A straight-on kick.
By a kicker without half of his foot. Or one hand.
In the final seconds of a game…
Held at a stadium located below sea-level, with a wretched field.
Tom Dempsey broke a seventeen-year-old record BY EIGHT YARDS.
The record before that lasted almost thirty years.
We’re talking Bob Beamon territory.
And don’t give me that crap about how he had an “advantage” by having a special shoe.
He had half a frigging foot.
If that was an “advantage”, then kickers all over the USA would have hacksawed their feet in half. Don’t laugh—pitcher/author Jim Bouton wrote that if there was a pill that would guarantee a pitcher a twenty-win season but it took five years away from your life span, pitchers would line up for it.
And he kicked it below sea level, on a wretched field.
The kickers who have since passed him did it on manicured artificial fields or in Colorado thin air—or both. He kicked on a Tulane Stadium field that was a glorified cattle pasture, and was below sea level with heavy ocean air.
Thank God and YouTube that Don Criqui’s CBS call and the Saints’ radio call are preserved. They are almost as good as the kick.
I don’t give a rat’s bladder what the NFL record book says. As far as I am concerned, the NFL record will always be, “LONGEST FIELD GOAL—63 Yards by Tom Dempsey, New Orleans vs. Detroit, 1970”.
Here’s the famous field goal by Tom Dempsey click on the “Watch on YouTube” link:
