this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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I legitimately don't understand why people reference this so much as a memorable moment. It wasn't particularly unique or interesting. Shit like this has happened before and has happened since. It would make it into a random bloopers youtube video, but it's not some all time moment.
As someone who watched it, a big reason is because of the timing. The Patriots went from 7-0 to 28-0 within a span of a minute, got a touchdown early, Jets fumble right at the three yard line, two plays later Mark Sanchez runs into his own lineman's ass and then the very next kickoff is another fumble that gets returned for a touchdown.
Sanchez had always gotten criticism (because he was Bad) but could shield it by saying he won in the playoffs. That game essentially signalled the end of an era of hope for the Jets with their strong defense as Sanchez became too much of a liability to actually win despite their amazing defense and then went on to only have one winning season and 0 playoff appearances since then.
Combine that with the fact that a player running into his own offensive lineman's ass and fumbling is funny and you get something that both serves as a representation of a moment in time, when the Jets lost all hope, and as an inherently funny play.
This context makes the cultish following of this play make more sense, thank you. I'll say it's still held in too high a regard since you need all that context to really understand why it's significant. It's also significant as a point in time for a mediocre team becoming bad, which isn't particularly noteworthy in the grand history of the NFL. I'm still gonna hate on it, but maybe not as much as I used to.
It's worth noting that at the time, they weren't seen as a mediocre team per se. They had been one game from the Super Bowl 2 out of the last 3 years and a lot of people felt if their offense could just get together they might push over the edge. The defense fell down in 2011 but it seemed like a one year blip. So it felt more like the bottom falling out on a true "what if" team, since despite having guys like Mark Sanchez at QB they were one score from the Super Bowl. Rex Ryan was a hot commodity with a fiery personality who talked trash and beat Brady + Bill in the playoffs (which also made the butt fumble game some sweet revenge for some people). Stuff like that.