Strangest Game Interruptions in NFL History

There's an old knock-knock joke about an interrupting cow, and it's not particularly funny—interruptions are annoying, especially if you're trying to watch a football game during your one period of respite from a week of work, chores and reality. 

NFL games do not stop for nearly any reason, certainly not for bad weather like the sensitive types who play baseball, but a few specific forces can indeed stop an NFL game in its tracks.

As the NFL rule book stipulates in the section dealing with Emergencies and Unfair Acts: 

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Emergencies may arise that make a game’s completion impossible or inadvisable. Such circumstances may include, but are not limited to, severely inclement weather, natural or manmade disaster, power failure, and spectator interference. Games should be suspended, cancelled, postponed, or terminated when circumstances exist such that commencement or continuation of play would pose a threat to the safety of participants or spectators.

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These interruptions fall into three categories: meteorological, natural and manmade stupidity. Fortunately, none of them caused the games themselves to be abandoned, only delayed, but many left players and fans alike shaking their heads. Read on for this list of mid-game NFL delays, only a portion of which can be blamed on inexplicable human behavior.

Lightning

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The football gods sometimes frown upon the brave charges on the field, and when Zeus sends down his lightning bolts upon a football stadium, the game must be halted in deference to the mighty football deities. 

Also, when a lightning storm strikes, the last place you want to be is seated behind the goalposts in the end zone of an outdoor stadium holding up an authentic, metallic "D-Fense" sign. Another bad piece of equipment to wear during an electrical storm would be a football helmet. 

2010 saw the New York Jets have two games delayed by lightning, with considerable disorder visited upon the scattering fans. The Seattle Seahawks experienced a similar fate in 2013, which makes sense considering the near-daily rainfall in the Pacific Northwest. And the Windy City experienced a two-hour delay in 2013 when the Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens nearly got blown into Lake Michigan by lightning strikes.

It's almost as if a divine being objected to the sport of football altogether!

Snow Plow

Mike Kullen/Associated Press

In December of 1982, the New England Patriots hosted the Miami Dolphins, and the weather could not have been more different from South Beach. A rain storm followed by plunging temperatures froze the turf at Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, then a snow storm began prior to the game. 

With terrible field conditions, referees allowed a snow plow to periodically clear the yard lines to keep the field reasonably orderly. That seemed fair until the snow plow operator came out late in the fourth quarter to plow a yard line across the field, except he veered off course at precisely the area where the ball would be placed for a prospective field goal. 

Forever known as the "Snowplow Game," Pats kicker John Smith booted it through for the win, and the snowplow operator probably had a conspicuously thick New England accent. 

Squirrel

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In 2011, Cleveland Browns fans were suffering through a meaningless late-season loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the team that used to be located in Cleveland. Fans held a distinct animus for the Ravens, but due to the Browns' track record of futility, most fans could just sit and seethe and dream of the day that LeBron James might return to the city.

Then a squirrel ran on the field! So cute and mischievous! Hooray! The welcomed distraction briefly made Browns fans forget about the team's inability to find a quarterback to replace Bernie Kosar. 

Sprinklers

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It rains a lot in Miami, and it rains a lot in Seattle. Players for the NFL teams located in those cities probably thought nothing of the sudden precipitation during their 2012 game. After all, like Forrest Gump's tour of Vietnam, these players had seen it all: "We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain, and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways, and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

Wait, that rain is coming from underneath. From the sprinklers!

In a real-life incarnation of a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial, the sprinklers came on in Miami's stadium during the third quarter, temporarily interrupting the game and impressing Miami wideout Davone Bess, who stated to the AP, via NBC Sports: "I never saw that before, not even in high school. It was pretty cool."

Some genius had accidentally left the stadium's sprinkler system programmed on the Saturday schedule. Oops. 

Apparently, the rest of the Dolphins thought it was pretty cool too, as they scored 17 points in the fourth quarter and pulled out the 24-21 win.

Power Outage

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Here's what the second half of Super Bowl XLVII looked like.

Super Bowl XLVII was already going horribly by halftime. The Baltimore Ravens had secured a considerable lead over the San Francisco 49ers as teams headed to the locker room. Then Beyonce rocked the house with a rollicking halftime show. 

Then the second half began—and the lights promptly went out in the Superdome. "Haha, someone forgot to pay the bill," many joked at home from their couches. Or, "Beyonce blew all the circuits!" said others. 

The waiting continued. Casual acquaintances at Super Bowl parties around the world suddenly had to talk to each other. It was horrible. 

In the end, power was restored. The Ravens had led the game comfortably at the time, but the power failure seemed to have lured Baltimore into a false sense of security over their lead. This sparked a comeback by San Fran, though it came up short.

The outage turned out to be caused by a piece of equipment that malfunctioned. This was especially ironic, as that part was designed specifically to prevent the thing that happened during the biggest annual sporting event in the world. 

Spectator Interference

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The NFL rule book broadly defines a category of "spectator interference," the most egregious of which are the field invaders.

In soccer, these folks are dubbed "pitch invaders," and they bring with them an air of whimsy and an odor of lager beer. In football, these "morons" run on the field for attention, but every fan just hopes to see the intruder get leveled at the 50-yard line by a hard-hitting free safety.

Sometimes these fans get their just desserts from a hard hit, and other times, they steal the game ball from a Hall of Fame quarterback and run it in for a touchdown. Technically, that play does not count, so give Brett Favre one fewer turnover in his career. That was also an effective tactic for halting a comeback drive late in the game. 

Streakers

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Anyone can simply run out of the stands and invade the field. It takes virtually zero planning and nothing more than a dozen or so fermented beverages. But some fans take it to the next level when breaking the law and running onto the field during a game. These wise individuals do it without clothes!

In fact, one man in particular stands as king of the streakers, Briton Mark Roberts. Roberts managed to streak onto the field during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII. He also interrupted a game in London between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins in 2008, dressing as a referee to cover his nude ruse. Fortunately, he wore a deflated football over his genitalia.

The only key to streaking at an NFL game is making sure some overzealous player doesn't level you with a bone-jarring hit. One helpful rule of thumb: Streakers should avoid Joique Bell.

Heidi

The New York Jets and Oakland Raiders played the infamous "Heidi Game" in November of 1968, a time of global upheaval and regime change. It's fitting, therefore, that the contest would decide how sports are televised for the rest of modern history. 

The 53,000 fans in attendance at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum never saw any interruption in the game. What they witnessed live on the field was a stunning comeback by the Raiders, who scored two touchdowns in the game's final minute and ran away with a 43-32 victory. 

The only problem is that fans watching the game on NBC saw the Jets leading late in the fourth quarter, which segued directly into the movie Heidi. The worst part of all? It wasn't even the version with Shirley Temple, but rather a television adaptation of Heidi starring Jennifer Edwards and Michael Redgrave.

Fans were so irate about missing the end of the football game and being deprived of seeing Oakland's comeback, television executives had to make a solemn vow to show every last second of every blowout-game broadcast for the rest of human history. It also spawned the phrase: "We now take you to our regularly scheduled programming already in progress."