The football gods have opened the gate to Mount Tecmo Olympus for another exciting Monday night affair, this time between the Jets out of New York and the Miami Dolphins. Both tied atop the standings in their division, they'll be duking it out for the pleasure of the rest of us and for sole ownership of the AFC East halfway through the season. It's experience versus excitement, extraordinary versus extravagant and, at times, execution versus excrement with Dan Marino and company attempting to hold off the rising fleet of Brad Baxter's battalion. Let's head down to the action.
Quarter One
Former Pro Bowl running back-turned-returner Bobby Humphrey brings the ball out to his team's 30-yard line to start this contest. With Dan Marino good and liquored up and all of his weapons at hand, he chooses to stick the ball into the gut of Mark Higgs, whose rush attack is taken out by the Jets for a loss of 6 yards. Marino finds his one open receiver, Tony Paige, on the next play for a gain of 16 needed for the first down. The next two plays see the Dolphins moving backwards against the top defense in the league, with a Tony Paige drop for -1 yards and Paul Frase getting his sixth sack of the year. On 3rd and 23, Marino's 5-yard pass to Tony Paige is considerably too short to convert the NFL-regulated yardage for a first down.
Punt return specialist Terance Mathis returns the kick all the way to his team's 39-yard line to give New York a relatively short field. Blair Thomas works out an underwhelming 2 yards, though it's a rousing success when placed up next to Browning Nagle's horrifying overthrow of a wide open Rob Moore along the sidelines. On 3rd and 8, Nagle drops back before making the terrible yet charming rookie mistake of going on the run. With only 3 yards gained, Louie Aguiar is out to show off his dangerously defined thigh muscles.
Humphrey takes the dangerous Aguiar punt at the 1-yard line and fights his way to the 9. From there, the mountain of a man known only as 'M' Washington tackles Marino dangerously close to his own end zone. On second down, Higgs erases the deficit with a 9 yard run back to the original line of scrimmage, followed by an expertly avoided sack by Marino to complete a pass to Paige for 37 yards. And thus, the quarter ends with Miami on the move.
Quarter Two
Marino puts his surgically enhanced robo-legs to good use with a 10 yards jaunt into New York's territory. Needing a breather, Dan hands the ball of to Tony Paige, a play that puts Miami right back on their side of the fifty. However, in the process of two more plays, Paige picks up 22 yards, a first down, and a Fila endorsement. From the shotgun formation, Marino avoids every one of New York's front seven to find Mark Duper open in the corner for the first strike.
Miami leads 7-0
Mathis secures another nice kick return to midfield for his Jets. The drive starts promising, with Nagle wheeling and dealing on his youthful legs for 14 yards, catching the Miami defense unawares. Brad Baxter works overtime on the next series of plays, picking up another first down on three separate runs. Another Baxter carry is split up with a nice 11 yard run from Blair Thomas, and out of nowhere the Jets are sniffing the end zone themselves. As has been the story all season, Thomas and Baxter work in tandem to pick up the touchdown, with Baxter dodging a few Miami defenders for the score as Nagle sips on his Capri Sun in the backfield.
Score tied 7-7
With the game starting to hit a sustainable excitement level, Humphrey jukes and jives his kick return to the Dolphins' 40-yard line. As the clock mercilessly sends its sands of time through the hourglass, Tony Paige chugs a slow 20-yard run to chew up nearly 40 seconds. He manages to pick up 6 more to get somewhere within 20 yards of Pete Stoyanovich's range. With the game clock winding to 0:00, Stoyanovich careens the ball wide left for his fifth missed boot on the season.
Halftime - Dolphins 7, Jets 7
Quarter Three
From the back of the end zone, Mathis hauls the ball out to New York's 10-yard line. Compound that poor return with a J.B. Brown sack of Nagle, and the Jets are now struggling to continue their drive on grass a few shades darker green than the regular turf. On 2nd and 18, Nagle's pitch to Baxter gains a modest yard. Thomas can't play hero on 3rd down when he plants his face into Siupeli Malamala's backside, and Aguiar is out for another decent 50-yard punt.
From their own 37-yard line, Marino hikes the ball from the shotgun position and baits the defenders. His expertly plotted out play ends in failure regardless, however, when he aims the ball for Mark Higgs rather than the clearly more able-handed and wide open Mark Duper. Kyle Clifton takes credit for a sack of Marino on second down, whereupon Paul Frase accepts Clifton's challenge and sacks Marino for the second time. Reggie Roby is out to punt the ball, and for some reason we're having a difficult time describing why he looks so much different than every other Tecmo punter.
Mathis gets pinned at the Jets' 15-yard line. From scrimmage, New York avoids a heart-stopping scare when Blair Thomas coughs the ball up at his own 25-yard line, though he's able to save the drive for at least three more plays when he picks it up. Nagle shows off his powerful arm once more by overshooting Moore by about 20 yards. Smartly, he goes back to planting the ball in the more dependable arms of his backs, until Dwight Hollier makes his presence known with a sack of Nagle to stall the drive.
Aguiar expertly places his punt at the Miami 2-yard line, a kick that becomes ever more significant when Humphrey bobbles it over to Brad Baxter for a special teams touchdown to quickly turn the tide back to New York's favor as the quarter ends.
New York leads 14-7
Quarter Four
A poor Cary Blanchard kick has Humphrey redeeming himself with a nice return to the Miami 46-yard line. When Marino's lob to Duper is denied, he turns to Mark v2, who's been shut out all day, and Clayton chalks up 27 yards on the completion. Marino tries his best to get it back to Duper, but the ball is batted away once more. Undaunted, Marino tries a third time, and on this occasion, Erik McMillan makes him pay with an interception in the end zone.
The ball is placed in the hands of Browning Nagle to seal the win, though he perhaps hangs on to it too long when he absorbs his third sack of the day for a 3-yard loss. Nagle attempts another throw to Moore, and though it's on target this time, there just happens to be one Miami defender left on the field gullible yet lucky enough to think Nagle might try to pass again. The ball is batted away, setting up a 3rd down play in which Dwight Hollier gets yet another sack of Nagle to quickly turn the ball back over to the Dolphins. Aguiar punts from the shadow of 40,000 unhappy Jets fans.
Humphrey takes the return at the Miami 48-yard line, but is tackled immediately afterward. An angry Jets blitz tackles Paige for a loss of 6 yards, though Marino's calm roll-out on the next play finds Mark Clayton for a first down conversion in Jets territory. Miami calls some efficient Higgs and Marino runs, then take their last time-out with 1:19 remaining. The call made during timeout was apparently the right one, as Marino picks Mark Clayton out of the four open receivers for a first down at the New York 15-yard line. With just under a minute to go, Clayton pulls the pass in coverage for Miami's second touchdown to tie this one up late.
Score tied 14-14
With Mathis returning the ball to the Jets' 39, Nagle gets to work attempting to put his Jets within Cary Blanchard praying range. With the clock and his own arm his worst enemy, Nagle still manages to finally find Thomas open for a completion at the Miami 42-yard line. With just 5 seconds left, Blanchard is out to send the Jets into first place, but his kick is hopelessly wide left. Get the coffee maker ready, it's overtime on Monday Night Football.
Overtime
Miami wins the toss, and Humphrey returns the ball like a Dolphin possessed. Starting from their own 44-yard line, Marino sends Paige up the middle for a gain of 2 yards. From there, he drops back, but fools the overly-concerned New York secondary and takes off on the run for another 15 yards. Paige plods another 11 yards on top of the rolled-over Jets defense to the New York 26-yard line. Coach Shula, either learning nothing of his own greed or everything about Pete Stoyanovich's leg, opts to go for another play, and in the end pays with another McMillan interception of Marino in the end zone.
Nagle gets the Jets' drive started off on the right foot with a lateral pass to Baxter for a loss of 2. Nagle attempts to right himself with a throw to Chris Burkett, but the other side of the field is just as vulnerable to his inaccurate arm. On 3rd and 12, Nagle opts for the short pass to Blair Thomas, who's able to make a Grecian sculpture out of Browning's excrement by picking up 24 yards. Apparently this was the last straw for the usually serene Miami front seven, as they blitz twice in a row to pick up their fifth sack of the day and set the Jets up in another 3rd and long situation. Needing 19, Nagle shoots for tight end but comes up empty.
Humphrey gives his team another shot at the 44-yard line, though after Marino's third pick he may be reading the fine print in the trade clause of his contract. Mike Brim gives his team one more shot with his first interception of the year.
With 45 seconds left and playing from midfield, Nagle throws a pass to Rob Moore. It's only his first interception on the day, yet it's an ill-timed one. The clock eventually winds out on Troy Vincent's return, sealing this one up with Marino and Nagle kissing their respective sisters.
Final: Dolphins 14, Jets 14
It happens about as often as every senatorial election year: the tie game. In the entire existence of The Tecmo Bowl league, it's happened twice. And this one couldn't have happened to a more promising game, filled with the explosive play of Miami and the mistake-laden yet always unpredictable play of New York. Unfortunately, with the spotlights shining bright, we saw none of that as Marino threw three picks, two in overtime, while Browning Nagle tried his best to imitate his veteran opponent. Nobody's more upset about wasting people's time than I am, and for this I've chosen to boycott the rest of these teams' seasons. Sure, maybe this tie will now mathematically assist the Jets in an improbable playoff spot, but I no longer care. If I have to put up with Browning Nagle trying out his blind amputee impersonation against the Oilers in the postseason, I may get violent for just the second time in my life.
