Apparently it is not possible to have a televised New York Giants-Philadelphia Eagles game without a brief reference to the Giants’ Great Stumblebum Play of 1978. There it was again during this regular-season’s finale between the old rivals.
TV continues to call it “the Miracle of the Meadowlands”—an event contrary to all laws of nature that unfolded 41 years ago at the Giants home in the Jersey wetlands.
I call it Moby Fumble (Thar the Giants Blow it!). And the Big Oops. From the Giants’ standpoint—and I was then the team’s beat writer for Newsday—it was the manifestation of the imperfect human condition. On steroids. Not merely because of the turnover itself—that happens, no?—but the fact that the blunder was facilitated by a thoroughly illogical plan at the most inopportune time.
The Giants were leading, 17-12, and had the ball, third-down-and-two at their 29-yard line. The clock was running; 20 seconds to go. The Eagles were out of timeouts. All the Giants had to do was have quarterback Joe Pisarcik take the center snap and fall on the ball. And the game would be over.
To almost all of the 78,000 spectators already headed for the parking lot—and to all but of few of us reporters who refrained from joining our colleagues’ rush to the lockerrooms—the game was over.
Except Pisarcik was ordered to run “Pro 65 Up,” a play requiring the execution of a little spin move and a hand-off to running back Larry Csonka. They muffed the exchange, then watched helplessly as the ball hopped into the arms of Eagles defensive back Herman Edwards—a passer-by, really—who was free to run 29 yards the other way, untouched, for the winning score.
It was The Most Incredible Play Call (and Fumble). The offensive coordinator who called the play, Bob Gibson, was fired the next day. The following week, leading in the final seconds of the first half against Buffalo, the Giants introduced what has become known around football as “the Victory Formation”—wherein a team positions three players tightly around the quarterback, circling the wagons for a static hike-and-kneel-down motion.
“That’s out Philly play,” Pisarcik snorted after the Buffalo game, exasperated that Gibson hadn’t thought of such an obvious precaution against the Eagles. “Ha. It wasn’t put in last week. We call the play ‘a day late and a dollar….’”
That the Giants proceeded to be blown out in the second half by Buffalo was just more evidence of how that The Play Call (and Fumble) Seen ‘Round the NFL was metastasizing. The team’s GM, former All-Pro Andy Robustelli, resigned at season’s end. Head coach John McVay was not retained.
What may have been seen as a miracle for the Eagles was, to me, the Archduke’s Assassination (ask a World War I historian), the trigger to a toxic domino effect that re-ordered the entire Giants organization from top to bottom.
Whatever the perspective, it is good for the TV executives to continue recalling such a consequential instance. And for a sort of replay: On Dec. 29, the Giants were within three points of the Eagles early in the fourth quarter when, on second down from his 27, Giants quarterback Daniel Jones botched a low shotgun snap, recovered, then lost the handle again.
It was something of a minor miracle (yes, in the Meadowlands) that the Eagles’ Fletcher Cox found himself in the right place to cover the ball at the Giants’ 2. Arguably the game’s turning point, that set up a quick Philly touchdown and the Giants’ 12th loss in 16 games.
The Giants fired their coach the next day. A lot like 41 years ago. So again, the team is straying from the road to success, seeking some sense of control. Call it fishtail.