The Greatest Plays in NFL Playoff History

by Marjorie Mackintosh

What constitutes a great play is often in the eye of the beholder. Fans of the victims of a great play bemoan missed calls by officials. They claim some of the NFL’s greatest plays occurred because of misinterpretation of rules, unseen interference, or some other explanation of the calamity to their team. Meanwhile, fans of the team benefiting from such plays tout them as signs of their team’s superiority, in players, game calling, and football skill.

Great plays, and great controversies, are magnified during the playoffs, when every game is televised to a national audience. And the NFL has generated plenty of both in the playoffs going back, at least here, to 1958. Here is a subjective list of the top ten plays in NFL playoff history. Spoiler alert: Neither Aaron Rodgers, nor Tom Brady, figure in any of them.

(Note: while these plays are all available to view on YouTube, most are also restricted from being embedded here. We’ve provided links to each play within the body of each entry.)

10. The Hail Mary pass

Many believe the last second long pass to or near the end zone known as the Hail Mary to have been so christened on December 28, 1975, in a divisional playoff game.  The Dallas Cowboys trailed the Minnesota Vikings 14-10. They had the ball near midfield, with 32 seconds left in the game. Roger Staubach launched a desperation pass fifty yards downfield toward Drew Pearson. Pearson collided with a defender while adjusting to the ball, knocking him to the ground. No flags were thrown. The catch gave Dallas the win, advancing them to the NFC Championship game. Afterward, Staubach told reporters, “It was a Hail Mary pass”. The name stuck.

It wasn’t the first time the name had been applied to a desperate play. As far back as the 1920s, players at the University of Notre Dame used the term. Georgetown used it in the 1940s, and even Staubach called a play against Michigan when he played for Navy a Hail Mary pass. But the 1975 play was in the NFL playoffs, on the national stage via television. The Cowboys went on to beat Los Angeles in the NFC Championship before losing to Pittsburgh in Super Bowl X. The desperation pass known as the Hail Mary has been a fixture of close NFL games ever since.

9. The Catch

The 1981 NFL Championship Game, played on January 10, 1982, featured the San Francisco 49ers against the Dallas Cowboys. Late in the fourth quarter the Cowboys led 27-21. San Francisco got the ball on their own 11 yard line, with just under five minutes to play. 49ers quarterback Joe Montana led the team on a drive which placed them on the Dallas six, with 58 seconds to play. On third and four, with a possible first down available if they advanced to the Dallas two, Montana found wide receiver Dwight Clark at the back of the end zone. Clark made a leaping, twisting catch with his fingertips. The Niners had the lead, but Dallas still had 50 seconds to drive for a game winning field goal.

The Cowboys drove to mid-field before their offense sputtered, and the 49ers won the game. The game winning play instantly became known as “The Catch.” Neither Montana nor 49ers head coach Bill Walsh saw the catch as it was made. Montana was on the ground after being hit, and Walsh assumed the ball had been thrown away due to its altitude in the end zone. The 49ers went on to win the Super Bowl that year, and three additional Super Bowls during the decade. The Cowboys fell into a period of decline. In 2019 NFL films listed The Catch second on their list of the 100 Greatest NFL Plays of All Time.

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8. Alan Ameche’s touchdown in “The Greatest Game Ever Played”

Often called “The Greatest Game Ever Played” the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants featured 12 players who eventually were enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame. Among them were Frank Gifford, Sam Huff and Don Maynard from the Giants. Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti were among the Colts. Legendary coaches and rivals Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi ran the New York defense and offense respectively. The Colts head coach Weeb Ewbank joined them in the Hall.

The game was nationally televised by NBC and despite a blackout in the New York area, 45 million fans watched it on television. Unitas led the Colts in a late fourth quarter drive, called the first to utilize the two-minute drill, to tie the game with a field goal with just seven seconds left in regulation. When the game went into sudden death overtime the Giants received the football first. They failed to advance, punted, and Unitas led the Colts on an 80-yard drive to the New York one yard line. From there, Alan Ameche, on a third down play, scored the winning touchdown. Until the 1958 championship, college football was more popular in the United States than its professional counterpart. Following the game NFL popularity exploded on the still relatively new medium of television, and has grown with it ever since.

7. The Immaculate Reception

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a long record of failure in the NFL when they faced the Oakland Raiders in an AFC divisional playoff game on December 3, 1972. At that point, the Steelers had never won a playoff game. In the fourth quarter it appeared that drought would continue. The Raiders led, 7-6, late in the quarter. Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw, with 30 seconds left in regulation, through a deep pass to receiver John Fuqua. What happened next remains controversial. Either the ball hit Fuqua’s helmet, his hands, or the hands of Raiders safety John Tatum. It ricocheted backwards, heading toward the ground. Steelers running Franco Harris back caught the ball and ran to the end zone with the winning touchdown. It became known as the Immaculate Reception.

Raiders fans contended the ball hit Fuqua and Tatum never touched it, which made Harris’s catch illegal since a defender had not touched the ball. Others claimed Harris snatched the ball just as it touched the ground, making it an incomplete pass. The Steelers won the game. Though they lost that year’s AFC Championship to the Miami Dolphins (who went undefeated) it began a run of success which saw them win four Super Bowls within the decade. The Immaculate Reception fueled a long and bitter rivalry between the Steelers and Raiders, which included some of the most physically fought  games in NFL history.

6. Earnest Byner’s fumble at the goal line cost the Browns a Super Bowl appearance

As of this writing, the Cleveland Browns have never appeared in a Super Bowl, one of just four teams to share that dubious distinction. But they have come close, never closer than on January 17, 1988, when they faced the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium. Trailing 21-3 at halftime, the Browns, led by running back Earnest Byner and quarterback Bernie Kosar, clawed their way back in the third and fourth quarter. After Denver scored a late touchdown the Browns began another drive, reaching the Denver eight-yard line. On second and five, Kosar handed the ball yet again to Byner, who ran to his left, picked up the first down, and continued toward the end zone.

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He reached the end zone, but the ball didn’t. Bronco defender Jeremiah Castille, unblocked, hit Byner at the three yard line. Castille later admitted he knew he couldn’t stop Byner and went after the ball. He succeeded in knocking it free and the Broncos recovered. After forcing Cleveland to use their timeouts, Denver deliberately gave up a safety. That made the score 38-33 Denver. Cleveland got the ball back with time for a Hail Mary from mid-field, which failed. Earnest Byner had 67 yards and a touchdown running the ball that day, and 120 yards and another touchdown receiving. He is remembered for what entered NFL lore as “The Fumble.” To Cleveland fans it remains another piece of evidence all their sports teams are cursed.

5. Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak to win the Ice Bowl

New Year’s Eve, 1967, saw the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers in a rematch of the preceding season’s NFL Championship Game. It remains the coldest game in NFL history. At game time the temperature in frigid Green Bay was minus 12 degrees. It became known as the Ice Bowl. The system meant to keep Lambeau Field’s playing surface from freezing failed. Several players suffered frostbite. Some players believed the game would be postponed. Officials considered postponing the game, until they learned the forecast predicted the next day would be even colder. The game went on, though the pregame performance by the Wisconsin-La Crosse marching band was canceled when the musicians’ lips froze to their mouthpieces.

The game was hard-fought. Late in the fourth quarter, with Dallas leading 17-14, Green Bay executed a 67-yard drive, bringing them to the one-yard line (actually about a foot from the goal line) with 16 seconds remaining. People glancing at the scoreboard could see the time remaining, yard line, down, score, and the temperature, minus 20 degrees. On the next play, Packer guard Jerry Kramer drove the fearsome Cowboy defensive lineman Jethro Pugh off the line of scrimmage and quarterback Bart Starr dove across for the touchdown and a Packer victory. It was their third straight NFL Championship.

4. Ben Roethlisberger’s touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes

Super Bowl XLIII (43 for those challenged by Roman numerals) is remembered for, among other things, being the last appearance in the television booth by the late John Madden. It also featured a 100 yard interception return for a touchdown by Steelers linebacker James Harrison. Despite that play and other heroics, with 2:37 remaining to play, Pittsburgh trailed the Arizona Cardinals 23-20.

Led by Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh drove 78 yards, with 73 of those yards via receptions made by Santonio Holmes. The final play of the drive was a six-yard completion in the back corner of the end zone, when Holmes made one of the most spectacular catches in NFL playoff history. Some fans call the game itself the best in Super Bowl history, though not many of them are Arizona supporters. The play gave Pittsburgh its sixth Super Bowl win, making them the first team to reach that level of continued success.

3. The Ghost to the Post

On Christmas Eve, 1977, the Raiders, who then called Oakland home, faced the Baltimore Colts in an AFC Divisional Playoff game. The game seesawed in the second half, and late in the fourth quarter Oakland trailed the Colts by three. They got the ball with just under three minutes left on their own 30-yard line. Raider quarterback Ken Stabler needed to get the team into at least field goal range to force overtime.

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He got them there with a 42-yard completion to tight end Dave Casper (known to teammates as “the Ghost,” a la Casper the Friendly Ghost) on a play the Raiders called “Ghost to the Post.” Casper altered his route and made an over-the-head catch of the high-arching pass which put the Raiders in field goal range. The Raiders tied the game a few plays later, forcing overtime. In the second overtime, Casper caught a 10 yard pass from Stabler which won the game, but it would not have been possible if not for the athletic catch he made late in the fourth quarter.

2. Malcolm Butler’s goal line interception in Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX saw the Seattle Seahawks, winners of the preceding year, playing the New England Patriots, which had not won a championship for ten years. Played on February 1, 2015, the game pitted a Seattle defense they called the Legion of Boom against New England’s explosive offense. In the end though, it was New England’s defense which completed the winning play. Seattle built a 10 point lead in the third quarter, but the Patriots scored two touchdowns in the fourth, giving them a 28-24 lead late in the game.

With just two minutes and two seconds remaining, the Seahawks weren’t finished. They drove from their own 20 yard line to the Patriot one, where they faced second and goal with 26 seconds to play. Inexplicably to some fans, the Seahawks called a pass play, and Malcolm Butler intercepted the ball. The play did not end the game. A penalty for excessive celebration made the possibility of a safety on the Patriots real. But an encroachment penalty on Seattle moved the ball back, and a following brawl led to a personal foul on the Seahawks, driving them back further, and giving Tom Brady sufficient room to take a knee and run out the clock.

1. Knile Davis’s 106 yard kickoff return on the first play of the 2015 playoffs

On January 9, 2016, the NFL Playoffs for the 2015 season opened with the wildcard game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans in Houston. On the opening kickoff, Chiefs return specialist and running back Knile Davis caught the football six yards deep in his end zone. He elected to run it out. 11 seconds later he was in the Texans’ endzone, having completed the longest kickoff return in NFL playoff history. It was also the quickest score in playoff history.

The stunned Texans never recovered. By halftime they trailed 13-0, and the game ended with a score of 30-0. The Chiefs logged four interceptions during the rout. It was the first time the Texans had failed to score in a game on their home field. In the end, the only points the Chiefs needed for their first playoff victory in 26 years came on the opening kickoff .By the way, Davis’s kickoff return was not the longest of his career. In his rookie season, 2013, he returned a kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown against the Denver Broncos, tying the second longest in NFL history. The record is 109 yards, currently held by three players.

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