How the Buffalo Bills pulled off the greatest comeback in NFL history

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Steve Christie doesn’t turn off blowout football games as early as he used to.

Even when some leads seem insurmountable, the former Buffalo Bills kicker will leave the TV on and see how it ends. He’s seen too much, experienced the adulation that comes from winning the impossible.

“Because you never know, right? You just never know,” Christie said.

The Bills trailed the Houston Oilers 35-3 in the third quarter of a wild-card playoff game in the 1992 postseason before storming all the way back. Christie kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime to cap the biggest comeback in NFL history, a feat even the players on the field didn’t think was possible. Add in that the Bills were quarterbacked by a backup in Frank Reich, and the record is that much more impressive.

The Bills and Oilers, who moved to Nashville in 1996 and became the Titans in 1999, had met in the finale of the 1992 regular season with the Oilers winning, 27-3 in Houston. Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly injured his knee in the game, thrusting Reich into the starting role. In 1984 during his college career at Maryland, Reich led the biggest comeback in NCAA history at the time vs. Miami (31-point deficit) after coming in as the backup in the second half.

These Bills would advance all the way to Super Bowl XXVII and would lose their third of four straight Super Bowl appearances.

Decades later, the Bills are trying to make it back. Monday night they will face off against the Tennessee Titans (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN) for a fourth straight season. But the history between those two teams goes far beyond that.

What led to that great comeback on Jan. 3, 1993 at Rich Stadium? How did the Bills hang in despite seemingly insurmountable odds?

“If we went down, we’d go down fighting,” former Bills coach Marv Levy said. “I just was immersed in the game itself. What should we do next? And the game isn’t over. [New York Yankees catcher] Yogi Berra once said, ‘It’s…