NFL Research

DAL S Jeff Heath is 1st non-K/P to make multiple XP in game since HOU LB Ted Thompson went 4/4 in 1980. Thompson is current GM for @packers Thompson, a backup linebacker and a Bum Phillips favorite, was one of the most versatile of the Luv Ya Blue Oilers, but I’d completely forgotten he’d once been summoned to kick extra points, too. It happened on what became one of the most bizarre afternoons of that crazy, star-crossed season, Phillips’ last. The 8-3 Oilers, heavy favorites against the 2-9 Jets going in, trailed 21-0 after three quarters before Ken Stabler, having finally and somewhat miraculously fought off the effects of an all-night bender in Manhattan, forced overtime by throwing four – yep, four – fourthquarter touchdown passes, each of which Thompson followed with an extra point because regular kicker Toni Fritsch had been left behind in Houston with a leg injury. Thompson, currently the NFL’s fourthlongest tenured general manager after 13 seasons with the Packers, didn’t get to play hero in the end, though, because Pat Leahy’s 38yard sudden-death field goal won it for the Jets. Coincidentally, a still-injured Fritsch would also be replaced three weeks later in Green Bay by Chester Marcol, who had earlier been waived by the Packers. Bum understandably concluded Marcol knew Lambeau’s frozen tundra footing and was a safer bet than Thompson, who never kicked again. But nor, in fact, did Marcol. Although he made a 27-yard field goal in the Oilers’ 22-3 slog to victory, he missed two of his three PAT attempts and that’s how his career ended. Fritsch returned the following week.