It was a rare Saturday afternoon of late when I wasn’t so tired from a hectic work week that I needed to collapse on my trusty sofa for a nap.
Saturdays have developed into a pretty normal routine for my better half Pam and I during non-football season. We go out to eat and then arrive back at home while she flips though that day’s newspapers and whatever other magazines may have arrived in the mail that week.
As she settled in to do that, I decided to put in my copy of the 1991 NFC Wildcard game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints. Being the football junkie I am, I enjoy watching games from yesteryear, especially when they involve my favorite teams.
With Jerry Glanville leading the Back In Black Falcons (complete with M.C. Hammer on the sideline), the Falcons engaged in one of the classic games in franchise history.
While I enjoyed watching the contest, my better half would look up when the game went to commercial. (My copy of this broadcast had the commercials as well as the game and since she was watching I could not fast forward through them.) What amazed me (and her I suppose) is how that playoff game from late 1991 has now been a generation ago.
I didn’t know her then, but I told her later that night as we had our next meal that I still vividly remember watching that game between the Falcons and Saints. I recall pacing the floor (and being told by my father to stop pacing and take a seat).
I remember how the game would seem lost to this die-hard Falcon fanatic, but only to see Atlanta win in dramatic fashion with a late Chris Miller to Michael Haynes touchdown pass. The win was actually sealed on a late interception by Tim McKyer who then pitched it back to “Prime Time” Deion Sanders who in turn tossed it to Joe Fishback who ran it back for a score. While that final touchdown did not count (Sanders’ pitch was a forward lateral), I remember when the game was played that I actually dropped to the floor with my hands clinched in victory in the air as Fishback raced into the endzone pumping his fist at the Superdome Crowd.
What a great memory for a franchise that quite frankly didn’t have that many. What’s funny was the then-Monday Night football announcing team of Frank Gifford, Al Michaels and Dan Dierdorff talking about how the Falcons should have just downed the football and sealed the win.
“They don’t think that way,” Gifford said. “And it all comes down from the top (Glanville).”
In the end, my better half enjoyed the commercials, wasn’t so impressed with the announcers and got a big laugh when the camera showed two women in the crowd who were living the moment so much one of them spilt her beer.
It’s hard to believe that was so many years ago even though I remember it like it was yesterday. Sports memories are like that, however. They remain strong even a generation later. Something tells me even after another one passes, the memories of that playoff game will be just as vivid as Dec. 28, 1991.
Chris Bridges is sports editor of the Barrow Journal. E-mail comments about this column to cbridges@barrowjournal.com.
