01-17-2024, 04:51 PM
(01-17-2024, 04:38 PM)Wyche Wrote: ....and here's where Sam threatened to tell on them, pissing off Las Vegas.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/9785450/sam-wyche-nfl-tried-stop-no-huddle-1980s
Thank you. That is new information to me, and was not reported, to my knowledge, during the actual game. It's so weird hearing this full report. I did go "sports silent" for about a month immediately after the Super Bowl loss, it was so devastating, and living in northeastern Pennsylvania it was easy to avoid discussion of the Bengals. Apparently I had only part of the story.
For all I understood, the league had told the Bengals not to use the no-huddle and my memory is the Bengals didn't use the no-huddle in that championship game. All the talk was the league's announcement two hours before the game and the news (this was 1989; before social media, twitter, LOL) didn't have this information about Wyche making a threat regarding getting gamblers upset and the league pulling back. I did some searching and other written accounts seem to say the same thing, that the Bengals didn't use the no-huddle. And Levy said he might have done the Bengals a favor by having the Bengals play the game without "all that jazzed-up stuff." The Bengals played without the no-huddle and just steamrolled the Bills.
I'm also pretty sure the Bengals didn't use the no-huddle in the Super Bowl, although San Francisco also didn't substitute much on defense, but stayed with their base defense all game. It does seem, as your article and other articles pointed out, the Bengals were not restricted from the no-huddle in the Super Bowl, which was my faulty memory. I do know Wyche was very upset about Buffalo's effort to stop the no-huddle. As he said, "We'll remember that forever. Every time we play Buffalo." But apparently the 49ers didn't give the Bengals any advantage to use the no-huddle because they just didn't substitute defensively.
Anyway, thank you Wyche's Warrior for clearing up an over three-decade faulty take. It's so weird to find this additional information you share, like a Mandela effect. I guess with the name Wyche's Warrior, and the image you post, your the right person to know that history.
