LOS ANGELES — The concept of playing an NFL game on Christmas Day sounded a lot better to Jay Feely when the schedule came out in the spring than it did as the holiday season approached.
It was 2010, and Feely was kicking for the Arizona Cardinals, who were 5-10 and going nowhere. They were playing host to Dallas, likewise stuck in the mud at 5-10.
“If you play or practice on Christmas morning, there’s always a little bit of ‘bah humbug’ to it,” said Feely, who kicked for seven NFL teams from 2001-14. “Because you grow up and Christmas morning is so special. You’re with your family, you open presents, you do the same type of things every year. Then I remember getting to college and you’re stuck there at bowl practice and you’re like, ‘Well, this sucks.’ “
Didn’t feel so bad, however, when “Mr. Missile Toe” nailed a 48-yard field goal with five seconds left to send the Cowboys packing, 27-26. Guess playing on Christmas wasn’t so bad after all.
“You go home and you have all your family there,” Feely said. “Especially after a game-winner like that, it just makes it a pretty special evening.”
With Christmas falling on a Sunday this year, the NFL has front-loaded the schedule with 11 games on Christmas Eve, and — as on Thanksgiving — three on Christmas Day, including Denver at the Rams. The Chargers play at Indianapolis on Monday night.
Here’s a closer look at some of the most memorable Christmas Day NFL games:
1971: Dolphins 27, Chiefs 24
The NFL first experimented with Christmas Day games in 1971, back when the regular season was 14 games and ended in mid-December. That year, the league staged two divisional playoff games: Dallas at Minnesota and Miami at Kansas City.
Those matchups featured a parade of busts — 33 future Hall of Fame members, including all four head coaches: Tom Landry, Bud Grant, Don Shula and Hank Stram.
The Dolphins-Chiefs showdown wound up going into double-overtime and remains the longest game in league history. It was 82 minutes and 40 seconds on the clock before Miami’s Garo Yepremian kicked a 37-yard field goal for a 27-24 victory.
The whole thing lasted more than seven hours, so all those fans packed into Kansas City’s Memorial Stadium had to appreciate that it was an unseasonably warm day in the low 60s. Arrowhead Stadium opened the following season.
It was the first playoff win in franchise history for the Dolphins, who ultimately advanced to the Super Bowl, where they lost to Dallas. Miami would win the next two Super Bowls, including a 17-0 finish in 1972, still the league’s only “perfect” season.
Losing that Christmas Day game had a longstanding negative impact on Stram’s Chiefs, who had won the Super Bowl two years earlier. There was one play in particular that caused some Kansas City players to lose faith in their coach.
The play in question was a missed 29-yard field goal by Jan Stenerud in the second quarter that would have allowed the Chiefs to build on their narrow lead. Kansas City had planned a fake, and Stram wanted Bobby Bell to snap the ball directly to Stenerud for a run around the right end.
But bad communication and execution foiled the plan. Stram had told Stenerud to look at the spot on the ground, rather than tipping his hand by looking up at the long snapper. But Bell didn’t get that message. All Bell knew as he looked backward through his legs was that the clock was winding down, and the kicker wasn’t looking up at him.
So, instead of a direct snap to Stenerud, Bell snapped the ball to holder Len Dawson. Caught off-guard, Stenerud scrambled to regain his balance and rushed the kick, narrowly missing. It was one of three misses that day for the Hall of Famer, as a later kick was blocked.
What was deeply troubling to Kansas City players and caused them to lose faith in Stram was the coach didn’t confess to reporters after the game that the Chiefs were attempting a fake. Instead, by saying nothing, he rested the blame for that second-quarter fiasco on the shoulders of his kicker.
“We could have easily won the damn game,” recalled Hall of Fame linebacker Willie Lanier of the Chiefs. “But it was appearing that [Stram] wanted this acknowledgment as though he was this fabulous coach that was innovative. So he never took responsibility.
“If you talk to Jan, he’ll refuse to talk about that. He is still bothered about that. Because it made it appear as if he missed three field goals. He only missed one; the first one was Hank’s foolishness, and another one was blocked.”
Lanier said the botched fake had an effect that far outlasted the game.
“The domino effect was, if you’re the captain of the ship, you’ve got to take responsibility,” he said. “It was years after years after years before any of the sports writers knew anything about that.”
Lanier said that Stram, who died in 2005, “lost the team” by not standing up for Stenerud after the game.
2006: Eagles 23, Cowboys 7
It was a far different Christmas Day experience for Philadelphia quarterback Jeff Garcia in 2006, when he guided the Eagles to a 23-7 victory over the Cowboys in Dallas. That Monday game capped an unprecedented run for the Eagles, who beat all three NFC East opponents on the road in consecutive weeks.
That Dallas win was the capper. Not only did the Eagles beat the hated Cowboys, but also they spoiled the day for spotlight-stealing Dallas receiver Terrell Owens, who had been with Philadelphia the season before.
As he left the field, a gleeful Garcia delivered a line on national TV — “Merry Christmas, Philadelphia” — that secured him a permanent spot in that city’s sports lore.
Philadelphia was 5-6 at Thanksgiving before tearing off five wins in a row to clinch the NFC East. They beat the New York Giants in a wild-card game before losing at New Orleans in the divisional round.
As with other quarterbacks, Garcia’s relationship with Philadelphia fans was, well, complicated. They loved him after that three-game run, but were less enthusiastic about him when he first replaced the injured Donovan McNabb in mid-November. The Eagles lost their first two games with Garcia under center.
“I was able to play for the Niners and Cleveland and Detroit, and you see the passion in fans,” Garcia said. “But you go to Philadelphia and it’s just a different experience. It literally is love-hate. Fans there thought the season was over when Donovan went down.”
It took Philadelphia fans a while to warm to Garcia. At the beginning of December, when the Eagles were playing host to Carolina in a Monday night game, Garcia was crushed by a tackle and lay writhing on the field. In his agony, he heard the crowd starting to cheer — because his backup was warming up on the sideline.
“I almost was somewhat happier being on the road for those three weeks knowing that, when you’re on the road, you have to be a road warrior obviously, but you know everybody’s against you already,” Garcia said. “At home, I didn’t know if they were with me or against me. There’s nothing like playing at home when your fans aren’t in favor of you.”
That all changed as the Eagles started stacking wins in December, and especially with that Christmas Day game.
1995: Cowboys 37, Cardinals 13
Christmas fell on a Monday in 1995, too, when Dallas played at Arizona and pounded the Cardinals, 37-13. Troy Aikman threw for 350 yards in that game, which secured home-field advantage for the Cowboys throughout the playoffs.
The Cardinals were heading in the opposite direction. It would be the final game for coach Buddy Ryan, who started heading up the tunnel before the clock expired so he was nowhere to be found for the traditional postgame handshake.
There was plenty of dysfunction in the Cardinals organization at the time, including a fistfight during a Friday film session between a practice squad defensive lineman and a starting linebacker that spilled over into the locker room Saturday.
Footage from that game was used in the film “Jerry Maguire,” and the on-field scenes with Cuba Gooding Jr. were shot at halftime.
“We were told there was a Hollywood movie there, we weren’t told it was what would become ‘Jerry Maguire,’ ” former Cardinals center Ed Cunningham recalled. “We had no idea it was a Tom Cruise movie. It was only when the movie came out that it was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ “
More memorable for Cunningham was teammate Larry Centers establishing an NFL mark for receptions by a running back with 101 for the season.
“Larry made one of the key football plays in the movie, because he juked the hell out of somebody from Dallas,” Cunningham said. “They filmed it on their cameras and used it.”
2005: Bears 24, Packers 17
The Bears traditionally had difficulties against Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, so in Chicago this is a major Christmas memory. The Bears won at Green Bay, 24-17, intercepting four Favre passes and sweeping the Packers for the first time since 1991.
Bears long snapper Patrick Mannelly remembers that game for an entirely different reason. His daughter was born the day before. He was there for her birth, then rode north to Lambeau Field with the team doctor.
Mannelly played that game with the blue-ink footprint of his newborn daughter stamped on his forearm.
“I was tired as can be from not sleeping,” he said. “Then fortunately we won the game and won the division. I don’t remember a lot from the game, but it was just a great Bears-Packers memory and my favorite Christmas ever.”
