counterpart fired arrows into the air, defying wind and freezing rain.
“The ball was slick,” concurred Dave Krieg, who replaced Montana and led the Chiefs on a 90-yard touchdown drive that narrowed their problem to 20-13. At this juncture, from Kansas City head coach Marty Schottenheimer to offensive coordinator Paul Hackett, the verdict was unanimous. Montana would not return, regardless of the circumstances. He had that comeback look late in the first half, but he was intercepted on a pass that bounced off his receiver. It wasn’t Joe’s day, and the rest of the Chiefs performed accordingly.
Thurman Thomas, who started Super Bowl XXVI without his helmet, didn’t need pads or cleats Sunday. He scored once untouched and amassed 186 yards, in part because Buffalo’s offensive line opened holes designed for salt trucks. The Chiefs blew coverages only when they didn’t miss tackles. This was everything Bear fans wanted to know about whether Montana could lift an ordinary team on his Hall of Fame shoulders and will it toward a Super Bowl. His numbers, 9 of 23 for 125 yards, smelled of Jim Harbaugh under siege.
Yet Montana, because he is the greatest ever, seemed to accept blame. His last playoff defeat was as a 49er in San Francisco, where the Giants won 15-13 for the NFC championship. Montana was knocked out of that game, too. The Giants went on to hand Buffalo its first Super Bowl setback. Symmetry.
“I’m 37,” Montana said. “We had a pretty good year. I enjoyed it. This isn’t like business, where you can take a few years off and go back to your old job, your old desk.”
Dizzy if not still dazed, Montana was asked whether he would watch the 49ers play Dallas.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to pick it up on the plane,” he said. Then he left.
More Top Picks Best Laptops For Battery Life
Montana could not supply America another miracle Sunday, nor could he share his amnesia with those of us who needed it.