Special Teams

For every person who wants to tell you how great the '85 Bears defense was, you can respond with the excellence of the 2000 Ravens. Did anyone see this coming? Especially considering how the season began under a cloud of tragedy and legal issues for the team's best player? To say it was rocky is an understatement. But when the games started, the Ravens defense did things we hadn't seen in the NFL in the decades before - or since. If that's not enough, they weathered a quarterback change and a near record-offensive drought on their way to the Super Bowl.

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Before he turned into the baseball-playing-reality-show-hosting-former-NFL-quarterback, Tim Tebow officially became an icon by leading the 2008 Florida Gators to the national championship. How did it happen? It had to do with a big loss, a bigger speech, a bloody jersey, and revenge over losing out on the Heisman Trophy. And after it was all over, you could make a case for Tebow being the greatest college football player of all time.

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Some called it the greatest college football game they’d ever seen. There wasn’t anything else in the world like the Ohio State-Miami Fiesta Bowl to decide the national champion of the 2002 season. Twists, turns, injury, drama and controversy dotted a spectacular close to a season in which the Buckeyes shocked the world. From a freshman tailback who was first a superstar and then a cautionary tale, to the contributions of a surprising two-way standout, OSU always found a way to win. But that Fiesta Bowl. My goodness.

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Is the current college football playoff perfect? Not remotely. But it’s a far cry from 1991, when not one, but two incredibly talented teams split the national championship due to the voting process that used to determine the national champion. Re-live the craziness, which featured a dominant year from the Miami Hurricanes - the bad boys of college football - and the Washington Huskies, who turned out to be the new bad boys for different and shocking reasons. 

Chock full of future NFL stars, devastating injuries, a thrilling chapter in a famous rivalry, and a seismic change to college football AFTER the final votes were in. It’s the 1991 Miami Hurricanes and Washington Huskies: the first two-team Special Teams episode. 

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Happy Holidays from Special Teams! This week, we play with our format a bit and take a look at some of the "special teams" who have had incredible performances on Christmas Day! You’ll find out why 12/25 was a controversial day in the NFL for so long, we'll re-live two incredible NBA games - between the same teams and just a few years apart - before diving into some of the bizarre and history-making performances that occurred just hours after Santa Claus came down the chimney. And we’ll remember some Christmas sports traditions long gone from our landscape. It’s Special Teams: Christmas Day. (Which also sounds like a cable movie about a government ops mission gone wrong at the North Pole. Maybe we’ll do that one next year). 

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While it was their later teams who won championships, the 2010-11 Miami Heat was the squad who changed basketball forever. We take you back to The Decision and its effects on both the NBA and LeBron James nearly a decade later. The league’s first modern day traveling rock show had it all: a polarizing team not ready for the backlash they received, the near firing of their head coach and an early-season meltdown of one of their stars. But the wins would come. The Heat roared into the Finals before falling victim to a team who showed them what their missing ingredient was, but the biggest of shocks in the series against the Dallas Mavericks came from the on-court disappearance of the man who made all of the craziness happen: LeBron James.

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The 2005 Texas Longhorns blew the doors off of their opponents under Vince Young, the most exciting quarterback in college football. Lighting up the scoreboard throughout the season, it was destiny for Young to face off against the USC Trojans twice: once for the Heisman Trophy, and once for the National Championship. Many call the Longhorns win over USC the greatest Rose Bowl game ever, and it's hard to argue. This game had it all: star-power, excitement, plenty of points, last-minute heroics and a coaching mistake by Pete Carroll every bit as damaging as not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch in the Super Bowl a few years later.

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The 1997 Michigan Wolverines entered the season with high hopes - and one of the best defenses in the history of college football. Along the way to their first national title in 50 years, Tom Brady was beaten out for the starting quarterback job, Charles Woodson made Heisman Trophy history, and the Wolverines won a thriller for the championship over Ryan Leaf (Ryan Leaf!) and Washington State. But the real controversy came AFTER all the Bowl games were played.

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The 1996 Green Bay Packers had one of the most dominant football teams in history in all three phases of the game. Their Super Bowl triumph started the legend of Brett Favre, and an unheralded Heisman Trophy winner who barely made the team became an unlikely hero. An anticipated showdown with a bitter rival never materialized - probably for the Packers own good - and even Bill Parcells couldn’t stop the Packers return to glory. The Super Bowl played out in New Orleans, brought to life with stories of powerful drinks, vacuum cleaner hoses, and the Chicken Man.

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The 2013 Seattle Seahawks staked a claim to ‘greatest defense of all-time,’ with a huge share of adventure along the way. It was Russell Wilson becoming a super-star and Richard Sherman polarizing a nation - because of an interview. It was the most glorious time for Seahawks-49ers, the best rivalry the NFL had seen in a decade. And in true Seahawks fashion, even in winning it all they were embroiled in one of the most bizarre Super Bowl dramas we’ve ever seen - that’s still playing out to this day.

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