The 8 greatest Hail Mary's in NFL history

Andy Dalton dropped back on a fourth-and-15 with two seconds left and a seven-point deficit against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 10 of the 2013 season, and heaved a ball 51 yards to the endzone.

Well, to be exact, the ball reached about the two-yard line, before Ravens' defenders made two attempts to knock the ball away. Instead, they popped the ball up twice, ultimately creating a tip drill that ended with Bengals' superstar wideout A.J. Green hauling in the pass as time expired for a touchdown. The Bengals would ultimately lose the game in overtime, but it remains one of the most memorable last-second sequences in the last 20 years.

This wasn't the last time Dalton and Green would hook up for a successful Hail Mary. In Week 7 of the 2016 NFL season, Green bobbled a last-second pass from Dalton as time expired in the first half. He ended up catching the ball with just his right hand, the second most impressive last-second moment of his career.

Billy "White Shoes" Johnson is one of the forefathers of NFL touchdown dances. On Nov. 20, 1983, he had every reason in the world to get down in the endzone.

Johnson's Falcons were trailing the San Francisco 49ers 24-21 with two seconds left during a Week 12 tilt against a team they had already lost to once during the 1983 season. Falcons' quarterback Steve Bartkowski heaved a ball from Falcons' territory towards the 49ers' endzone. The ball didn't make it all the way to the endzone, with a teammate seemingly catching it in the scrum near the goal line and tossing it back to Johnson, who avoided four defenders long enough to fall into the endzone.

Fortunately, the NFL hadn't yet installed video replay, so there wasn't a chance for Bill Walsh and the 49ers to challenge whether Johnson was down before he reached the endzone.

Jack Del Rio's Jacksonville Jaguars had a pretty pedestrian 2010 season, as they finished with an 8-8 record. For one week, though, the team found magic.

Tied 24-24 with three seconds left against the division-rival Houston Texans, it appeared that the Jaguars' Week 10 game was headed to overtime. Still, with three seconds left, quarterback David Garrard took a shot towards the endzone, and got about as lucky as one possibly could.

Texans' defensive back Glover Quin made the correct football play, attempting to knock the ball the ground, which initially fooled the great Gus Johnson, who was on the call for CBS. The problem was that instead of the ball being knocked to the ground by Quin, it went directly into the hands of Jaguars' wide receiver Mike Thomas, who walked in for the game-winning touchdown.

The term "Hail Mary" came to be in the 1975 NFC Divisional Playoffs, when Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys completed one of the most improbable late-game comebacks in the history of the sport.

Trailing 14-10 late in the fourth quarter, Hall of Famer Roger Staubach connected with Drew Pearson on the second-to-last play of the game, with the wideout making an incredible catch on the sideline to advance the Cowboys to the 50-yard line. Little did we know that this would be Pearson's second most memorable catch from the game.

On next play - the final play - Staubauch threw the ball inside the five-yard line, a ball that Pearson ultimately hauled in and walked into the endzone. Pearson would celebrate the game-winning touchdown by firing the ball into the stands, a fairly common practice today, but one that seemed to further confuse the already-shocked announcers.

As Aaron Rodgers launched a desperation heave to the endzone at Ford Field during Week 13 of the 2015 NFL season, announcer Jim Nantz asked a simple question: "He turned 32 yesterday, does he have a vintage moment in him?"

He did.

Arguably the greatest thrower of the deep ball in NFL history, Rodgers connected with tight end Richard Rodgers on a 61-yard touchdown pass as time expired, allowing the Packers to win 27-23 on Thursday Night Football.

In January of 2018, Minnesota Vikings' wide receiver Stefon Diggs caught a last-second pass from quarterback Case Keenum in the NFC Divisional Round against the New Orleans Saints. While the Vikings were simple attempting to get in field goal range, Diggs was able to run the ball into the endzone and win the game after Saints' safety Marcus Williams fell down. The play would ultimately be dubbed "The Minneapolis Miracle."

However, eight seasons prior, there was another miracle in Minneapolis. Trailing 24-20 to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 3, quarterback Brett Favre made one of the defining plays of his career. With 12 seconds left in the game, Favre danced around the pocket, before firing an absolute strike to wide receiver Greg Lewis at the back of the endzone to win the game.

Favre, of course, tortured the Vikings as a member of the Green Bay Packers for the majority of his career. This touchdown pass, though, was a precursor of what was to be a special first season in purple for Favre.

We're not being prisoner of the moment here: what NBC's Mike Tirico has referred to as "The Hail Murray" is one of the greatest plays in modern NFL history.

After Josh Allen led the Buffalo Bills on what felt like a season-defining touchdown drive, it seemed that the Cardinals were headed for a close loss at home. Instead, the Cardinals got within Hail Mary range, and the two best players on their team took care of the rest.

While Murray is to be commended for evading defenders and throwing a ball half the length of the field against his body, the most impressive part of this play is DeAndre Hopkins' all-world hands and concentration, which allowed him to come down with the game-winning touchdown despite being draped by three defenders. This is what the famous "Fail Mary" play would have looked like if Golden Tate had actually caught the ball.

In the exact same endzone that Hopkins caught "The Hail Murray," Aaron Rodgers completed one of the greatest passes that the NFL had ever seen.

Just months after the aforementioned Hail Mary in Detroit, Rodgers connected on an even more impressive throw. Flushed out of the pocket to his left, Rodgers launched the ball more than 55 yards to the endzone, with wide receiver Jeff Janis making an incredible adjustment on the ball to haul it in and send the game to overtime. The Packers would actually lose to the Cardinals in overtime, but this remains one of the most amazing plays we've ever seen.

It's also as good of a call as Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth have had together, with the two displaying a child-like joy as they watched an unfathomable play unfold.