It sits there in the mud and in your mind. Miami Dolphins’ rookie punter, Brandon Fields, sailed his infamous punt through the wet misery of that Monday night. The Steelers’ Allen Rossum waited to return the punt. The ball planted itself deep in squishy turf. It appeared as though the ball had dropped dead.
The occasion is known as the Monday Night Mud Bowl, played on November 26, 2007.
It was balmy for a late November night in Pittsburgh when the Dolphins and Steelers took the field. Weather conditions were to be a common enemy. Rain poured down heavily before and during the game.
Steelers kicker Jeff Reed said the players knew immediately the field conditions were “unplayable.” Before the game, he and Dolphins kicker Jay Feely discussed the general dour hope of making a field goal. Feely and Reed remain friends to this day.
Others described it as “running on sand for three hours.” One Steeler likened it to a Florida swamp. One of the game announcers said it was like watching a game played in quicksand. Most players said it was the worst field conditions they had ever played in. Other descriptions were “horrendous, horrible, and ridiculous.”
As the game progressed, scrimmage lines were wiped out. First down markers were guesses at best. That didn’t matter much. The offenses couldn’t muster many first downs anyway.
On Friday, four high school championship games were played in the stadium. Ten hours of action damaged the playing surface, but the next day’s NCAA offensive shootout between Pitt and South Florida churned the soil into a barren field.
A short-sighted attempt to fix the field before the Monday night game sealed the contest’s fate. On Sunday, stadium ground crews covered the turf with sod.
The forecast called for rain. That was simple enough. The complication was that a line of very heavy rain stalled over Western Pennsylvania. Starting in the morning, a torrent of rain sat still above Pittsburgh. The gloomy deluge hung over the city like a curse. Hence, the new sod only served to trap water between the old and new playing surfaces.
As Jeff Reed reflected, “When you throw a new field on top of an older one and it rains like that, those conditions are gonna happen.”
Lightning delayed the start of the game by 25 minutes, casting a greater hex on the game.
The Steelers got the ball first. The drive started well, with Willie Parker running effectively and Ben Roethlisberger throwing passes deep into Miami territory.
However, much to the crowd’s disappointment, the drive ended with an interception to a familiar face. Joey Porter, wearing number 55, was waiting in the flat.
Porter forged a great career with the Steelers. The team released him in the spring, and it was not an easy decision. Defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau decided to release Porter based almost entirely on James Harrison’s potential. He was quick, strong, and demonstrated the determination he needed to succeed in the game. After all, he had been released three times.
A fan favorite, Porter was a defensive firebrand and feared pass rusher, leaving the team with 60 career sacks in eight years. The Dolphins wasted no time reeling him in with a 5-year contract offer.
“When you get a guy like Joey Porter, you’re not just paying for his services on the field, but his impact on the team and his influence. He never led us in the wrong direction. He kept everyone together,” his teammate Larry Foote told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a few days after Porter was released.
Reveling in his interception, Porter skipped down the Steelers’ sideline after being tackled, cheerfully taunting his former teammates. Steelers fans serenaded him with boos.
It was to be an emotional night, rain or shine.
James Harrison soon emerged from Porter’s shadow.
His coming-out party had been two weeks before the Mud Bowl. That night, he wrecked the Baltimore Ravens offense in the greatest individual defensive performance in Steelers’ history.
The raw statistics spelled out a dominant performance: 3.5 sacks, an interception, nine solo tackles, three of which were behind the line of scrimmage, three forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery. One of the hits, delivered on a kickoff, was so violent that spectators audibly groaned.
The dramatic numbers don’t fully capture the impact of his performance in that game. Ben Roethlisberger threw five touchdown passes in the first half. Three of them resulted directly from Harrison’s forced turnovers.
After terrorizing the Ravens for most of the game, they stopped running to his side of the field.
A fortnight later, Porter and Harrison found themselves together on the same field.
After Porter’s interception, the teams settled into a routine of fruitless drives ending in punts as turf conditions deteriorated. ESPN’s coverage increasingly showed players’ feet sinking deeper in the mud as the night continued.
The biggest play of the first half came from Allen Rossum, the Steelers’ punt returner. Brandon Fields boomed a long punt midway through the second quarter. Rossum fielded the punt and darted across to the left side of the mush. He broke free and needed only to get past the punter. Instead, Fields slowed him down enough to stop him.
“A play like that is huge in those conditions,” said Reed. “He likely stopped a touchdown.”
Miami, which came into the game with a 0-10 record, did not cross midfield in the first half.
They had better luck after intermission when it drove the ball to the Steelers’ end of the field. It was Miami’s sole realistic chance to score. At the end of the drive, the Dolphins’ coaches made a strange decision. Finding themselves faced with 4th and 6, Miami decided to attempt a field goal instead of trying to gain a first down. A delay of game penalty moved the ball back 5 yards.
The Dolphins then brought their offense back onto the field to try to gain a first down, this time needing 11. It didn’t make sense. If they didn’t think they could get a first down in 6 yards, why would 11 yards offer a better chance? Harrison sacked the Dolphins’ quarterback and forced a fumble.
The drive yielded nothing.
Throughout the game, both quarterbacks were handled roughly. In addition to being sacked four times, Miami’s John Beck was hit another four times. Roethlisberger, too, was harassed, and he was sacked five times.
Despite the beating, Roethlisberger was playing quite well, once completing 15 passes in a row. His best target was sure-handed Hines Ward, who splashed out 88 yards worth of catches.
On the final Steelers drive of the night, the duo connected on three clutch plays, moving the ball to the spot where Reed would attempt the game-winning field goal. An earlier attempt was wide left, a result of the sloppy conditions, which caused his planted leg to give out from under him.
Now, with less than a minute left from the six-yard line, he had another chance.
The entire special teams effort was cautiously perfect. First-year coach Mike Tomlin called a timeout. Long snapper Greg Warren and punter Daniel Sepulveda wisely used every second to tamp down the turf for better footing.
Looking back on the field goal 18 years later, Reed offered praise to Sepulveda.
“Some guys don’t care, and they just let the kicker do his thing. Daniel always took care of things. He was a great holder. “
Reed was humble about making the game-winning kick.
Of the successful kick, he claimed good fortune.
“We got lucky. The area where the kick took place was relatively good compared to the rest of the field. I knew if I hit it straight through, we would score.”
As for Roethlisberger, “he got the ball to a great place at the end of the drive. It was right where it needed to be.”
The game is the lowest-scoring contest in the history of Monday Night Football.
Millions of people watched the messy spectacle in comfortable places. The stuck football is stamped on their memory. Fans and players who were there in person certainly remember the miserable festivities.
A tangible change came to the city of Pittsburgh. Following the fiasco, new techniques were mandated to alter the way bad-weather games at Heinz Field were played. Grounds crews reworked field maintenance.
The Players Association registered complaints with the NFL, and the league mandated contingency plans for games played in adverse weather conditions.
Steve Massey’s new book is Revolution: The Transformation of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL.It describes how the 1970s Steelers were built.
Recommended for you