Hey there.

It's this Day in Sports History.

A member of the Sports History Network.

You can find more information and more podcasts@sportshistorynetwork.com It's December 16th and on this day in 2001, it was one of the ugliest days in the NFL.

In a game that came to be known as Bottlegate, this was Jacksonville at Cleveland in a Week 14 matchup.

At 6 6, the Browns still harbored hopes for making the post season and taking on a four win Jaguars team.

The prospects were good to pick up that win with 108 left on the clock though.

Those prospects were dwindling down 15:10 and facing a fourth and two from the Jaguars 13.

They needed a touchdown, but first they needed a conversion.

And that's when things went off the rails.

Here's Gus Johnson and Burt Jones with a call that day for cbs.

White lines up as the single setback.

Couch pumping looks backside underneath.

It's K.

Morgan with the catch at the 10 and he did a tremendous job to hang on to the football gets the first down.

Clock still running.

Now just spike the ball, don't even waste the play.

Or maybe they're even calling a play and he spikes it and the clock stops with 48 seconds remaining.

And you know what the Jags are saying?

When his arm came forward, you actually have one chance to spike it.

They're saying that it's intentional grounding because he wasn't out of the pocket.

So you had that initial chance to go ahead and spike it, but he faked it and at that point when he throws it into the ground, it becomes intentional grounding.

So a couple of things were going on with that play.

Yeah, quarterback Tim Couch pump faked the spike before throwing it into the turf.

An intentional grounding penalty would not have been tragic.

It would have cost the Browns 10 yards and it would have been second and 20.

However, that's not what caused all the hullabaloo that soon followed.

Instead, when referee Terry McCauley made this announcement, the crowd began to turn replay.

Buzz prior to the snap.

We'll be looking to see if the last pass was incomplete or complete.

That's the fourth down reception by Quincy Morgan.

Of course, the rule is that once another play has been run, no other previous play can be reviewed.

And since Couch had spiked the ball, the fourth down completion should not have been reviewable.

Replays of Quincy Morgan's catch showed pretty clearly that he didn't have possession.

But to every single Browns fan in the stadium, it did not matter.

It was Too late.

Another play had been run.

After two minutes of review, McCauley came back on the field with the announcement.

After review, the pass is incomplete.

First down, Jacksonville.

And that's when the bottles started to fly.

Miller Brewing had the beer concession rights for Browns games, and they just introduced plastic bottles for their concessions sales.

They'd be safer than glass, easily recyclable, and it would save time and labor.

Instead of having to pour the beverage into a plastic cup, you just hand the customer the bottle and off they go.

A 10 second transaction as opposed to a 30 second or longer transaction.

Well, those bottles came raining onto the field and they kept coming.

So player and field personnel safety became a concern.

Several security folks on the field did get hit by a flying bottle.

Trash cans were then dragged down the stairs and heaved over the railing.

It was chaos.

So then the officials decided that the game was over with 48 seconds still remaining on the clock, and they sent the teams to the locker room.

As the teams and officials tried to make their way through the tunnel, more bottles came pouring down.

But the league office was unhappy with that decision on the field, and they told the officials that the final 48 seconds had to be played out.

So back into the chaos they went for Mark Brunel to take a knee twice.

And then the game was officially over.

So emotions were still running high.

Obviously, the loss was part of a Browns team losing five of their last seven and eventually missing the playoffs.

But even if you're an upset fan pissed off about a call on the field, you just can't throw stuff on the field, right?

I mean, I understand the emotion, but just not the action.

Well, the Browns, who at times as a franchise have a history of making bad situations even worse, did that after this one when Browns owner Al Lerner refused to condemn the bottle throwing fans.

It wasn't pleasant.

I wouldn't suggest anything like that, but it wasn't World War 3.

I don't see any terrible criticism that would be called for the fans.

I think everybody controlled themselves considering.

But they spent 60 minutes out in some pretty bad weather, getting bounced around pretty hard.

Many of the bottle throwers were identified by video and had season ticket privileges revoked.

This also ended the sale of plastic bottles at Brown's games.

Ultimately, the Bottlegate game is largely credited with beer sales limited to two per transaction and ending after the third quarter.

On this day in 1945, it was the Cleveland Rams and the Washington Redskins in a game that led to a new rule that is no longer needed in today's NFL.

This was the NFL championship and it was played in frigid Cleveland.

The temperature was 8 below, the field was frozen, and patches of ice and snow made running and cutting a bit of a challenge.

Players huddled together on the bench surrounded by bales of hay to try to keep warm.

The fans built fires in the stands.

That's no joke.

There's film footage from the game and three fans are shown smiling and warming themselves by a blazing fire while sitting there in their seats.

Try that today and see how far you get.

Maybe you shouldn't try that.

Anyway, the Rams have been the surprise team that season.

They went 91 and were favored in this one despite this being their first championship game appearance.

The Redskins were the veteran team that everybody expected to see in this game, and this was their fifth appearance in nine years and they'd won the title twice.

The Rams put together an impressive opening drive, marching from their 21 down to the Redskins 5.

But instead of opting for a field goal on 4th and goal, they went for it and did not get it.

So now Washington had the ball deep in their own end sling and Sammy Ball lined up in what we would now call the shotgun formation.

But at this point in history, he was lined up to punt.

The snap was low and dropped to the turf while ball picked it up and he threw it to a barren spot out to the right and he was flagged for intentional grounding.

That backed him up even more.

On second down, Ball moved to the back of the end zone and looked more like he was in modern punt formation.

But he was not going to kick the ball.

He was intending to throw it.

Now remember, at this point in NFL history, the goal posts were in the front of the end zone and they would be until 1974.

Ball took the snap, looked to his left and threw towards Wayne Milner running an out round.

But a gust of wind caused the ball to drop and it grazed the underside of the crossbar and fell incomplete at the feet of Milner.

There was a little known rule at that point that said any thrown ball from the end zone that hit any part of the goalpost resulted in a safety and two points for the other team.

That gave Cleveland an early 20 lead.

Obviously nothing insurmountable, but those points would prove crucial.

Washington put together a scoring drive later in the half to take a 72 lead.

Cleveland came right back and after Bob Waterfield hit Jim benton for a 37 yard scoring strike that made it 87 Rams.

Waterfield was also the kicker and the extra point try was a 10 yard kick.

Waterfield hit it 934 yards.

It hit the crossbar and just bounced over for the extra point to make it 9 7.

The goalpost was definitely pro Cleveland on this day, Waterfield took to the air again and he found Jim gillette for a 44 yard touchdown pass and catch.

But Waterfield's kick this time was missed.

157 Rams.

Washington narrowed the margin again when backup quarterback Frank Filch, playing for an injured ball, threw his second touchdown pass of the day.

The extra point was good, but The Redskins still trailed.

15:14 and that's how the game would end.

The two point safety and the doinked extra point proved to be the crucial points.

Washington owner George Marshall was livid after this game and he successfully lobbied the league to change the rule that had killed his team on this day, making it simply an incomplete pass.

The rule became known as the Ball Marshall rule and remained in effect until 1974 when the goalposts were moved to the back of the end zone.

On this day in 1973, the Buffalo Bills O.J.

simpson became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season.

Twenty years before O.J.

became known for his trial in the double murder of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, he was known as the Juice and one of the best running backs in the league.

The 1973 season was Simpsons, fourth in the NFL and an offensive line nicknamed the Electric Company had been put in place to open holes for the Juice.

At the time, the league only played a 14 game schedule and the 2000 yard plateau was thought to be out of reach.

Jim Brown had held the record for the past decade with 1,860.

Entering the final game of the regular season against the New York jets in a Snowy Shea Stadium, O.J.

needed 61 yards to pass Brown and 197 to get to 2000.

Simpson passed Brown for the NFL mark on his eighth carry of the day and by the end of the third quarter he had rolled up 147 yards rushing, needing only 50 for 2000.

The Bills were on their way to a 3414 win over the jets that day, but getting Simpson that 50 yards was top of mind for everybody associated with the Bills.

This was well before electronic statkeeping, so a lot of math was being done in the press box to keep up with the March to 2000.

With phone calls from the box to the field keeping the sideline aware of the situation.

With six and a half minutes remaining, jets announcer Marty Glickman had the call for the historic moment.

O.J.

carries he drives downfield, goes for six, seven yards.

He may have 2,000 right now.

Unofficially, our totals show that he's right about the 2,000 yard mark right now.

He went from the 20 yard line, then to the 14 yard line, six yards on the play.

He's got over 2,000.

2,000 yards.

We saw history, man.

You don't want to come out the money.

He wants to stay in there.

That's right.

They're practically carrying him off the field.

They're dragging him off the field, they're lifting him to their shoulders and he's being carried off the field on the shoulders of his teammates.

What a sight.

The entire squad has run out on the field and they've carried O.J.

off the field on their shoulders.

O.J.

simpson with more than 2,000 yards.

O.J.

averaged a little more than six yards a carry that season.

And amassing the record that stood for 11 years, on this day in 2019, Drew Brees set an NFL record by completing 97% of his passes, including 22 in a row in a 34, 7 route of Indianapolis.

He also threw four touchdown passes to move past Peyton Manning into first place on the all time TD passes list.

Brees finished his career with 571 touchdown passes, but has since been passed on that list by Tom Brady and his649.

And on this day in 1980, the Winnipeg jets set the record for futility in the NHL.

The jets had not won a hockey game since October 17th which was their third game of the year.

Coming into this one against the New York Islanders, Winnipeg was 1227 and they had lost seven straight.

They were winless in their previous 27 games which tied them with the old Kansas City Scouts for most games without a win.

Side note, in case you're wondering, the Scouts are now the present day New Jersey Devils.

The game against the Isles got off to a horrible start for the Jets.

They were on a couple of power plays in the first period, but that advantage got turned around on them.

The Islanders netted two short handed goals to take an early lead and added another full strength goal.

And then Dennis Potvan scored a power play goal to go up 4 nothing at the first intermission.

The jets got a couple back but made little difference in the outcome as New York beat Winnipeg 6 2.

So that was the Jets 28th straight game without a win.

They would lose another two to set the mark at 30 straight without a win, which is still the record.

The jets finally won their second game on the 23rd to break the streak.

Things didn't get much better for them though.

They only won nine the entire year, never won back to back games and they lost three games after giving up 10 goals and time now for today's Nothing to Do With Sports Fun fact the Greenland shark has a really long lifespan.

Living 250 years is normal, but it is not unusual to find a Greenland shark that is four, possibly 500 years old.

Hey, this is Steve White, the host of this Day in Sports History.

Thanks for listening to this episode.

So I'm up for an award.

I made the short list for the best sports Talk podcast in 2024 and let me tell you, there are some heavy hitters in this category, such as the Kelce brothers, Scott Van Pelt and Bill Rhoden.

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I put a link in the show notes that will take you to the page.

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Thanks a lot.

Have a great day.

I'll be back tomorrow with more this Day in Sports History.

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