A Controversial act that may have given a win
December 12, 1982 in the Boston, Mass. area was cold and icy. This didn’t discourage a Miami Dolphins team used to much warmer temperatures to put up a fight against their home rivals the New England Patriots at Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro that afternoon.
The night before the contest heavy rains soaked the artificial turf of the stadium and as morning came so did freezing temperatures that established a layer of ice upon the fake grass carpet. The situation didn’t get better for game time either as a snow storm hit the area putting a white powder on top of ice and making the normally green plain a field of white.
The NFL officiating crew used a special emergency rule during time outs to allow the major yard lines of the playing field to be cleared by stadium equipment, including a large rotating brush mounted to a lawn tractor to partly brush and partly plow the opaque white stuff away to expose the white lines on the green field. The weather steadily got worse during the game and was so impactful that both offenses were nullified as the game was still a scoreless time in the middle of the fourth quarter. The Patriots had an earlier kick held on top of the snow and ice go wide right after place kicker John Smith slipped pushing the ball in a low trajectory into the helmet of a teammate causing the projectile to gain some altitude but missing the mark.Somehow the Patriots offense managed to move the ball down to somewhere near the Dolphins twenty where the drive stalled with 4:45 remaining in the game.