The god-awful drive that changed NFL history | Dorktown

Remember that time Alex and I talked about that 76-yard c-bonus run, that time Buddy Ryan ran the 46 defense that essentially reduced the entire Arizona Cardinals defense to a pot of bodies and allowed the slowest man of the world had a calm nature? Walking all over the field with no one to keep him company except his right tackle and a referee. Well, there was a side story that we cut from the script for that episode and we had to do it because otherwise we would have gotten completely lost in it, but we also knew it had to be its own episode one day, it happened 16 years later and it just so happened to also involve to a member of the Ryan family facing down the bosses.

What we're about to see are two things at the same time, it's one of the stupidest

drive

s you've ever seen in the NFL, it happened in the middle of an explosion, it had absolutely no effect on the outcome of the game, and yet, so accidental sent seismic waves throughout the week that we still feel today in these five minutes three seconds of travel had a major influence in changing the entire course of nfl

history

yes the colors are green this time you're about To enter New York Jets territory, this is your final warning, the New York Jets had been aimlessly chasing glory for decades as the 2008 NFL season ended after a promising 8-3 start.

They were doomed by a 39-year-old quarterback who suffered a torn biceps and completely unraveled down the stretch. It was time for the organization to hit the reset button before the 2009 offseason. And they went on the hunt for a new coach and quarterback to serve as coach, they hired Buddy Ryan's baby, Rex, the man who He just coordinated the Ravens' defense for the AFC Championship Game, where his unit held up its end of the bargain by allowing just one touchdown. A few months later, Pittsburgh New York moved into the top five of the NFL Draft determined to get USC's Mark Sanchez as Ryan's quarterback for this new era of Jets football fueled by their run-and-pound offense that led the league in rushing and one of the best pass defenses of the 21st century. .

The Jets instantly became a smash hit after reaching just one Afc championship game in the previous 26 years. They made it all the way to the conference title game and Ryan's first season did it again the next. Now in a renaissance experiencing something foreign to them for a long time, consistent expectations of winning skyrocketed heading into year three, so Sanchez's play provided even more reason for optimism, as the Jets had just made back-to-back championship games. the afc despite the play of sanchez, who was one of the worst quarterbacks in the nfl in his first two years, but a few months into the 2011 season, he was just starting to show signs of being able to pass for a quarterback real nfl starter created for january football, the jets just needed to sneak into the tournament to have a chance. to make a lot of noise and after winning seven of their first 12 games, they were right in the thick of the playoff picture for a chance to build on their mini-dynasty that was percolating when they welcomed the Chiefs to town.

Kansas City had a third-year coach on its team. Todd Haley himself had taken over the Chiefs franchise that had been buried in the basement of the NFL for three consecutive seasons, including the first of Haley's tenure. The Chiefs had failed to break the four-win barrier until today, they are one of eight teams to have won the The 16-game era has experienced such a bad three-year streak. These other seven teams took years to recover. None of them immediately jumped on board and made the playoffs in year 4 except Todd Haley's Chiefs, he's the only one who ever orchestrated a turnaround like this with a team like that.

It was a miracle not only because they jumped straight out of 4 victories by 10 but because they left behind the San Diego Chargers who had not only the number one offense in the NFL but also the number one defense. Unfortunately for them, they were abandoned by God. They suffered a series of catastrophes on special teams. They stopped abruptly at nine seven and opened the door for kc. Now the third year of the Todd Haley era was not going so well, they would stumble at five and seven entering the Week 14 contest at the Meadowlands, but part of that was due to the fact that the Chiefs had lost their starting quarterback Matt Castle due to injury.

We are in the third quarter of this game. The Chiefs are being held 28-3, but again Haley has to make do. with backup quarterback Tyler Palko on the road and this Jets team is an AFC powerhouse and Haley is less than a year away from taking the disaster of a team he inherited to the playoffs, a loss, no matter how lopsided. , you shouldn't put it on the list. hot seat, the jets take control at their own 10 yard line after a boss's punt, it's their first intention as they begin their advance and everything seems to be more or less normal in the football universe, Sánchez steps back and controls the ball towards runner Sean. green for a short play, but the refs flag fullback John Connor for a block, not a good call as Conor's low block occurs when the defender is not engaged with another blocker, which is legal, however, pushes the Jets back 5 yards and forces them to repeat. first on the green, then takes a handoff and bounces it outside for a good pickup, but extra lineman Vladimir Dukas is called for holding the play, setting the Jets back another 72 inches and forcing a third crack on the first down from the line 3 yards from the green and then plow. his way forward for a 5-yard gain and this time it was not in vain on the second attempt, Sánchez fails on a return route to Plaxico Burris, but is rescued when a hit to the head results in a 15-yard penalty against KC with a new set of drops on his own 23 jets, offensive coordinator brian schottenheimer triggers a screen to let green realize they are not prepared and a big play is coming. the boss's dn, tyson jackson, just gives green a bear hug to keep him from getting loose for him the passing skill moved to prevent an even bigger play, but that draws a flag for holding, oh, like that linebacker Demario Williams' attempt to cover the field, only one of those two is allowed to be applied, advancing New York to the 28, but Haley guarantees the application of another. penalty with some magic words to the referees to win the rarest of the rare flags an unsportsmanlike conduct called against a coach who moved the jets to the 43rd. for those who scored at home, this series has now seen a football broken five times and a yellow handkerchief hit the ground six times a couple of carries by sean green set up a third attempt in the midfield sanchez looks towards burris to make a play and move the chains and he does it by taking a pi in the corner brandon flores surpassing the total of Chief penalty yards en route to 51.

On the next snap, the Jets shoot for six, but safety Kendrick Lewis loses track of the ball and prevents tight end Dustin Keller from committing a grueling 30-yard foul that moves to the Jets inside five a fade for burris is legally broken by brandon carr before an inside pass to green picks up a yard at third by the sea of ​​red for sanchez, who punctuates this strange

drive

by running towards the scoreboard a few minutes ago, the jets had the ball in their possession three 97 yards from paydirt their offense gained a total of only nine net yards they still got here this sucks so much its a masterpiece the new york jets had somehow cobbled together a 97 yard touchdown drive from a 5 yard penalty against them a 2 yard penalty against them a 5 yard gain a 4 yard gain a one yard gain a one yard gain and a three yard gain they did it with nine net yards that it's not even enough for a single first down it's technically just a 90 yarder since they started from 10, four penalties put them back within three, but since it's functionally 97, let's call it 97.

The sports reference tool's stats header tells us allows you to search driving data back to 2001. These are the penalty yards for every touchdown drive in the last 20 years where the offense started on its own, three here are some teams that actually had to gain over 100 yards because the penalties set them back, most of these series did not involve any penalties, some received substantial ones. helps, but no other 97-yard drive in this era or probably any other has come close to the 81-yard penalty collected by the Jets around 3 p.m. on December 11, 2011. Committing 81 yards of penalties in a single drive is a remarkable achievement. feat in itself in more than a quarter of the 256 NFL games that season (65 to be exact, both teams combined for less than the 81 penalty yards the Chiefs were penalized for in that series alone, a series which began with sanctions imposed backwards. crossover plays against the Jets that pushed it back to the three first, New York ultimately engineered a touchdown drive on a possession that began 90 yards from the end zone even though its offense produced just 16 yards from the line of scrimmage In the more than 1,000 touchdown drives in the NFL since 2001 that included no more than 16 yards from scrimmage, only three more started from even 70 yards away.

Yeah, it was a really strange series. It is one of the strangest series we have seen. You're about to get a much stranger time seeing this trip was the turning point for both teams involved for both the chiefs and the jets nothing would ever be the same first kansas city how did the next few years turn out the way they did? they made? I'm going to make a compelling case, but of course you can judge. The day after this game, the Chiefs fired Todd Haley strictly on paper. This is a bit shocking. Canning a coach mid-season is certainly nothing new.

It has happened 35 times. only in the 21st century, but that's what the last three seasons were like for Haley and, on average, the other 34, usually these coaches have pretty mediocre results in the second-to-last and second-to-last seasons before completely tanking in the season in which they are fired with an average of around four projected wins Meanwhile, Haley orchestrated a complete turnaround of the franchise in year two and even in year three he was still performing significantly better than the average coach who gets fired midway through. season, he was on pace for about six wins, which isn't great, but it's still a ways off.

Better than the vast majority of coaches who get shown the door before the season is over, their neighbors on this table are mostly guys who have been around a long time and were no longer meeting expectations or guys who had never lived up to expectations. absolutely. he was only a junior and was navigating the wilderness with a backup quarterback which you think would cut him some slack oh look who it is on top of all this the chiefs were still mathematically alive in the pursuit of the playoffs after that loss, we can probably agree that Haley's firing was extremely unusual, but certain coaches have that factor that makes them imminently fired and I think we can find that Haley, in the words of CEO Clark Hunt, Those sanctions against the Jets, specifically the decision against Haley received a lot of attention.

Hunt nodded specifically to mention, quote, inconsistent play in that particular game and I think we all know that inconsistent play is code for penalties, the primary symptom of a lack of discipline, what a coach is expected to keep above of all, 81-yard penalties. in one trip it wasn't records 5 and 8, that happens all the time. I think this trip is what killed it now, if we can agree on that, we can appreciate how these few minutes change the NFL forever, this is where we really get to. Crazy about finishing the season, the chiefs promoted defensive coordinator romeo cornell to interim head coach, having previously served as cleveland's head coach and finishing with an impressive record of 24 and 40, cornell immediately took advantage of the opportunity in his first game, The Chiefs shocked the NFL by defeating an undefeated Packers team that appeared to be on its way to 16-0 and earned him the full-time job the following season.

The Chiefs left and 14 and Grinnell himself was fired at the end of the season. season now if it weren't for that penalty fest it's reasonable to believe the bosses would have let Haley finish the season beforefire him. Pernell would never have had the chance to pull off that stunning upset and the team would have begun searching for a new head coach in earnest entering 2012. He hit the open market to land the coach of the future rather than simply retaining their interim coach. Whoever they hire is almost certain to keep the job for several seasons, meaning that in 2013 the chair wouldn't be open for this man, the big guy

changed

everything.

Andy Reed's bosses immediately turned around winning their first nine games in 2013 and never looked back under Reed's stewardship. The Chiefs have won more games than any team in the NFL, but the Patriots were there to help pull all the strings to get Patrick Mahomes. One of the most transformative football players of all time, he has led Kansas City to back-to-back Super Bowls and it seems more likely that fortunes could change very quickly in this league, but we may ultimately know these bosses as one of the nfl's all-time great dynasties in large part because of andy reid, who surely would have been hired by another team if the chiefs hadn't had a head coaching vacancy in 2013, which they only had after firing romeo cornell , who was only there because of a signature victory. as interim coach, which was only because Todd Haley was fired days earlier, which was only in place at that particular time, in large part because the day before his team made what might be the most undisciplined defensive stand in the

history

of the nfl, thanks todd, meanwhile, sanchez and the Jets emerged from this game looking in pretty good shape, their young quarterback was dangerously close to finally playing at a league average level and they sported the ninth best point differential in the league With an 8-5 record that had him in pole position to snag the second AFC wild card spot, everything was going great until they had to go play more football.

Whatever they played from then on, it's like if the Jets thought that, moving forward, they could simply continue traveling on that conveyor belt from penalties to scores, but the conveyor belt stopped and New York had no plan b to effectively get down the field, such as passing the ball or perhaps running with unable to move the ball through more traditional means immediately after the Chiefs game in the stretch of the final weeks of the season, Sánchez plummeted and sank to the sub seneca levels of wallace and john skelton, levels that no one wants to be there. and took his team down with him, the Jets lost their remaining three games with a point differential in that time that was third-worst in the league in the process of falling out of the playoff picture for the following season the dysfunction had completely involved in the organization. traded for tim tebow sanchez started turning the ball over after colliding with their right guard's butt before being benched and on fire and after a torn ACL suffered by star cornerback darrell rivas, they traded their best player and that was it for them after blowing that golden opportunity to make the playoffs in 2011, the Jets have been waiting for a decade and more for another opportunity, the bosses can argue that this cartoonish push at the end of another lost season was the catalyst for their eventual budding dynasty, and while this push didn't actually flip any switches that landed the planes where they are today, they can look back and know that this was the summit, this journey, this moment, was the final landing of their final victory as a team on the way up, almost everything since then. went wrong for them, it's as if these teams found a way to play football on a frequency so chaotic it sent explosive waves through the annals of history, destroying one would-be dynasty and launching another, so next time you watch something like this, something like this something disturbingly stupid that seems to belong to another even sillier sport, be careful, the blades could be moving it