December 25, 1971: The NFL's Longest Game

December 25, 1971: For the 1st time, the NFL plays a game on Christmas Day. It turned out to be the longest game in the league's history.

The Kansas City Chiefs played the Miami Dolphins at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. The Chiefs had been the defining team of the American Football League, winning the title in 1962, 1966 and 1969. From the AFL's founding in 1960 until the 1962 Championship Game, they were the Dallas Texans. That '62 title game, which they beat the Houston Oilers, went to 2 overtimes, becoming the longest game in pro football history.

The Dolphins had only been founded in 1966, and made the Playoffs for the 1st time in 1970. They were a team on the rise, and this would be their biggest challenge yet. Despite the game being in Kansas City in December, the weather was just fine by Miami standards: 62 degrees and partly cloudy at the 3:00 kickoff (4:00 Eastern Time).

The scoring began with Jan Stenerud kicking a field goal for the Chiefs. They went ahead 10-0 following an interception by Willie Lanier and a touchdown pass from Len Dawson to Ed Podolak. The Dolphins came back, with Larry Csonka running for a touchdown and Garo Yepremian kicking a field goal, making the score 10-10 at the half.

Dawson launched a 75-yard, 10-minute drive that ended with a Jim Otis touchdown, but the Dolphins came back with a Jim Kiick touchdown to make it 17-17. In the 4th quarter, Nick Buoniconti picked up a fumble, but Jim Lynch intercepted Griese to end that threat. Dawson then drove the Chiefs 91 yards, capped by a 3-yard run by Podolak, making it 24-17 Kansas City.

The Dolphins struck back, going 71 yards until Griese threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Marv Fleming, tying it 24-24 with 1:25 left in regulation. Podolak took the kickoff back 78 yards, but Stenerud missed a 32-yard field goal, and the game went to overtime.

At this point, overtime was still rare. There would not be a provision for it in the regular season until 1974. It had happened in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, with the Baltimore Colts beating the New York Giants. It had happened, as I said, in the 1962 AFL Championship Game. And it had happened in a Playoff for the NFL Western Division Championship in 1965, with the Green Bay Packers beating the Colts. This would be only the 4th time in pro football history that a game went beyond the standard 60 minutes.

Podolak returned the overtime kickoff to the 46-yard line, setting up a 42-yard field goal attempt by Stenerud. But the Dolphins blocked it. Later in the 5th quarter, Yepremian tried a field goal from 52 yards, but this was short. At the end of this 1st overtime period, Jake Scott intercepted a Dawson punt, but this came to nothing, and the teams traded punts.

Finally, Csonka -- on his 25th birthday -- broke off a 29-yard run, setting up a 37-yard field goal attempt by Yepremian, with 7:40 left in the 6th quarter -- 82 minutes and 40 seconds of play. The left-footed Armenian from Cyprus made the kick, it was good, and the Dolphins had won, 24-21.

Chiefs coach Hank Stram said, "I don't think any one player in a big game, a monumental game like that, had a day like Eddie Podolak had." Stram had a point: 17 rushes for 85 yards, 8 catches for 110 yards, 3 kickoff returns for a 154 yards, and 2 punt returns for 2 yards. That's 350 all-purpose yards, still a postseason record, and the 4th-highest total in NFL history. But for all he, and Hall-of-Famers like Len Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Curley Culp, Johnny Robinson and Jan Stenerud did, it wasn't enough.

In 1981, historian John Thorn left his comfort zone, baseball, and published Pro Football's 10 Greatest Games. He included this game.

This defeat meant that this was the last game the Chiefs would play at Municipal Stadium. They would not host the AFC Championship Game, and the next season, Arrowhead Stadium opened, and it remains the Chiefs' home to this day.

More than this, it was the end of one era, and the beginning of another. The Chiefs had played 8 postseason games in 9 years, winning 3 AFL Championships and Super Bowl IV. They would not play another Playoff game for 15 years, only that 1 for 19 years, and wouldn't win a Playoff game for 20 years.

The Dolphins hosted the Colts, another great team getting old, in the AFC Championship Game, and won, 21-0. They lost Super Bowl VI to the Dallas Cowboys, 24-3. But the following season, they went undefeated, 14-0, and won Super Bowl VII over the Washington Redskins, 14-7. They would win Super Bowl VIII as well.

In 2019, a poll ranked this game 18th on a list of the 100 Greatest Games of the NFL's 1st 100 years.

*

December 25, 1971 was a Saturday. Earlier in the day, the Dallas Cowboys had beaten the Minnesota Vikings, 20-12 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

The following day, December 26, the Baltimore Colts beat the Cleveland Browns, 20-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium; and the San Francisco 49ers beat the Washington Redskins, 24-20 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

There were 6 games played in the NHL. Since this day, the League has never played on Christmas Day again. In fact, traditionally, it has not played on December 24, or 25, and usually not on 26, either.

The New York Rangers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington. The Boston Bruins beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-1 at the Boston Garden. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. 

The St. Louis Blues and the Buffalo Sabres played to a tie, 4-4 at the St. Louis Arena. And the Oakland-based California Golden Seals beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-1 at The Forum outside Los Angeles, in Inglewood, California.

There were 7 games played in the NBA. The New York Knicks beat the Golden State Warriors, 114-89 at Madison Square Garden. Walt Frazier scored 36 points.

The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 99-94 at the Cincinnati Gardens. This was the end of a tradition: The last Christmas game in Cincinnati. The following season, the Royals moved, becoming the Kansas City-Omaha Kings.

Also, the Baltimore Bullets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 117-114 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Atlanta Hawks beat the Buffalo Braves, 140-117 at the Alexander Coliseum in Atlanta. Walt Bellamy scored 40 points. The Detroit Pistons beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 120-118 in overtime at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 38 points, but it wasn't enough to beat the Pistons.

The Phoenix Suns beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-86 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Connie Hawkins scored 31 for the Suns. And the Chicago Bulls beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 109-88 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.

There were 3 games played in the ABA. The Virginia Squires beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 133-126 at the Hampton Coliseum. The Memphis Pros beat the Carolina Cougars, 110-102 at the Mid-South Coliseum. And the Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 150-129 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

Pierre Trudeau, then the Prime Minister of Canada, became a father on this day, to Justin Trudeau, who would also go on to become Prime Minister. Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, the English singer known as Dido, was also born.

December 21, 1974: The "Sea of Hands" Game

December 21, 1974: The Oakland Raiders host the Miami Dolphins in an AFC Divisional Playoff at the Oakland Coliseum. The Raiders went 12-2 and won the AFC Western Division, while the Dolphins went 11-3 and won the AFC Eastern Division.

The Dolphins had won the last 3 AFC Championships and the last 2 Super Bowls. In contrast, the Raiders were already known as a team that "can't win the big one": They had lost Super Bowl II to close the 1967 season, the 1968 and 1969 AFL Championship Games, the 1970 and 1973 AFC Championship Games, and a Divisional Playoff in 1972 on the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Immaculate Reception."

The 1974 season was the one in which NFL Films producer Steve Sabol was inspired to write a poem about the Raiders, a 4-verse piece titled The Autumn Wind, closing:

The Autumn Wind is a raider

pillaging just for fun.

He'll knock you 'round and upside-down

and laugh when he's conquered and won.

Sabol showed it to Raiders owner Al Davis, who loved it, and said, "This is what the Oakland Raiders are all about." So Sabol gave it to his voiceover maestro, John Facenda, who spoke the words over highlights, making it an NFL Films classic.

Raider fans were ready to dethrone the Champions. A banner -- incorrectly identifying dolphins as fish, rather than mammals, and also incorrectly writing "Super Bowl" as one word -- read, "THE DOLPHINS BELONG IN A FISHBOWL NOT A SUPERBOWL."

George Blanda, a former quarterback still playing for the Raiders at age 47, kicked off, and Nat Moore returned it 89 yards for a touchdown. But on the Raiders' next drive, despite holding them off, the Dolphins lost safety Jake Scott to injury. In the 2nd quarter, Ken Stabler threw a touchdown pass to Charlie Smith, but Garo Yepremian gave the Dolphins back the lead with a field goal, making it 10-7 Miami at the half.

A great catch of a Stabler pass by Fred Biletnikoff gave the Raiders a 14-10 lead early in the 3rd quarter. But a dumb pass interference penalty by the Raiders aided the Dolphins' drive, and Bob Griese threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Paul Warfield. Former Baltimore Colts star and future actor Bubba Smith blocked Yepremian's extra point attempt, so the Dolphins only led 16-14. Yepremian made it 19-14 with a field goal early in the 4th quarter.

With 4:37 to play, Cliff Branch made a great catch of a Stabler pass, and took it 72 yards for a touchdown, and a 21-19 Oakland lead. The Dolphins struck back, and Benny Malone ran broke 4 tackles on a 23-yard touchdown run. With 2:08 left, the Dolphins led, 26-21.

The Raiders took over on their own 32-yard line, with 2 minutes and all 3 timeouts remaining, but facing the Dolphins' "No-Name Defense." It was a bad name: linebacker Nick Buoniconti was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame; and ends Bill Stanfill and Vern Den Herder, tackle Manny Fernandez, and safeties Dick Anderson and the injured Scott were regular Pro Bowlers.

Stabler threw a pair of 1st-down passes to Biletnikoff. He got the ball to the 8-yard line, calling his last timeout with 35 seconds left. On the next play, he looked for Biletnikoff in the end zone, but he was too well-covered. Den Herder bore down on him, and perhaps Stabler was thinking this was his "Immaculate Reception" moment. He threw in mid-sack. Clarence Davis was covered by 3 Dolphins in the end zone: Safety Charlie Babb, linebacker Larry Ball and Mike Kolen. Still, he made the catch.

Stabler later told NFL Films: "Clarence Davis made the play. I certainly didn't make the play. Vern Den Herder hits me, and I get very little on the ball, and it's kind of a dying duck, end-over-end deal, back into a sea of hands in the end zone." The term "Sea of Hands" would be applied to this game for all time.

The Raiders led, 28-26, but the Dolphins still had a chance. That chance ended with Phil Villapiano intercepted Griese on the Raider 45, and Stabler ran out the clock. Of all the crazy games in Raider history -- in Oakland, in Los Angeles, in Las Vegas, and on the road -- this may be their most cherished, outside of the 3 Super Bowls they've won.

In contrast, Dolphin head coach Don Shula -- who, remember, was the head coach of the Baltimore Colts when they lost Super Bowl III to the New York Jets in a shocking upset, 6 years earlier -- said, "This has to be the toughest loss I've ever suffered."

But, just as the Steelers did when they beat the Raiders with the Immaculate Reception, the Raiders ended up losing the AFC Championship Game, to the Steelers. And, as with the Steelers, it would take them 2 more years to go all the way, winning Super Bowl XI. The Dolphins have been to only 2 Super Bowls since, losing both.

In 1981, author John Thorn left his comfort zone, baseball, and published Pro Football's 10 Greatest Games. He included this game as one of them.

*

December 21, 1974 was a Saturday. There was 1 other NFL Playoff game that day: The Minnesota Vikings beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 30-14 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

There was a college football bowl game that day: Miami University of Ohio beat the University of Georgia, 21-10 in the Tangerine Bowl, at the stadium of the same name in Orlando, Florida. Miami, Champions of the Mid-American Conference, completed an undefeated season: 9-0-1. The game and the stadium would later be known as the Citrus Bowl, and the stadium is now named Camping World Stadium.

There were 7 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 109-91 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 117-101 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 101-96 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 87-74 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Kansas City-Omaha Kings beat the Golden State Warriors, 107-84 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-104 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Detroit Pistons, 108-97 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Indiana Pacers, 134-122 at the new Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Billy Paultz led the Nets with 30 points. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 18. George McGinnis had 33 points and 18 rebounds in defeat.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Spirits of St. Louis, 99-93 at the Hampton Coliseum outside Norfolk in Hampton, Virignia.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Memphis Sounds, 115-98 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* And the Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 119-104 at the Denver Auditorium Arena. Mike Green scored 39 points.

There were 6 games played in the NHL that day:

* The New York Islanders and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 3-3 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 8-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Detroit Red Wings and the Philadelphia Flyers played to a tie, 2-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-7 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the cross-State Kansas City Scouts, 6-4 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the New York Rangers, the Oakland Seals, the Buffalo Sabres, the Vancouver Canucks, the Atlanta Flames and the Washington Capitals were not scheduled.

And there were 3 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Houston Aeros beat the New England Whalers, 5-3 at the Big E Coliseum in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Chicago Cougars, 3-0 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago.

* And the Vancouver Blazers beat the San Diego Mariners, 2-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

Also, Arsenal traveled to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and beat Stoke City, 2-0 at the Victoria Ground. 

December 12, 1982: The Snowplow Game

December 12, 1982: The New England Patriots host the Miami Dolphins at what was then named Schaefer Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Dolphins had dominated the AFC Eastern Division since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, although the Patriots had had their moments. This game would feature another.

The weather heavily favored the Pats. It rained before the game, soaking the AstroTurf. Then, on the day of the game, a cold snap came, freezing the water on the field. Finally, it snowed on the morning of the game, and it kept snowing during the game.

The Patriots had occasionally played in Winter weather, but, this far in their history, nothing like this. The Dolphins, used to playing in the warmth of South Florida, were totally unsuited to this.

An emergency ground rule was put into play, where the officials could call time-out and allow the ground crew to use a snowplow to clear the yard markers. Despite this rule, the ground crew could not plow often enough to keep the field clear. With today's weather forecasting and NFL scheduling policy, a decision would have been made ahead of time to postpone it to Monday night.

Neither team's players could get a good footing on the field, and the game remained scoreless, late in the 4th quarter. With 4:45 left in regulation, Patriots coach Ron Meyer wanted to kick a field goal. He later told the media that it was quarterback Steve Grogan who suggested asking for the snowplow to clear the ground for the kick. (Grogan only attempted 5 passes all game long, completing 2, for 13 yards.)

It wasn't actually a snow plow: It was a small John Deere tractor with a shovel attached to it. The driver was Mark Henderson, a convicted burglar out of prison on a work-release program. He knew why he was there, and that it was within the rules. He told the media that his reaction was, "What are they going to do, throw me in jail?"

A path was clear for John Smith, the left-footed kicker from Oxfordshire, England, to attempt a 33-yard go-ahead field goal. It was good.

Dolphin coach Don Shula was furious: “I wanted to go out there and punch him out,” Shula told The Boston Globe, meaning Henderson. “In retrospect, I should have laid down in front of the snowplow.” And he told the Los Angeles Times, “I think it’s the most unfair thing I’ve ever been associated with in coaching. It’s the most unsportsmanlike act that I’ve ever been around.”

It wasn't. Late in the game, when the Dolphins could have tried a game-winning field goa, they were also offered the use of the snowplow by the head referee. Shula refused. The Patriots held on to win, 3-0. It became instantly known as The Snowplow Game, and it remains the most famous touchdown-less game in NFL history.

With the history of the Patriots having changed considerably in the intervening 40 years, with Bill Belichick and Tom Brady leading them to victory with proven accusations of cheating, it is easy to say that the Patriots' cheating goes back to The Snowplow Game. In fact, the rule, agreed upon by both organizations before the game, meant that Henderson's actions, and Meyer's request thereof, were legal at the time.

But the Patriots' organization was wary: Shula, already one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, was on the NFL's Competition Committee, and there was concern that he might lead Commissioner Pete Rozelle to overturn the result. It didn't happen: No NFL result has ever been overturned in the League's 100+-year history. But Shula did get the rule changed for the next season, so such a thing could never happen again.

"Mark Henderson" is a common name, common enough that, when the Patriots wanted to invite the plow driver to the final regular-season game at Schaefer Stadium, which became Sullivan Stadium in 1983 and Foxboro Stadium in 1989, to be held on December 22, 2001, they discovered, incorrectly, that he was dead. It was another Mark Henderson who lived in New England and had a criminal record. When they kept digging and found the right one, they brought him onto the field -- by then, real grass -- and he received a standing ovation.

Mark Henderson, 2007, on the 25th Anniversary

Looking him up for this post, I found the same problem: Multiple Mark Hendersons who had passed away, including 2 in 2022. All I can say for sure about Mark Henderson the plow driver is that he lived long enough to give an interview to The Boston Globe in 2010, had a son also named Mark, and that the son confirmed that the father had never been in legal trouble again after his release.

What I can confirm is that the John Deere tractor was preserved, and now sits in the New England Patriots Hall of Fame, a museum at the north end of Gillette Stadium, which was built next-door to the old stadium in Foxborough.

*

December 12, 1982 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Jets beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 32-17 at Shea Stadium.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat their arch-rivals, the New Orleans Saints, 35-0 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 13-0 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 23-10 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers, 30-10 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Baltimore Colts, 13-10 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Washington Redskins beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 12-7 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Los Angeles Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 21-16 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Denver Broncos beat the Los Angeles Rams, 27-24 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Seattle Seahawks beat the Chicago Bears, 20-14 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

* The day before, the New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 23-7 at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.

* Also the day before, the San Diego Chargers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 41-37 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Dallas Cowboys beat the Houston Oilers, 37-7 at the Astrodome in Houston.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Denver Broncos, 126-112 at the Boston Garden. Larry Bird scored 36 points and grabbed 19 rebounds.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Indiana Pacers, 120-108 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns, 99-94 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

And there were 6 NHL games that day:

* The New York Rangers beat the New Jersey Devils, 4-0 at Madison Square Garden. It would be years before the neighbors would be on the same level, enough to make it a real rivalry.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat their in-State rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Hartford Whalers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Calgary Flames, 7-3 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Quebec Nordiques, 7-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

December 10, 1937: The Orange Bowl Opens

December 10, 1937: Burdine Stadium opens in Miami. It will later be renamed for the annual college football extravaganza it hosted, on or around each New Year's Day: The Orange Bowl.

Roddy Burdine ran Burdine's department store in Miami from 1911 until his death in 1936, and his civic contributions helped Miami to grow into a major city. After his death, the city named the stadium it was building after him.

It was on a large block bounded by Northwest 3rd Street to the south, Northwest 16th Avenue to the west, Northwest 6th Street to the north, and Northwest 14th Avenue to the east, the end of the stadium that formed the open end of the horseshoe. Miami Park had already hosted football games on this site, including the 1st 3 Orange Bowl games in 1935, '36 and '37. On December 10, 1937, the 23,330-seat Burdine Stadium opened with the team that would play there the longest, the University of Miami, losing to the University of Georgia, 26-0.

The stadium was renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959, and was steadily expanded until reaching 76,062 in 1955, and 80,010 in 1968. Modernization included wider seats, which kept the capacity to around 75,000 from 1981 onward. In 1970, the natural grass was torn up, and replaced with an artificial turf called PolyTurf, but it only lasted until 1975.

In 1946, the All-America Football Conference was founded, and with it, the 1st major league sports team in the South, the Miami Seahawks. They were badly underfunded, went just 3-11, and moved before the next season, becoming the Baltimore Colts. Pro football returned in 1966, with the Miami Dolphins. They played there until 1986, then moved into Joe Robbie Stadium in suburban Miami Gardens in 1987.

The Orange Bowl hosted Super Bowl II in 1968: Green Bay Packers 33, Oakland Raiders 14; Super Bowl III in 1969: New York Jets 16, Baltimore Colts 7, in one of the greatest upsets in pro football history; Super Bowl V in 1971: Baltimore Colts 16, Dallas Cowboys 13; Super Bowl X in 1976, Pittsburgh Steelers 21, Dallas Cowboys 17; and Super Bowl XIII in 1979, Steelers 35, Cowboys 31.

Facing east, with palm trees,

and downtown Miami in the background

The Orange Bowl game was first played at Joe Robbie Stadium in 1997, played there again in 1998, moved back to its namesake stadium in 1999, and has been played at the Miami Gardens facility, now named Hard Rock Stadium, from 2000 onward. The University of Miami Hurricanes stayed at the Orange Bowl a bit longer, finally making the move in 2008.

The Hurricanes played in the Orange Bowl game on their home field in 1946, beating Holy Cross; 1951, losing to Clemson; 1984, famously beating Number 1 Nebraska to take a would-be National Championship away from them; 1988, beating Number 1 Oklahoma to win another National Championship; 1989, beating Nebraska again, but only finishing Number 2; 1992, beating Nebraska again, this time as Number 1 and the favorites to win the National Championship; and 1995, again threatening to take the National Championship away from Nebraska, but this time Nebraska redeemed themselves.

(Since the game moved to the suburbs, the Hurricanes have played in it in 2004, beating arch-rival Florida State for the 2nd time that season; and in 2017, losing to Wisconsin.)

And, just as the Hurricanes opened the stadium with a loss, so, too, did they close it with one, on November 10, 2007, losing to the University of Virginia, 48-0. The stadium was demolished in 2008, and the new home of the Miami Marlins, now named LoanDepot Park, opened on the site in 2012.

*

December 10, 1937 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NHL season was underway, but no games were scheduled. The NFL Championship Game was played 2 days later, with the Washington Redskins beating the Chicago Bears. And Miami's loss to Georgia was the only college football game played. So it was the only score on this historic day.

December 3, 1973: The 1st Close-Up Pictures of the Planet Jupiter

December 3, 1973: The probe Pioneer 10 sends photographs of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, back to Earth. These were the first close-up pictures of any of the system's 4 outer "gas giants."

Pioneer 10 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on March 2, 1972, and was intended for a flyby only of Jupiter, no other planets. It was followed a year later by Pioneer 11, which was designed for flybys (flybies? flysby?) of both Jupiter and Saturn, becoming the 1st probe to take close-up photos of the latter.

On the suggestion of astronomer Carl Sagan, each of them carried a 6-by-9-inch gold-anodized aluminum plaque, in case either of them is ever found by intelligent life-forms from another planetary system. The plaques feature the nude figures of a human male and female, along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. The plaque is attached to the antenna support struts, where it would be shielded from interstellar dust.

On June 13, 1983, Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Neptune, making it the 1st human-made object to leave the Solar System. On April 27, 2002, NASA had its last successful reception of telemetry from Pioneer 10, from a distance of 80.22 AU -- an "astronomical unit" being the distance between the Earth and the Sun, about 93 million miles, so 80.22 AU is about 1.16 billion miles from Earth. A last signal, too weak to learn anything from it, was received on January 23, 2003.

*

December 3, 1973 was a Monday. Actress Holly Marie Combs was born.

Baseball was out of season. There were no games scheduled in the NBA, the ABA, the NHL or the WHA. There was one score on this historic day: On ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-26 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

December 2, 1985: The Chicago Bears' Monday Night Stumble

December 2, 1985: The Miami Dolphins defeat the Chicago Bears, 38-24 at the Orange Bowl. This turns out to be the only game the Bears lose all season long, the one bump on their "Super Bowl Shuffle."

Jim McMahon, the Bears' usual starting quarterback, was injured, and had to be replaced by Steve Fuller, previously the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs. Until now, that hadn't been a problem.

But Fuller was held to 11 completions in 21 passes for 169 yards, a touchdown and 2 interceptions by the Dolphins' defense, know as the Killer B's for their players with names starting with B: Bob Baumhower, Bob Brudzinski, Doug Betters, Kim Bokamper, and the brothers Glenn and Kyle Blackwood.

Bears coach Mike Ditka, hoping to bring McMahon back the next week, sent him in to save the game, and he couldn't, going 3-for-6 for 42 yards and an interception. Walter Payton rushed for 121 yards, but the rest of the Bears combined ran for only 46.

In contrast, Dan Marino, who so often failed in the postseason, came through for the Dolphins, going 14-for-27 for 270 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception. His "Mark II" receivers came through for him: Mark Duper had 107 receiving yards, and Mark Clayton had 88.

Revisionist history now says that this loss shook Da Bears out of their complacency, and allowed them to focus on the main thing, winning the Super Bowl, rather than concentrating on going undefeated.

The Dolphins took special pride in ruining the Bears' unbeaten season, as the 1972 Dolphins were then, and still are now, the only team in the NFL's 106-season history to go unbeaten and untied in the regular season and then win the league championship. Then again, neither the Dolphins nor the Bears have won the title since the 1985 season. Indeed, the Dolphins, defending AFC Champions at the time, haven't even been to the Super Bowl since; the Bears, only once.

It remains the most-watched game in Monday Night Football history. Which must have really burned up Howard Cosell: The biggest audience in MNF history, and they weren't listening to him. The announcers were Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and... O.J. Simpson. (If you're not old enough to remember before June 1994 when he was charged with murder, let me tell you: This man was beloved in America.)

*

December 2, 1985 was, as stated, a Monday. So this was the only football game on the day. Baseball was out of season. There was 1 game in the NBA: The Utah Jazz beat the Golden State Warriors, 103-100 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers got embarrassed by the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-0 at Madison Square Garden. At least when the Vancouver Canucks got beat 7-0 by the Montreal Canadiens, they could console themselves with the fact that they were on the road, at the Montreal Forum; and, later, also with the fact that the Canadiens went on to win the 1986 Stanley Cup.

November 27, 1994: Dan Marino's Fake Spike

November 27, 1994: The New York Jets are playing the Miami Dolphins, at Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands, in East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey. At the time, Bill Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Tom Brady was in high school, the New England Patriots were 5-6, and the idea that the Pats would one day be considered the Jets' arch-rivals was ridiculous.

The Dolphins were the Jets' arch-rivals, beyond any question. While the Jets' one and only Super Bowl appearance, their win in Super Bowl III, was at the Orange Bowl, the Dolphins' former home field, the Dolphins had dominated the head-to-head matchups. Between 1970 and 1994, the Jets were a pathetic 14-28-1 against the Dolphins.

From 1983 onward, a big reason for this domination was the quarterbacking of Dan Marino. He set several NFL career passing records, most of them long since broken. He would not have set so many if he wasn't playing the Jets twice as season as an AFC Eastern Division opponent.

Marino arrived the season after the Dolphins had beaten the Jets in an AFC Championship Game, and, as the Jets' "New York Sack Exchange" defense of the early 1980s got older, and head coach Don Shula kept the Dolphins a consistent winner (although making only 1 Super Bowl themselves through Marino's 17-season tenure), Marino was able to fluff up his stats in his 2 annual contests with Gang Green.

Going into this game, the Jets were 6-5, the Dolphins 7-4 and had lost their last 2 games. A Jet win would have created a tie for the AFC East lead, and, at the rate the Dolphins were going, the Jets would have to be favored to win the Division.

The Jets led 17-0 with 12:58 left in the 3rd quarter, and extended that lead to 24-6 with 3:39 left in the quarter. But the Dolphins came back. Marino threw 3 touchdown passes to Mark Ingram, getting a 2-point conversion on one (in this 1st season in which the NFL used the 2-pointer).

It was still 24-21 Jets with 42 seconds left to play. Marino threw to Ingram, who was tackled at the Jets' 8-yard line. Everybody in the stadium, it seemed, was expecting Marino to spike the ball after the next snap, to stop the clock, to try to get a little closer, and then use the Dolphins' last time-out to get the field goal unit on the field. NBC announcer Paul Maguire said he was expecting that. And as the Dolphins hurried up to get their formation set up, Marino was motioning that he was going to spike the ball.

When the ball was snapped with 25 seconds to go, the Dolphins line barely blocked at all, as if Marino really was going to spike the ball. And he only stepped back to the 12-yard line. And then he threw the ball, into the near right corner of the end zone. Ingram was there, covered by not especially well by Aaron Glenn, and he caught it. Touchdown. The 4th Marino-to-Ingram touchdown of the game. Dolphins 28, Jets 24.

The fans went wild. Given that New York City has people from all over the world, and that television coverage in the 1970s when the Jets were bad meant that a lot of Baby Boomers became Dolphin fans (and Pittsburgh Steeler fans, and Dallas Cowboy fans, and Oakland Raider fans), it wasn't that surprising that a lot of fans inside Giants Stadium cheered wildly after the play. Some of them may even have been Jet fans, excited over seeing a great moment, before reality sunk in and they realized that they had lost. (There were still 22 seconds on the clock, but quarterback Boomer Esiason could only get the Jets to the Dolphins' 35-yard line before time ran out.)

For Marino, perhaps the best pure passer the sport has ever known, but who lost his only Super Bowl appearance (XIX, 1985, to the San Francisco 49ers), it is his most memorable moment. For the Jets, it is just one of many moments that suggest that they are, if not the worst franchise in NFL history, then, perhaps, the dumbest.

The Dolphins finished the season 10-6, and beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Playoffs, before losing to the San Diego Chargers. The Jets didn't win another game, falling to 6-10. Team owner Leon Hess fired the head coach -- Pete Carroll, who went on to win 2 National Championships at USC and a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks.

Hess then hired former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Rich Kotite, saying, "I'm 80 years old. I want results now!" He got them: Kotite went 3-13 in 1995, and 1-15 in 1996, quitting before he could be fired. From the fake spike to the last game of the Kotite experiment, the Jets went 4-33, as poor a stretch as the NFL has ever known.

Hess hired Bill Parcells, who had rebuilt the Giants and the Patriots, and he did the same, getting the Jets to the AFC Championship Game in 2 years. Then Hess died, with results, if incomplete ones. That's been the story of the Jets since January 12, 1969: Incomplete results.

*

November 27, 1994 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins, 21-19 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-21 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Houston Oilers, 34-10 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The New England Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts, 12-10 at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis.

* The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 20-17 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Michael Husted kicked a 22-yard field goal to win it in overtime.

* The Denver Broncos beat the Cincinnati Bengals 15-13 at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Arizona Cardinals, 19-16 at Sun Devil Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona. Kevin Butler kicked a 27-yard field goal with 16 seconds left in overtime.

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 31-17 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Los Angeles Raiders, 21-3 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Seattle Seahawks beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 10-9 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

* Three days earlier, on Thanksgiving, the Detroit Lions beat the Buffalo Bills, 35-21 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* Also on Thanksgiving, the Dallas Cowboys beat the Green Bay Packers, 42-31 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* And the next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the San Francisco 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints, 35-14 at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Baseball was in the off-season. And the NHL team owners had locked the players out do, so the season didn't start until January 20, 1995. But there were 4 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Phoenix Suns, 115-110 at the American West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Golden State Warriors, 106-91 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Sacramento Kings, 94-89 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Indiana pacers, 99-89 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

November 25, 1993: The Leon Lett Game

November 25, 1993: Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas is hosting its annual Thanksgiving Day game. The Dallas Cowboys are hosting the Miami Dolphins. These are 2 teams used to warm weather all year long.

Not today: It's snowing, and the weird roof at the stadium means that the fans are covered and protected, but the field is not, and it's a mess. The temperature at kickoff was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. With the wind-chill factor, it was zero. This remains the worst set of home-game weather conditions in the 1st 63 seasons of Cowboys history.

The Cowboys, coached by Jimmy Johnson, are the defending NFL Champions, having won Super Bowl XXVII thanks to a well-balanced team, featuring an offensive attack with "The Triplets," 3 future Hall-of-Famers: Quarterback Troy Aikman, running back and eventual NFL all-time rushing yards leader Emmitt Smith, and receiver Michael Irvin. They are 7-3, and, despite having lost to the Atlanta Falcons the previous week, are favorites to repeat.

The Dolphins were in their 24th season coached by Don Shula. Two weeks earlier, against the Philadelphia Eagles, Shula won his 325th game as a head coach, surpassing George Halas as the NFL's all-time leader. With Steve DeBerg filling in at quarterback for an injured Dan Marino, the Dolphins were 8-2, and among the favorites in the AFC. This game, broadcast nationally on NBC, was being talked about as a possible Super Bowl preview.

In spite of the slick field, Keith Byars ran 77 yards for a Dolphin touchdown, for the only score of the 1st quarter. The Cowboys struck back with 2 touchdowns by Kevin Williams, one on a 4-yard pass from Aikman, the other on a 64-yard punt return. It was 14-7 Cowboys at the half.

In the 3rd quarter, Pete Stoyanovich, a son of North Macedonian immigrants, and a native of the Detroit area, so he was used to watching the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, kicked a 20-yard field goal. In the 4th quarter, he kicked a 31-yarder, to pull the Dolphins within 14-13. The Dolphins launched a late drive, and, with 15 seconds left, set up a 41-yard field goal that, barring a miracle kickoff return by the Cowboys, would have won it. But, given the weather conditions, the field goal wouldn't be easy.

Among the players that Johnson sent out to defend the kick was defensive tackle Leon Lett, a 25-year-old native of Fairhope, Alabama, outside Mobile. The previous January, Lett had been one of the players who helped the Cowboys win the Super Bowl, beating the Buffalo Bills, 52-17. Late in the game, Lett picked up a fumble, and had nothing but green real estate between him and the end zone. It could have been 59-17, which would have topped the 55 that the San Francisco 49ers had scored 3 years earlier, and become the most points by a single team in Super Bowl history.

But Lett decided to count his chickens before they hatched: He waved the ball in the air well before reaching the goal line. He had no idea that Bills receiver Don Beebe was running like hell behind him, and managed to knock the ball out of his hand at the 1-yard line. The Cowboys entire team came out of that game looking like one of the greatest teams of all time, except for Lett, who came out of it looking like a fool.

But Lett was otherwise a good player, who went on to make 2 Pro Bowls. Despite missing the 1st 5 games of the '93 season due to injury, he had played all 4 defensive line positions, and was leading all NFL defensive linemen with 4 deflected passes. He seemed like a good choice to defend against a potential game-winning field goal.

As it happened, another lineman, Jimmie Jones, blocked Stoyanovich's kick. The ball spun harmlessly to the snow-covered artificial turf. Everyone from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who had come down to the sideline to stand with the team, to the crowd of 60,198 (about 5,000 short of a sellout, understandable due to the weather), was celebrating what looked like a Cowboys win.

Everyone, it seemed, except Lett. Had he done nothing, the play would have been whistled dead as soon as the ball stopped, and the Cowboys would have had the ball at the previous play's line of scrimmage, the Cowboys' 24. Instead, the ball came to a stop at the Cowboys' 10, spinning upright on one of its points. And a Cowboy player slid in, trying to recover what he thought was a fumble, and instead slipped, and kicked the ball forward, toward the Cowboys' end zone.

The Dolphins quickly realized what had happened, and went after the still-loose ball. Offensive tackle Ron Heller recovered it. At first, Cowboys radio announcers Brad Sham and Dale Hansen couldn't tell who the blundering player was. Then, they saw the replay. Sham: "Oh, no! Leon Lett! Leon Lett!" Hansen, really, really wanting it to be anybody else: "Not Leon Lett!"

The NBC cameras caught Jones pumping his fists in the air, and then realizing that the game hadn't been won after all. He looked like a kid on Thanksgiving who'd been promised the turkey's drumstick, and then it had just been snatched by his big brother.

Because it was off a blocked kick, the rule said that the ball had to be given back to the offensive team at the defensive team's 1-yard line. The Dolphins set up again, and, this time, Stoyanovich nailed the kick. Final score: Miami 16, Dallas 14.

Lett immediately went down in history. Comparisons were made to Bill Buckner of the Boston Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Sure, Buckner's error was in a much more important game. But the thing everyone says about Buckner is that he shouldn't be judged by one awful moment in an otherwise sterling career. Now, Lett had two such moments.

In 2013, on the game's 20th Anniversary, Lett was interviewed, and said, "I have been trying to think back for, what, 20 years now, and I don't know what happened. It was a brain freeze."

With a result like that, a fan might have been forgiven for thinking it at the time that it would have ruined the Cowboys season, and sent the Dolphins on a great run. Just the opposite happened. The Dolphins lost their last 5 games, including in overtime to a terrible New England Patriots team in the regular-season finale. As of the conclusion of the 2021 season, the '93 Dolphins remain the last NFL team to start a season 9-2 and not make the Playoffs.

In contrast, the Cowboys never lost another game, winning the NFC Eastern Division, facing the Bills in Super Bowl XXVIII, and beating them again, 30-13. The following year, they lost the NFC Championship Game to the San Francisco 49ers. The year after that, they won Super Bowl XXX, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers. The count for Leon Lett: Super Bowl rings 3, big-game gaffes 2.

A graduate of Emporia State University, an NCAA Division II school in Kansas, Lett played until the 2001 season, and went into coaching, spending time on the staffs at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) and the University of Louisiana at Monroe (formerly known as Northeast Louisiana University).

Since 2011, Lett has been the assistant defensive line coach for the Cowboys, first under Jason Garrett, a backup quarterback to Aikman in the game in question, now under Mike McCarthy.

It seems silly to say that Lett had to redeem himself for one play in a Super Bowl won by his team, and another play in a season in which his team won the Super Bowl again. Clearly, he had something to do with all 3 of those Super Bowl wins.

The play will be shown on television, and looked up on YouTube, every Thanksgiving, and every time someone puts together a list of NFL mistakes, for as long as TV and YouTube exist. But Leon Lett deserves to be remembered for more than a moment which made him a "turkey."

*

November 25, 1993 was, like all Thanksgiving Days, a Thursday. In the other NFL game that day, on CBS, the Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 10-6 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

There were 3 college football games played that day. The University of Louisville beat the University of Tulsa, 28-0 at Skelly Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That was not, and still is not, a major rivalry. Texas vs. Texas A&M was, and will be again when Texas joins the Southeastern Conference, as A&M did a few years ago. At this point, they were both still in the Southwest Conference, and A&M beat Texas, 18-9 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

The other game was Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, at Grant Field at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta. The original structure was built in 1913, making it the oldest stadium in NCAA Division I-A (now FBS, the Football Bowl Subdivision), but so much has been built around it that it looks like a modern stadium.

This game was televised nationally on ABC, and the lead announcer was Keith Jackson, the greatest of all college football announcers. In his opening, Jackson said, "This is the day when the waistline takes a whuppin', and ancient rivalries are replayed." He was from Georgia, so he knew both programs well; but he graduated from Washington State, so he could be completely objective with this rivalry, known as "Clean Old-Fashioned Hate."

Georgia led only 16-10 at the start of the 4th quarter, but ran up the score. Late in the game, the Bulldogs scored to make it 43-10, and coach Ray Goff, who had quarterbacked them to the 1976 SEC title, decided to go for a two-point conversion. Echoes of former Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, who, on an occasion when he needlessly went for two in a blowout, was asked why, and said, "Because I couldn't go for three." The Yellow Jackets didn't like this decision, and a fight broke out on the field. The conversion was unsuccessful, and 43-10 was the final. This was one of many times, in many rivalries, that Jackson said, "These two teams just... don't... like each other!"

In recent years, the NBA and the NHL have chosen not to schedule games on Thanksgiving Day, to avoid competing for TV viewers with the NFL and the NCAA. On this day, however, 1 NHL game was played.

Fittingly, it was in Canada, which celebrates its Thanksgiving on the 2nd Monday in October: The Quebec Nordiques beat the Los Angeles Kings, 8-6 at the Colisée de Québec. That's only slightly less than the 10-6 by which the Bears beat the Lions. For the Nords, Joe Sakic and Valeri Kamensky each had 2 goals and an assist. For the Kings, Luc Robitaille had 4 goals, and Wayne Gretzky had a goal and 3 assists.

November 20, 1978: The Earl Campbell Game

November 20, 1978: ABC Monday Night Football airs a game between the Houston Oilers and the Miami Dolphins, at the Astrodome in Houston.

The Oilers had drafted Earl Campbell, who had won the Heisman Trophy the year before, at the University of Texas, nearly leading them to the National Championship. He became perhaps the greatest fullback the NFL had seen since Jim Brown, knocking over much bigger men trying to tackle him. In this game, he ran for 199 yards and 4 touchdowns, and the Oilers beat the Dolphins, 35-30 in front of 50,000 rapturous fans, many of them waving pom-poms of the Oilers' powder blue.

This was the "Luv Ya Blue" era, where Oail Andrew "Bum" Phillips, a native of Orange, in the southeastern corner of Texas, was the head coach and the general manager. He built a team led by quarterback Dan Pastorini. Joining Campbell in the backfield was former USC star Anthony Davis. They had 3 good receivers in Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, Ken Burrough (known as "Double-O," because he was the last NFL player to wear Number 00), and Mike Renfro. The defense had end Elvin Bethea, tackle Curley Culp, and linebacker Robert Brazile.

But Campbell was the key. Phillips said, "I don't know if he's in a class by himself, but I do know that when that class gets together, it sure don't take long to call the roll." When asked about Earl's inability to finish a one-mile run in training camp, he said, "When it's first and a mile, I won't give it to him."

And, at the height of the Dallas Cowboys' self-proclaimed "America's Team" era, South Texas fans couldn't get enough of them. Phillips said, "The Cowboys may be America's Team, but the Oilers are Texas' team." (Ironically, at least for this game, the song they sang had been stolen from the Dolphins: "We're the Houston Oilers, Houston Oilers, Houston Oilers, Number 1... ")

But the Oilers were victims of geography and NFL alignment. They had been placed in the AFC Central Division, the same as the Pittsburgh Steelers, who were at the height of their powers. Phillips coined a saying that has since been adapted to fit other teams: "The road to the Super Bowl runs through Pittsburgh. Sooner or later, you've got to go to Pittsburgh."

In 1978, the Oilers went 10-6, and got to the AFC Championship Game, but lost to the Steelers at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. In 1979, they went 11-5, and got to the AFC Championship Game, but lost at Three Rivers again. In 1980, Phillips traded Pastorini to the Oakland Raiders for Ken Stabler, who was more his kind of quarterback. The Oilers went 11-5 again, and had a home Playoff game with the Raiders. What happened? Pastorini had gotten hurt, and replaced by Jim Plunkett, who led the Raiders all the way to the Super Bowl. The Steelers finally got old, and the Oilers couldn't take advantage. Campbell was named NFL Offensive Player of the Year all 3 times, but they didn't get to the Super Bowl.

Oilers owner Bud Adams fired Phillips, and the team went into decline. They were a Playoff team again from 1987 to 1993, then fell apart again. After the 1996 season, Adams moved them, making them the Tennessee Titans. They finally reached the Super Bowl in the 1999 season. The Houston Texans began play in 2002, and while they've made the Playoffs a few times, they've never gotten to the AFC Championship Game.

The Oilers had won the AFL Championship in its 1st 2 seasons, 1960 and 1961; and Houston has hosted the Super Bowl 3 times. But that 1978 Monday Night Football game remains the signature moment in the history of Houston professional football; and Campbell, more than the Oilers' 1960s quarterback George Blanda and the Texans' 2010s defensive end J.J. Watt, remains their signature player.

Campbell and Phillips would be reunited when Phillips was named head coach of the New Orleans Saints, but they couldn't win together there, either. Campbell, Bethea, Culp, Brazile and Stabler went on to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In 1999, The Sporting News released their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. In spite of his short career, Campbell was ranked 33rd. In 2010, the NFL Network released their list of the 100 Greatest Players. Campbell was ranked 55th.

Campbell has paid for these accolades, dearly: Playing football the way he did left him with a bad back, and arthritis in his hands. It has left maybe the toughest running back I've ever seen in a wheelchair, and he had to go to rehab to overcome an addiction to painkilling prescription drugs. He has been an advocate for those with his difficulties.

*

November 20, 1978 was, as stated, a Monday. Baseball was in the off-season. There were no games in the NBA or the World Hockey Association, and only 1 in the NHL: The Los Angeles Kings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Apparently, by this point, the leagues had learned not to try to compete with Monday Night Football for TV viewers.

October 23, 2000: The New York Jets' Monday Night Miracle

October 23, 2000: Once again, the New York Jets had the indignity of playing a home game in a venue that was named after another team, Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey.

They were playing the Miami Dolphins, then considered to be their arch-rivals. (The New England Patriots would, over the next few years, replace the Dolphins as such.) Both teams came in with 5-1 records, so this would decide, for at least a week, 1st place in the AFC Eastern Division. And the game was on national television, on ABC Monday Night Football.

At least, for the 1st time since 1982, they would be facing the Dolphins without Dan Marino as their starting quarterback. Marino threw 420 touchdown passes in his career, and it seemed like half of them were against the Jets. As it turned out, it was 72, still the most by a single quarterback against a single team, and 17 percent of his total, or 1 out of every 6.

The Jets no longer had to deal with Marino. It didn't seem to matter: With a little more than 3 minutes gone in the 2nd quarter, the Dolphins led, 20-0. The Jets got a touchdown in the last minute of the half when Vinny Testaverde threw to Wayne Chrebet, but Jay Fiedler led the Dolphins downfield in enough time to get a field goal from Olindo Mare. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Lamar Smith ran the ball in for a touchdown, and the Dolphins led, 30-7.

Given how bad the traffic can be at the Meadowlands when there's a full house -- and it was, with 78,389 fans on hand -- thousands of fans gave up and left early. What they may have heard on their radios as they were going back toward the Lincoln Tunnel or down the New Jersey Turnpike or State Route 3 may have made them wish they had stayed.

Some fans stayed and, recognizing that it was an off-day in the World Series, with the 2 New York teams playing each other, Jet fans, traditionally more favorable to the Mets than the Yankees, started a "Let's go, Yankees!" chant during the 3rd quarter. This was quickly countered by a "Let's go, Mets!" chant.

With 13:49 left in regulation, Testaverde threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Laveranues Coles. The 2-point conversion attempt failed, and, at 30-13, it looks like little more than a consolation score. But Testaverde put another touchdown drive together, and, with 9:51 left, passed to Jermaine Wiggins for a touchdown, the extra point making it 30-20. Suddenly, the Jets had a chance.

Testaverde got the Jets close again, and, with 5:43 left, John Hall kicked a 34-yard field goal. It was 30-23. The Jets were now one score away. Their defense held the Dolphins to a three-and-out, and, with 3:55 to go, Testaverde threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Chrebet. Extra point by Hall. Tie ballgame, 30-30.

But Fiedler struck quickly -- maybe a little too quickly. With 3:33 left, he threw a 46-yard touchdown pass to Leslie Shepherd, and it was 37-30 Dolphins. But that left plenty of time for an old pro like Testaverde, who was about to turn 37. With 42 seconds left, he called a tackle-eligible play, and John "Jumbo" Elliott, his fellow Long Islander, all 6-foot-7 and 308 pounds of him, caught a 3-yard touchdown pass. With 30 points in the 4th quarter, the Jets had sent this game to overtime.

In overtime, Marcus Coleman intercepted Fiedler, allowing Testaverde to get the Jets within field goal range. With 8:13 left in overtime, Hall attempted a 40-yard field goal. It was good, and the Jets won, 40-37. It became known as the Monday Night Miracle.

When Monday Night Football celebrated its 30th Anniversary that season, this game -- possibly because it was so recent, or possibly because a lot of New Yorkers voted -- was voted the greatest game the show had ever aired. It may be the greatest regular-season moment in Jet history, with their win in Super Bowl III in 1969 topping it, of course.

*

October 23, 2000 was a Monday. As I said, it was an off-day in the World Series. The Yankees then led, 2-0, and would win the Series in 5 games.

The NBA season didn't start for another 8 days. But there was 1 NHL game that night, and it was between local rivals, on the other coast: The Los Angeles Kings beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 5-4 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now named the Honda Center). Ziggy Palffy scored the winning goal with 3:56 left in overtime.

October 22, 2000: Clemens vs. Piazza

October 22, 2000: Game 2 of the Subway Series, at the original Yankee Stadium, is one of the most bizarre contests in baseball history. In the top of the 1st, with 2 out and a man on, Mike Piazza bats for the Mets against Roger Clemens of the Yankees.

Piazza had hit some long home runs off Clemens, and in July, in an Interleague game also at Yankee Stadium, Clemens had nailed Piazza on the helmet with a fastball, giving him a concussion.

This time, Piazza hits a foul ball, and breaks his bat. The barrel of the bat comes back to Clemens, and... he throws the jagged-edged bat barrel across the first-base foul line. Right in Piazza's path, and Piazza almost steps into it.

We may never know what was going on in the head of the Rocket, but what's going on in the head of Piazza is rage. He thinks Clemens was throwing the sharp object at him. Piazza moves toward Clemens and both benches empty. For one of the few times in his career, there's an on-field controversy with Clemens on the field, and Clemens is not the most insane man involved.

The umpires restore order, and Clemens finishes the at-bat by getting Piazza to ground out to 2nd base. He pitches 8 strong innings, and the Yankees pound Mike Hampton, and take a 6-0 lead into the 9th.

But the bullpen can't hold it, and the Mets come to within 6-5, including home runs by Piazza (the 1st-ever World Series homer for the alleged "greatest-hitting catcher ever") and Jay Payton, before Joe Torre has enough and brings in the Hammer of God, Mariano Rivera, to slam the door and keep it 6-5. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-0 lead in the Series, which now heads across town to Shea.

Clemens will be fined $50,000 for his what-the-hell moment. It was absolutely indefensible. He probably should have been suspended for it. Besides, he was probably on steroids at the time, right?

That is the conventional wisdom, aided by Met fans and other Yankee Haters, including the media. But the conventional wisdom was not wise.

Baseball is a game where things happen very slowly, and then, suddenly, they happen very quickly. It takes about 4/10ths of a second for a pitch to get from the pitcher's hand to the plate, and less than that to get at least the 60 feet, 6 inches back to the pitcher's mound, even if it's not hit toward said mound.

When Carl Mays threw the pitch that hit Ray Chapman in the head and caused a fatal injury on August 16, 1920, the sound of the ball hitting Chapman's head -- no batting helmets in those days -- and the fact that the ball came right back to him led him to believe that Chapman had hit the ball. So he threw the ball to Wally Pipp at 1st base. Clemens did what Mays did: Picked up something coming toward him, and threw it. It was natural to think, at first, that it was the ball.

But that bears the question: How do you mistake half of a broken baseball bat for a baseball? It seems stupid. Nevertheless, Clemens told home plate umpire Charlie Reliford, "I thought it was the ball." His actions back that claim up. Clemens may not be the most honest ballplayer you'll ever meet, but, on this occasion, his words were consistent with his actions.

Let's tell the truth: Clemens did not throw the bat at Piazza. He threw it across the foul line. Look at the video: Once the bat left Piazza's hands, he and it never came within one foot of each other.

Joe Buck, who is known to hate the Yankees, broadcasting the game on Fox, said, "He fires the bat back toward Piazza." Not at him. Toward him. If even Joe Buck, right as it's happening, wouldn't say it was at Piazza, that speaks volumes.

It was Tim McCarver, his broadcast partner, who called it "a blatant act" and "foolish." McCarver was one of these people who knows he's really smart, and wants you to know it, too. This time, he outsmarted himself: It couldn't be both a blatant act and foolish. "Foolish" suggests that he was acting in the heat of the moment. "A blatant act" would be planning it out, or, at least, having time to think about it. He didn't have that kind of time.

And so, just as Yankee shortstop turned NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek burned into fans' minds, 25 years earlier in the 1975 World Series' Game 3, that Ed Armbrister of the Cincinnati Reds had blatantly interfered with Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox, which cannot be proven, fans heard McCarver, and they took his word for it. They shouldn't have.

If there's one thing that Roger Clemens made perfectly clear, many times in his playing career, it's this: If he wants to throw something at someone with the intention of hitting him, that person will get hit. If he wanted to throw the bat at Piazza, that bat would have hit Piazza.

Which brings us to a simple concept: Clemens did nothing wrong. I know: That sounds like the reaction to Avengers: Infinity War and "The Snap": "Thanos did nothing wrong." Yeah, well, to hear Met fans tell it, what Clemens did was as bad as killing half of all life in the universe. They may actually hate him more than Red Sox fans do. And he didn't do anything to them, either. (Hell, he didn't reject the Red Sox for the Yankees: The Red Sox rejected him, and he went to Toronto first.)

McCarver was right about one thing: What Clemens did was foolish. But it caused no harm. It didn't come close to causing harm. Clemens broke neither the rules of baseball, nor the laws of the City of New York, nor the laws of the State of New York, nor the laws of the United States of America.

Should he have done it? No. But the only thing that got hurt was Piazza's feelings, and the Mets', and the Met fans', and those of Yankee Haters everywhere.

So now, the question needs to be asked: Which of these men was on steroids, warping their perceptions of what was happening? Was it Clemens? Was it Piazza? Was it both? Was it neither? Until either man, or both men, decide to change their stories, we may never know for sure.

As it turned out, both men played their last game in 2007, meaning that both became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2013. Piazza was elected in 2016. Through 2022, Clemens is still waiting. That did, however, avoid what would have been the most awkward induction ceremony in the Hall's history.

Oh, yes: The rest of the game. The Yankees took a 6-0 lead. The Mets scored 5 runs in the 9th, after Clemens was taken out. This included a home run by Piazza. Yankee manager Joe Torre had to call on Mariano Rivera to get the last out. He did. The Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the Series, and won the Series in 5 games.

Roger Clemens has 2 World Series rings. Mike Piazza has none. But Mike Piazza is in the Hall of Fame. Roger Clemens, thus far, is not. Who is better off?

*

October 22, 2000 was a Sunday, so it was also a day of NFL action. Almost lost in the craziness of Game 2 of the World Series was the fact that, a few hours earlier, Corey Dillon of the Cincinnati Bengals rushed for 278 yards against the Denver Broncos, breaking Walter Payton's single-game record of 275, set in 1977. The Bengals had been 0-6, but won this one, 31-21 at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. (It's now named Paycor Stadium.) They won the next week, too, beating their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns. But they fell apart, finishing 4-12.

Dillon, who has since been arrested for hitting his wife, has seen his record surpassed by Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson -- a cocaine addict and a child abuser, respectively. Walter Payton, one of the most decent men in sports history, went to his grave with his record intact. I don't think he would have minded seeing his record broken, but it would have upset him to see the character of the men who have done it.

Other NFL games played that day:

* The Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots, 30-23 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chicago Bears, 13-9 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Tennessee Titans beat the Baltimore Ravens, 14-6 at PSINet Stadium (now M&T Bank Stadium) in Baltimore.

* The Carolina Panthers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 34-16 at Ericsson Stadium (now Bank of America Stadium) in Charlotte.

* The New Orleans Saints beat the Atlanta Falcons, 21-19 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 35-16 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Arizona Cardinals, 48-7 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 22-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in PIttsburgh.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Buffalo Bills, 31-27 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the St. Louis Rams, 54-34 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. There was never really an NFL rivalry in Missouri, not between the Chiefs and the Rams from 1995 to 2015, and not between the Chiefs and the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1970 to 1987.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Seattle Seahawks, 31-3 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Network Associates Coliseum).

Three days earlier, the Detroit Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 28-14 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. And on ABC Monday Night Football, the New York Jets entered the 4th quarter at Giants Stadium trailing 30-7, and won it 40-37 on John Hall's field goal with 8:13 left in overtime. It's become known as the Monday Night Miracle.

And the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers had a bye week.

There were 4 NHL games that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus. Kirk Maltby scored the winning goal with 2:59 left in overtime.

* The Florida Panthers and the Minnesota Wild played to a 0-0 tie at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Edmonton Oilers played to a 3-3 tie at the Skyreach Centre, as the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton was then known.