The Backstory Behind Doug Flutie's Drop Kick Heard Around The World
Pardon My Take is back and better than ever in 2020. And with the NFL Playoffs and National Championship on the horizon, there is no better way to start off than having College Football Hall-of-Famer Doug Flutie on the show. That’s two Heisman Trophy winners on as guests over the course of the last month for those counting. Not too shabby. On today’s show, the former BC Eagle and NFL player joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter to discuss his career, what it was like to win the Heisman, the evolution of football, and how he would fare in today’s NFL. The trio also talked about Flutie’s final play before he retired: a drop kick that had not been successfully converted in more than 60 years:
Mr. Commenter: Speaking of Bill, I don’t know if you had a chance to see the documentary that came out on HBO, it’s Belichick and Saban sitting down, just talking film with each other because they’re great friends, they go back awhile. But there was one point in the show that your name got brought up. And that was when the Dolphins were playing against the Patriots. And that’s when Belichick puts you in to do the drop kick almost like trolling Nick Saban, like, hey, here’s their fun rule that hasn’t been done, the NFL in such a long time. Did you know that he was using you to get under Saban’s skin a little bit?
Doug Flutie: Oh, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that was what he was doing. But Bill Belichick is a historian of the game. He loved it. He used to talk about his dad coaching at Navy, the triple option and all the things that come off of that. That’s basically what all this new football is, a form of triple option. So he loved that aspect of it. And when he found out actually it was Chris Berman that came to a practice who had seen me kicking all the time and doing the drop kick thing for years, whispered in Belichick’s ear ‘It hadn’t been done since 1941.’ So, it was his influence. Bill came to me. I said I can do it. He said, we’ll work on it. And then we forgot about it for like three weeks. We were going to do it on a Monday night against the Jets and it didn’t happen. I got in the game, we marched down, got on the edge of FG range, we didn’t do it, and totally forgot about it for two weeks. I just happened to be standing next to Bill on the sideline. We’re down by 14 first and goal at the five. He sees me. He goes, we score here. You’re kicking it. He didn’t get the sentence out of his mouth and we were in the end zone. Now, I’m 43 years old. I’ve been standing on the sideline for over three and a half hours. I’m stiff as a board. Anyway, we run out, end up doing it, and the thing goes through. But my wife’s sitting here in the room and it’s like, she was the only one in the whole stadium that knew what was going on.
Mr. Cat: That it was legal.
Doug Flutie: And she knew it was going to be the last play in my career. And if I miss it, she’s got to live with me the rest my life.
Mr. Cat: Oh man, a lot of pressure.
Mr. Commenter: Not only did it go through, it was good from probably 45 yards. It was a good kick. I hit it square. And in fact, when we practiced it a couple of times a few weeks earlier, I really didn’t hit one good. I hit a line drive. I hit one off the upright. You know, all that kind of stuff. And I caught that one flush. And it was such a crapshoot because the middle of that field, the drop is the most important middle. That field was chopped up and it was dirt and little clumps of grass in it. Yeah, it worked out.
Mr. Commenter: I love that Berman was involved in this.
Doug Flutie: He’s very happy about his role in this, trust me.
Mr. Cat: I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned that more. He probably has, we just missed it.
The pressure during this situation has got to be unlike anything else. More than 20 years of football under your belt, but you know if you screw this up as your final play on the gridiron, you’ll never hear the end of it. But as Flutie mentioned, there was never a doubt. An appropriate way for his storied football career to come to a close.
