On January 13, 1991, we hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in a divisional playoff game. I was standing on the rooftop of the press box when Bo Jackson was pulled down by his leg on the far sideline. There was no violent hit or tackle, and it didn’t appear that Bo was hurt. As he was pulled down, we could see that his leg twisted at the hip, but it did not appear to be the sort of tackle that would lead to an injury. Even as Bo lay there, and we realized that he was injured on the play, we didn’t have a sense the injury was devastating.
Bo did not play the next week in the AFC championship game in Buffalo, and he never played another down in the NFL. He had suffered a career-ending injury.
There’s great truth to an adage I learned very early in my career: coulda, shoulda, and woulda never played a down. Injuries are part of the game and it’s a frustrating waste of time and energy to think about what coulda, shoulda, or woulda happened had Bo not suffered that injury. There’s no doubt, though, that we would have been an entirely different team for years to come with a healthy Bo Jackson.
* * *
I remember certain details about almost every game we played during my nearly three decades with the team – both the wins and the losses, the ecstasy and the heartbreak.
One of my favorite plays in one of my favorite games was 25 Bingo Cross.
On October 11, 1998, we hosted the San Diego Chargers. Our starting quarterback, Jeff George, was injured. We began the game with Donald Hollas at quarterback, but in the fourth quarter we pulled him and put in 39-year-old Wade Wilson.
We didn’t have a first down in the third quarter. (Neither did the Chargers, by the way.) Our punter, Leo Araguz, punted 16 times in the game and, collectively, the punters for both teams set what was then a record for punting yards. With roughly two minutes left in the game, we were trailing 6–0. With a bit more than a minute and a half remaining in the game, Wade Wilson threw to a wide-open James Jett, who had flown down the field and right by the corner who was (not really) covering him. It appeared to me that in order to get the ball to James, Wade jumped on his tippy toes and put every ounce of his body and his weight into that throw. We scored and we won 7–6.
So many people – fans, media, analysts – decried the game for its woeful lack of offense. I had a different perspective. I thought it was – and still think it is – a defensive masterpiece.
* * *
We were in Kansas City for the final regular-season game of the 1999 season, which was actually to be played on January 2, 2000. That morning, while flipping through a local newspaper in the hotel restaurant, I read a column that really annoyed me. The premise of the column was that the Chiefs were in the playoffs and the writer assessed potential playoff matchups and the Chiefs’ prospects. Well, the Chiefs had not yet clinched a playoff berth; they needed to beat us to do so. The columnist dismissively acknowledged this a few paragraphs later, noting that although the Chiefs weren’t yet in the playoffs and must win that day to get in, they were playing the Raiders, so victory was a certainty. The column then went back to analyzing the Chiefs’ chances in the playoffs.
I was indignant. I was all riled up.
I grabbed the paper, stormed off to our team buses, and shoved the paper – folded open to this column – toward a member of the equipment staff and asked him to post it in the locker room at Arrowhead Stadium.
In the first quarter, the Chiefs returned both a punt and an interception for touchdowns and we were down 17–0. Obviously, one never wants to start any game like that, but falling behind like that in Arrowhead was a particular nightmare. For almost my entire career I considered Arrowhead one of the two loudest outdoor stadiums in the league, the other being Buffalo. That remained the case until the new stadium in Seattle was built, at which time that venue joined Kansas City and Buffalo atop the list of the loudest outdoor venues.
It was cacophonous that day in Arrowhead. I likened games like that to a shark feeding frenzy – both the players and fans reminded me of sharks who had smelled blood in the water. It was always deafeningly loud, but during games like this it was even louder.
Finally, with a bit of time remaining in the first quarter, we blocked a punt, Kenny Shedd scooped it up, and we scored.
A lot is said about momentum. Momentum is tangible; it is palpable. It swings, it shifts, it is real, and it matters.
That blocked punt, returned for a touchdown, shifted the momentum. We soon led 21–17. As the game continued, we traded the lead several times. One touchdown, dubbed the Run of the Millennium, remains one of my favorite plays of my career.
Kansas City was leading 31–28. Rich Gannon handed the ball to one of my all-time favorite running backs, Tyrone Wheatley. Tyrone broke seven tackles (although it seemed to be three times as many) and carried what looked like all 11 defenders into the end zone. That touchdown put us up 35–31.
Ultimately, the game went into overtime and we won by a field goal. No playoff berth for the Chiefs. I had never, ever heard Arrowhead Stadium so quiet. It was delightfully, deliciously quiet – one really could have heard the proverbial pin drop. I wanted to run through the stadium singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” but I didn’t. There are few things worse in sport than an obnoxious winner. But I sure did want to sing that day.
* * *
Another of my favorite running plays helped put us in the Super Bowl.
It was January 19, 2003, and we were hosting the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Championship Game. We traded the lead for a period of time and the final score does not reflect how close the game was.
Less than five minutes into the game, we scored, but I had a sense that this was a game in which the lead would go back and forth, a lot. Shortly after we scored, I walked through the area in which my husband was sitting with some family and friends. They were cheering and celebrating our touchdown, they were jubilant, ebullient. It seemed to me that they were behaving as if we had won the game. I looked at my husband and, shaking with anger and from nerves, I’m sure, said: “These people are acting like this is fun.” These people referred, of course, to our family and dear friends. Clearly, I was even more tense than was normally the case during a game. My husband gently steered me away and said, “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t stop by and see us at all during this game.” Indeed.
In the fourth quarter, Zack Crockett was lined up as the single back. Everyone in the stadium knew that Zack would get the ball and that we would run a play we had run successfully all year – 12 Blast. Our fans knew what was coming and the Titans knew what was coming, but the Titans couldn’t stop us. Zack scored and at that moment I knew; we were going to the Super Bowl.
I was standing alone, watching the end of the game from a corner in the very back of our Spanish-language radio broadcast booth. The play-by-play announcer and color commentator were in the front of the booth doing their jobs, while I clung to a wall in the back, alone. I had hidden myself there in the waning moments of the game.
That moment was the best moment of my career. One week later was the worst.
* * *
Another of my favorite running plays involved a running back less well known than Marcus, Bo, Tyrone, or Zack. We were hosting the New York Jets on October 10, 1993, and we were down 20–17, with almost no time left. We had time for possibly one more play. Coaches and players were signaling frantically for Vince Evans to spike the ball. Vince saw them, ignored them, and ran a play. He handed the ball to Nick Bell on the 1-yard line, and Nick scored. We won the game on that final play.
Just before that play, as the team was breaking the huddle and approaching the line of scrimmage, Vince grabbed Nick and said something to him. After the game, Vince was asked by the media what he said to Nick, and he told them that he said, “Run, Nick, run.” I was a bit dubious about that, so a bit later I asked Vince whether that was, in fact, what he had said to Nick. It was not. Vince told me that what he really said was: “If you don’t get in the fucking end zone, don’t come back to the locker room.”
* * *
In each of the two seasons before we went to the Super Bowl in January 2003, we were also in the playoffs. In January 2001 we lost the AFC Championship Game to the Baltimore Ravens and in January 2002, well, that playoff game was in New England.
For much of the game against the Ravens, we played without our starting quarterback Rich Gannon, who had suffered an injury when Tony Siragusa landed – actually, flopped – on him. Losing Rich in the second quarter and then a really bad pursuit angle resulted in a loss. The pain of losing and of knowing that we would not advance to the Super Bowl was excruciating. Knowing that another team would accept the Lamar Hunt AFC Championship Trophy on our field was gut-wrenching. I didn’t watch.
January 19, 2002: the divisional playoff game. New England. The Tuck Rule. It was a fumble.
Raiders fans, football fans, sports fans – they all know or they know of the Tuck Rule Game. For those people who don’t, this is what happened: with less than two minutes remaining in the game, Charles Woodson forced a Tom Brady fumble, which Greg Biekert recovered. That fumble recovery meant that we won the game. We would have kneeled down three times and gone home.
I was watching the game from the visiting staff area in the New England press box. Cheering was not allowed in the press box, so when Charles forced that fumble and Greg recovered it, we celebrated as silently as we could – we grabbed one another, we squeezed one another’s shoulders, we hugged one another, we clasped one another’s hands. We had won the game.
A moment or so after the play, I realized it was under review. Because the play had been run with less than two minutes remaining in the game, the review was initiated by league officials. That fact alone dictated the outcome of the game. Had the play occurred even one second prior to the two-minute warning, the game would have been over, as any challenge to the ruling on the field would have had to come from New England and because New England was out of timeouts they could not have challenged the play. So, it would have remained our ball, we would have kneeled down three times, game over.
It is said that football is a game of inches and a game of seconds. It is, indeed.
Years later, a Sports Illustrated article recounted that when I learned that the play was to be reviewed, I turned to the approximately 80-year-old director of officiating and said: “You’d better call 911, because I’m going to have a fucking heart attack if you overturn this fucking call.”
Well, when that article was published, I asked my husband in an indignant tone of voice: “I didn’t say that – did I say that? No, I didn’t say that. Did I? You were sitting right next to me, did I say that?”
“No,” he responded, “you didn’t say that.”
Well, now I was even more indignant. “I knew I didn’t say that…I’m calling Sports Illustrated,” I declared.
“Before you do that,” my husband replied, “let me tell you what you did say. You said, ‘You’d better call 911, because I’m going to have a fucking stroke if you overturn this fucking call.’”
Oh. I said stroke, not heart attack. I didn’t call Sports Illustrated.
That Sports Illustrated article also referred to me by a nickname: the Princess of Darkness. I’m often asked if I’m offended by that name. Offended? I love that name. I cherish that name. I am deeply honored by it and I shall embrace it proudly, always.
A few days after the game, I asked Al which was worse – the Tuck Rule or the Lytle Fumble. The latter refers to Rob Lytle, who played for the Denver Broncos. In the 1978 AFC Championship game, Lytle was hit by Raiders great Jack Tatum, the ball popped out, and it was recovered by a linebacker, who started running the other way. It was going to be a touchdown but the officials ruled Lytle’s forward progress had stopped before the ball came loose, and the whistle was blown. I wanted to know which hurt more, or if these things could be quantified.
Al considered my question for a bit, and responded: “Right now, I’d have to say this one,” and then he paused, and added, “but only because it’s more recent.”
Whenever I write or speak publicly about that fumble, I receive immediate feedback telling me to “get over it.” But that’s the fun of sports – we don’t have to get over these sorts of things. We have to get over all sorts of things in life, but not in sports.
And it was a fumble.