Top 5 Oakland Raiders games of alltime are immortal
5. January 22, 1984 Oakland 38 Washington 9
Raiders:
The Raiders were the underdogs as they had been in their two previous Super Bowl wins. The Redskins were the highest scoring team in National Football history and had beaten the Raiders in Washington earlier in the season, 37-35, in the 1983 season's most exciting game.The Washington Redskins were no match for the Raiders in the Super Bowl. A first quarter blocked punt led to an early score. Two long passes from QB Jim Plunkett to WR Cliff Branch pushed the lead to 14-0. RB Marcus Allen took over the game rushing for 191 yards in being named MVP. He had a 74 yard touchdown run to end the third quarter.
A late second quarter screen pass from Washington QB Joe Theismann intended for RB Joe Washington was intercepted by rookie linebacker, Jack Squirek and run in for a score.
CB Lester Hayes and former New England CB Mike Haynes had excellent games for Oakland with Mike Haynes intercepting a pass. Tom Flores had now won his second Super Bowl as head coach in four years.
4. January 25, 1981 Oakland 27 Philadelphia 10 Super Bowl XV
Wikipedia:
Aided by two touchdown passes from quarterback Jim Plunkett, the Raiders jumped out to a 14–0 lead in the first quarter of Super Bowl XV, which the Eagles never recovered from. Oakland linebacker Rod Martin also intercepted Philadelphia quarterback Ron Jaworski three times for a Super Bowl record. Plunkett was named the Super Bowl MVP after completing 13 of 21 passes for 261 yards and three touchdowns, while also rushing for 9 yards. Plunkett was also the second Heisman Trophy winner to be named Super Bowl MVP after Roger Staubach in Super Bowl VI.
The former New England Patriots QB, Jim Plunkett threw the longest TD pass in Super Bowl history with a 80 yard toss to RB Kenny King. The game was played in the SuperDome in New Orleans just five days after the Iran crisis. The referee was Ben Dreith.
3. December 18, 1976 Oakland 24 New England 21
Wikipedia:
During the 1976 playoff between the Oakland Raiders and the New England Patriots, Ben Dreith called a roughing-the-passer penalty on Patriots tackle Ray "Sugar Bear" Hamilton, nullifying a third down incompletion and giving the Raiders an automatic first down deep in New England territory, which led to Oakland's game-winning touchdown with less than a minute left. Replays showed Stabler ducking away from Hamilton and no contact being made. Partially because of the controversy, Dreith was not assigned to work any games involving the Patriots until 1987.
By 1990, Dreith reached the age of 65 and the league asked him to move into the instant replay booth. He refused and was demoted to line judge. Dreith was fired after the season, thus prompting him to send a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
On February 13, 1991, the EEOC ruled that the NFL had violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by illegally demoting Dreith. After attempts to reach a compromise with the league, the EEOC sued the NFL on August 13. In the first-ever lawsuit filed by the agency against Professional Football for age discrimination, the EEOC claimed that the NFL unfairly reviewed the job performance of older referees more closely than that of younger officials. The EEOC also noted that the league's performance ratings showed that Dreith performed better than some of the younger officials who were retained.
On January 5, 1993, Dreith and the NFL agreed to a $165,000 settlement, plus court costs and attorney fees.
The October 3, 1976 regular season game saw New England rush for 296 yards against the Oakland Raiders in a 48-17 thrashing in Foxboro. This was the only loss on the season for the Raiders. The playoff game in Oakland on December 18th featured the 11-3 Patriots against the 13-1 Raiders.
The Patriots committed three turnovers, including an interception thrown by TE, Russ Francis. Russ also had his nose broken by Raiders LB Phil Villipiano, while running a pass pattern. There was no call for a penalty on the play.
The roughing the passer play called on DT Ray Hamilton in the final minutes by Referee, Ben Dreith moved the ball from the New England 18 yard line to the three. In those days, the full 15 yards was marked off. Following an unsportsmanlike penalty called on Patriots safety Prentice McCray, for kicking the football when it was spotted, allowed for short run for the touchdown by Oakland QB Kenny Stabler.
It would take 26 years for another referee to get so involved that he changed the fortunes of the Patriots and Raiders, again.
2. January 19, 1976 New England 16 Oakland 13 (OT)
Wikipedia:
NFL tuck rule - NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2. When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble.
The tuck rule was called in Week 2 of the 2001-2002 NFL regular season in a match up between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets. On September 23rd, 2001, in the waning minutes of the second quarter, Patriots' defensive end Anthony Pleasant apparently forced Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde to fumble the ball. Patriots' defensive end Richard Seymour made a recovery. The call was overturned upon review and ruled an incomplete with the tuck rule cited. The Jets would go on to tie the game with a field goal on that drive and then eventually win in overtime.
The final game to be played at Foxboro Stadium turned out to be historic. The Snow Bowl or Snow Job game was the 2002 AFC divisional matchup between Oakland and New England. With the Raiders in front 13-10 with 1:43 remaining in the 4th quarter, Patriots QB Tom Brady was hit by Raiders CB Charles Woodson on a strong side blitz forcing the football to be fumbled which was recovered by Oakland LB Greg Biekart.
Following a lengthy instant replay delay, Referee Walt Coleman ruled that the pass was incomplete, stating that the ball was moving forward when it dropped.
With new life, New England moved the ball into field goal range for K Adam Vinatieri to kick a 45 yard field goal through the wind and snow. Adam would also kick a 23 yard field goal in overtime for a 16-13 Patriots victory.
In the aftermath of the Tuck Rule Game, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick referred to this game, telling ESPN, "I knew what the ruling should have been because we had dealt with that play a little bit earlier in the year on the other side of it."1. November 17, 1968 Oakland 43 New York Jets 32
Wikipedia:
Heidi was heavily promoted by NBC in television commercials and newspaper advertisements. The network hoped to gain a large audience, especially among families, whom the network anticipated would watch the entire two-hour film. Individual commercials for the film were not sold by NBC; instead, the entire block of two hours was sold to the Timex watch company which would air the film and have its own commercials run. The New York Times touted Heidi as the best TV program of the day. Under the terms of the contract between Timex and NBC, Heidi had to go to air promptly at 7 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. Central), and could not be delayed or joined in progress for any reason.
Raiders:
The Heidi Game was voted the most memorable regular-season game of the in NFL history by a select group of media in a 1997 poll taken in conjunction with the NFL's 10,000th regular-season game.
Because of the blown switchboard, many fans could not get through to NBC to complain. Instead, they began calling the New York City Police Department and the New York Telephone Company.
The first 59 minutes of the contest had lived up to its pre-game billing. It was a classic AFL shootout with eight lead changes and ties. Late in the game, fans saw New York QB Joe Namath masterfully lead the Jets deep into Raiders territory. With just over a minute to play, the Jets Jim Turner kicked his fourth field goal, a 26-yarder that gave New York its 32-29 lead.
Turner kicked off and the Raiders returned the ball to their own 23-yard line. The network cut to commercial, Heidi came on, and...
The Raiders had scored two touchdowns in a nine-second span and held on to win a most memorable game, 43-32.radiodiscussions:
There was an uproar when fans learned about the game's dramatic ending. NBC ran a "crawl" at the bottom of the screen during Heidi reporting the result more than 20 minutes after the game had ended.
The episode wound up having a major impact on the future of TV sports programming. It prompted the NFL to insert language into its TV contracts guaranteeing that, in the future, games of visiting clubs would be shown to their home markets in their entirety.
"Probably the most significant factor to come out of Heidi was, whatever you do, you better not leave an NFL football game," said Val Pinchbeck, the NFL's retired chief of broadcasting.
Sunday, November 24, 1968
7 PM New Adventures Of Huck Finn (time approximate)
7:30 Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color: "The Treasure
Of San Bosco Reef" (Part 1 of 2)
Commissioner Roger Goodell could take a page out of the 1968 playbook. When a major problem arose in 1968, it got fixed in a week.
Paul Murphy is a freelance writer from New Hampshire.
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