ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Doug Flutie can't remember what he said Monday when Wade Phillips, his coach, told him he was being sent to the bench. It was too shocking. But Flutie clearly remembers what he was thinking.
"It was exactly what happened (11 years ago) with the Patriots," he said.The words came. Flutie is not over the hurt, and he'll stop midway through a sentence and ask, "Do you think this would have happened if I was 6-1?" and then go on to say his first words to his replacement, Rob Johnson, were, "Just win a damn (Super Bowl) ring."
But then he'll go back 11 years when former Patriots coach Raymond Berry shocked him and the team's fans by naming Tony Eason, still hurt and still unable to throw well, as the starter in New England's last game of the 1988 season, against a poor Denver team, a game New England had to win to make the playoffs.
"What bothers me about this is that I felt the decision back then was made because Tony was a first-rounder, Tony was making a million-two and I was making a hundred grand, and if I went into that offseason as a free agent and a starter, they were going to have to pay me what Tony made," said Flutie. "So they had to make a decision then . . . and do it. And I feel like I got caught in the middle of that."
And here in Buffalo, Johnson makes $5 million a year and Flutie about $4.4 million, an expensive scenario that clearly can't last long.
"It's a tough decision certainly," said Phillips. "I studied the film. It wasn't a haphazard thing. I talked to our coaches and I think it gives us the best opportunity to win the game."
The Bills already have a defense good enough to win the Super Bowl but scoring has been the bane of the Bills for much of the second half of the season. If the Bills can score, Phillips believes, Buffalo is good enough to win the Super Bowl.
Still benching starting quarterbacks on the eve of the playoffs just isn't done in the NFL. As Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher put it, "I never second-guess a coach's decision, but from a standpoint of being surprised, yes, I'm very surprised."
Says Flutie, "Everybody has different ways of getting it done. Rob may go downtown more often and hit some big plays. It doesn't faze me that I hit somebody on a slant and he goes 80 yards for a touchdown or I throw the long ball and he outruns a guy for a touchdown.
"I've thrown three interceptions on the last play of the game trying just to throw one up. I run for first downs and that has nothing to do with quarterback efficiency ratings. I avoid sacks and throw the ball away and all that does is hurt my percentage. But they're the little things that help win games."
Johnson remains diplomatic. "Everyone has fears and I'm sure I'll be nervous," said Johnson, who was 24 of 32 for 287 yards and 2 TDs against the Colts. "but you just have to deal with it. You just have to overcome it."
Johnson said Phillips told him Monday "that he thought with me that we had the best chance of winning, the team . . .That was good enough for me."
The Bills' thinking is that NFL defensive coordinators have caught up to Flutie. Defenses often bring eight men up close to the line and dare Flutie to beat them with his passing.
Meanwhile Reed and Flutie are in a deep freeze, because Reed believes Flutie does not throw him the ball enough and because Reed believed that Flutie went to the coaches two weeks ago and had Reed removed from the Patriots game.
And the domino effect builds, affecting the Bills' running as well, because teams stack the line of scrimmage, daring Flutie to beat them with his arm.
Flutie says he was told by Phillips before the Colts game that he would be rested to ensure that he would be at full speed for the playoffs. " 'No matter what Rob does, you're the guy.' Wade said that. But I've been there before. I've seen how it works. I didn't really anticipate it happening, and I thought it was my own paranoia. . . . (But) Wade came to me and said it was his decision and I have to believe that," explained Flutie."
And now, one of the gutsiest decisions ever made by an NFL coach has been made, and in Nashville, Wade Phillips, Rob Johnson and Doug Flutie will learn its consequences. For sure, football life never will be the same for the three of them.