After missing a chip-shot field goal, an extra point and his first try at the winning kick, Christie made a 33-yard field goal with five seconds to play Monday night that gave the Buffalo Bills a 22-19 victory over the Cleveland Browns.
The victory was the third in a row for the Bills (3-1) after a season-opening loss at Denver, while Cleveland (3-2) saw a three-game winning streak halted and dropped into a first-place tie with Pittsburgh in the AFC Central Division.
Christie needed -- and got -- two chances at the winning kick because Browns' linebacker Pepper Johnson had called timeout moments before Christie pulled the first one wide to the left.
The next one was good.
The Browns called the timeout simply to give Christie a few more seconds to think about the kick.
"The situation was to ice the kicker,'' Browns coach Bill Belichick said. "We called the timeout well before the ball was even snapped. I guess they didn't hear it because of the crowd noise.''
Two familiar names, quarterback Jim Kelly and running back Thurman Thomas, combined to set up the winning kick. Starting from their own 26 with 3:38 to go, Kelly hit Russell Copeland with a 20-yard pass that got the ball near midfield, and Thomas then carried four times for 33 yards.
Kelly was 27 of 34 for 256 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Andre Reed caught nine of them for 97 yards, including a 41-yard scoring reception with 6:30 to play.
Buffalo ran up 406 yards of total offense and could have put the game away earlier, but several costly mistakes kept the Browns in it:
?Christie pulled a 22-yard field goal attempt wide to the left early in the fourth quarter, only the third miss of his career from inside 30 yards.
?Christie blew an extra-point try after Reed's TD reception.
?Kelly had the ball knocked out of his hand deep in his own territory late in the third quarter, setting up the third of Matt Stover's four field goals.
Stover's fourth field goal, a 38-yarder, tied it 19-19 with 3:49 to play. One play earlier, Vinny Testaverde aimed a 20-yard pass at Andre Rison that was deflected away at the last second by safety Greg Evans.
Taking advantage of Jeff Burris' 26-yard punt return to the Cleveland 48, Kelly moved the Bills quickly to the end zone with a 14-yard TD pass to rookie Justin Armour between two Cleveland defenders. But after Derrick Alexander's touchdown on a 69-yard punt return momentarily electrified the sellout crowd of 76,211, the game bogged down into a field goal contest.
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John Ayers, a lineman who spent 10 years with the San Francisco 49ers and played on two Super Bowl teams, died of liver cancer at his Canyon, Texas, home Monday. He was 42.
Ayers played at West Texas State and joined the 49ers as an eighth-round draft pick in 1976. He became a starting guard two years later and helped the 49ers to their first Super Bowl victory in 1981. He also was a member of San Francisco's 1984 championship team.
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