The Miracle in Motor City Was a Great Play, but It Wasn't as Great as 'The Play'

DETROIT — As Packers tight end Richard Rodgers and his teammates rode the buses from Ford Field to Detroit's McNamara Airport in the wee hours after Thursday's improbable 27-23 win over the Detroit Lions, he started tapping away on his phone.

"He started texting me," his father, Richard Rodgers Sr., said with a chuckle. "I got you, I did you one better."

The younger Rodgers finally thought he had done it. After all the years of hearing about Richard Sr.'s legendary, miracle play—The Play—he thought he had trumped his old man.

"I don't know," Richard Sr. said. "He had the laterals and the big pass and the controversy. ...

"Maybe he got me."

Give the man, now an assistant coach with the Carolina Panthers, credit for being a supportive dad. But before this goes too far, let me just say this: I'll be the judge of which play was better.

After all, I'll bet a lot of money I'm the only one to witness both in person.

It has been 33 years since Richard Sr. and his cast of infidels from Cal broke the hearts of Stanford alumni everywhere in the famed 1982 Big Game. Yet my buddies and I remember the bitterness as if it were yesterday. That five-lateral abomination of all that is right made one of the greatest comeback drives of Stanford quarterback John Elway's career a footnote.

It also became the greatest finish in college football history.

"I've heard about that play all my life from everybody," Richard Jr. said. He then tried to cast doubt on his father's legend. "I don't know if it's all true."

I responded quickly: "Let me tell you, son—it's all true. Literally."

So before I let Rodgers, who followed his father's footsteps to Cal, vanquish his dad's part of what is now the family legacy, let's put this in perspective.

Rodgers' catch will not only be among the season's biggest highlights, but it may have righted the Packers' listing season. The Packers, who went in having lost four of their past five games, deserved to lose that game, and they know it. For 30 minutes, they were dominated by the Lions. They were behind 20-0 at one point, and they were beaten for 60 minutes.

Yes, a full 60 minutes.

The last play of this game was an untimed Hail Mary that followed a penalty as time expired after Rodgers took part in a lateral play of his own.

Yep, a lateral. Freaking laterals. I have spent more than three decades viewing those end-game laterals through a PTSD lens. When teams start doing that—and it happens roughly once every few weeks or so—the muscles in my arms tense and I do everything to shut my brain off for fear of putting my fist through a wall. Most of the time, the laterals end and I return to normal.

On Thursday, the laterals ended in controversy, as Detroit's Devin Taylor was called for a debatable facemask penalty after Rodgers had lateraled back to quarterback Aaron Rodgers following a forward pass (yeah, it's confusing, but that's part of the charm).

The penalty put the ball at the Green Bay 39-yard line for a final play with the clock already at double zero.

That's when Aaron Rodgers—excruciatingly, another Cal alumnus—unleashed a 61-yard throw that seemingly grazed the ceiling of Ford Field. That hang time allowed Richard Rodgers to catch it amid a crowd of Packers and disbelieving Lions.

It left the home crowd dejected, and boy, do I know that feeling.

"It was like a movie," Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji said about what it was like to watch the ball float through the air.

"Oh yeah, the ball was going in like slow motion and the camera closing in on it as it spins back to the field," running back James Starks said. "I was just looking up, watching it and watching it for like forever."

As are most throws by the talented quarterback Rodgers, this heave was majestic. Tight end Rodgers had time to get in position to box out the other players and leap for the ball as if he were rebounding in traffic.

In that way, the play looked almost choreographed. Truth is, the Packers practice this a couple of times each Friday. By happenstance, Rodgers and Rodgers also practiced it for the first time before a game that Thursday.

"Never done it before like that," Richard Rodgers said. "We threw three of them but from a way shorter distance than that."

OK, but on that pattern, were you actually running to get into the spot just at the last moment by design?

"No, that was just me running in circles trying to get there," Rodgers said.

Rodgers had already had the biggest night of his career, even before that catch. He finished with 146 yards and the one touchdown on eight catches and was a primary threat throughout the game for the Packers. He has flashed that kind of ability since being drafted in the third round in 2014.

Of course, that adds another dramatic element. Was this a coming-of-age moment in the career of Richard Rodgers?

"I don't know about that," he said.

And that's the big reason this play also comes up short of what his dad accomplished. At least for now.

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

History has yet to place Green Bay's Miracle in the Motor City. Will this play save the Packers' season and propel them to the Super Bowl so many people predicted they would reach? Will it launch Richard Rodgers into a star-making stretch catching balls from Aaron Rodgers? Will it be remembered for some other reason we can't foresee?

Nobody knows. Hell, in 1982, none of us knew what that damned play would mean.

"Back then, we were just playing and trying to make something happen," Richard Sr. said. "We didn't know what we were doing was something historic. ... To this day, I get one or two calls a year about The Play. This was actually the first year I hadn't gotten a call about it, and then this happened."

So don't get ahead of yourself, young Richard Rodgers. You did something truly fun and special. And as a sports writer who lives to see and chronicle these moments, I'm sincerely grateful for what I got to witness.

But we have a long way to go before history shows what this play really means. Like your dad's effort, this play featured laterals and controversy and even one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time as a central figure.

What it will never have is the Stanford Band on the field, serving as a red jacket-clad convoy of chaos as Cal's Kevin Moen ran in to score.

Yep. Your dad and I will always have the band.

Sigh.

Jason Cole covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.