5 Bizarre Things To Happen During The NFL
Any football fan is going to remember the times that their team overcame adversity to pull out a victory. While the NFL is full of examples of times when the underdog pulled off an unexpected win against a giant of an opponent, there have been plenty of other bizarre moments in the history of the sport. You may not remember some of these bizarre events, but here are some of the strangest things to ever happen in American Football.
The Vikings Forget The Draft
Any fan of the NFL knows that the draft is one of the most important times in the sporting calendar. It is pretty much the US’s equivalent of the UK’s transfer window. So you may not get another chance to shape that year’s team until the next draft.
Apparently, no one told The Minnesota Vikings this back in 2003. Most football fans know this year as the time that the managers forgot about the draft completely; however, the team’s representation remembers the event very differently. Allegedly the Vikings were waiting to make a trade decision to add pressure to the proceedings, but time ran out. Either way, the events that transpired during the draft in 2003 meant that Minnesota Vikings were forced to make a last-minute choice of a seventh pick, Kevin Williams. This makes the Vikings the only NFL team in history to be forced to make their draft picks once the time had run out.
Chicago Bears Triple Tie
The NFL used to be a completely different game before the Super Bowl was introduced. Before then, a draw on the field was settled as exactly that- a draw. This means that a draw did not count toward a team’s overall win percentage for the season. Imagine how that would skew the NFL odds today. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
That means that achieving a draw back in the day was less of a big deal than it is in the modern league. That is good news for The Chicago Bears back in 1932. This team managed to secure three tied games in a row that season. These ties inevitably allowed the Bears to end up in the playoffs at the end of the season, and the Bears were able to lift the trophy after a 9- victory.
The Body Bag Game
By its nature, the NFL is a violent sport. However, all the proper precautions are put in place to ensure that the players are kept safe on the field. None of these precautions meant anything during what is now referred to as the body bag game in 1990.
The body bag game took place between the Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles. Two of the Redskins active quarterbacks, Stan Humphries, and Jeff Rutledge were forced off of the pitch after injury which allowed the Eagles to achieve a 28-14 victory. The unlikely game took its name from a statement made by the head coach of the Eagles before kick-off. In a pre-game interview, Buddy Ryan was quoted saying that his opponents will have to cart off their players off the field in body bags. This unpopular statement has led many fans to believe that the aggressive plays that led to the injuries on the field were planned to intentionally harm the players. However, there is currently no physical evidence to suggest this was true, just some heated words made in passing to reporters.
Players Playing Without Helmets
As infamous as the body bag game is in NFL history, you could expect these injuries to be much worse if the players weren’t wearing helmets. In fact, a lot of NFL players would be leaving the field injury if they did not wear any protection on their heads.
However, this is exactly what NFL players did before the year 1896. Football helmets were actually introduced later than the cup, which was made mandatory for football players in 1888.
No Coin Flip
Some of the weirdest things to happen in the NFL have nothing to do with the game at all. For example, when the laws of physics stop working entirely. This happened during an Arizona Vs Green Bay match that went into overtime. The ref was about to flip a coin to decide who got the first play of the quarter and in a bizarre twist of fate something happened that is yet to be repeated.
The coin left the ref’s hands as intended, but it didn’t flip. This left it lying flat on the ground with zero rotations. You could probably try this yourself and after a hundred flips you would not receive the same result. In a desperate move to appease the angry fans watching on, the ref flipped the coin again to give Arizona the first play.
Conclusion
It is always great when weird and wonderful things happen. No one ever expects bizarre things to happen, but it always provides a talking point when they do. Especially during an NFL game,
