Mara and Edwards recall The Fumble 40 years later
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. >> Every NFL fan of every team has that unforgettable moment.
Pittsburgh’s Immaculate Reception. Dallas’ Hail Mary. Tennessee’s Music City Miracle.
For New York Giants’ fans, there is The Fumble .
Not quite the legacy you embrace.
On Monday, the 40th anniversary hit of what might be the most infamous moment in the history of one of league’s oldest franchises.
It was on Nov. 19, 1978 in the waning seconds against the Philadelphia Eagles. New York, which was going through tough times, had a surprising 17-12 lead.
With the Eagles void of timeouts, all the Giants had to do was run out the final minute on the clock. Joe Pisarcik, a young quarterback, botched a handoff with veteran Larry Csonka with less than 30 seconds to play, and cornerback Herm Edwards picked up the loose ball and ran it into the end zone, giving the Eagles a stunning win.
Eagles fans call it “The Miracle at the Meadowlands.”
For Giants fans, it was one of those moments you never forget what you were doing. For some, it still stings.
Giants co-owner John Mara says it might be his least favorite play and the low point in franchise history, which dates to 1925. He was in his third year of law school at Fordham and was working the game for CBS at Giants Stadium in the broadcast booth as a spotter for play-by-play man Don Criqui.
“I remember it happening,” Mara said. “I remember thinking we had the game won. It should come as no surprise to you, I remember slamming my fist down on the table and, back then, they had the actual microphones on the table instead of the headsets they wear now, and I think the microphones ended up falling all over the place.”
Mara never worked another game, assuming that CBS didn’t want him back.
“That’s probably the last place I should be, in a broadcast booth during a game,” Mara said, laughing. “It was a pretty miserable feeling for quite some time.”
It only got worse the next day, sitting in the library at law school.
“I felt like the world had just ended, and I had a professor at the time, he was my evidence professor. He was a wise guy and walked in the library and looked at me. He was about 20 feet away, and he pointed at me and just started laughing. I wanted to kill him. If I didn’t have one of my closest friends trying to calm me down, I might have. It was the wrong moment on the wrong day.”
Four decades later, Edwards says he was just in the right place at the right time with the Eagles in an all-out blitz.
“For me personally, you’re always going to be subject of that play,” said Edwards, who now coaches Arizona State. “There’s kind of an irony to it all because all of a sudden, you play in the league for as long as I played, never missed a down, never missed a start, and that’s kind of the play that defines my career. Then again I look at it, too, it was a good play and not a play that’s not so good. In my position, you could be on the bad end of some of those plays, you know?”
Edwards, who was beaten on one of Pisarcik’s two touchdown passes earlier in the game, still hears stories about the game.
“One guy told me, ‘My dad was watching it when he saw it, he threw his television and broke the television.’ You get all kinds of stories like that,” he said.
Giants fans have tons of stories, too.
Terry Reddington, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, didn’t blink when asked the significance of Nov. 19, 1978 when asked before Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay.
“Pisarcik,” the 66-year-old accountant answered.
Reddington has missed only seven games since becoming a season ticket holder, and he was at that one with Kevin Kolmer, a former classmate at Villanova. They had a $20 bet on the outcome.