Afterward, the scene was almost as surreal as what they’d witnessed with their own eyes on the field. There they all stood huddled around three old-school, square CRT televisions scattered about the corners of the CenturyLink Field visitor’s locker room, staring up in disbelief, waiting for something—anything—that would allow them to make sense of what they’d just experienced. Instead, all the Packers got was another look at the unfathomable: the NFL’s replacement officials stunningly ruling that Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate—and not Packers safety M.D. Jennings—had come down with the football for a game-winning 24-yard touchdown to give the Seahawks an I-can’t-believe-what-I-just-saw, 14–12 victory on Monday Night Football.
In the weeks, months, and years that followed, the final play of that September 24, 2012, game—one that became known as the “Fail Mary” game—would be played over and over again on sports television. Anytime a controversial official’s call changed the outcome of a game, the play would be relived. Long-form stories would be written about the game and those involved. Side judge Lance Easley, who overruled one of his replacement official colleagues on the play, did what he could to turn his infamy into celebrity. But in the immediate aftermath of the game that night, there was simply shock and awe. Packers coach Mike McCarthy later said famously, “I’m not in the mood for drama tonight,” but that’s exactly what was unfolding in his locker room.
Veteran center Jeff Saturday yelled, “You guys suck, bro!” upward at the TV, throwing a towel at it for emphasis. Fullback John Kuhn opted for a one-word expletive. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers shook his head and was speechless. By the time he’d reached the podium for his traditional postgame press conference, the reigning NFL MVP had found some words but not many. “It was awful. Just look at the replay and then the fact that it was reviewed [and upheld]. It was awful,” Rodgers said. “That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Later, he would say more. “It’s frustrating,” Rodgers said in an epic understatement. “It was crazy after the game. Nobody had any idea what was going on. It seemed like at first from my vantage point, the referee in the back—I saw him wave his arms over his head, which means he was calling a touchback. [I have] no idea how the other guy said, ‘Touchdown, Golden Tate’ on the replay. Obviously, [Tate] takes his arm off whatever part of the ball he may or may not have had had. Then they reviewed it, and it was upheld.”
And 24 hours later, the quarterback added, “I wanted to make sure I saw the play before I did my press conference, so I had all of the information. So I was trying to get it on someone’s phone and after my shower I came back into the locker room, and the highlights were up on the TV. And then we had most of the guys in there watching that. [When] we watched the last play with the super slow-mo, which the referees are supposed to have under the hood as well, we watched that replay over and over, and there was a lot of frustration.”
In an attempt to explain the inexplicable, here is what happened: the Seahawks took over at the Packers’ 46-yard line with 46 seconds to play, trailing 12–7. Three consecutive incompletions followed a 22-yard completion to Sidney Rice, and Seattle faced fourth and 10 from the Packers’ 24-yard line with eight seconds showing on the clock. Quarterback Russell Wilson dropped back, scrambled to buy time, and then heaved a prayer toward the end zone. Unlike in the previous year’s playoff loss to the New York Giants, the Packers—with eight defensive backs on the field—seemed ready. As the ball came down, five Packers (Jennings, Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams, Jarrett Bush, and Sam Shields) and two Seahawks (Tate and wide receiver Charly Martin) went up, and Jennings appeared to catch it. “[The ball] was pinned to my chest the whole time—even when we were on the pile,” Jennings said.
After shoving Shields to the ground from behind, Tate brought his right arm up from beneath Jennings and got his hand on the ball. Back judge Derrick Rhonde-Dunn waved his hands above his head, not signaling for a touchdown—or a touchback for that matter. But Easley came in from the side and signaled touchdown. Chaos followed. “I told the guys, ‘Don’t give up. I’ve lost a lot of heartbreakers in college right there at the end—two last year, actually—and so I know how it feels,’” Wilson said, referring to his one season at the University of Wisconsin. “At the same time, I know it’s possible to score.”
During the infamous “Fail Mary” game, Packers defenders fight for the ball before Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate was incorrectly ruled to have caught the touchdown.
The play would be automatically reviewed, as NFL rules require, by replay official Howard Slavin and replay assistant Terry Poulos, and Easley’s call was upheld. The phrase “simultaneous possession” entered the football lexicon. Only after both teams had left the field did the replacement officials realize that the extra point needed to be kicked. McCarthy and assorted other staff found enough players in the locker room willing to come back out and participate defensively for the extra point, and the game was over.
But the controversy was just beginning. “Don’t ask me any questions about the officials,” McCarthy said to open his press conference. “We’ll cut to the chase right there. You want to talk about the game?” Asked what he saw, McCarthy replied, “I didn’t see it. It was in the far, far corner. I just saw the reaction, like most people, but obviously the communication from our players is they had the ball. I still haven’t seen a replay of the play. I was told M.D. Jennings intercepted the ball. I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years of football.”
Asked what he told his team, McCarthy replied, “Tell them the truth. We need to move on. We talked about what I felt about the game, everything that happened in the game to the players. It’s important for us to get back and get ready for the Saints.”
Although McCarthy’s trip along the high road was admirable, his players struggled to follow suit. “It’s unbelievable,” said Saturday, who at the time was in the 14th NFL season. “At first, I thought they said it was an interception. Then they said no. So when [replay] confirmed it, I didn’t know if they were confirming the interception or what. I mean, no one was clear on what the call was…It’s just a frustrating thing to happen. At the end of the game, you put it in the hands [of the replacement officials] and you hope they do it right. We work awfully hard throughout the week and throughout the season, and one play can significantly affect the outcome of a game, and that’s what we had tonight.”
Adding to the intrigue was that the controversy was the coup de grace of an embarrassing month for the NFL, which had locked out its officials amid a contract dispute. Asked if he thought the call would lead to a deal between the NFL and the NFL Referee Association, Saturday, who’d been instrumental in talks between the owners and the NFL Players Association on a new collective bargaining agreement the previous year, replied, “I hope so. I don’t know why it hasn’t already changed to be honest with you. I don’t know why we don’t have the guys who know what they’re doing back. It’s no disrespect to the guys we have. The game’s just too fast. They can’t keep up. It’s just a sad, sad thing. We need the guys who do it every day and get trained year in and year out. From a player’s perspective, this is [difficult]. You only get 16 guaranteed opportunities, and to have one end like this is frustrating.”
Woodson felt the same. He’d been on the gut-wrenching end of an official’s call before—the Oakland Raiders’ loss to the New England Patriots in the infamous “Tuck Rule” game in the 2001 playoffs—and now he was trying not to draw any parallels. “This is early in the season, so we’ve still got a long road ahead. That was a playoff situation, and we had to go home after that. I don’t want to compare the two,” Woodson said. “I just looked at the replay, and to me it clearly looks like we had the interception, and they gave it to the other team. I mean, what are you going to do? We’ll go back to Green Bay and just continue to get better as a team.”
In the days that followed, the NFL said nothing publicly to admit the mistake or apologize to the Packers, though the league’s actions spoke volumes, as the blown call wound up being the impetus for resolving its dispute with the referees. The regular officials were back at work days after the controversy, as the NFL tried to weather the PR storm. The call was replayed on everything from ESPN’s SportsCenter to ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today, and even president Barack Obama spoke about it, calling the outcome “terrible” and that he’d “been saying for months we’ve got to get our refs back.”
McCarthy meanwhile tried to stay above the fray. Having led the Packers to the Super Bowl XLV title two years earlier, he knew that a steady, consistent message—one of moving forward, not bellyaching—was crucial. He did his best to look forward to his team’s next game against the New Orleans Saints, but even he knew it was a tough sell. Despite his best efforts to reroute the narrative, the conversation continually came back to the controversy. “I received more text messages and emails than I did after the Super Bowl. I can tell the impact this made,” McCarthy said the day after the game. “They were in agreement with the fact that they thought it was an interception. But, hey, that’s life. Our players are passionate. They’re emotional right now—understandably so—but it’s time we start channeling our energy toward New Orleans. We need to stay focused. We’re not going to get any help. I know this is going to be a story that everybody wants to continue to talk about. And, frankly, I’m not going to act like it’s not there. This is a play that I’m sure we’ll see on TV as we move on in our lives. That’s the facts of our business. That’s the beauty of what [NFL Films’] Steve Sabol created. God rest his soul.
“The fact of the matter is: we’re about New Orleans. We’re in tune with staying true to the integrity of the Green Bay Packers, how we conduct ourselves, being professional during a tough time, during a challenge. It’s a different challenge, but I’m excited about overcoming it. I look at this as an opportunity to put another feather in our cap.”
McCarthy revealed that he hadn’t seen replays of the call until viewing them on an iPad on the team’s charter flight home and said simply, “Everybody thought it was clearly an interception. I agreed.”
Rodgers arrived for his weekly ESPN Wisconsin radio show that Tuesday ready to make a statement. Later, his comments would be lauded around the league for being vital to the resolution of the contract dispute with officials. “Some stuff just needs to be said,” Rodgers said to begin the show. “First of all, I’ve got to do something that the NFL is not going to do and I have to apologize to the fans. Our sport is generated, the multi-billion machine is generated by people who pay good money to come watch us play. And the product on the field is not being complemented by an appropriate set of officials. The games are getting out of control. Like I said in the first week, I said, ‘I’m okay with replacement refs as long as they don’t have a direct impact on the game.’ Obviously, last night there was a direct impact on the game on multiple plays. But my thing is I just feel bad for the fans because they’re paying good money to watch this. The game is being tarnished by an NFL that obviously cares more about saving some money than having the integrity of the game diminished a little bit.”
Rodgers then read the NFL’s statement on the play, which he had printed out himself and brought to the show, and picked it apart. “Bear with me on some of this here,” Rodgers said before breaking down what he saw from the two officials who were involved in the call that decided the game. Rodgers went on to say the statement was “unbelievable” and characterized it as “covering their butt.”
The full impact of the game wouldn’t be seen until months later. Although the Packers would lose other games, including their regular-season finale at the Minnesota Vikings, the Fail Mary loss would be the difference between a 12–4 finish and a first-round playoff bye and an 11–5 finish and having to play an NFC wild-card game on the opening weekend of the postseason.
Although the Packers beat the Vikings in that first game, the San Francisco 49ers took advantage of their bye week and installed a host of read-option plays for quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who ran roughshod over the Packers in a blowout victory at Candlestick Park, ending the Packers’ once-promising season in embarrassing fashion. “We wanted that No. 2 seed. We wanted that bye,” left guard T.J. Lang said. “But you have to move on. You can’t dwell on that. You can’t let that carry over. You have let it go.”