The Lions have had their strange moments, that's for sure, but of all the curious play calls and decisions they've made over the years, perhaps none haunted the franchise as much as an ill-advised pass play called in the huddle during the late stages of a rain-soaked game in Green Bay, in October 1962.
The Lions, growing into a serious title contender in 1960 and '61, visited the Packers. Each team was 3-0. For most of the game, the Lions' vaunted defense handled the Packers' famous running attack in the muck in Wisconsin. The Lions nursed a 7-6 lead with just a few minutes remaining.
Then the Lions were faced with a third-and-long near midfield. But even if they didn't convert, all they needed to do was punt, pin the Packers deep into their own territory, and Green Bay would have maybe 90 seconds left to drive into field goal position -- which on a bad weather day would have been inside the 30-yard line.
But then Lions QB Milt Plum faded back to pass.
"My God, he hasn't passed all day! What's he doing?," DT Alex Karras said to Joe Schmidt (according to Karras years later).
The pass was headed for the sidelines, but the Lions receiver slipped in the mud and DB Herb Adderly intercepted. He ran it back deep into Lions territory. A few simple running plays later, Paul Hornung booted a field goal. Packers win, 9-7 -- without even scoring a touchdown.
"The whole defense was absolutely violent. Joe Schmidt was absolutely violent. I was so mad, I could have killed somebody," Karras related about the mood in the locker room after the game.
Naturally, everyone wanted to know who called the pass play, when a running play would have been safer.
"None of your business," Plum told Karras.
That's when Karras lost it, and hurled his helmet across the room, missing Plum's noggin by inches.
Karras said that the mood was so funereal on the plane back to Detroit that "even the writers, who were normally like pallbearers, were trying to cheer us up."
The Lions later manhandled the Packers on Thanksgiving Day in '62, but by that time it was too late. Green Bay won the West with a 13-1 record. The Lions finished 11-3 -- their third loss coming on the last, meaningless Sunday of the season. Had they not blown the game in Green Bay, it might have been the Lions in the league championship game that year, not the Packers.
Karras and others still believe that that loss in Green Bay in 1962 so divided the team and so hurt morale, that the Lions never really recovered.
"It was like guys started to think, no matter what we do or how good we play, something is going to happen to screw it all up. That we'll never win anything," Karras said.
It's a mood and a belief that continues to dog the Lions today, some 45 years after the debacle in Green Bay.
The New York Football Giants, who invade Ford Field Sunday, were also victimized by a strange play call. But this one was much more famous, though the implications were far less. Call it the amenities of playing in New York/New Jersey.
The 1978 Giants were a bad football team. They were going nowhere in the standings. But they were about to defeat the Philadelphia Eagles at home -- and the Eagles WERE a good football team. The Giants had the ball inside their own 30-yard line, under a minute remaining. The Eagles had no timeouts left. All Giants QB Joe Pisarcik had to do was fall on the ball, for goodness sakes.
For reasons that still go unknown, Pisarcik tried a handoff to Larry Csonka. The exchange was poor, and the ball dropped to the turf. You've seen this play a hundred times, no doubt. And you've seen DB Herm Edwards (yes, THAT Herm Edwards) scoop up the gift and waltz into the end zone for the winning score.
Edwards about to pick up his freebie and run with it to glory
A Giants assistant coach got fired the day after the game. The play came to be known as the Miracle in the Meadowlands. And it served as a constant reminder of the Giants' ineptitude in the late '70s, early-1980s. Until someone named Bill Parcells came along to end the nonsense.
I've never seen footage of the Lions' silly pass play in Green Bay in 1962. But I've read about it for years, rendering my seeing it irrelevant. I HAVE seen the Giants' blunder countless times, but that play hasn't nearly the same impact as the one the Lions made -- the one that I never saw.
Proof that memories can resonate without moving pictures to showcase them.
1 comment:
What about Lawrence's Taylor's 97 yard 1982 Thanksgiving interception of Gary Danielson late in the game after the Lions,who'd led throughout,were driving deep in the Giants' red zone to seal the deal?That one still gives me agita.
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