Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Jay Z wrote:Another factor in that Colts Lions game is that the clock would have started after the ball was set following the kickoff return. Art Donovan stated that he was kicked out of the game for retaliating for something Gil Mains did on the kickoff. Thus the clock stopped.

Now no penalty yardage was marked off for this, so maybe it was offseting penalties. And if the Lions had time outs left, they just would have taken one after the kickoff anyway. But that's a rule that is forgotten today.

Good mention of that rule. I personally had no idea that was a rule until I went back and started watching games from the seventies. Particularly Super Bowl VII, where Washington rushed out on to the field down 14-7. In the nineties, John Madden used to make a point of telling the audience that the clock stopped for change of possession. I always thought "why is he stating the obvious" but now realize that the clock used to not stop for change of possession, thus making his explanation worthwhile.

conace21 wrote:

Citizen wrote:Moore's catch came with 14 seconds to play. That beats the Music City game, in which Buffalo had taken the lead with 20 seconds left.

It was actually 16 seconds. There were 20 seconds remaining when the ball was snapped on Steve Christie's go-ahead field goal. I remember wondering if Buffalo should have run one more play. Kicking off with 16 seconds left- I thought maybe the Bills were leave a slight opening for the Titans offense to complete a long pass to get into FG range. I never dreamed that the Titans would run the kickoff back for a TD.

The Bills did not run another play because of the timeout situation

When the Bills were on their go-ahead drive with less than 2 minutes to go, Tennessee had all 3 of their timeouts and Buffalo had none.

They couldn’t run the clock down and kick with no time left because Fisher had 3 TO’s in his pocket. Plus with BUF did not want to risk not getting out of bounds and maybe the don’t even get a FG off

Johnson had been sacked 6 times including one for a safety.

Everybody - great stories and memories shared from that Lions Colts game - I'm not old enough to remember it and it's fantastic to hear from people who watched it happen live. Thanks for all the discussion around it and the sharing the history about the play and the rule changes over the years.

I remember I got a chance to ask the great Lenny Moore about this game at an event many years ago. The Colts were 6-2 at midseason and everyone on the team felt they were going to three-peat. He just shook his head and told me they have should have won it that year, but this loss just seemed to take it all out of them. Injuries caught up to them as well but to me it serves as the ultimate cautionary tale of how a shocking loss can derail a season.