NFL Power Rankings: The Greatest Plays Of All-Time

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#1: The Tyree Helmet Catch

As incredible, memorable and well-named as the Immaculate Reception was, the thing is it didn’t end up deciding anything of true note that 1972 season. Pittsburgh lost the next week in the conference championship to Miami. That is why this play slips past it for number one. It’s just as memorable and though it doesn’t have quite the creative name, there was far more at stake when it happened.

Super Bowl XLII was played out as a classic David vs. Goliath affair. The underdog New York Giants, who had been up and down most of the season had gotten into the playoffs at 10-6. They faced a New England Patriots team that looked and had been unbeatable, going 18-0 through the regular season and the playoffs. One win separated them from making history as the second team ever to go undefeated in the Super Bowl era.

One of their victims on that run were the Giants themselves, whom they defeated in the season finale a few weeks for. So it was easy to understand why the Patriots were confident, and it showed late in the game when they took the lead with just over two minutes left 14-10 on a Tom Brady touchdown pass. That put the ball in the hands of fourth-year quarterback Eli Manning. Only a touchdown could win the game, and he had 83 yards to go.

The Giants drove out to their own 44-yard line, narrowly missing turning the ball over on one or two plays. With five yards to go on 3rd down, Manning dropped back to pass. The Patriots pass rush swarmed in, grabbing hold of his jersey. Somehow he fought out of it before a sack was called and it a fit of desperation fired the ball downfield to the first white jersey he saw.

Conventional wisdom said it was a careless throw, a jump ball in the middle of the field with almost nothing but New England defenders around. The one man who could save the Giants was backup receiver David Tyree. He and safety Rodney Harrison, a Pro Bowler, went up for the ball at the same time. Somehow Tyree got his hands on it enough to clamp the ball to his helmet and as he fell to the ground kept enough control to prevent it from touching the ground.

It was a 32-yard conversion for a first down, and the back breaker for the Patriots. New York scored the go-ahead touchdowns four plays later, capping one of the greatest upsets in NFL history.

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