3. The Catch
The NFC Championship determines which team will go to the Super Bowl, the biggest football game of each season. The year: 1982. The players: The Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49rs. With 58 tics left on the clock, the 9rs were on the Dallas six yard line…knocking on the endzone door. Crossing that threshold would tie the game at 27. The extra point would put Joe Montana and his crew ahead of the Cowboys by one. Two chances were all they had. The snap. Montana rolled right chased by Cowboys’ defenders Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Larry Bethe and D.D. Lewis. It was 3-on-1. Montana searched for his receiver in the end zone and faked a toss to get “Too Tall” to jump and lose his rhythm. As soon as Ed’s feet returned to earth, Joe let the pigskin fly. And fly it did, seven, eight, nine feet high to the back of the endzone. Too high for anybody to catch. But wait! 6’3” Dwight Clark stretched his arms upward, jumped and brought down the ball. His feet pounding the grass brought a thunderous roar from the 60+ thousand San Fran fans in attendance.
4. The Immaculate Reception
On Dec. 23, 1972, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Franco Harris taught us all a lesson. It ain’t over til it’s over. Trailing the Oakland Raiders by a mere point, the Steelers, led by QB Terry Bradshaw, lined up on their own 40 yard line. With 22 seconds and no timeouts remaining, 60 yards is a lot of ground to cover to reach pay dirt. Bradshaw just needed to get closer for their kicker to score three points. While everybody ran their routes, the quarterback avoided getting sacked by multiple Raiders. He was lucky to get rid of the ball, sending it sailing 35 yards. Instead of its intended target, the hands of running back John “Frenchy” Fuqua, it ricocheted six yards backwards and down. That’s when Franco Harris saved the pigskin just before it touched the sod and barreled 35 yards for the endzone. Dubbed “The Immaculate Reception,” the catch and run rescued the squad from certain defeat and is still talked about today.