Former Bills players disappointed to be knocked out of record book but laud Vikings for historic comeback

When the Vikings were in the midst of making an epic comeback Saturday against Indianapolis, former Buffalo Bills wide receiver Steve Tasker was watching on television at Highmark Stadium. And he was doing some texting.

Tasker is on a text chain with a number of former teammates, many of whom also played for the Bills in a legendary comeback win over the Houston Oilers in the 1992 playoffs. Former Buffalo players from that season on the chain include Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Cornelius Bennett, Darryl Talley and Will Wolford, and most of them weren’t happy.

The Vikings set an NFL mark by coming from 33 points down to defeat the Colts 39-36 in overtime at U.S. Bank Stadium, while also clinching the NFC North. They knocked the Bills — who had stormed back from a 32-point deficit to defeat the Oilers 41-38 in overtime on Jan. 3, 1993, at Highmark Stadium, Buffalo’s longtime home — out of the record book.

“They were kind of disappointed,’’ Tasker said Sunday about some former Bills players. “They were kind of letting that be known. But what are you going to do?”

Tasker, a former special teams ace who is now a radio analyst in Buffalo, was at Highmark Stadium before the Bills defeated the Miami Dolphins 32-29 on Saturday night. Watching the game with him were Chris Mohr, the punter on that 1992 team, and some team executives.

“I’m a little sad,’’ Tasker said. “It’s kind of a bummer. But good for the Vikings. They deserve a big tip of the hat for hanging in there and playing hard. I’m happy for them. Kudos to them. It’s a heck of an accomplishment.”

That was a common opinion among Bills players from 1992. They were disappointed about losing their record, but complimentary of the Vikings for fighting their way back from a 33-0 halftime deficit.

“I watched it and I found it unbelievable,’’ said James Lofton, a Hall of Fame wide receiver who saw the game on NFL Network in a California hotel room while preparing to serve as a CBS analyst for Sunday’s game between Tennessee and the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium. “The Vikings just never stopped competing and they shut (the Colts down) in the second half.”

Lofton, though, added that “sometimes a record isn’t always what it seems to be since we had that record in the playoffs.” Lofton pointed to the do-or-die nature of a playoff game, and that the Oilers were a far better team than Colts (4-9-1), who are playing out the string. But he did not want to say flat out that the Bills had the better comeback.

“It’s a better comeback if you live in Western New York, but if you’re in Minnesota, you love what the Vikings just did,” Lofton said.

Former Bills receiver Don Beebe didn’t see the first half of Minnesota’s stunning win because he was watching his niece play in a high school basketball game in suburban Chicago, where he lives. When the Vikings (11-3) began to storm back in the second half, he got wind of it.

“I had friends started texting me and saying, ‘Hey, the record is about to get beat,’ ’’ Beebe said. “So my wife (Diana) put it on her phone and we watched the last few minutes of regulation and then the overtime.”

Beebe agreed with Lofton that one can’t fully compare a regular-season game to a playoff game, and so did Tasker. But Beebe, who caught a 38-yard touchdown pass from Frank Reich in the game in which the Bills came back from a 35-3 deficit early in the third quarter, does have a link to the Vikings that provided him with some mixed feelings.

Beebe’s son, Chad Beebe, was a Minnesota wide receiver from 2018-21, and family members got to know Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. The quarterback and the receiver both have the same agent in Mike McCartney.

“I was hoping they wouldn’t get the record for obvious reasons, but secondly on the flip side of that, I was really happy for Kirk,” Beebe said. “I’m a big Kirk fan. I am really happy that Kirk now has his name as the quarterback with the greatest comeback of all time even though he took it away from my good friend Frank Reich.”

Reich was the backup that season for the Bills, but started the playoff game due to Kelly being out with a knee injury. Interestingly, Reich was Indianapolis’ coach for the first nine games this season before being fired and replaced by Jeff Saturday.

“Not only did (the Colts) kick him out, but they also took away from a record from Frank,’’ Beebe said. “So they took a lot away from Frank this year.”

The Vikings on Saturday outscored the Colts 39-3 after halftime, and Greg Joseph secured the win with a 40-yard field goal with three seconds remaining in overtime. In addition to breaking the NFL record for biggest comeback win, they shattered the team mark that had been set in 1977 against San Francisco at Metropolitan Stadium. The Vikings came back from a 24-0 deficit to win on a last-minute, 69-yard touchdown pass from Tommy Kramer to Sammy White. Both Kramer and White were at Saturday’s game.

Cousins was 4 when the Bills made their huge comeback. But he said he knows a lot about that game from seeing footage on NFL Network.

“Walking off the field, when somebody said it was the largest comeback, I thought of Frank Reich (and former Houston quarterback) Warren Moon,’’ said Cousins, who threw for a career-high 460 yards against the Colts, including having a second half in which he threw for 413 yards and all four of his touchdowns.

Reich also threw all four of his touchdown passes in the second half in that epic Bills’ playoff win, the other three going to Reed. Beebe said Reich has people remind him every day about that game, and he still hears about it plenty himself.

Tasker also gets regularly reminded about that game from Bills fans. He figures there will be similar recollections in Minnesota, even if some fans end up stretching the truth.

“There were 70,000 people in the stands, and I joke that I’ve met 1.2 million people who say they were there that day,’’ Tasker said. “And I’m sure Vikings fans will go through the same thing. That’s one of those games where as a fan of that team, you’ll wear it as a badge of honor if you were there and witnessed it.”

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