Before Sunday, how long had it been since the Buffalo Bills were behind by at least 15 points in the fourth quarter and went on to win? Let's put it this way: Warren Raab was the quarterback in their first such comeback, and Jack Kemp their QB in the other.
Raab's 3-yard touchdown run gave the Bills a 45-38 win over the Denver Broncos in 1962 after they had trailed by 15 in the fourth. The Bills matched that comeback with their miraculous win Sunday night, erasing a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Baltimore Ravens, 41-40.
That leaves 1967's season opener – 58 years ago today – as the biggest fourth-quarter rebound in Bills history, from 17 points down. Remarkably enough, the comeback came courtesy of a kicker who had himself come back ... to Buffalo.
Mike Mercer has a unique place in Bills history. The team lent him to Kansas City in 1966, and the Chiefs rode his leg to the first Super Bowl. The Bills then reclaimed him for the 1967 season, like a leased car returned to the dealer.
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Tommy Maxwell, Mike Mercer (copy)
Rookie Baltimore defender Tommy Maxwell moves in to block a second-quarter field goal attempt by Mike Mercer of the Green Bay Packers at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore on Nov. 9, 1969. Mercer's place in Buffalo Bills history was recalled after the Bills' comeback victory this week. William A. Smith/Associated Press
In this comeback game, the New York Jets took a 17-0 lead into the fourth quarter at War Memorial Stadium, thanks to two Joe Namath touchdown passes to Don Maynard. Kemp hit Art Powell for two TDs to get the Bills back in it. The rest was left to Mercer.
First he made a 51-yarder – the longest field goal in Bills history at the time – to tie the game. And then he won it on a 43-yarder with four seconds left: Bills 20, Jets 17.
This was Mercer's first game since making a field goal for the Chiefs in their 35-10 loss to the Green Bay Packers in that first Super Bowl. In the game before that, Mercer had kicked a field goal to help the Chiefs beat the Bills, 31-7, in the AFL championship game at War Memorial.
He was still sort of Bills property even as he was kicking against them. How is that even possible? Well, the American Football League back then was a bit like the Wild West. The Bills had just beaten the Chiefs, 29-14, in an October game in Kansas City in which Booth Lusteg made three field goals for the Bills. Chiefs kicker Tommy Brooks had gotten injured, and Chiefs coach Hank Stram knew that the Bills had Mercer on their practice squad.
So Stram and Bills coach Joe Collier made a post-game handshake deal: Kansas City would get Mercer for the rest of the 1966 season, and the Bills would get a fifth-round draft choice – plus the right to have Mercer back for the following season, if they should so choose.
Such a maneuver would not fly today, of course. "Oh, God, no," said Joe Horrigan, the Buffalo native who is a senior adviser to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not to mention unofficial historian of the NFL and AFL.
Horrigan does know of one similar instance: The Houston Oilers lent quarterback Jacky Lee to the Broncos in 1964. The Oilers had George Blanda as their quarterback, and they wanted Lee to gain experience in Denver for not just one year, but two, before coming back to Houston. "It hurts nobody," AFL assistant commissioner Milt Woodard said at the time.
Lee played two seasons in Denver, another back in Houston, and then was traded to the Chiefs in 1967, missing Mercer by a year. They would have been teammates with an unusual common bond.
Leave it to a football historian like Horrigan to remember the NFL's Frankford (Pa.) Yellow Jackets, for whom Mercer's father, Ken "Moco" Mercer, kicked in the late 1920s. "It was much less common for sons to follow fathers into the NFL in those days," Horrigan says.
Mercer kicked the first field goal in Super Bowl history on Jan. 15, 1967. Soon after, the Bills filed the paperwork to get him back.
"I was a ballboy for the Bills back then," Horrigan said. "A lot of kickers are a little bit goofy. Mike wasn't like that. He was a serious guy. He didn't say much, but you could feel his frustration when things didn't go well.”
Things went very well for Mercer in 1967. He made the AFL's Pro Bowl – and the season began with those kicks that completed the comeback that remains the Bills' biggest in a fourth quarter.
"I never even thought about it," Mercer said of the pressure that day. "When you've played the game this long, you don't think about it."
Matt Prater said much the same of his game-winner for the Bills on Sunday. And he’s no loaner. The Bills can keep him as long as they like.
Buffalo Bills vs Baltimore Ravens (copy) (copy)
Bills place kicker Matt Prater is lifted up by his teammates after hitting a game-winning field goal against the Ravens on Sunday at Highmark Stadium. Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
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