FANTASTIC FOUR! BILLS ALL ALONE AMONG ALL-TIMERS

Last year, Sean Sharkey was able to limp off the bench in Super Bowl XXXIII in time to help the Malverne Bills grab a share of history. This time, Sharkey sprinted the Bills right into Nassau County Touch Football League immortality.

Sharkey ran 10 yards for the game-winning touchdown with seven seconds left in the first overtime as the Bills reached the rarest of rarefied air by edging the Hempstead Tigers, 12-6, in Super Bowl XXXIV Dec. 13 at John Burns Park, to become the first team in the 46-year history of the NCTFL to win four straight championships. The Merrick Mavericks (1994-96) and Manhasset Steelers (1997-99) had previously won three in a row.

“No team has ever done this—I’m so proud of these guys,” said Bills assistant coach Fred Becker, who has been with the Bills as a player or a coach for 43 years. “We’ve got a solid core here and I just think—I don’t know, it’s destiny.”

It’s also the very definition of another seven-letter word ending in “y”—dynasty.

The record-setting Super Bowl win also caps a franchise-defining 10-year span for the Bills, whose five championships this decade (they also won in 2001) is another NCTFL record. The Bills made seven Super Bowl appearances overall (losing in 2002 and 2003), tied for second-most in a decade-long span with the Merrick Mavericks of the 1990s. (The Bills of the 1980s reached eight Super Bowls)

The historic victory was an appropriately grinding one for the Bills, whose four Super Bowl wins have been by a combined 21 points and whose dynasty has been marked more by resiliency than dominance—not to mention challenging weather conditions in the Super Bowl.

“We made history being the only team to ever win four consecutive championships, and none of them came easy,” Bills coach Tom Feliney said. “Each one was a hard-fought game against a worthy opponent. I guess you could say that we’re battle-tested.”

Still, even by the Bills’ standards, the fourth championship was a particularly taxing one. The Bills, just as they did the previous three years, endured a spate of injuries that left them sputtering at the end of the regular season. But these Bills were especially snake-bitten as the likes of WR Bruno Gagliotta and WR/DB Carl Morris suffered season-ending injuries and WR/DB Darnel Brinkley (collarbone), safety Connie Kazis (hip), LB Anthony Zito (groin) and DE Derek Broadnax (ankle) battled nagging ailments that limited them on the field. The weakened Bills were outscored 53-18 in going just 2-2-1 in the second half of the campaign.

But like they did in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the Bills regrouped during their first-round bye and emerged in the playoffs a healthier and more resourceful team. The Bills beat the Lions in the Division I semifinals 27-13—easily their most lopsided postseason win of their championship reign—to advance to what turned out to be their most memorable and riveting Super Bowl yet.

In 2006, QB Shawn Harris threw the go-ahead TD pass in the fourth quarter as the Bills edged the Westbury Haulers, 21-19, at sunny Eisenhower Park. In a rematch against the Haulers in 2007, snow and freezing rain pelted John Burns Park as the Bills eked out a 7-0 win when backup QB Pete Annarumma relieved Harris and threw a TD pass to HB Sean Treasure in the final minute of the fourth quarter.

Last year, the Super Bowl was played in a steady rain and went into overtime for just the third time ever—and the first time since 1974—before Sharkey’s TD pass to Gagliotta with 1:30 left in the first overtime capped the longest title game ever and gave the Bills a 13-7 win over the Levittown Lions, who entered the Super Bowl on a nine-game winning streak.

So what did the Bills do this year? Go even deeper into overtime in an increasingly torrential downpour that left giant puddles in the parking lots surrounding John Burns Park to beat the Tigers, who entered the game 11-0.

“Winning games by such small amounts, small margins, really says a lot for the character of the team,” Kazis said. “We count on the guys next to us, everyone around us. We all believe, when the game’s on the line, no one should win but us.”

“Going into the playoffs, we were pretty beat up, but we got some of our core guys back and they rallied each other all week leading up to the Lions game,” Feliney said. “We had a little momentum heading into the Super Bowl, but once again, it was our core guys who stepped up when they were needed most and made the plays.”

Sharkey, who suffered a torn hamstring on the second play of Super Bowl XXXIII and remained on the sidelines until Feliney sent him in to re-ignite a stalled offense late in the fourth quarter, took every snap this year and proved more dangerous with his legs (eight carries for 79 yards and two TDs) than his right arm (20-for-35, 244 yards, three interceptions) as he found the elements almost as difficult to overcome as last year’s injury.

Sharkey opened and closed the game by leading impressive 80-yard scoring drives (his 18-yard TD run capped the initial six-play march), but on the nine possessions in between TDs, the Bills collected just three first downs and 117 total yards. Three of those drives ended with interceptions, two more ended with the Bills failing on a fourth-down conversion, one ended on a quick kick on third down by Sharkey and another ended when Sharkey was sacked trying to salvage an aborted field goal attempt with less than two minutes left in regulation.

“This year, I’d say 10 times more than last year, weather was an issue,” Sharkey said. “I had three or four balls that slipped out of my hands, a couple dropped passes. We could still move the ball a little bit but this weather just made things difficult.”

Sharkey threw his final interception on the Bills’ second play of overtime, and it appeared he might have all winter to lament what might have been four plays later, when Butler found a wide-open Ashun Jackson—who set up the drive by picking off Sharkey—in the end zone for an apparent 24-yard TD pass. But Jackson, who had all five of his catches for 71 yards in the second half and overtime, was called for offensive pass interference, the Tigers’ drive stalled and the Bills took over on downs at their own 20.

“[When] we had the ball in the overtime, I felt like we had the momentum,” Tigers coach Reggie Johns said. “Tough call on Ashun over there.”

The Bills gained just two yards on the first two plays, but Sharkey found an open Wooden over the middle for a gain of 27 yards—more yards than the Bills had gained on any of their preceding nine drives—for a first down just shy of midfield. Two scrambles by Sharkey and a five-yard penalty on the Bills set up a 3rd-and-15 at the Tigers’ 46-yard-line, but Sharkey scrambled out of trouble and again found his favorite target Wooden (six catches for 120 yards) for a 25-yard gain that gave the Bills another first down at the Tigers’ 21-yard-line.

Two plays later, on 3rd-and-9 from the 10, Sharkey hoped to find Wooden again in the left corner of the end zone. Wooden was draped, though, as were secondary targets Chris Terry and Gus Cheliotis, so Sharkey once again took off running. A block by Wooden inside the five-yard-line opened up just enough real estate for Sharkey, who appeared to be touched by a hand as he got inside the one-yard-line, where the Bills would have had a first down as the second overtime began.

But as soon as the officials signaled touchdown, the Bills—led by Feliney—ran off their sideline through the driving rain and into the end zone, where they mobbed Sharkey as he held both hands aloft.

For the Tigers, it was a disappointing end to one of the finest debut seasons ever. “You’ve just got to tip your hats to the Bills, they pulled it out at the end and took care of what they needed to take care of,” Johns said. “We definitely had a great year, I’m proud of the effort that the players put in—the practice and all the preparation—but this stings a little bit. But I’ve got to be proud of our guys and what we did this year, definitely.”

As for the Bills, while Sharkey was on the receiving end of the post-game celebration, he and his teammates wasted little time after emerging from the scrum in crediting their defense for once again quieting one of the league’s most potent offenses in the Super Bowl.

Last year, the Bills clamped down on the Lions, who led Division I with 252 points in the regular season. The Tigers, meanwhile, scored 199 points in 10 regular season games but scored at least two touchdowns in eight straight games between weeks two and nine.

Tigers QB Rocky Butler, who won multiple Outback Player of the Week awards during the regular season and racked up more than 500 yards of total offense in the Tigers’ semifinal win over the Haulers, was held to less than half that total in the Super Bowl. Butler was 24-of-35 passing for 174 yards, one touchdown and one interception while rushing four times for 27 yards.

“What we wanted from the beginning was to keep him in the pocket all game and make him throw from the back foot and not let him scramble,” Broadnax said.

The Tigers went three-and-out on seven of their 12 possessions and turned the ball over on downs twice more. The Tigers’ longest play from scrimmage was a harmless 35-yard pass from Butler to Jackson as time expired in regulation. They had just three first downs—none until the fourth quarter—and had to drive just 12 yards for their lone score. DB Casey Mack picked Sharkey off late in the first quarter and Butler’s one-yard TD pass to WR Lester Samuel (a team-high seven catches for 36 yards) on the first play of the second quarter tied the game at 6-6.

“We have a great defense—probably some of the best players in this league play on our defense,” Sharkey said. “Antwan Wooden, I would put him in the top three or four football players in this entire league. He’s got amazing speed, he’s smart, he’s quick, he knows exactly what’s going on. Anthony Zito plays a great linebacker and Connie has been hurt for a while but he’s amazing—one of the smartest football players I’ve seen out here.”

Zito earned defensive MVP honors by recording two sacks and racking up six tags. Three other players also had six tags (Kazis, Kevin Logan and Darnel Brinkley) while Kazis had an interception and Logan had a sack. Wooden added five tags.

That the contributions were so spread out on both sides of the ball (four players had multiple catches on offense) served as an appropriate symbol of the teamwork and unity that has been the hallmark of the Bills’ championship run.

“There’s a lot of love and togetherness on this team,” Feliney said. “Some of the players have been together for a long time, but it doesn’t matter if you’re here 10 years or one—they play as a team and they play for each other. To have them make history together, I’m so proud to be their coach.”

“I have never been on a team with more unselfish individuals,” Zito said. “I think we all really play for each other, and that’s the kind of commitment you have to have together to make a run at achieving anything four times in a row. I don’t care if it’s professional football or a league like this. To win something four times in a row is really a tribute to the work that we put in.”

And the work is not done yet. There were no bold declarations from the Bills about keeping the run going in 2010, but players and coaches alike hadn’t even dried off before beginning to think about the “drive for five.”

“Four in a row,” Kazis said. “The only thing that beats four is five.”