No rich history exists between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, franchises representing their own Queen Cities and separated by only six and a half hours of interstate. When they meet Monday night in a hotly anticipated matchup that could determine the AFC’s top seed, it will be their biggest showdown in 34 years, when the Bills traveled to Riverfront Stadium for the 1988 AFC Championship Game.

Both clubs were on the rise then, with rosters loaded with young stars. The Bengals owned the NFL’s best offense and boasted the MVP; the Bills had the top-rated defense. Their coaches disdained one another. The Bengals advanced to that Super Bowl. The Bills were on the verge of four in a row. Laser Cutting Machine

That a rivalry failed to develop is remarkable, yet they’ve qualified for the postseason together only twice since — 1990 and last year. Buffalo and Cincinnati haven’t met again in the playoffs and haven’t played each other in prime time since 1991.

Joe Buck on getting ready for the biggest 'Monday Night Football' game in decades

The Bills and Kansas City Chiefs are 12-3 with two games to go, but the Bengals are 11-4 and on a seven-game winning streak. Monday night’s winner will claim head-to-head tiebreakers over the other two teams. No. 1 seeds earn their conference’s lone first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

“This could be the best ‘Monday Night Football’ game in a long time,” said David Fulcher, the Bengals safety whose end-zone interception of Jim Kelly ended the Bills’ final gasp for 1988. “This is a big challenge for Cincinnati. It’s a shame one of them’s got to lose.”

“It’s a mini Super Bowl,” said Will Wolford, the Bills’ left tackle from 1987 to 1992. “It’s a preview of what’s going to happen. I don’t know what the ratings are going to be, but I’ll take the over. It’s going to be a hell of a game.”

But as we learned last time these franchises were simultaneously relevant, nothing should be taken for granted beyond what Monday night’s result will mean to the winner.

The 1988 Bengals and Bills tied for the best record in the AFC at 12-4 while winning the Central and East Divisions, respectively.

Buffalo’s offense featured three future Hall of Famers in Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas and wide receiver Andre Reed, while the defense was led by Hall of Fame pass-rusher Bruce Smith. Cincinnati’s offense was quarterbacked by MVP Boomer Esiason, with Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz at left tackle and rookie sensation Ickey Woods at running back. The defense featured first-team All-Pro Tim Krumrie at nose tackle and versatile safety David Fulcher.

The two teams combined to send 17 players to the Pro Bowl.

Cincinnati earned home-field advantage with a 35-21 win over Buffalo in Week 13 and was favored by four points at Riverfront Stadium, with gray skies and a wind chill of 9 degrees.

Pete Metzelaars, Bills tight end: It was cold and windy and not a great day to play.

Joe Kelly, Bengals linebacker: It was a great day, a football day. It was cold, but it was perfect January football. The city was nuts. It was adrenaline times 10 because the next stop is the Super Bowl, and you’re at home, feeding off the crowd.

Ickey Woods, Bengals running back: We beat them earlier in the year. We had already beaten Buffalo two times, including the preseason.

Solomon Wilcots, Bengals free safety: It meant something in the preseason back then because we had a lot of young players. Back then, that’s when you proved yourself. That’s where you earned it.

Metzelaars: We came out of the gate that year, and I think we surprised a lot of people with how good we were right off the bat, and we kind of carried that momentum through everything. I think we were thinking that this is just the way it’s supposed to be.

Will Wolford, Bills left tackle: We didn’t really like each other very much. Cincinnati was very good and very arrogant in our minds. It was easy to play the underdog role.

Bruce Kozerski, Bengals center: (Week 13) was a barnburner, but we could run the ball on anybody. That put us in the catbird seat for the top seed and the first-round bye week.

Joe Kelly: Buffalo had to come to us. They had a lot of good players, stars, solid guys. But it didn’t matter. There was no way we were going to waste that opportunity in front of our fans.

Kozerski: Beating a team three times in the same season is hard because they know better your style and what you’re going to do. They won’t make the same mistakes twice in game planning. Plus, you have to overcome new stuff you didn’t plan for.

Metzelaars: I think we felt like we had kind of given it away and that we were a better team and we were going to go take care of business in Cincinnati.

Wolford: Back then before free agency, I didn’t know anybody on their team. I knew their names but I didn’t know them personally. It made it pretty easy to get your mind right to go play your best.

Dave Lapham, Bengals radio analyst and former offensive lineman: The personality of that Bengals team fit the personality of Sam Wyche. In some ways, he and Boomer Esiason were “The Odd Couple,” but they were perfect for each other. The team had a lot of big personalities, but everybody checked their egos for the betterment of the football team.

Wolford: (Bills coach) Marv Levy never really drew attention to himself ever. He would deflect credit to his players, his coaches, anybody but himself. Cincinnati, I don’t know. Coach Wyche was not really that way. And they seemed to eat up all the credit they could get.

Anthony Munoz, Bengals left tackle: They were on the brink of their offensive greatness, but they were loaded defensively. They had Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett, but one of the most underrated players they ever had was Darryl Talley. I had Bruce and Darryl on the same side, and, geez, bring your lunch because that was going to be a long day.

Lapham: Boomer Esiason was an incredibly intelligent quarterback, operating at a high level. Boomer was, without a doubt, the best leader I’ve ever seen. He just got it.

Wilcots: He was a tremendous leader. We trusted him implicitly.

Wyche, talking to NFL Films: Boomer was a field general, a commander on the field. He was the ultimate.

Lapham: He took care of his offensive lineman before it was common. He understood the importance of making sure those guys were good with everything. They would have run through hell in a gasoline suit for him. He was the unquestioned leader — maybe of the entire organization. The coaches and owners would have responded to Boomer.

Wilcots: Jim Kelly wasn’t in full flower yet.

Levy before the game: Jim Kelly is the best quarterback in the league. I wouldn’t be talking about this game Sunday if anybody else in the league were the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills.

Darryl Talley, Bills outside linebacker: That (rivalry) could have been really special because they had one of the best offensive lines in football.

Kozerski: The heart and soul of our running game was just four plays. The one play Ickey Woods and James Brooks ran so well was running straight downhill or making one cut at the line of scrimmage. We ran that play so many times in practice, so many times in the regular season. They just got progressively better and very seldom made a wrong read.

Thurman Thomas, Bills running back: We saw it every week on TV, where Ickey was doing this little twirl or whatever. He was a big part of them reaching that opportunity.

Munoz: They think about the Ickey Shuffle and how colorful he was with that ponytail, but, man, there were times I was cutting my guy off and was between Ickey and the defender. You could feel him run by you. He didn’t even touch you. You just felt the power go past you.

Wolford: No offense to Ickey, but I think I could have gotten quite a few yards behind their offensive line. Those guys were good.

Kozerski: For us offensive linemen, it was great because all we had to do is take our guy where they wanted to go, and we couldn’t be wrong. I took Fred Smerlas or maybe Art Still whichever way they wanted to go, and the backs would cut off me.

Wilcots: It wasn’t about who our quarterback and receivers were, and they were great. It wasn’t about who our running backs were, and they were great. It was about those five guys up front. We went out in Week 2 to play Philadelphia with Reggie White and Jerome Brown and Clyde Simmons and Buddy Ryan’s defense. I tell you our offense line kicked their tails that day. That’s when I knew we were going somewhere special.

Wolford: I’ll tell you as an offensive lineman that year I did love the way (the Bengals) ran the football.

Thomas: Our offensive line was damn good, too, with Kent Hull in the middle. We had Jim Ritcher. Our tackles were Will Wolford and the veteran, Joe Devlin. We could get after it too, now.

Joe Kelly: We knew we could beat them physically and mentally. We thought we were better than them, flat-out, no ifs ands or buts. We didn’t need a supernatural, perfect game. If we went out there and executed what we needed, we were just better than Buffalo.

Woods: We knew we were going to beat them again, especially at home. Nobody came into The Jungle and beat us there. We’d already knew we were going to beat the Bills.

A mammoth story broke about 90 minutes before kickoff. Levy had petitioned NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to outlaw the Bengals’ potent no-huddle-attack offense, and the league waited until the 11th hour to declare its ruling.

Munoz: We’re at our pregame meal that morning, 9 o’clock. Sam Wyche comes in irate. I’m wondering, “Who broke curfew? Who screwed up last night?” He was just livid.

Lapham: Sam was royally pissed off. He was waiting one or two hours before the game to get the edict from the NFL office about if he could use his offense he’d used all year.

Woods: Marv Levy cried and boohooed about it. Sam was pissed. He said, with a cuss word here and there, that we’re going to use our offense no matter what.

Munoz: Sam said there was no way we weren’t going to do what we’ve done all year. How could they attempt to take our offense away the day of the game?

Fulcher, Bengals strong safety: The NFL wasn’t ready for all the no-huddle stuff Cincinnati ran. Nobody else was attacking the line of scrimmage pre-snap like that. You’d see defensive linemen, falling on the ground, faking injuries.

Lapham: The week before, Seahawks coach Chuck Knox had (defensive tackle) Joe Nash fake an injury to slow down the Bengals’ no-huddle.

Esiason to NFL Films: At least (the Seahawks) tried doing it on the field of play as opposed to some other teams that tried to do it in the commissioner’s office and then STEAL the concept … and go on to four straight Super Bowls.

Metzelaars: I think we had a couple of guys who were designated to take dives at certain times and act like they were really hurt.

Wyche to NFL Films: Marv Levy said he would feign injuries like Seattle did, and he would make a farce of the game.

NFL statement: In order to ensure that today’s AFC Championship Game is played under the fairest conditions for both teams, both clubs have agreed to the following: 1) Neither team will feign injuries to allow for substitutions or other unfair acts; 2) Under the unsportsmanlike conduct principles of NFL rules, an offensive play that occurs before the two-minute period of each half will be nullified and replayed if it is deemed by the game officials that the offense gained an unreasonable and unfair advantage by a quick snap of the ball (e.g. a quick snap which is intended to cause the defense to be penalized for too many players on the field). This does not prevent a team from running a no-huddle, “hurry-up” offense at any time during a game, provided the violation described above does not occur.

Wilcots: We looked at each other and said, “We got ’em where we want ’em, boys.” This was a Harvard graduate who knows he can’t beat us straight up. So he’s got to litigate for an advantage. It took us inside their heads.

Munoz: It got us fired up because here’s something we perfected. We get home-field advantage, running this offense. There was nothing illegal about it, nothing hokey. It’s just smart football, utilizing the talent we had. We enjoyed it because you’d see their head coach steaming.

Levy: That wasn’t the reason we lost. We lost because we couldn’t get the score we needed when we needed it.

Wyche to NFL Films: Marv and I laugh about it (now). Marv’s a good friend of mine. I’ve got on my website a newspaper clipping of Marv’s headline saying the “no huddle is no fair.” This was right after the ’88 season. The next year, of course, they’re running it. Actually, the next year is when they “invented” it.

Levy: We admired it. We understood it. But we weren’t ready to go to it … I had great respect for the Bengals, for Sam Wyche, and I came away with that. We learned a lot and it helped us maybe a year later to say, “Hey, this no huddle, maybe this is it.”

Munoz: Of course, when the Bills started running their K-Gun, it was the best thing since sliced bread.

Woods: You can laugh at it now, but at the time they were using (the K-Gun), we were all, like, “You sumb—-es cried about that offense when we was running it! Now, you guys go to the Super Bowl four times with it!” They didn’t invent that offense. We did.

Wolford: It was a very different no-huddle. Cincinnati’s no-huddle was they would eat up as much clock as possible. They would just hold you on the line of scrimmage and kind of keep you from being able to substitute and try to screw up your communication and test it. When we turned on the no-huddle drill it was like a two-minute drill. It was go as fast as you can.

Fulcher: I still feel like Cincinnati doesn’t get enough respect for what we were doing to revolutionize the game. It was a machine that was only stopped by the league office. No defense could. A couple years later, the Bills had the same type of offense and went to four Super Bowls.

Jim Kelly threw interceptions on the Bills’ first and third series. The second gave Cincinnati possession at Buffalo’s 4-yard line to set up a Woods touchdown run. On the ensuing drive, Kelly bounced back with a touchdown pass to Reed that tied the score.

Wilcots: We thought we could fool Jim Kelly. For any quarterback, if the defense knows what you’re doing and they can read your mail? Forget about it. Our fire zone had Jim Kelly thinking there was a window to throw it, but by the time he cut it loose, it was too late.

Thomas: I thought our offense was boring, to be honest. We used a basic formation, tight end, fullback, two wide receivers. But as a guy coming from the I-formation we ran at Oklahoma State, I still thought we could have had more big plays with the offense and talent we had. Jim threw, what, 15 touchdowns in 1988? We weren’t using our guys like we were supposed to be using them.

Jim Kelly in the Toronto Star before the game: Jim Kelly is a quarterback who loves to throw the ball. Everybody was complaining because I only had 15 touchdown passes. If you look at the stats, the other guys who have 25 or 30 throw a lot from inside the 5-yard line. We don’t. It’s always Robb Riddick right, Robb Riddick left, and Jim Kelly wasn’t complaining because we were scoring. I don’t know anybody who complains when you’re 12-4.

Wilcots: We just had a feel for what they wanted to do. We felt we could force Jim Kelly.

Fulcher: (Hall of Fame defensive coordinator) Dick LeBeau started the zone blitz defense in Cincinnati with me, not in Pittsburgh with Troy Polamalu. We made people think about what they saw. When they saw No. 33 across the line of scrimmage, they didn’t know if No. 33 was blitzing or dropping back in coverage.

Lapham: Some might’ve said David Fulcher lined up all over the place because he wasn’t sure where to be, so he’d wing it. But he was blessed with instincts. Dick LeBeau schemed a lot of defenses around David Fulcher’s ability to improvise and almost line up in formations that didn’t make sense. Teams didn’t know how to handle it.

Wilcots: In our zone, we weren’t just covering grass. You wanted to let the quarterback think the receiver was open so he’d throw it. The whole day, we were talking about baiting Jim Kelly. Lay back, don’t jump the routes so soon. We were just trying to time it up. I almost had a couple interceptions.

Bruce Smith, meanwhile, was terrorizing Munoz and Esiason. Munoz had allowed two sacks all season, but Smith beat him to force a three-and-out on the Bengals’ first series. Smith had another sack erased when nose tackle Fred Smerlas jumped offside. But the game shifted when Smith suffered a leg injury that slowed him considerably with 3:58 left in the first quarter.

Thomas: Bruce was talking about how he really was going to jump into Anthony Munoz’s ass that day. He was fired up. Everybody knows Anthony Munoz, and Bruce was going to show the world.

Wilcots: Their defense put a lot of pressure on Boomer early in the game. The first few series I’m thinking, “We can’t block this guy. This dude is way too much.”

Leonard Smith, Bills strong safety: Bruce was getting to Boomer like there was no tomorrow. It was just a real white-knuckle game. It truly was.

Munoz: That was a fun day. Bruce Smith got a sack early on, but after that we just lined up in double-tight formation and banged it out.

Talley: That was a battle of epic proportions. People get mad when you say a guy was “in battle.” Hand-to-hand combat. Well, have you ever seen a linebacker and a tight end go at each other? Or an offensive and defensive lineman? If that isn’t hand-to-hand combat, I don’t know what is.

Wilcots: Bruce was coming like a bat out of hell that day. Bruce bruised his hip. He had to leave the game for a bit. When that happened, Eric Thomas says, “We got ’em now, man.” He was giving our offense so many problems that once we were able to slow down that pass rush the game became easy. With one stroke, that changed the complexion of the game.

Leonard Smith: Bruce wasn’t his whole self … He hurt his upper thigh.

Metzelaars: If you lose somebody like that who is a huge difference maker, it’s tough to overcome.

After a first-quarter Esiason interception, Cincinnati’s run game found traction despite right tackle Brian Blados making only his third start of the season. Woods, James Brooks and Stanley Wilson helped dominate time of possession.

Bills kicker Scott Norwood missed a 43-yard field goal attempt, and Esiason capped an 11-play, 74-yard drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Brooks off of play-action, putting the Bengals up 14-7 with 2:21 left in the second quarter. Norwood made a 39-yard field goal in the closing seconds to make the score 14-10 at halftime

Munoz: James Brooks was amazing. He was a smaller back that could run over you, run around you and run all day long. He trained like nobody else. He would run the stadium steps and run them again. He’s 64 now and probably lifting weights with high school kids.

Joe Kelly: The toughest pound-for-pound S.O.B. I’ve ever been around. He would take on linebackers. He was going to run over anybody, those big safeties back then. Didn’t matter. One of the most underrated running backs in football history.

Wilcots: Boomer might be the greatest play-action quarterback of all time. So with the way we ran the ball? Forget it. With his back to the defense and crouched down, he would tuck the ball in his belly with one hand and let his free hand fly up like he just handed it to James Brooks or Ickey Woods. He could pull a safety out of center field and up to the line of scrimmage, and the guy wouldn’t even know Boomer still had the ball.

Munoz: We were playing Washington at home, and Dexter Manley’s across from me. My guard and I double-teamed him, and Ickey Woods was behind us. We had a stalemate. Dexter is laughing at us, grabbing Ickey around the shoulder. He says, “You guys can’t run the ball this way.” I said, “Dexter, we didn’t.” Just then, Eddie Brown is catching the ball in the end zone.

Thomas took a handoff on Buffalo’s first offensive play, but by the break, the NFL’s leader in scrimmage yards from 1989 through 1992 had only two carries and zero targets. He finished with four rushes and one target, which he dropped. Buffalo fullback Jamie Mueller was offensive coordinator Jim Ringo’s favored back this day.

Lapham: Marv didn’t unleash his weapons. That’s like having a machine gun and deciding to attack with a .22 rifle. That is crazy.

Wilcots: It makes no sense.

Joe Kelly: You never know what coaches are thinking or what they plan to exploit, but it’s hard for me to imagine the Bills went into that game thinking, “We’re going to ride Jamie Mueller to the Super Bowl.” Great player, but …

Mueller: I remember Thurman got banged up. He was out early, I believe. I can’t remember, honestly, if he played much in the first or second quarter, but I do know I felt added pressure on myself.

Thomas: I wasn’t hurt. I think it was the flow of the game. They jumped on us, and it became more of a passing game, trying to catch up. Ronnie Harmon and Robb Riddick were used more in the passing game, so I didn’t play a lot.

Wilcots: They didn’t effectively use their running game. Thurman Thomas was a great player. I was tired of seeing that guy every year in college, and then his rookie year I have to see him again three times in the same year. I was, like, “Why the hell aren’t they running the ball? Why do they think they can throw on us? They can’t!”

Thomas: I wasn’t pissed. At that point, I was still a rookie, and I didn’t have the right to say anything. It was Jim Kelly’s team. Robb Riddick was our leader. Bruce Smith, Darryl Talley … I was just a rookie.

Woods: I don’t think they really knew what they had in Thurman until they stole our no-huddle offense and started using it to go to four straight Super Bowls.

Thomas: You go through ups and downs. My running backs coach was Elijah Pitts, and he told me so many things throughout the season that helped me with perspective. I never got angry about anything until I actually started really playing in 1989.

The Bills’ offense crumbled in the third quarter, with their four possessions generating zero first downs.

Buffalo’s frustrations boiled over at the end of the quarter. Cincinnati converted a fake punt, and cornerback Derrick Burroughs was ejected for throwing a forearm into receiver Tim McGee’s facemask during a run play. Instead of third-and-goal from the 8, Burroughs’ unsportsmanlike conduct gave Cincinnati first down at the 4. Woods scored one play later to extend the Bengals’ lead to 21-10.

Leonard Smith: I was tired of seeing Ickey dance. I hit him a few times and didn’t let him dance, but he eventually still danced.

Wilcots: (Burroughs) went nuclear and got himself ejected. We knew they were going to beat themselves.

Munoz: We had Bruce Coslet coaching the wide receivers. He was an old special teams coach and played as a tight end. One of the things he always stressed was blocking. If his receivers weren’t blocking or nipping at the defensive backs, he’d be in their faces. I’m sure Tim McGee got under his skin.

Leonard Smith: Burroughs had a bad ankle already, and (Bengals receiver) Cris Collinsworth had been cutting at his ankles instead of blocking him high.

Buffalo’s drive chart for the second half: three plays, minus-10 yards, punt; three plays, minus-6 yards, punt; three plays, 4 yards, punt; three plays, 5 yards, punt; nine plays, 60 yards, interception. Fulcher intercepted Kelly’s last pass attempt of the game.

Joe Kelly: Sh–, that sounds like a hell of a defense that day! Wow! Wow … Man! We were flying around, making plays. We felt like the offense was feeding off us.

Wolford: I don’t really remember the game very well because in the second quarter I’m trying to make a tackle on an interception and I got knocked out cold. I remember getting ready to make a tackle and the next thing I know I’m on the ground looking up, and Joe Kelly is dancing over me like a prizefighter. He hit me from the side and I never saw it coming. I stumbled toward Cincinnati’s bench. They’re all laughing. I’m not sure who got me straight to come back over to our sideline. Back then, concussions were not an injury. I kept playing but I don’t remember much, and it was not very good.

Thomas: We could never get our offense going. Even their punter had a great day, pinning us back at our own end zone the whole game.

Wilcots: They couldn’t convert a third down! We had their number. If we got them to third down, we knew it was over.

Fulcher: I was pretty good at baiting quarterbacks, making them think I was going one way and then going the other way. I also had a knack for knowing where the football was going. He threw it right to me.

Wilcots: It went into Dave’s breadbasket. We yelled at him, “Stay down! We’re going to the Super Bowl!”

The Bills’ final possession ended with 8:07 still on the clock, but they couldn’t stop Woods, Brooks and Wilson. Esiason completed two passes on the first three plays, but the next 11 were runs to drain the clock.

Munoz: When you have a backfield like that, why even take a chance with pass blocking or getting Boomer hit?

Woods: It was smashmouth football, man. Times have changed. Oh, boy, how times have changed.

Munoz: To rush the ball like that in the AFC Championship Game against that defense, we were thrilled about it.

Mueller: They had a great fan base, and it’s tough to play in the opponent’s arena, and that makes a big difference. I’m not saying that was the difference, but it certainly didn’t help us any.

Kozerski: That was special. It was maybe 45 minutes before the entire team made it back to the locker room because the entire stadium stuck around. The fans didn’t leave. We didn’t leave. We were congratulating each other. Our families came down onto the field for pictures.

Levy: It was heartbreaking. We went home disappointed. But 12 teams make the playoff every year. Eleven of them finish their season with a loss.

Buffalo suffered a brutal loss in the 1989 postseason when a would-be touchdown pass glanced off Harmon’s fingers in the end zone in the divisional round against Cleveland. Then came the Bills’ run of four Super Bowls in a row.

After losing Super Bowl XXIII to the 49ers in heartbreaking fashion, the Bengals missed the postseason in 1989, returned in 1990, then failed to qualify for 14 years.

Joe Kelly: The ride was priceless, man. On my deathbed, that probably will be one of my last memories, just thinking about the rush of winning that game to go to the Super Bowl. To this day, I can actually feel it.

Talley: What it did was it taught us how to win, what we needed to do to win, what we needed to do to complete the job. We had gotten that far, and you could see the other side.

Thomas: I remember saying to myself, “If we got this far, what can be our limit?” We got the AFC Championship Game with Jim throwing 15 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Today, you’d be in last place!

Wilcots: You play against each other so often as we did, you end up developing a respect. We feel like we helped launch their dynasty because sometimes you have to learn how to lose before you learn how to win.

Kozerski: You look back and wonder how in the world that didn’t turn into a rivalry. It seems a shame. For those two cities, how great would that have been? They were really good for a long period of time, and we weren’t. Would’ve been nice.

Fulcher: It should have been. I’m not complaining because I wouldn’t have wanted to play those Bills every year, especially not in Buffalo.

Wolford: After that game, that was the end of the Bengals and just the beginning of the Bills, so …

Leonard Smith: The Bengals kind of fell apart.

Woods: Buffalo kept getting better, and the Bengals didn’t. We couldn’t sustain. The next year, we lose Max Montoya in free agency. I got hurt. We just were not a competitive team. We kind of fell off, but Buffalo kept it up.

Kozerski: We did have a very good team and did expect to go back, and maybe that’s the lesson. I’ve told many people over the years and even players on the current roster: Don’t expect to go back every year because if you assume that, it won’t happen. You have to work harder to maintain your status.

Talley: We had one of two choices. We can either break up and everybody go their own separate way or pull together for a common cause. That common cause was that we wanted to win. Everybody wants to win, but who is willing to put that effort in? Who is willing to put that effort in and then give the next guy on his team sh– because he showed up to camp out of shape?

Leonard Smith: A lot of guys opened their eyes to a whole lot of things. We finally started playing together and for each other. Winning made it feel that much sweeter.

(Photo: Vernon Biever/Associated Press)

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