Scott Allan Norwood (born July 17, 1960) is an American former professional football player who was a placekicker for seven seasons with the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL). He also played for the Birmingham Stallions in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. As Buffalo's placekicker, Norwood led the league in scoring for the 1988 season and played in their first two Super Bowl appearances. Despite his accomplishments, he is best known for missing a game-winning field goal attempt at the end of Super Bowl XXV.
Early life and college
Norwood was born in Alexandria, Virginia and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria in 1978.
[*Greenfeld, Karl Taro, "A Life After Wide Right," Sports Illustrated, July 12, 2004] He played both football and soccer at James Madison University and graduated with a business degree in 1982.
Professional career
Birmingham Stallions
Norwood began his professional career with the Birmingham Stallions of the United States Football League, playing two seasons before the Stallions signed Danny Miller to replace him.
Buffalo Bills
Norwood was one of many players the Bills picked up as the USFL contracted and ultimately collapsed; he eventually beat out
Todd Schlopy (who would later come back when Norwood went on strike in 1987) for the Bills' starting kicker position. He quickly became an asset to an offense that was going places as the Bills'
general manager,
Bill Polian, assembled talent like
Jim Kelly,
Thurman Thomas, and Bruce Smith. Within two seasons of Norwood's arrival, the Bills had won the
AFC East for the first time since 1980 and made it to the conference championship game. He soon overtook O. J. Simpson as the team's all-time leading scorer. Following the 1990 season, the Bills advanced to their first-ever Super Bowl.
Super Bowl XXV
Norwood's field goal range was unusually short for a professional kicker and he had difficulties in converting field goals over 40 yards throughout his career, especially on natural grass (the Bills' home stadium used
AstroTurf, which mitigated this issue). Super Bowl XXV, which was played on January 27, 1991, cemented Norwood's name in football history when he missed a 47-yard field goal attempt with 8 seconds left in the game, giving the New York Giants their 2nd Super Bowl victory, and started the Bills' string of four consecutive Super Bowl losses. This kick was made famous by the "wide right" call by ABC announcer
Al Michaels. Later video analysis revealed the holder mistakenly aligned the laces to the right, thereby positioning the kicked ball to fade right once in the air.
Although the Bills signed Björn Nittmo as Norwood's potential replacement in the 1991 offseason, Norwood remained with the Bills through that season. The Bills returned to the Super Bowl and Norwood was perfect throughout the postseason, including a 44-yard field goal that served as the decisive margin in the AFC Championship Game against the Denver Broncos.
Norwood was waived in the first roster move of the off-season after the Bills signed Steve Christie, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.[ A Life After Wide Right, p. 4.]
Post-football career
After the Bills waived him, Norwood initially returned home to Northern Virginia and disappeared completely from the public eye for several years, eventually becoming an insurance salesman during the 1990s then moving back to Buffalo as a real estate agent in 2002.
[ A Life After Wide Right, p. 5.]
NFL career statistics
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| | Led the league |
| Bold | Career high |
Playoffs
Personal life
Norwood lives with his wife Kimberly in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Centreville, Virginia. They have three children: twins Carly and Connor (born 1995) and Corey (born 1996).4
In popular culture
In the 1994 film
, a key plot point involves a kicker for the
Miami Dolphins named Ray Finkle; in the story, Finkle misses a field goal attempt in the closing moments of Super Bowl XIX, causing the Dolphins to lose the game by a single point–an obvious reference to Norwood's infamous kick in Super Bowl XXV.
(In reality, Super Bowl XIX was contested between Miami and the San Francisco 49ers; the 49ers won 38–16.)
In the 1998 film Buffalo '66, the main character, Billy Brown, desires to murder a former Buffalo kicker named "Scott Wood," whose missed field goal led to Brown losing a large bet, which Brown blames for ruining his life.
