rayonsports.com

On December 6, 1987, a game was played between 2 clubs who meet on this week’s NFL schedule – the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That game will be our feature for this week’s Throwback Thursday. Coach Jim Mora’s Saints, at 8-3, were fighting for a playoff spot while the Bucs were languishing in a losing season. New Orleans looked to take the fight out of their opponent as quarterback Bobby Hebert and tight end John Tice hooked up on a pair of short touchdown passes in the first quarter to jump out to a 14-0 lead. Bucs’ QB Vinny Testaverde worked his way into the end zone from a yard out to give Tampa their first score. New Orleans, obviously proving to be the better team, started the second quarter the same as they did the first. This time their running game finished drives, as Rueben Mayes scored on a 7 yard run and Dalton Hilliard pranced in from 3 yards out. The Bucs managed a field goal before the half to cut the Saints’ lead to 28-10, but the game appeared to be all but over when New Orleans added 2 more scores – a 40 yard Morten Andersen field goal and a 2 yard Mayes rushing TD, to move ahead 38-10.

Tampa Bay was not about to roll over and play dead yet, however. Testaverde found Mark Carrier for a 37 yard touchdown pass, and Donald Igwebuike booted a 43 yard field goal to cut the deficit to 38-20 after 3 quarters. Andersen stemmed the tide with another field goal but Testaverde went back to work and tossed a 12 yard touchdown pass to Bruce Hill. Now leading 41-27, Andersen finished the Saints’ scoring with another three pointer. Still not finished battling, the Bucs drove to another touchdown behind Testaverde, this one completed by a 2 yard Bobby Howard run. A loss is a loss, and the defeat lowered Tampa’s season record to 4-8, but the team’s effort to shorten the final score to 44-34 was valiant. Testaverde wound up throwing for 369 yards, while Carrier had a career day with 8 receptions for 212 yards and his TD.  This Saints’ victory officially qualified them for the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, but they wound up being blown out 44-10 in the wild card round by Minnesota.

Coach Jim Mora, architect of the Saints’ first playoff team

The Buffalo Bills travel to Houston this Sunday to take on the Texans, and this week’s Throwback Thursday feature is from a game played between these 2 teams just a few years ago, on January 4, 2020. It was an AFC Wild Card game set at Houston’s NRG Stadium, with the Texans being AFC South champions, while Buffalo qualified for the playoffs with a second place finish in the AFC East. Buffalo used some trickery to open the scoring in the first quarter, as offensive coordinator Brian Daboll dialed up a play that saw wide receiver John Brown hit quarterback Josh Allen with a throwback pass that resulted in a 16 yard touchdown.

Josh Allen scores on trick play option pass

The Bills’ defense put the locks on the Texans for the entire first half, holding them scoreless. Meanwhile Steven Hauschka contributed a pair of 40 yard field goals to give his club a 13-0 halftime lead. When Hauschka hit his third consecutive three-pointer in the third quarter, it upped the Bills’ lead to 16-0 and set up a play on the ensuing kickoff that changed the momentum of the game. The kickoff went into the end zone and was fielded by Houston’s DeAndre Carter, who then flipped the ball at the feet of an official. The ref never blew his whistle, and the Bills alertly rushed in and recovered the ball for an apparent touchdown, since the returner never really downed the ball by taking a knee. It would have given Buffalo pretty much an insurmountable lead, but then the inexplicable happened. A mysterious black-clad “common sense” alternate official came in from the sideline and overruled the refs on the field, negating the score by ruling that the Texans’ player’s “intention” was to down the ball when he flipped it in the vicinity of the official standing next to him. These extra refs, only used during the playoffs to keep the guys who didn’t earn playoff games because of poor performance during the regular season employed, somehow were given the authority over the actual game officials.

Being let off the hook must have given the Texans a jolt of energy, because they stormed back to score 19 unanswered points to go ahead 19-16 in the fourth quarter. Quarterback DeShaun Watson ran 20 yards for a score and then added a 2 point conversion run, Kai Fairbairn kicked a field goal and Watson hit Carlos Hyde with a short scoring pass, and added another 2 point conversion with a toss to DeAndre Hopkins. Buffalo battled back to tie the game with another Hauschka field goal, sending the contest into overtime. They were burned in the extra period by an old friend and former teammate, Taiwan Jones, who grabbed a short Watson pass and rambled 34 yards to set up a winning 28 yard field goal by Fairbairn, giving the Texans a 22-19 win.

Mysterious “alternate” ref affecting the game’s outcome

The Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans clash on the week 4 NFL schedule, and for this week’s Throwback Thursday post we will feature a game played between these 2 franchises in the Dolphins’ inaugural expansion season of 1966. The Titans were the Houston Oilers at that time, and although they won the first 2 American Football League championships, they were on a steep decline when this game was played on December 18, 1966. Miami had managed 2 wins so far in their first year, and 1 of them was earlier in Houston over the Oilers at Rice Stadium. Houston came into this matchup, the final regular season game for both clubs, with only 3 wins. Needless to say, in spite of being at the end of a lost year, they did not want to suffer the embarrassment of being defeated twice in a season by an expansion team.

Houston quarterback Don Trull found running back Hoyle Granger for a 27 yard touchdown pass to get the scoring started in the first quarter, and then hooked up with Larry Elkins in the second from 11 yards out to give his Oilers a 14-0 lead. Miami signal caller John Stofa then began what would become a career day by hitting Joe Auer with a 27 yard scoring toss. The Dolphins added a 2 point conversion (which was only a rule in the AFL, not the NFL, back then). Trull was unfazed, and upped the Oiler lead to 21-8 with a 2 yard TD pass to Bob McLeod. Stofa was the man in the second half. He provided the only score of the third quarter with a 48 yard bomb to flanker Frank Jackson. Trull’s 1 yard QB sneak gave Houston a 28-15 advantage, but Stofa capped his performance with a pair of touchdown drives that ended with his third and fourth TD throws – 4 yards to Bill Cronin and 14 to Auer. Gene Mingo’s successful extra point kicks on those 2 scores put Miami up 29-28 and they hung on to hand the Oilers another loss. Auer had 87 rushing yards in addition to his 2 receiving TDs, while Jackson amassed 110 receiving yards on 4 catches from Stofa.

Two years later Stofa would be traded to Cincinnati prior to their expansion draft to enter the AFL in ’68, officially becoming the first Bengal player in team history, only to return to the Dolphins for the ’69 and ’70 seasons.

John Stofa, Pride of University of Buffalo

We’re headed into week 3 of the NFL season already, and one of the matchups is between 2 old franchises, the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. We will travel back to December 4, 1966 for a contest involving these teams, who were bitter Eastern Division rivals at that time. Throughout the 1950s they were top clubs, and between 1961 and 1965 either the Giants (’61, ’62 and ’63) or Browns (’64 and ’65) represented the East in the NFL title game.

In ’66 the Browns were coming off back-to-back Eastern crowns, while the Giants were on a steep decline, having lost the field general responsible for their earlier glory, Y.A. Tittle, to retirement after the ’64 season. This was week 12 of a 14 game season, and the Giants had only a single victory to show for their efforts so far, while the Browns were in pursuit of the up and coming Dallas Cowboys, who led the division. When New York’s Clarence Childs returned the opening kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown and Giants’ QB Gary Wood ran 5 yards for another score to put the Giants up quickly 14-0, Cleveland knew they were in for a fight from a team that might have been down, but still held contempt for their rival. The Browns steadied themselves and put together a drive that ended with a 1 yard touchdown plunge by Leroy Kelly to cut the deficit in half. The Giants were determined, however. Wood scrambled for another score, from 16 yards out, and after Cleveland matched that with a short TD pass from Frank Ryan to Gary Collins, New York took over the rest of the second quarter and added a 33 yard touchdown pass from Wood to Joe Morrison and a Pete Gogolak field goal. Entering the halftime locker room the Browns found themselves staring at a shocking 31-14 deficit.

Pete Gogolak, pro football’s first soccer style kicker

The lead was bumped up to 20 points when Gogolak opened the second half scoring with another field goal. Kelly, who had taken over from the retired Jim Brown as Cleveland’s featured back in ’66, sandwiched a pair of short touchdown runs around another Gogolak three-pointer, and the Giants’ lead after 3 quarters was cut to 37-28. Gogolak booted his fourth field goal to start the final quarter to put his club up 40-28, but the Browns’ winning DNA took over from there. Ryan, who to this day is still the last Cleveland signal caller to guide the Browns to a championship, connected on scoring throws of 19 yards to Ralph Smith and 31 yards to Ernie Green and it was 42-40 in favor of Cleveland. The defense added some icing to the cake when defensive end Bill Glass scooped up a Giants’ fumble and rambled 13 yards to the end zone to put the game away for good with a final count of 49-40. It was a good scare by a losing club against their bitter long-time rival, but the cream eventually rose to the top.

Future Hall of Fame back Leroy Kelly