(EDITOR’S NOTE

: A series by Times News writer Rich Strack will recall his favorite moments in sports history. Throughout the upcoming weeks, Strack will offer his thoughts about different sports. Today’s topic is the National Football League)

BY RICH STRACK

tnsports@tnonline.com

In this difficult time of a health crisis, the matter of sports competition that brings so much recreational joy to millions of Americans has been rightfully postponed.

Every level from the professional and college ranks down to high school spring sports will have empty stadiums, ball fields, and running tracks for the foreseeable future.

If you’re a sports fan like me, the games may not be live for a while, but from many years of devotion to athletic competition, some of the greatest events continue to play on in my memory rewind.

So sit back and let me distract you from public concerns for just a moment with Part Two of a series of the greatest games and events that will remain forever in my personal Hall of Fame.

Today, I choose three football games as the best of the best. All of my picks were played with high drama right until the final seconds ticked off the clock.

1967 NFL championship

Cowboys vs. Packers

Commonly known as The Ice Bowl, the game time temperature on the last day of December in Green Bay, Wisconsin was 15 degrees below zero with wind chills registered at 48 degrees below zero.

With an NFL local TV blackout in effect, 50,861 die-hard fans attended the game at Lambeau Field on that frigid day to watch Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys battle Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers for the league title.

The adverse conditions were so bad that after the kickoff, the referee blew his whistle and it stuck to his lip. He pulled it off along with a piece of skin. Several players suffered frostbite during the game. Packers’ linebacker Ray Nitschke’s toenails fell off while he played the whole game with two purple feet.

Green Bay scored first on a nine minute, 83-yard drive on a pass from Bart Starr to Boyd Dowler.

After a Cowboy punt, Starr faked a handoff on a fourth-and-one from the Dallas 43 and found Dowler over the middle again for a 14-0 lead.

The ‘Boys stormed back in the second quarter when defensive end George Andrie sacked Starr and returned the fumble seven yards for a Cowboy TD. A late-quarter Dallas field goal sent the teams into the locker rooms at halftime with the Packers leading 14-10.

The Cowboys dominated the third quarter, but failed to score - once because of a fumble and another time because of a missed field goal. On the first play of the final quarter, Dan Reeves threw a TD pass to Lance Rentzel on a halfback option play to give Dallas the lead.

Down 17-14, Green Bay failed to tie the score on a missed 40-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter.

Forcing a Cowboy punt, the Packers took over again on their own 32-yard line with under five minutes to play. While wind chills in the late afternoon dropped to 70 degrees below zero, Starr drove his team down the field and got to the Dallas one-yard line. Two consecutive plays failed when running backs slipped on the frozen field. With 16 seconds left in the game and no timesouts, the Packers considered a roll out pass, but Starr had already been sacked eight times. In the huddle, he called a handoff, but instead he kept the ball and followed All-Pro tackle, Jerry Kramer across the goal line to score the winning TD in a 21-17 Packer victory.

2008 Super Bowl

Giants vs. Patriots

The Giants were 12-point underdogs to the 16-0 Patriots, having earned the right to play in the big game after qualifying for the playoffs as a wildcard and winning three consecutive road games. The Pats, being called the greatest team in NFL history, were the first to finish the regular season unbeaten since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

The Giants started the game with the longest drive in Super Bowl history as the 16-play, 63-yard march consumed 10 minutes and featured four third-down conversions. But New England halted the drive at their own 14-yard line, forcing the Giants to settle for a 32-yard field goal that gave them a 3–0 lead.

The Patriots answered with a one-yard Laurence Maroney touchdown run late in the opening quarter.

Defense dominated the middle quarters as the Patriots took a 7-3 lead into the fourth. The Giants’ hit pay dirt on their first possession of the fourth quarter. Eli Manning first completed a 45-yard pass to rookie tight end, Kevin Boss. Following three runs by Ahmad Bradshaw and a 17-yard reception by Steve Smith on third down, Manning finished the 7-play, 80-yard drive with a 5-yard touchdown pass to unheralded wide receiver, David Tyree, giving New York a 10–7 lead with 11:05 left in the game.

After three-and-outs by both teams, New England got the ball at its own 20 with 7:54 to play. Quarterback Tom Brady’s short passes moved his team to a first down at the Giants’ 29. He then found Randy Moss for an 11-yard completion and Kevin Faulk for a 12-yard completion, giving New England a first-and-goal at the Giants’ six. Following two incomplete passes, New York cornerback Corey Webster slipped while backing into coverage, leaving Moss wide open in the end zone where Brady found him for a touchdown to give New England a 14–10 lead with 2:42 left in the game.

New York got the ball on its own 17 with all three timeouts remaining. During the drive, New England cornerback Asante Samuel could not hold onto a Manning pass that would have resulted in a game-clinching interception with 1:15 remaining.

On a third-and-five from the New York 44-yard line, Manning found himself in trouble as the Patriots’ pass rush got to him quickly after the snap. He eluded two defenders and then broke free from two more who had grabbed his jersey, but failed to hold him in the grasp.

In what is considered to be among the greatest Super Bowl plays of all time, Manning escaped and launched the ball deep down the middle of the field, where both Tyree and Patriots’ safety Rodney Harrison were in position to make the catch. Tyree out jumped the multi-time Pro Bowler and secured the catch by pinning the ball against his helmet for a gain of 32 yards.

Three plays later, on 3rd-and-11, Manning found a wide-open Smith for a 12-yard gain to the New England 13. On the next play, wide receive Plaxico Burress ran a slant-and-go route, allowing Manning more than enough room to find his big-bodied target for the touchdown. The score capped a 12-play, 83-yard drive and gave the Giants the biggest Super Bowl upset since the Jets beat the Colts in 1969.

2018 Super Bowl

Eagles vs. Patriots

Although the five-time Super Bowl champion Patriots were only five-point favorites, the pre-game storyline made it seem much more lopsided than that as multi-time MVP quarterback Tom Brady of the Patriots was playing against Eagles’ backup quarterback Nick Foles. Adding to the intrigue, Philadelphia had never won a Super Bowl and its last NFL title was 1960.

The game’s first touchdown was scored by Philly on a 34-yard touchdown pass from Foles to Alshon Jeffery.

The most memorable moment of the game - and possibly one of the all-time greatest calls in Super Bowl history - came with the Eagles leading 15-12 late in the second quarter, Philadelphia faced fourth-and-goal on the 1-yard line with 38 seconds left in the half. Deciding to go for the touchdown, they attempted a trick play that will forever be know as “Philly, Philly.” As Foles stepped up from behind center to a slot position, running back Corey Clement took a direct snap and pitched the ball to tight end Trey Burton, who then threw the ball perfectly to a wide open Foles in the end zone. The play gave the Eagles a 22–12 lead as Foles became the first quarterback to catch a touchdown pass in Super Bowl history.

After three quarters, the Eagles led 29-26. In the fourth quarter, after Philly added a field goal, Brady rallied his team with a 75-yard drive ending with a four-yard pass to Rob Gronkowski, giving the Patriots their first lead of the game at 33–32.

On their next drive, the Eagles faced another fourth-and-1 call - this one on their own 45-yard line with 5:39 left in the game. Deciding to go for the conversion rather than punt, Foles completed a 2-yard pass to Zack Ertz that kept the drive alive. Three plays later, Foles threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to Ertz with 2:21 remaining in the game to give the Green and White a 38-33 lead. A sack, a fumble and an insurance field goal stretched the lead to 41-33.

The victory was complete when Brady failed to connect with a final second desperation heave into the end zone.

Nick Foles, and not Tom Brady, was the game’s MVP.

Final thoughts

One of the very best outcomes in a big game is when a little-known or unexpected hero is largely responsible for his team’s victory.

Bart Starr was certainly known as a great quarterback, but not for running the football. Even his own team didn’t expect that to happen when he took the center snap with the game on the line and powered into the end zone

Receiver David Tyree was an unlikely star in the Giants’ Super Bowl victory. Tyree caught just 54 passes for four TDs in his entire NFL career, and during the regular season that year, he caught a total of only four passes and none for touchdowns. But in the Super Bowl, he caught three balls, including a touchdown, and came down with one of the greatest catches in Super Bowl history.

The Eagles’ Nick Foles held a clipboard on the sideline for the first 12 games of the 2017 regular season as he watched Carson Wentz lead Philly to a 10-2 record. But Wentz tore his ACL in a late-season game and Foles was thrown into the fire. He didn’t disappoint, leading the Eagles to three postseason victories, including the first Super Bowl victory in franchise history.

Perhaps many of us root for the unexpected to happen like Starr’s run. Or for underdogs to shine like Tyree and Foles. Because in life, we feel like we are trying to reach the unreachable. We’re striving for that one day when at that one moment when against all odds, the sun will shine down upon us and we too can throw our hands up in the air to celebrate our victory.