Everything
Words: Chloe Watts
The story is stuff of legends, in the evening of September 17, 1920, 14 men met inside an automobile showroom in downtown Ohio to discuss a new professional football league. In those days, the football scene was dominated at a college level and coupled with soaring player salaries and vicious player poaching from opposing teams, owners were bleeding financially. Dreaming of making independent professional teams akin to the level of Baseball, the owners of the 11 professional teams set out to make a new confederation that was tasked with raising the standard of professional football in every way possible.
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Since that night, we have seen the addition of the NFL Draft in 1935, Monday Night Football in 1970, the inclusion of wild card teams at the playoffs and the creation of the Superbowl in 1967. A game that has stood the test of time and is surrounded in so much history, also has a lot of outstanding moments. Below we have compiled the top 9 moments in NFL history.
1969 New York Jets Win Super bowl III
Joe Namath’s unwavering faith in his and the team’s ability to beat the Baltimore Colts showed that the New York Jets meant business and were a serious professional football team.
1982 The Catch
The 1982 Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys. Down six points and with 89-yards to score the winning touchdown, Joe Montana led the 49ers down the field and with 58 left on the clock. With Freddie Solomon surrounded by cowboys, Montana had to come up with something different. Dwight Clark was nearing the rear end zone and Montana saw an opening that only Clark could fill.
1993 The Comeback
The Buffalo Bills beat the Houston Oilers in a wild card playoff game in January 1993. While Frank Reich helped bring the Bills back into the game, ultimately it all came down to Henry Jone’s intercepted pass from Warren Moon and Steve Christie’s winning field goal.
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1991 Super bowl XXV
The closest game in Superbowl history happened between the New York Giants defeated the Buffalo Bills. It all came down to Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal in the closing seconds of the game.
1967 The Ice Bowl Game
In December of 1967, the Green Bay Packers were hosting the Dallas Cowboys for the NFL Championships. The temperature at kick off was -26 degrees Celsius with a wind chill between -44 degrees Celsius. Coach of the Packers, Vince Lombardi had installed a heater under the field to help the grown from freezing over. However, Lambeau field had issues to the severity of the weather and the heater had malfunctioned and brought moisture to the surface of the field. When exposed to the subzero weather, the water froze over, creating a sheet of ice on the field.
1968 Heidi Game
The game that changed television programming. The New York Jets were leading Oakland and with 90 seconds left in the game when NBC concluded the live broadcasting and began to screen the film Heidi. The audience went crazy and flooded NBC with phone calls. NBC changed the way they run live television so that future games were not switched back to regular programming unless the game was finished.
2007 Giants Patriots Season
One of the biggest NFL upsets came about in 2007, when the New York Giants robbed the New England Patriots of a perfect season run.
1972 Miami Dolphins Undefeated Season
The only team in the history of the NFL to have a perfect season, the Miami Dolphins dominated the competition in 1972 and won the regular season, the play-offs and the Super Bowl.
1972 The Immaculate Reception
One of the craziest plays in the NFL was between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland Raiders. In December 1972, the Raiders were up by 7-6 and the Steelers had the ball on their 40-yard line. With less than 30 seconds to go, Terry Bradshaw threw a pass downfield, the ball bounced off an opposing player and right to Franco Harris.
