The ending of the Patriots-Raiders game today is reminiscent of the original 'Miracle in the Meadowlands'. In that game, all the Giants had to do was take a knee and the game would have been over. For some reason, the Giants ran a play, fumbled the ball, and the Eagles were able to score a late game-winning touchdown.
In today's game, Patriots could have easily just taken a knee and gone into overtime. They decided to try for a low-chance touchdown. Once the ball was fumbled and recovered by the Patriots, they should have went down or out of bounds to go into OT. The lateral was probably one of the dumbest moves ever made during a tied game as time elapsed in which another opportunity was highly probable, and the result was a defensive recovery by the Raiders and touchdown for the win.
https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1604672340301946880?t=yVDrTnNwv5A6xGZjWOSVKA&s=19
As far the "The Miracle in the Meadowlands", the "Victory Formation" was not thought of then. In fact, it wasn't until 1987 that the rule allowing QBs to simply kneel was allowed. Sure, Giants QB Joe Pisarcik could have backed up, held the ball, and then fallen down when a defensive person came near him,
which he did on the prior play, instead of running the fateful play. However, the MLB for the Eagles, Bill Bergey, knocked the center for the Giants into Pisarcik trying to cause a fumble. The offensive coordinator for the Giants, Bob Gibson, did not want to risk an injury to Pisarcik, and, in the prevailing attitude of the time that simply "falling on the ball" was not sporting, called the running play to Larry Csonka. The players in the huddle were like WTF? and Csonka said to not hand the ball to him. Well, because the Giants were late leaving the huddle because of the play call, the play clock was winding down. The center snapped the ball early, so Pisarcik never had a strong grip of the ball. He turned, the ball went off of Csonka's hip, and into the hands of Herman "We play to win the game" Edwards for the TD and history.
In fact, earlier that 1978 season, Washington played Dallas on Monday Night Football on October 2. Washington was leading 9-3 and were inside their own 20 as time was running out. Washington QB Joe Theismann took the snap and backed up and kept backing up toward his own end zone as the game clock was getting closer to 0:00. He finally reached the end zone, fell down, and was touched (shoved) by Randy White of Dallas as time expired, having the final score of 9-5, Washington. Just another example of the prevailing attitude of the time.
The Patriots play was one of the stupidest in NFL history. If Tom Brady was there, this would never had happened. He would have just taken a knee and played for OT. This was just an example of players trying to do too much (and maybe looking for a highlight on ESPN, which they did get
) and, unfortunately, taking defeat right out of the mouth of a possible victory or tie. It is a wonder that
Roadgeekteen hasn't demanded that Jakobi Meyers be immediately waived.
BTW, Stevenson didn't fumble--he actually lateraled to Meyers on the play.
