 Giants Stadium, the site of the game. | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | November 27, 1994 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Stadium | Giants Stadium East Rutherford, New Jersey | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Gary Lane | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 75,606 | ||||||||||||||||||
| TV in the United States | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Marv Albert andPaul Maguire | ||||||||||||||||||
TheClock Play was a famoustrick play inAmerican football, immortalized in what came to be known as theFake Spike Game,[1] played on November 27,1994. The contest was played by theNational Football League (NFL)'sMiami Dolphins andNew York Jets[2] that featured one of the most famous comeback plays in league history.[3] DolphinsquarterbackDan Marino ran atrick play, pretending to stop the game clock but instead threw apass that scored the game-winningtouchdown, ultimately giving Miami the 28–24 victory.
The game itself pitted the 7–4 Dolphins against the 6–5 Jets; entering this game the Dolphins and Jets led theAFC East, but all five teams in the division were within two games of the division lead; theBills had fallen to 6–6 following aThanksgiving Day loss inDetroit while thePatriots had begun a late-season surge following victories overthe Vikings andSan Diego and were 5–6 facing the 5–6Colts that same Sunday. The Jets were coming off a victory atMinnesota while the Dolphins had suffered back-to-back losses toChicago andPittsburgh.
The Jets raced to a 17–0 lead before the Dolphins got on the board on Dan Marino's touchdown toMark Ingram Sr., but misfired on a two-point conversion. The Jets scored again onJohnny Mitchell's touchdown catch before Marino found Ingram again, and this time, connected on another two-point conversion try, this one going toIrving Fryar. In the fourth,Boomer Esiason was intercepted for the first time; this set up a third Marino-to-Ingram score. The Dolphins blitzed Esiason andTim Bowens forced a fumble recovered by the Jets; this forced a Jets punt, butO. J. McDuffie fumbled the punt to the Jets. The Jets drove to the Miami 38 with six minutes left but Esiason was intercepted again. The Jets forced another Miami punt, but with 2:34 left,J. B. Brown picked off Esiason again.
Trailing 24–21 with 38 seconds left, the Dolphins had the ball at the Jets' 8-yard line with only one timeout. Running to the line of scrimmage, Marino nodded to Ingram and yelled "Clock! Clock! Clock!" and motioned that he was going tospike the ball to stop the clock. The Jets defense, anticipating a spike, relaxed. Marino took the snap; instead of spiking the ball, he dropped back to pass, while Ingram ran to the corner of the end zone with rookie JetscornerbackAaron Glenn biting on the fake. With the Jets caught off-guard, Marino threw the pass to Ingram in the front-right corner of the end zone.[4] The play was brought to Miami earlier in the year by backup quarterbackBernie Kosar, and Dolphins coachDon Shula decided it was the right time to use the trick play.[5]
The 28–24 victory moved the Dolphins to 8–4 and despite subsequent losses to Buffalo andIndianapolis the 10–6 Dolphins edged the 10–6 Patriots, who had won their last seven games, for the division title (winning on a season sweep of New England), the twelfth in the team's history. The Dolphins defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Wild Card Game 27-17 but lost in the divisional round to the San Diego Chargers, 22–21.
The comeback was Marino's 29th in his career, and his fifth against the Jets.[6]
The Jets, meanwhile, went into a tailspin. CoachPete Carroll called the loss "staggering."[1] It proved to be more than that. The loss set off the Jets' second straight December collapse; they would not win another game for the rest of the season, and Coach Carroll was then fired. But the Jets' slump continued under his successor,Rich Kotite; they would win only four games during Kotite's two seasons, including a franchise worst 1–15 record in 1996.[5]
Maguire: Marino's trying to get everybody on the line of scrimmage. Now he still has one timeout. They'll save that for the field goal, if they have to.
Albert: We are seeing another spectacular effort by Marino, who fires... TOUCHDOWN!
— NBC'sMarv Albert andPaul Maguire calling the play