The 100 Greatest Plays in Dolphins History: No. 20
To help count down the days to the start of the Miami Dolphins regular season last year, we marked each day with the corresponding jersey number and came up with the three best players to wear that number.
This year, we're counting down to the start of the regular season with a countdown of the top 100 plays in Dolphins history.
Given that the Dolphins have played 849 regular season games and 41 more in the playoffs, it's an awfully difficult task to narrow things down to 100 plays and then rank them. The plays selected were ranked on the basis of difficulty, uniqueness, immediate and long-lasting impact and historical significance.
The countdown initially appeared in Dolphin Digest in 2019 but has been updated.
We continue with No. 20:
No. 20: Garo Yepremian's game-winning field goal at Kansas City in the 1971 playoffs
Setting the stage: There might not be a more significant victory in the history of the Miami Dolphins than the double-overtime thriller at Kansas City in the 1971 playoffs, a game that cemented the young franchise's status as a powerhouse. The upstart Dolphins won their first playoff game on that day, Christmas Day 1971, after scoring a late touchdown to tie the score 24-24 and then surviving two potential game-winning field goal attempts, one wide right and the other blocked by Nick Buoniconti. After coming up short on a 53-yard attempt in overtime, Garo Yepremian would not miss his second opportunity to win the game.
The play: There were eight combined possessions in overtime, which featured the two missed field goal attempts (one by each team) and a Jake Scott interception, and it was a 29-yard run by Larry Csonka (play number 32 in the countdown) that put the Dolphins in position to win. The Dolphins ran three straight times after Csonka gave them a first down at the Chiefs 36 and those runs gained 6 yards. Onto the field came Yepremian, who made the 37-yard kick to end what remains the longest game in NFL history.
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Alain Poupart has covered the Miami Dolphins on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @PoupartNFL. Feel free to submit questions every Friday for the All Dolphins mailbag.
