Our favorite NFL plays ever
And some of the plays we'll never forget for all the wrong reasons
It’s too soon to know how Giannis Antetokounmpo’s block in Game 4 of the NBA Finals will be remembered. If the Bucks go on to win the championship, that play could be seen as the turning point and the most important moment in the entire series. If the Suns up winning it all, then, well, it was still really freakin’ cool:
Do yourself a favor and watch the slow-mo version of it:
No one else on the planet could have done what Giannis did there. The quick processing, the instantaneous reflexes, the innate talent, the unrivaled athleticism — combined, they simultaneously endorse both sides of the nature vs. nurture debate. Giannis was put on this earth to play basketball, but he’s also put in the work to excel at a level few others can ever hope to reach; the block was proof.
Giannis’ block also rejuvenated the NBA Finals, which had mostly limped along until then. Even if you don’t follow the NBA closely, it was hard not to marvel at Giannis’ effort and what it meant for his team. One way or another, that play will be live on in NBA history.
The NFL has a countless number of memorable plays throughout its own 100+year existence. Thanks to the power of Giannis, this week we decided to chat about some of our favorites, from the sublime to the ridiculous, in the annals of the NFL. — SH
When you think of “NFL highlight,” what’s the first play that comes to mind? (It doesn’t have to be a personal favorite, but it can be!)
Sarah Hardy: Maybe it’s because it happened when I was just beginning my journey of covering the NFL on a full-time basis, but Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-handed catch on Sunday Night Football is the first thing I associate with “NFL highlight.”
It was November 2014, and little did we know that we were nearing the conclusion of the golden age of sports blogging. Beckham was a rookie who had already shown signs of how special he could be, but this game — and more specifically, this moment — was when he truly arrived:
The breathless real-time reactions and the memes soon followed, and because it was 2014 and we were all so innocent, they felt fresh and fun, not tired and hackneyed.
Like the Giannis block, that catch wasn’t just an incredible feat of athleticism that no one on the other team could stop. It also felt like something new. We had witnessed jaw-dropping catches before. But we had never seen anything like that.
Unlike the Giannis block, that catch occurred in a fairly low-stakes regular season game and didn’t affect the outcome. Despite Beckham finishing the night with 10 catches for 146 yards and two touchdowns, the Cowboys won on a last-minute touchdown from Dez Bryant.
Afterward, however, Beckham’s one-handed snag was all anyone could talk about, and no matter how the rest of his career turns out, it will always be a big part (perhaps the biggest part) of his NFL legacy.
Christian D’Andrea: Well, the first *thing* I think of is John Facenda’s voice, strong enough to bend steel, slicing through a fog of brassy, aggressive music as players with either too many or too few facemask bars and shoulderpads the size of a Smart car tear across Astroturf:
If we’re talking plays, however, my mind immediately goes to Barry Sanders doing pretty much anything. The man is so absurd NFL Films decided a top 10 list simply wouldn’t do for his highlight reel. No, the Barry Sanders retrospective runs 50 plays deep and they’re ALL STELLAR.
Ryan Van Bibber: Well, since Sarah hinted at how those kinds of plays hit you when you’re covering the sport itself, the one that really gobsmacked me was Richard Sherman’s pass deflection and Malcolm Smith’s interception in the NFC Championship in 2014. That was a great game to begin with, and for the Seahawks to lock down the win on that play with like 30 seconds left … Those kinds of moments, especially in the playoffs, are what you live for with this sport. It’s the payoff for all the shitty Sundays watching the Jaguars you had to sit through.
We’ve all watched a lot of football in our lives (TOO much? Naaah). Which play are you happiest you saw live?
SH: I couldn’t always appreciate the NFL’s biggest shockers of the last eight-ish years in real time. When your job is to turn those into content, and often that requires being in “NOW NOW NOW GO GO GO” mode, then that kind of sucks the joy out of everything.
One exception? The Minneapolis Miracle, because I don’t know if I would’ve believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes as it happened:
I’m neither a Saints hater nor lover, though admittedly I feel bad for their recent string of playoff heartbreaks. And at the time, I couldn’t help but empathize with Marcus Williams and Ken Crawley, who crashed into each other to allow Stefon Diggs a clean path to the end zone (both are still with the Saints, at least). Still, in the midst of the chaos and stunned disbelief both at the stadium and in homes across America, there was no doubting that what we had all just watched that Sunday evening was an instant classic, forever belonging to NFL lore.
CD: I’ve seen some genuinely great college games live, but my track record in the NFL is pretty grim. I was there when Donovan McNabb failed to realize a regular season game could end in a tie. I saw *another* draw between the Packers and Vikings where the quarterbacks of record were Christian Ponder, Matt Flynn, and Scott Tolzien. Atlanta Falcon Byron Leftwich once bounced a pass into my friend’s hands at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. We were roughly 20 feet above field level!
Unfortunately, the most memorable play I’ve ever seen may be one that made me wildly unhappy. I was in Indianapolis, up in the 400s, with a fellow Pats fan from Rhode Island as we watched Bill Belichick go for it on fourth-and-2 inside his own territory, then fail as Kevin Faulk was stopped just short after juggling a Tom Brady pass. This led to an inevitable Peyton Manning comeback and a tremendous amount of white bread heckling from Indiana’s heaviest mouth breathers. It was the culmination of a weekend in which we went to three different live games (Purdue football, Pacers-Celtics, Pats-Colts) and saw the team we were rooting for lose horribly each time.
Rough days.
RVB: It was definitely Brandon Graham’s strip sack of Tom Brady in Super Bowl 52, the play that iced the Patriots’ comeback. It also happened the same year as the Minneapolis Miracle … hell, in the same place.
Going to that Super Bowl was kind of a payoff for me, personally, for SB Nation pivoting to full corporate shittiness that year. It was worth it to see that game live, mostly because of that play. I was sitting in one of the press areas around a bunch of media folk from Philly. Everyone was on their feet as Graham broke through the line, like, just in that split second, you KNEW something big was coming. Sure enough. I had barely registered the sack and Brady’s fumble when the Philly guy next to me (Brandon, my dude!) locked me in full bear hug and lifted me off the ground. It was an amazing moment, capped off by seeing defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz asking for a cigarette in the locker room after the game.
But, we haven’t watched every second of the NFL (even if it sometimes feels like it!), and the league has existed long before any of us were born. So which play do you *wish* you had seen live?
SH: Sometimes, you just have to give it up for a little dumb luck and a player willing to say “eh, eff it.” Holy Roller had both — including a terrific nickname and a whole lot of controversy.
Though I’ve seen the replay a number of times, I did not witness it firsthand due to the fact that I did not exist in 1978. Unless, of course, reincarnation is real and I was a different being who just so happened to be watching an early-season Raiders-Chargers game.
With 10 seconds left, Ken Stabler dropped back to pass, and when he couldn’t find anyone open and the Chargers defenders were bearing down on him, he decided to hell with it and simply rolled it forward. Pete Banaszak did the same, leading to Dave Casper playing hot potato with it until he finally recovered it in the end zone for the game-winning score. (Soon after, the NFL amended its rules about advancing fumbles in the final two minutes of a game.)
There was no explaining what happened in the moment; even John Madden was speechless. Bill King’s call — “There’s nothing real in the world anymore” — captures Holy Roller so perfectly and every other “zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play” before and after it. And anything in sports that makes you question reality itself would be worth experiencing live.
CD: Despite my Pittsburgh roots and subsequent Pirates fandom (ugh), I have no love for the Steelers. HOWEVER, I feel as though the Immaculate Reception must have been an absolute batshit moment, whether you were in Three Rivers Stadium, watching at a bar packed with fans, or just tuning in on a wood-paneled 21” screen via rabbit ears.
Sure, it was only a Divisional Round game, but what a swing.
RVB: Beast Quake. Few players were as enjoyable to cover as Marshawn Lynch, so I wish I’d seen his (one of) signature moment.
What’s the one *good* play can you watch over and over and never get tired of?
SH: The Philly Special. The 2010s didn’t deliver many of what I would classify as “fun” Super Bowls (any Patriots win is automatically disqualified, in my book). So when the Eagles pulled off this trick play in Super Bowl 52, it was clear that they were here to have fun and more importantly, they were here to win:
Thankfully, Doug Pederson opted to go for it rather than settle for the field goal, thus giving the Eagles a double-digit lead right before the half. And for one glorious year, we were spared another Tom Brady championship.
CD: Any and all Aaron Rodgers Hail Marys will do the trick. Anytime Rodgers has the time to launch a high-arcing cannonball into the end zone it’s a must-watch for me, even if it gets swatted down. When they’re completed — and, better yet, completed in the service of destroying the meager hopes of Lions’ fans? /chef’s kiss
RVB: This is kind of cheating because it’s not really a play, but Andre Johnson beating the shit out of Cortland Finnegan is the gift that keeps on giving.
What’s the one *bad* play can you watch over and over and never get tired of?
CD: lol c’mon
SH: The Butt Fumble is the obvious choice, and I don’t disagree with Christian on that.
Buuuutt (see what I did there?), for variety’s sake, I’ll throw one more out there for consideration: Dan Orlovsky, casually and blissfully unaware, running out of the end zone for a safety:
Jared Allen immediately pointing it out when he stepped out of bounds is the sneaky-best part of the highlight.
Unfortunately for the Lions, they would go on to lose by exactly two points, their closest loss in their infamous 0-16 season. Years later, Orlovsky still has to hear about the safety on a daily basis, and while I’d take pity on most anyone else in that situation, Orlovsky is such an insufferable Twitter presence and exceedingly hot-takey analyst that I can’t extend him any compassion for this one.
RVB: I didn’t realize it had come to be called the Colts Catastrophe, but that trick play on fourth down against the Patriots in October 2015 … holy shit. (Yes, that was a Thursday Night Football game.) Remember watching them line up for it and thinking, “what in the hell is going on here?”
Watching a disaster like that unfold in real time is a special feeling. You know something is wrong. You know it’s not going to work. Then, when it blows up in their face, it goes even worse than you could have imagined it was going to. But this one actually got better in the days after it happened, when Chuck Pagano tried to explain it only to reveal that it was an even bigger cockup than you thought seeing it live.
Whether it was from this past decade or much earlier, what do you think is the greatest play in Super Bowl history?
CD: please allow my homerism one more indulgence
SH: To counterbalance Christian’s homerism, and because it’s the correct answer: David Tyree’s helmet catch, the only reason Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-hander isn’t considered the greatest catch in Giants history:
It had everything you could ask for from a Super Bowl: a little-known player making a herculean effort, a play impossible to reproduce, and the death knell of a perfect season. Oh, and a sad Tom Brady.
RVB: Mike Jones and The Tackle. No question about it. For all the hype, deserved, about the Greatest Show on Turf, the Rams needed a big defensive play to lock in their Super Bowl win, payout for being a fan of a team that’s been an otherwise miserable experience.