With very few exceptions, the NFL didn't commandeer the nation's sporting soul until around 1969, when Joe Namath and the Jets shocked the Colts in Super Bowl III and guaranteed the AFL-NFL merger. It ushered in the Super Bowl era and our nation approved most heartily. Soon it surpassed baseball as our favorite sport. Then, with advancements in TV, technology, and athletics, the NFL has complete control of at least one day of the week (Sunday), if not more. We may disagree on the order, but here are the greatest NFL games of all-time.
10. New York Giants vs. Buffalo Bills
January 27, 1991
Super Bowl XXV
The only Super Bowl equally celebrated for its score and its sentiment. Long ago branded the “Whitney Houston” Super Bowl in honor of the singer’s spine-chilling rendition of our national anthem, it was perfectly rendered, with fighter jets zooming overhead, and patriotic Amemericans in full froth as we were in the nascent stages of the war vs Iraq, who had invaded Kuwait.
Lesser-known as the “Wide Right” Super Bowl - so named after kicker Scott Norwood booted his last-second 47 yard field goal. He missed, with the ball curving right of the goal posts. The attempt would have won the Super Bowl. Instead it sailed into history for Buffalo and ignominy for Norwood. The GIants won, 20-19.
9. San Francisco 49ers vs. Cincinnati Bengals
January 22, 1989
Super Bowl XXIII
Though the Niners were strong favorites to win their fourth Super Bowl in the ‘80s, the Bengals were a more formidable foe than expected. Indeed, the Bengals took the lead, 16-13, with about three minutes left, and the Niners’ offense took the field from their own eight yard line and vast swaths of grass ahead of them. Enter Joe Montana, who earned his handle, “Joe Cool,” on this drive. It wasn’t his precision passing in the waning Super Bowl moments that made him so special. It wasn’t the nifty running from RB Roger Craig. It was how Montana handled all of it. When the 49ers huddled on their own eight, their offense formed a circle around Montana, pouting hopefully at their leader, waiting for a stern sermon on toughness, teamwork, and winning. Instead, a charmingly relaxed Montana pointed to a person in the stands. “Hey, isn’t that John Candy?” Joe Cool asked of his football brothers in the biggest moment of their lives. It relaxed them, and him, and the rest is history, capped by Montana’s missile strike down the middle, caught by WR John Taylor in the end zone to leapfrog the Bengals, 20-16.
8. Miami Dolphins vs. San Diego Chargers
January 2, 1982
AFC Divisional Round
A mathematician couldn't count all the ups and downs spread across this game. Sports Illustrated branded it, "the game no one should have lost." As proof of how big the game was, Don Criqui and John Brodie called the game live, while Bryant Gumbell anchored the game, his last NFL assignment on NBC before he graduated to host the "Today" show. With a few seconds left in the first half, Dolphins QB Don Strock chucked the ball to the Chargers 25 yard line, where Duriel Harris was waiting. Harris snagged the ball, then tossed it to a streaking Tony Nathan, who then cruised toward the end zone, capping a classic play affectionately called, "The hook and ladder" (with ladder being slang for lateral pass). The Chargers, once down 24-0, stormed back into halftime down 24-17. Then it became the Kellen Winslow show. The Chargers' legendary tight end put forward perhaps the best effort in a playoff game ever. The future Hall of Famer snagged 13 passes for 166 yards, and even blocked a field goal. Winslow did all this despite a pinched nerve in his shoulder, dehydration, savage cramps, and a gash in his lower lip that took three hours to zip. There's a classic picture, minted as NFL royalty, of an exhausted and dehydrated Winslow being carried off the field by two teammates.
Said Chargers coach Don Coryell after the game, "I have coached for 31 or 32 years and this is tremendous...There has never been a game like this. It was probably the most exciting game in pro football history."
Dolphins coach Don Shula agreed, "A great game...Maybe the greatest ever."
NFL on NBC anchor Gumbel: "If you didn't like this football game, you didn't like football."
"I've never felt so close to death before," Winslow said afterward.
7. Cleveland Browns vs. Denver Broncos
January 11, 1987
AFC Championship Game
A few years after "The Catch" we were indulged with "The Drive." Down 20-13 with two minutes left and the ball on his own two yard line, John Elway orchestrated one of the greatest drives in pro football history, with precision passing and nimble running. There was 5:32 left in regulation when Elway got the ball. With just 37 seconds left and the ball on the Browns' five yard line, Elway scampered back, scanned the field, then fired the ball between two Browns defenders, and then it was caught and cradled by sliding wideout Mark Jackson. The catch and subsequent extra point carried the game into overtime, where the Broncos K Rick Karliss booted a 33 yard field goal to win the game, 23-20, and propel Denver to the Super Bowl.
6. Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Dallas Cowboys
January 21, 1979
Super Bowl XIII
A Lynn Swann touchdown catch catapulted the Steelers to a 35-17 lead in the fourth quarter. Then Dallas' miracle man, QB Roger Staubach, engineered two TD drives to close the gap to 35-31, with time left in the game. This was a clash between two dynasties at their peak. For proof, consider the game featured 25 - yes, twenty-five! - future Hall of Famers, from Staubach to Terry Bradshaw to Swann to Stallworth to Tony Dorsett. (In all, 11 Cowboys went to Canton, while 14 Steelers were voted into the HOF.) After one successful onside kick, halfback Rocky Bleier gobbled up the Cowboys' second try to seal the game. It would leave the Steelers with three Super Bowl rings, while America's Team had just two. Pittsburgh would win one more the next year, to make it four in six years and claim their title as the team of the decade.
5. San Francisco 49ers vs. Dallas Cowboys
January 10, 1982
NFC Championship Game
Forever known as the game with "The Catch," the forlorn 49ers, who did nothing in the '70s, grabbed the torch from the Cowboys, who built their rep as "America's Team" in the '70s. But the Niners made their name and their young QB named Joe Montana showed his game. With 58 seconds left and the ball on the Dallas six yard line, Montana dropped back to pass, then felt the heat of the Cowboys pass rush and rolled to his right. With the monstrous Ed "Too Tall" Jones stalking him, his endlessly long arms up in the air to swat the ball, Montana pump-faked twice and then chucked the pigskin just over Jones's fingertips. The spiral went sailing just over all defenders before WR Dwight Clark leaped in the air from the back of the end zone, snagged the ball with his bare hands, and landed back in the end zone, spiking the ball in jubilation. The play punched San Francisco's ticket to their first Super Bowl, and would be forever known as "The Catch." The 49ers would win the Super Bowl a few weeks later, and win three more during the decade, making the Niners the team of the '80s.
4. New York Giants vs. New England Patriots
February 8, 2008
Super Bowl XLII
A replica of this game was played, at Giants Stadium, during the last game of the regular season. The Giants came within a whisker of beating the 16-0 Patriots, who were a few wins from supplanting the 1972 Dolphins (17-0) as the greatest team of all-time. Many players and pundits think the 38-35 loss in Week 16 gave the Giants all the confidence they needed to beat the 18-0 Pats in the Super Bowl. And they were right. With some clutch play, a rabid pass rush that haunted Brady all game, and the most miraculous catch in Super Bowl history, made by David Tyree, and the G-Men shocked the world, and the Patriots, with a 17-14 upset in Arizona. In a pretty funny postscript, there are thousands of kids wearing "19-0" Patriots t-shirts in Central America, where all the prematurely printed shirts were shipped after the shocking upset.
3. Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins
December 25, 1971
AFC Divisional Round
After 49 years, this is still the longest NFL game ever played. The teams were so similarly good they both finished the season with an 10-3-1 record. So, of course, the teams were knotted after regulation, 24-24. The first overtime period yielded no points, so the clubs marched on to the second overtime. Dolphins kicker Garo Yepremian booted a field goal in the second overtime to seal it and a trip to the AFC title game. It kickstarted a run of three straight Super Bowl appearances for the Dolphins. The game thwarted a potential dynasty for the Chiefs, who had won Super Bowl IV the year before, against the Minnesota Vikings.
2. New York Jets vs. Baltimore Colts
January 12, 1969
Super Bowl III
As former Broncos linebacker and longtime NFL analyst Tom Jackson said of Joe Namath, he may not have had the greatest career of any QB in history, but he did win the most important game in the history of pro football. That would be at the Orange Bowl on the above date. During the first two Super Bowls, Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers smashed the two teams the upstart AFL threw at him. And the third iteration of the AFL-NFL championship game - later called the Super Bowl - was supposed to be more of the same. Baltimore was favored by 18 points, a staggering amount for a title game. But Namath made his infamous, and now famous, poolside guarantee that his lowly Jets would beat mighty Baltimore. He promised, which was something old world athletes, with their modest sensibilities, never did. It put the bullseye on Namath and his Jets. And they delivered, shocking the Colts, 16-7, capped by Namath's immortal jog out of the stadium, flexing his forefinger. It sealed the deal and officially merged the NFL and AFL and made the Super Bowl America's preeminent yearly sporting event.
1. Baltimore Colts vs. New York Giants
December 28, 1958
NFL Championship Game
It's hard to pass up on an event routinely called, "The greatest game ever played." For an idea of how long ago this game was, consider Weeb Ewbank coached the Colts, not the Jets. There were two teams called The New York Giants. And the "Football" Giants played at Yankee Stadium. It was not only a game between the NFL's two best teams, it featured the stars of the game, from Colts QB Johnny Unitas to the Giants RB Frank Gifford. Naturally, this game was forced into overtime, tied at 17-17. And so America started its football addiction when Alan Ameche took a handoff from Unitas and barrelled into the end zone to give Baltimore the NFL championship, 23-17. The Giants had two assistant coaches, one named Landry and the other Lombardi, both of whom would remold the NFL into the juggernaut it would soon become.
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