Celebrating Iconic NFL Week 1 Moments

If you're as excited about the NFL season coming up this week as we are, you're going to be loving this episode as Ed Cleese joins us to tell us about the greatest Week 1 game moments of all time.

Heads up in just a moment to.

Tell us all about it.

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You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com hello my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition of the top 10.

We've been having some fun with these with our friend Ed Cleese.

And Ed joins us again for another top 10.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hi, Darren.

Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, Ed, it's been great.

You know, we've had these top tens.

I don't know if you noticed it, but I gave you your own top 10 page.

We're going to start collecting your top tens here in one area of Pigskin Dispatch videos.

So folks, if you're on there, you can go into the fun facts section on Pixie and Dispatch and you'll find Ed's top tens in there.

Having some fun with that.

And you know, we're getting very close to the start of the National Football League season.

And you know, I think you've got a really fun one that's very appropriate for what we got tonight going on.

Yeah, so it's, I wanted to focus on week one because everybody's super, always very excited, of course, for the opening day, the opening Thursday, Sunday, Monday.

And you know, over the years there have been some really memorable games.

I think a lot of them stick out because they are week one.

And so I came up with this idea to do, I won't say the best games because that's, boy, that's hard.

So I'm going to say the top 10 most memorable moments from week one.

And then I said of the last 30 years because going all the way back to the merger would be quite the task.

Okay, so some modern football and you know, this is a lot of these games starts off with a week one game with on the Thursday night game.

So I think that's only like probably 20 years old, if that.

Yes.

So this is kind of be kind of interesting because the first week games are generally, you know, because in the preseason, as we know this year, starters aren't playing very much.

The whole offensive and defensive units haven't had a lot of time to gel together in game situation.

So it makes for a lot of sloppy play, but maybe some fun moments too.

So there's some great ones here.

I was.

I was.

It was a very hard cut list.

Yeah, I'll bet.

I'll bet.

All right, well, why don't you take us into it?

Sure.

So the kind of the criteria is also that, you know, it wasn't just a good game because, you know, if it's the.

If it's two random teams that play a, you know, 33 to 30 overtime game that, you know, that's fine.

There's tons of those.

So this had to have some sort of extra element to make it memorable.

And I'll start with three very quick honorable mentions before we get to the top 10 because I did have a very hard time cutting.

So I don't want to leave these completely out.

This would have been the Giants in Denver, in the Broncos.

There is nothing significant at all that happened in this game except for the date.

So the Giants literally land back in New York only a few hours prior to the attacks on 9 11.

And then I know that there's been a lot of documentaries and things about that that have focused on that Giants team and kind of how strange and surreal everything was for the players having just been at the airport and having, you know, just gotten home when this happened.

So there's a lot of nothing about the game itself, but sort of the history behind that being the final game that was played before the attacks.

Yeah.

Wow.

Scary times too, with the airfare or air lines in New York City and they're just laying a few hours before.

Yep.

Definitely memorable.

Yeah.

So much.

This one, for some reason, really always stuck out to me.

The Bills beat the patriots that day, 31 to nothing.

This was, this would have been Brady's third year.

And if you remember, they won the Super bowl in 01.

Everybody's probably like, hey, this Brady guy, that was a flash in the pan and a simple year.

Well, they would start that year two and two, and then they would go on their amazing win streak, win the next two Super Bowls.

But it's kind of funny to look back.

Sam Adams has a long touchdown run, interception, a big man touchdown.

That was sort of.

But it was kind of funny looking back to think of the narrative around the Patriots and how that changed so quickly.

He had over 400 yards passing.

He looked amazing.

The game came down to the wire.

They actually, the Panthers actually lost at the end, but it's one of the better rookie tape QB debuts of all time.

Those are your three honorable mentions.

Yeah, those are some pretty good ones there.

And you know, I see Cam Newton is getting his Auburn jersey number retired at the season down at his former school.

So that's deservedly too.

Deservedly so.

Yeah, he was a stud.

All right, you ready to get into the top 10?

Yeah, let's, let's hear number 10.

Let's do it.

This was a major, major comeback.

It is the Bears winning 20 to nothing.

Okay, so it's, it's.

The game's essentially over.

It's, you know, the Bears never beat the packers, as Aaron Rodgers has reminded them many, many times, but they have them beat in that game.

Rogers throws three fourth quarter touchdown passes, including a 75 yarder to Randall Cobb with about two and a half minutes to go to give them a 24 to 23 lead.

This is the lead that the lead sticks.

Trubisky gets them down to about.

The bears down 50.

He gets sacked.

The game's over.

The, the, the play is pretty fun to go back and watch.

It's really just sort of a simple route over the middle that Cobb just takes off.

He's like, there's nobody there and he just runs the whole way.

I think it's the biggest comeback in the Bears and the packers series history, at least from the, on the packers side.

That was that Trubisky's rookie year or is that his second year?

18.

I. I have to go back and check that out.

It's right around there.

I can't remember if he was 18 or 17.

He was still wet behind ears and no matter what, but to have a for sure lead on your rival.

Yeah.

Three fourth quarter touchdowns from Rogers bring the packers back in Lambeau.

Kind of a cool scene Sunday night.

It was cool.

We move on to number nine.

And this is one I'm sure people don't remember.

This was the Oilers first game in Tennessee.

It was played in Memphis at the Liberty Bowl.

So this was the.

They were the.

At this point they were the Tennessee Oilers before they had been named the Titans.

They still had the oil Derek helmets, the love you blue uniforms.

And this was another pretty good game.

The Oilers had a big lead.

Jeff George of the Raiders leads the Raiders back on a pretty big comeback on 4th and 16 with about, oh about a minute, less than a minute to go.

He throws an incredible touchdown pass to Tim Brown.

Brown makes an incredible catch.

He takes a big hit in the end zone, ties the game.

The Oilers do wind up getting the ball in overtime, going down and winning.

There's nothing terribly exciting that happens in overtime, but it's a really good finish.

And the.

The backdrop of it being the first game ever in Tennessee was very memorable.

The Titans win that game 24 to 21 is the final.

Wow.

Did I say Titans?

Oh, I think I said Titans.

Yeah, yeah.

They were still the Oilers.

Still the Oilers.

Yeah, but they were still the Oilers.

What a treat for the state of Tennessee to get a.

Finally get an NFL franchise and then they win in a thriller.

That's had to be a big moment for that state.

Total thrill.

And the other thing that kind of stuck out to me is just how truly talented Jeff George actually was.

I know he's a very kind of polarizing guy and maybe didn't make the most of it, but when he was on he was actually quite special.

And if you go back and look at this, he is amazing in the fourth quarter.

He is not missing anything.

So kind of a strange career there, but really what a talent.

Yeah.

There was a reason why as soon as he would leave one team, he didn't.

Wasn't unemployed for very long.

Somebody willing to pick.

Exactly.

And he usually got off to pretty good starts wherever he went, we ready to move on?

Yeah, please.

Number eight.

This is the Ravens at the Broncos.

This is the opening Thursday night game.

Now, you might be asking, why was this in Denver?

Because the history has told us that the super bowl champion always opens up on Thursday at home.

This is the one year that did not happen, and it was because there was a conflict with the Baltimore Orioles.

There's a rule that the Orioles and Ravens can't play at the same time.

And the Orioles already had a game scheduled for that Thursday.

And I know it was kind of controversial at the time because they kind of refused to move.

Move it.

I think the Ravens requested it.

The Orioles wouldn't do it.

So they said, all right, well, tough luck.

We got to play a game on Thursday.

You'll be at the Broncos instead of hosting somebody else.

So they open the game.

Do you remember how many touchdown passes he throws on this night?

Was it five that night?

Seven.

Seven.

Okay.

Seven touchdown passes on the opening night.

Good game, but nothing crazy happening.

And then four straight touchdown passes for Peyton Manning in the third quarter alone.

They win the game 49 to 27.

It isn't particularly close at the end, but it is.

Goes down as one.

He had 462 yards passing and seven touchdowns.

So you can easily make the argument that it is the greatest.

Singular.

Singular quarterback performance in the history of the NFL.

Yeah, Definitely could make that argument for.

And boy, what was.

Peyton Manning was definitely a thorn in the side for the.

The Ravens.

It seemed like every time they had a big game against each other, Manning would come out on top.

He was sort of had their number.

He did.

He did.

And he certainly had their number that night.

So seven touchdowns to kick off the NFL season.

I think he had all the numbers that night.

He had them all.

He had them all.

So we're going to stick with the Manning theme as we move to number seven.

This was on Sunday night.

And this is the Colts at the Giants.

So the Manning Bowl.

I do not recall if it was the first time that they had ever met, but I think it was because Manning would have.

Eli, he's.

2004.

He came in.

Yes.

They most likely had not played prior.

So this was the first time.

The game itself was fine.

The colts won it 26 to 21.

It was pretty close.

Eli had a chance late to bring him back and they threw a hail Mary and it was incomplete.

Pretty good game.

But really the spectacle around the Mannings was what made that game sort of very special and interesting.

And I remember that very clearly, the build up to that.

Of course they put it on Sunday Night Football so a really cool scene with the two brothers.

And they both played pretty well and the game was good.

So kind of everybody kind of came through.

Yeah, that.

Definitely a memorable one.

And I don't remember, you know, unlike the Kelsey family, I don't remember Archie Manning wearing a half jersey of Colts and Giants that night.

Yeah, I don't think it's the Manning style too much.

Yes, he probably wore a Saints gear.

A little more subdued.

A little more subdued.

Okay, now I want to go through this one really fast because this is number six on my list and in one of our previous top 10 lists, I had to go through this.

This is the game where the Redskins have a 35 to 14 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Cowboys come back.

Troy Aikman hits Rocket Ismail in overtime for a 75 yard touchdown to win it.

What really sticks out to me in this game other than my own personal pain and that I went and pouted for the next several hours or maybe even days in my room when I was in college.

But what really sticks out to me in this game is it was a last hurrah of sorts for the triplets in Dallas.

They were sensational in the second half of the game.

Emmett, Troy and Irving.

Those three brought them back.

It was all three of them at their very best.

This is 99, so we're past the prime.

These are three hall of Famers and they locked in in that second half and especially that fourth quarter and they ripped the hearts out of Redskins fans, as I can tell you firsthand.

Yeah, I can.

I can feel your pain again.

Just like we did a couple weeks ago to discuss it.

New rule.

So that's.

That's a rule.

Yeah.

We'll never talk about it again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really, really.

It's.

It lives up here in the noggin forever, unfortunately, and in the heart.

So now we go.

We're going to stick with the Cowboys and this is a happier one for me to remember.

This would have been the Cowboys at the Texans.

This is also Sunday Night football.

The significance of course is this is the first game in the history of the Houston Texans.

I had lived in Houston at one point and I can tell you that I don't have any great feelings for the Houston fan base.

I don't consider it to be a very raucous crowd, a great atmosphere in general, their sports teams.

I've had a lot of friends down in Houston who will kind of take me to task on that, but I'll stick to my guns on it.

It's not a rabid fan base down there, but that night it was.

It is an incredible atmosphere.

It is so loud.

It is so crazy.

And then the shock of all shocks, the Cowboys are.

Quincy Carter is their quarterback, but they are eight and a half point favorites.

Playing an expansion team, of course, so big Cowboys are still big favorites.

The very first play of the game, David Carr goes deep.

It's like a 45 yard pass interference.

Few plays later he throws a touchdown to Billy Miller.

Real quickly in the game it is seven nothing Texans.

That building is incredible in that moment.

It is.

It's probably the loudest it's ever been is my guess.

I've been to a couple games there and I can tell you it's generally not terribly loud, but it is a great, great atmosphere.

It's crazy.

The Texans win the game 19 to 10.

That if people remember this is the year that David Carr said all kinds of records for being sacked and it was one of the worst offensive lines in the history of the NFL.

But they won their opening game against their in state, I guess you could call them rival the Cowboys.

And it is a, a blemish for Cowboys fans that they kind of like an embarrassment that they got to have to wear forever.

And I'm always happy to report on that.

And that's a big rivalry anyway even outside of football between Houston and Dallas, the two largest cities in Texas.

So.

Yes sir.

Yes sir.

Always a big deal.

So now we're into the top five and we're going to go to number four.

And we don't have to go very far back at all because we're just going to go back to just about a year ago, the opening Thursday night game, the Ravens at the Chiefs.

This was a tremendous game.

This was one of the best games of the whole year.

It was stuck to the couch.

Can't look away.

Awesome.

It is Lamar.

It is Mahomes.

Both playing, having great games.

It is back and forth.

Of course.

The really amazing drama at the end of.

It's 27 to 20.

The Chiefs are winning.

The Ravens have the ball for one last play.

Down low or down by the end zone.

Lamar goes back, throws it to Isaiah.

Likely he catches it.

Touchdown.

Are the Ravens going to go for two?

Are they going to send it to overtime?

I think they're going to go for two.

It looked like they were dead set on going for the win.

Wait.

We got to review it.

And Likely's foot is literally about an inch on that white line.

As close as it gets.

But also very clear that he was out of bounds.

So there's no real controversy over it.

He was out.

It's as close as it get.

But he was out.

So Chiefs win.

Obviously.

And it started that night in that amazing game with that amazing ending and their first bit of really good luck.

And wasn't it the Ravens season ended against Kansas City?

In Kansas City.

Probably because of that game.

Losing that first game.

And that was the one where the Andrews dropped the pass.

That was against Buffalo.

That was in Buffalo.

Okay, I'm sorry.

And then Buffalo was the championship.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

So BS That.

That was a season for the Chiefs of moments like that.

Incredible good fortune down the stretch.

And it all started on opening Thursday night in a great, great game.

Yeah, sure.

Was moving on to number three.

This one is just.

This is so fun.

This is great.

So this is in the heart of the greatest show on turf where of course the Rams came out of nowhere in 99.

Nobody knew who they were.

Nobody who knew Kurt Warner was.

And they are so exciting.

So fun.

Win the super bowl.

They open up.

They hadn't started the Thursday night tradition of the super bowl champion.

So this was just their Monday night game.

There was the two previous super bowl champions.

So the Broncos won in 98.

The Rams won in 99.

They kicked off the season on Monday Night Football against each other in the Dome in St. Louis.

This game is incredible.

Brian Greasy is the quarterback for the Broncos.

Of course, Warner is the quarterback for the Rams.

The Rams wind up winning the game 41 to 36.

They score a touchdown late.

It's.

It's incredible.

Get this.

Here are the distances of just some of the touchdowns in the game.

We had an 86 yarder, we had a 25 yarder, a 72 yarder, an 80 yarder, a 32 yarder.

So those are just touchdown plays of those distances.

And to me, the most memorable is there is a play where Warner gets back, step drops back, he hits Oz Akeem on a short little out route to the sideline.

Akeem jukes his man.

And then there are no Broncos in the picture.

So he runs down the sideline with Tori Holt as his escort.

They are running together with no Broncos in the picture, all the way to the end zone.

And then a little subscript to this is that that was also the year that Monday Night Football experimented with Dennis Miller in the booth.

That was the Al Michaels, Dennis Miller and Dan Fouts, and they wound up having an unbelievable year on Monday Night Football.

Of these amazing games, the incredible Jets Dolphins comeback was that year.

There's several others, but Dennis Miller has a great, great line as Azekeem is crossing the goal line on this play.

Dennis Miller says, they don't need a football, they need a baton.

And.

And then as soon as he says that foul says.

Or a checkered flag.

And.

And there was this game that was this track meet.

It was.

The timing was great.

Miller was almost kind of like giggling and laughing when he said it.

This game was so fun.

It is probably one of the most fun games I can ever remember watching.

That was that it didn't involve one of my teams.

It was an incredible way to kick off the season.

The Broncos took a late lead on an interception return by Terrell Buckley.

Warner gets the ball back, drives him down, they score a touchdown, they win the game.

So the defending champs start off with this game, start off with a win.

It is so exciting.

It is so fun.

And I enjoyed the booth aspect of it as well.

Kind of going back to that little experiment they did that ultimately I guess failed, but got off to a great start that night.

Yeah.

I tell you, I always enjoyed when Dennis Miller's and I.

It made me want to watch Monday Night Football again.

You know, that's probably the best it was since when Gifford and Howard Cosell and Dandy Dawn Meredith were in the booth.

I enjoyed it at some point.

It maybe got a Little forced.

But what I always enjoyed about it is he had a lot of joy being there.

He had a lot of reverence for the game, and I think it added a fun little element to it.

It was almost like kind of having a fan in the booth.

I think that was the goal.

I think over time, three man boosts are kind of hard in general.

And maybe it just, you know, for whatever reason, they just felt it didn't work and they moved on.

You know, Madden would come into Monday night not too long after that.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Great.

Great selection on that game.

All right, so now we're down to number two.

And I've got to start this one with a little backstory about a good buddy of mine.

So I got a good buddy.

His name is Joe.

He's a big Browns fan, big Cleveland fan.

So in other words, Joe is miserable.

Okay, pretty much year round.

Always miserable.

Right, because he is a Cleveland Browns fan.

And so he.

He, in addition to acknowledging the ineptitude of his favorite organization, he also is a massive conspiracy theorist that believes that the league for some reason is out to get the Browns.

He has a big problem with Roger Goodell, who he calls Raj.

And he says, Raj and his goons are going to, you know, screw us again.

I can feel it.

So he has all these examples over the years of all the times that for some reason the NFL has decided to stick it to the Browns.

Okay, so there's a little backstory there.

So this is the game.

And this is a very famous ending.

It's a great game.

First of all, it's the final score.

Winds up being 40 to 39.

The Chiefs beat the Browns.

But if you recall that they are losing, I guess that would be 39 to 37.

And they have one play from midfield.

The Chiefs.

Trent Green goes back to pass.

He's under pressure.

He can't find.

He can't even get the Hail Mary off.

The clock has expired.

In desperation, he laterals the ball backwards to an offensive lineman.

The offensive lineman runs about 20 yards and gets run out of bounds.

The game is over, except Dwayne Rudd of the Browns as Trent Green looks like he's about to be sacked, takes his helmet off and throws it about 20 yards downfield in celebration of the win.

They hadn't won yet.

The play is still going on.

I will give Dan Deardorff, who's in the booth, a ton of credit.

He notices it immediately as the office of lineman is pushed out of bounds.

He says, wait, wait, hold on here, hold on here.

And he explains that Dwayne Rudd threw his helmet and that they threw a flag.

It's a 15 yard penalty and the game cannot end on a defensive penalty.

So we're going to move the Chiefs up 15 yards and they're going to get a chance to kick a field goal.

They do.

He makes it.

And it is another chapter in the Browns fan cycle of hell, basically.

So what's funny to me is that my friend Joe uses this as an example of how the league is always out to get them, when in reality it was 100% the right call.

There is no controversy about this whatsoever.

The play is going on.

The man is running the ball downfield.

And Dwayne Run takes his helmet and launches it and celebrates.

We all know that's a rule.

Can't take your helmet off during the play, of course, or on the field at all.

Right.

So it is just.

But talk about painful, because you literally have the game one and all you had to do was leave your helmet on.

That's all.

That's the only job you had at that moment was to not take your helmet off.

And the Browns lost week one because of it.

Yeah, it's a lot of heartbreak there in Cleveland, that's for sure, But a lot of it's self inflicted.

Just like that one was.

Yes.

Don't tell Joe that, though.

All right, so number one, we ready for a drum roll?

Oh, yeah, hit the drum roll.

All right, let's do it.

This is the jets at the 49ers.

It's a very good game, but the only thing you got to really remember about it is how it ended.

This was in overtime.

The 49ers win at home, 36 to 30, on a 96 yard touchdown run by Garrison Hurst, who busted out down the sideline.

I believe it's still the longest overtime play from scrimmage to win a game.

It is a very, very good game.

There are some.

Steve Young throws a touchdown to JJ Stokes late to give to get a lead.

The jets come back and tie it with no time left.

The 49ers get the ball in overtime, then you have this incredible play.

The other great thing about it is it.

It's not necessarily a breakaway.

The 49ers are.

I'm sorry, the jets defenders are sort of running with Hurst almost like the whole time they're like, oh, are they going to get him out of bounds?

Are they going to get him and he just kind of keeps going and going and going and going.

They almost catch him like at the one, but he kind of stumbles in the end zone.

It's a touchdown.

Probably one of the more exciting plays maybe in NFL history.

I know it's always in the top five to ten of the greatest runs in NFL history when the NFL Network does those countdowns.

It happened on week one.

Both of those teams were very good in 98, and it was a cool way to start the season.

And that is your best game or say greatest moment in the last 30 years on week one.

Yeah.

Wow, What a list.

You know, the top 10, the three honorable mentions, all very memorable.

All great selections on your part and thank you for sharing those with us today.

I loved it.

Always love it.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Yeah, Ed, we love having you on here.

And we're going to do some more of these top tens here.

I hope as the year goes on and, you know, keep it a regular thing here.

So we appreciate having you.

You bet.

Can't wait.

The top Tens will never run out.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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