On This Day in Football History, We Were Treated to the Butt Fumble

11.22.17

Posted by: Gronkowski

Today marks the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in Thanksgiving history.

No, we’re not talking about the Pilgrims' voyage on the Mayflower, we mean that other memorable event that took place on a Thanksgiving Thursday.

Five years ago on Nov. 22, 2012, Mark Sanchez gave us the Butt Fumble, as he crashed into the backside of teammate Brandon Moore and fumbled the ball.

Of course, the Patriots defense played a key role in this hilarity as the ball was recovered by safety Steve Gregory and returned for a touchdown.

The bizarre turn of events at MetLife Stadium in front of a home crowd of 79,000 had millions of people around the country spitting out their pumpkin pie or choking on leftover turkey asking: “Did that really happen???”

Yep, it did. And has been relived thousands of times since in replays and memes – and never gets any less funny!

“Vince Wilfork just threw Brandon Moore into Mark Sanchez,” NBC commentator Cris Collinsworth said at the time. “I have never seen this before in my life.

As for Sanchez, after the game he told reporters: "It's the way it goes and will probably be on a blooper reel for a while." Well that's an understatement for the ages.

The Pats went on to win 49-19 in a crushing victory that further embarrassed the Jets and added another chapter to their sad history book.

Rex Ryan was still the “mastermind” behind the Jets offense at that time, and he recently relived the horror to ESPN.

"It all went wrong when Sanchez turned the wrong way," the former head coach said. "That was the first indication that it was going to be a bad play. But we had no idea it was going to be a disaster."

Gregory also told his side of the story: “We were in a three-deep zone coverage. And based off the formation, we're going to drop one of the safeties into run support. It happened to be me," he said.

“You can read the quarterback. Mark turned around with this look of panic, like, ‘What do I do now?’ I'm coming down for run support, keeping the ball on my inside shoulder. He probably sees me and he tries to cut it back up inside.

“It's ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?"’ the Pats safety from 2012-2013 went on to tell ESPN. “Moore's getting driven back, Sanchez has his eyes closed running forward and there's a collision.

“Wilfork was a man-child out there, especially in run support, and he just drove that lineman back, and Sanchez somehow found Brandon Moore's butt as a landing spot,” he said. “Mark face-planted into the back of Brandon Moore's butt.”

Relive the glory of the butt fumble one more time – now with a special musical accompaniment.