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The story of how the Patriots found themselves in a fourth-and-63

This offseason, Shutdown Corner will travel down memory lane with a series of stories presenting some interesting and sometimes forgotten stories from the NFL's past. Join us as we relive some of the greatest and craziest moments in the sport's history.

Watching a high school game almost 15 years ago, I remember some poor option-based offense facing a third-and-55 after a fumble and a slew of penalties. Naturally, they handed off before punting.

I also recall a few wild long-yardage situations I’d seen in a few college football games — Georgia faced a fourth-and-57 at Tennessee in 2011, and Minnesota facing a third- (and fourth) and-49 against Texas Tech in a bowl game the next year.

These things look funny on a TV screen.

Georgia opted to punt on 4th and 57 against Tennessee in 2011. Smart move. (ESPN broadcast screen shot)
Georgia opted to punt on 4th and 57 against Tennessee in 2011. Smart move. (ESPN broadcast screen shot)

Heck, the wildest thing I ever remember was Michigan State punting on fourth-and-goal. Granted, it was from the 40-yard line after Kirk Cousins had to fall on a fumble that went more than 30 yards the wrong direction.

But it got me wondering: What was the longest down and distance to go in NFL history? I had no clue. Luckily, the Internet had some fast answers — and they even appear to be correct.

The New England Patriots got themselves into a fourth-and-63 against the Dallas Cowboys back on Oct. 24, 1971. Sixty-three! That’s hard to do. That’s almost two-thirds of a football field. It’s more than double the distance Ray Rice converted on his famous fourth-and-29. Fifteen yards longer than the third- and fourth-and-48 (penalty-sack-penalty-sack) the Oakland Raiders faced against the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013.

Certainly, there had to be something fascinating out there on fourth-and-63. After I checked with a few people about it being the longest — none could accurately confirm it was, but it was roundly believed to be — I called the Patriots. They had little knowledge about it.

The Cowboys were no help. That game was the first contest played in Texas Stadium, their home for almost the next 30 years, but strangely the public relations team had no interesting photos or anecdotes from the afternoon, even though former President Lyndon Johnson was in the house that day and burst into the Cowboys’ locker room to offer congrats.

“That’s the way you break in a new stadium!” LBJ said.

Texas Stadium on Oct. 24, 1971, the day the Patriots found themselves in a fourth-and-63 (AP)
Texas Stadium on Oct. 24, 1971, the day the Patriots found themselves in a fourth-and-63 (AP)

This seemed to be about a bad Patriots team being extra bad on that particular day, facing a Cowboys team that was just hitting its stride.

I called four former members of the Patriots and three former Cowboys, all from those 1971 teams. I got very little. Some opted not to return calls. Others had no memory of it. One former player was shocked someone even called to ask about it.

“What in the world are you asking me this ridiculous question about?” is the way former Patriots center Jon Morris, a member of the team’s Hall of Fame, greeted me when we connected.

He wasn’t mad at all. Just confused. Why would anyone want to write about such a thing?

I didn’t have a great answer for him, truthfully. I am just attracted to the oddities of sports, I told him, and was curious if he had any recollection of it happening. Morris did not.

“I barely remember 1971, the year, much less that play,” he joked. “Did we go for it?”

Um, no. Down 27-7 late in the second quarter, Patriots rookie quarterback Jim Plunkett, the No. 1 pick in the draft that spring, got the team going with a 23-yard pass to Randy Vataha to the Dallas 38-yard line. But the momentum quickly was stunted. Historically stunted, in fact.

Plunkett was sacked on the next three plays — for losses of 8, 11 and 12 yards.

“Our main objective was to blow in on Plunkett and we were able to do that most of the game,” Cowboys defensive tackle Jethro Pugh said after the game.

Adding insult to injury, a 15-yard penalty (that’s how long holding penalties were at the time) knocked the Patriots back farther. And for good measure, on third-and-56, the Patriots’ Bob “Harpo” Gladieux was dropped for a 7-yard loss. The official gamebook from that contest mistakenly marked it as fouth-and-61, but assuming the yard lines were correct, it was really 63.

Patriots Cowboys gamebook from Oct. 24, 1971, including the fateful (but misprinted) 4th and 63 play. (Courtesy New England Patriots)
Patriots Cowboys gamebook from Oct. 24, 1971, including the fateful (but misprinted) 4th and 63 play. (Courtesy New England Patriots)

The Patriots punted (of course), but it traveled only 39 yards — 22 yards short of the first-down marker, for perspective — and the Cowboys scored two plays later. The rout was fully on at that point.

“We had a great second quarter,” Cowboys head coach Tom Landry said after the game.

No kidding. From the Dallas 38 to the New England 9 in a span of five plays. Incredible. Just as fascinating: No mention in any of the major newspapers from either Boston or Dallas about that series.

“Well, we seemed to have lots of fourth-and-63s that year,” Morris deadpanned.

The 1971 Patriots were a team in flux. They had changed names from the Boston Patriots briefly to the Bay State Patriots and would have remained that, except for one small problem.

“Someone realized that stands for b.s. and said, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t need this,’” Morris said. “Smart marketing, eh?”

The beginning of the season brought hope with the arrivals of Plunkett, the highly touted passer from Stanford, and the building of a new stadium. And it was stoked briefly with the Week 1 win against John Madden’s Oakland Raiders, who were a top-shelf team the year following the NFL-AFL merger.

But that quickly faded for the Patriots, as it often did in that era. The undertalented team, which was embroiled in tension, finished 6-8. Even the new stadium stunk.

“The place was a dump,” Morris said. “On opening day it was a dump. It never was nice.”

Morris loves telling the story about Schaeffer Stadium’s famous plumbing incident as a metaphor for the entire season — or most of that era, for that matter.

“Three days before the stadium opened they didn’t even know if the plumbing worked,” he said. “You getting this? So they had all the stadium employees — everyone they had on hand that day, even people in the front office — all flush the toilets all around the stadium all at once, just to be sure the plumbing worked when everyone went at halftime. Typical Patriots back then. I should write a book about this stuff.

“They also put the urinals up too high on the wall so that little short guys like Randy Vataha couldn’t reach them. That’s how you get to fourth-and-63. Things like that happen and it just trickles down from there.”

The Patriots would get hammered by the Cowboys, 44-21, on that fourth-and-63 day. It was a week before Halloween, and the growing pains of a young team were in full fright.

“There was all sorts of pressure between Upton Bell, the general manager, and John Mazur, the head coach,” Morris said. “They were not even speaking to each other. What set the tone was Upton Bell up there spying on us during training camp, trying to figure out which one of us he’s going to get rid of next. That’s the kind of year it was.”

In fact, the Patriots sent two players — running back Carl Garrett and offensive tackle Halvor Hagen — to the Cowboys in a preseason trade for disgruntled star running back Duane Thomas. That didn’t last long.

“They line [Thomas] up in the backfield in his first day of practice, and instead of going down in a three-point stance, he puts his hands on his knees,” Morris said. “Mazur was the coach, and he was this stubborn old [guy], and he tells Duane Thomas, ‘Put your hand on the ground; that’s what we do here.’

“Thomas said, ‘Nope. I don’t do it that way. I do it this way.’ Well, they get to arguing in front of the whole team, and finally Mazur throws him off the field. … The next day, Thomas shows up for practice with this glazed look in his eyes, doesn’t even know where he is.”

Needless to say, it didn’t work out. Bell called NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to void the trade, and Rozelle allowed it. Three days after being traded by the Cowboys, Thomas was back in Dallas and Garrett and Hagen returned to New England.

Naturally, in the game between the teams two months later, Thomas ripped off a 56-yard touchdown run on the fourth play from scrimmage to kick off the rout. Garrett carried the ball seven times for 22 yards and was called out after the game by Mazur for missing practice time the week before because of his military commitment: “Every player needs every minute,” adding that the team removed him from the game several times because “we wanted to calm [Garrett] down.” The context of that is not known.

“I have no clue why he needed to be calmed down,” Morris said. “I had my hands full with Bob Lilly. Lilly and [Lee Roy] Jordan, they were driving me crazy. I had to keep holding Lilly; that was the only way I could block him.”

But Morris was a great player for the team, bridging the AFL days from 1964 to the NFL days in his final year with the team in 1974. He lasted a few more years in the league and later broadcast games for the Patriots in the 1980s. After a long spell away from the team, Morris was named to the Patriots’ Hall of Fame in 2011.

In a way he feels as much a part of this generation of Patriots teams as he did to his own.

“I still feel a connection with that team, especially since the Krafts have taken over,” Morris, 74, said from his home in South Carolina. “They make you feel like a part of the family. They bring us back for events, and it’s just a wonderful time. They’re a first-class organization, top to bottom.”

Morris laughs that he’s glad he’s able to keep his sense of humor about the team’s struggles and doesn’t mind calls from writers about obscure, awful and long-forgotten play. And it appears that the play in question was, really, just another play — albeit an unusual one — in the hundreds of thousands in league history.

Still, it fascinated me, even if Morris and other players who were a part of it had little memory of it happening.

Previous Shutdown Corner NFL throwback stories: Joe Montana's underrated toughness | Barry Sanders' long-forgotten final game | Jake Delhomme's playoff nightmare | Barry Switzer, outspoken as ever | Was Sebastian Janikowski worth a first-round pick?How Jim Harbaugh punching Jim Kelly helped Colts land Peyton Manning | Jay Cutler makes the greatest throw ever | "Has anyone ever kissed your Super Bowl rings?"

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!