Chandler Jones, from home Sunday night, knew the ending to the Raiders’ 30-24 win over the Patriots was surprising and strange, but he didn’t know it was historic.
So he asked me, “You’ve been covering the game for a long time, how do you see it?”
I’m not positive, I said. But I think it’s the most incredible ending to a game I’ve seen since, well, maybe Immaculate Conception.
“Do you know that?” I asked
“Refresh me,” he said.
“Raiders-Steelers playoff game, 50 years ago this week,” I said. “Steelers up 7-6, fourth down, 22 seconds left, at their 40-yard line. Terry Bradshaw throws, caroms a Steelers running back or Raider safety Jack Tatum, and Franco Harris the catches or catches it near the ground, and runs for a touchdown. The Steelers win.”
“Pretty amazing,” Jones said.
“Here’s what’s amazing,” I said. “Going to Pittsburgh for Raiders-Steelers this week on the 50th anniversary of the game.”
Jones soaked it for a minute. The enormity of what had just happened was hitting him now.
“It’s going to be hard for me to fall asleep tonight,” Chandler Jones said.
Week 15 in the NFL. Call it Lunatic Fringe Weekend. Any of the 10 stories could have made it difficult for any of us to fall asleep over the weekend.
The Colts take a 33-0 lead in 24 minutes. I’ve got news from the Colts coach’s fired postgame text to the Vikings’ winning quarterback that you’ll want to know. And I have serious questions about a late Saturday game call Jeff.
Florida men play bravely, lose eight-point lead in blizzard. I think Josh Allen was wearing a cape under the Bills’ #17 jersey Saturday night in the comeback win against Miami. (Moral victory of the week, BTW: Dolphins.)
Men of Reid win seventh consecutive AFC West crown. They almost lost against 1-12-1 Houston, but Patrick Mahomes, who had five incompletions in five quarters, didn’t let them. “How can he not be the MVP?” coach Andy Reid asked me. Good question, the same one that the head coaches of Philadelphia and Buffalo and Cincinnati might be asking.
MVP watch. Seriously: Hurts, Mahomes, Allen, Burrow have good cases. Really well. With three weeks to go, the MVP is usually wrapped in a neat bow. now? Not entirely.
The 6-8 Bucs are in first place despite a performance so pathetic … that Bucs superfan Dick Vitale turned on them on Twitter. “Humiliated two weeks in a row!” Mr. Positively enraged.
The NFC South will be relegated to the Mid-American Conference, according to sources. The 6-8 Bucs are one game ahead of the 5-9 Panthers, 5-9 Falcons and 5-9 Saints. I remember the Seinfeld episode when George’s fiance Susan’s father tells his drunken wife, “Wear a little more lipstick.” Dick Vitale to the Bucs: “Turn around a little more.”
Streak of teeth, meek titans. Jags are 4-2 since Halloween after Dak Prescott’s pick-six by safety Rayshawn Jenkins on Sunday. Jacksonville within one game of first place in the AFC South with the tiebreaker advantage over Tennessee. Tennessee-at-Jacksonville has twenty days left in the regular season, and it could mean something.
Bay Stater Steve Kornacki said the Pats’ crushing 7-7 loss dropped their playoff chances from 64 percent to 42 percent. so high? The last three QBs they’ll see in the regular season: Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen.
Who are you really, Dallas? Last two weeks: Texans/Jags 63, Cowboys 61. With the Eagles 13-1 and the Titans desperate to play the next two weeks, Dallas is at risk of a slump entering Wild Card weekend.
But here comes the real craziness. Gut feeling this morning in the NFC: Giants sixth seed, Lions seventh. The Lions have won six of seven, and their last three games are against Carolina, Chicago and Green Bay (13-28 combined). Which means 9-8 or 10-7 is a real possibility. How’s this: Jared Goff and Daniel Jones on Wild Card Weekend, baby. Patella Biters to Niners, G-Men to Vikes.
fun times
So how does one of the most shocking plays in modern NFL history come about?
Here’s how Jones’ 48-yard “fumble recovery” happened (seriously, this is how it will go down in history):
Pats 24, Raiders 24, three seconds left, New England ball at their 45 yard line, last play of the fourth quarter. The extra time beckoned. Pats decided not to throw a Hail Mary, because they didn’t have confidence that Mac Jones could throw a high arcing ball 60 yards. So Jones handed it off to Rhamondre Stevenson, who would try to find his way 55 yards downfield, somehow.
Maybe we all expected the Patriots to play in overtime, which was the trick here. Bill Belichick certainly was. Most of the Raiders were. But Chandler Jones told me he expected the Patriots to take a shot to score right there.
“It was a desperate situation,” Jones said by phone from Nevada, “and this was a team that was going to try anything to advance the ball for a touchdown. They’re going to throw the ball, they’re going to punt it, they’re going to sideline it. I knew it was a chance of it happening. I thought they were going to do a hook and a side or something. They did a random run.
“I actually missed a ticket [Stevenson]. I went to hit the ball on that play and missed. The boy kept running. When I stood up, I noticed that the ball was being thrown.
On FOX, Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma thought the Patriots would try something, but nothing dangerous. The sound of their voices, at first, was quite calm.
Albert: “Stevenson is inside the 30. He turns it backwards. The Stanford band is nowhere in sight.”
“Now they were playing hot potato,” Jones told me. “Instead of chasing the ball, I started playing again to say, OK, who’s the next passer? Who could they throw it to behind the line of scrimmage? Because they’re playing this whole hot potato game. Sure enough, I saw Jakobi Meyers look back at Mac Jones, the quarterback. He was standing in the middle of the field. I literally jumped up when I saw the ball coming, intended for Mac. Mac he was standing there, looking at me with big eyes.
That sounded crazy, and it was: Meyers threw the ball 22.9 yards on the pass intended for Jones, according to Next Gen Stats. This isn’t just a little bit on the side. This is the equivalent of a good pass down the field.
Vilma: “Uh-oh.”
Albert: “HE HAS BEEN HEARD!”
Vilma: “Uh-oh! Oh no!”
Albert: “AMAZING!”
“I literally jumped up and intercepted him,” Jones said. “I just gave Mac a nice stiff arm with my right hand. The rest was history.”
Albert: “AMAZING! Chandler Jones [crossing the goal line] take it! And win the game! For the Raiders! Have you ever seen an ending like this!!!”
Vilma: “I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea why he did it. Oh my goodness!”
“Crazy he threw it back,” Derek Carr said.
“I didn’t see the guy there,” Meyers said later. “I was trying to do too much. I should have come down with the ball.”
Meyers had no instructions to throw it, and certainly not to throw it 23 yards.
Albert: “An amazing finish here in Las Vegas.”
Vilma: “I thought I’d seen it all, Kenny.”
“Out?” Jones said. “No, I’m not surprised at all. I mean, I’m glad I did something to help the team win. But not surprised at all. Honestly, I was trying to catch my breath, to be honest. It felt like a 100-yard run. They slapped me in the side of the face, on the head. Everyone congratulates me, “Thank you! Thanks!’ And all I could do was just stick with football. I remember very well that the football was in my right hand. [Tight end] Foster Moreau, he came up to me and said, ‘Chandler, give me the ball. I’ll make sure you get it. I just let it go. I just let the ball go and I was like man, I just needed air. And the game was over. It was such a crazy feeling. It was almost like a Hollywood script that isn’t written because people won’t believe it. There’s no way, you know?”
What just happened?? The @Raiders win on the final play!! #NEvsLV pic.twitter.com/cmKNUuab1k
— NFL (@NFL) December 19, 2022
It’s not shocking to do something like Meyers did when a team is behind. But tied up? Heading into overtime? The full back is too dangerous. It can be stolen or picked off, and it can be returned for a touchdown. This is what happened.
What’s so uncharacteristic about the play is that Meyers is a very smart player, one of the players Belichick trusts the most. If he’s going to do something like that, what hope does this team have when the clocks are tight near the end of games?
“This might be one of the dumbest teams I’ve ever seen,” a flustered colorman Scott Zolak told the Patriots Radio Network.
So now these teams enter the long shot bracket for the playoffs. New England, 7-7, and Vegas, 6-8, will have to pull off some upsets to play after Week 18. As NBC pro Steve Kornacki said Sunday night, the Patriots’ odds to they dropped to four in 10 in the postseason, and that might be generous: New England closes with three foes likely destined for the playoffs.
“Does anything in your football life compare to this?” I asked Jones.
“I won a Super Bowl, Super Bowl 49,” he said. “That was pretty legit. But making a play to win a game? No. Never. I’m 32 in ’11. I guess with age comes better plays.”
When Kirk Cousins completed the greatest comeback in NFL history (the Vikings fell to the Colts 33-0 with 24 minutes to play and then won 39-36) on Saturday, he noticed a postgame text by Frank Reich. interesting Cousins and Reich are friendly, but not that close, and Reich was the coach fired by the Colts midseason. But Reich was also the backup quarterback who, 30 years ago, playing because Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly was injured, rallied the Bills from a 35-3 deficit to win 41-38. And that’s what this text was about, sort of cousins who bettered Reich by one point to set the league record.
“Frank…