- It happened on Thanksgiving night, November 22, 2012, in a game between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots.
- Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez ran into the backside of his own lineman, Brandon Moore, and dropped the ball.
- Patriots safety Steve Gregory picked it up and ran 32 yards for a touchdown.
- New England scored three touchdowns in 52 seconds and won 49-19.
Every NFL team has a play its fans would like to forget. The New York Jets have one that the whole country remembers, and it has a name.
It is called the Butt Fumble. It lasted a few seconds, and it has been replayed for more than a decade.
The setting
The game was played on Thanksgiving night in 2012 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Thanksgiving games draw some of the biggest television audiences of the regular season, and this one averaged more than 19 million viewers.
The Jets were 4-6 and needed a win. The Patriots were 7-3. Early in the second quarter New England led 14-0, after Shane Vereen caught a pass from Tom Brady and ran 83 yards for a touchdown.
The play
The Jets got the ball back and completed a pass to reach their own 31-yard line. The next call was a handoff to fullback Lex Hilliard.
Sanchez took the snap and turned the wrong way. Hilliard ran right past him, and there was nobody to give the ball to. So Sanchez kept it and ran straight ahead, toward the middle of the line.
Right guard Brandon Moore was there, being pushed backward by Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork. Sanchez tried to slide. Instead he ran face-first into Moore's backside, fell over, and the ball popped loose.
Steve Gregory, a Patriots safety, scooped it up and ran 32 yards into the end zone. The score was 21-0.
He ran into his own teammate, and the ball came out.
Why the touchdown counted
A play in football ends when the player with the ball is down or out of bounds. Sanchez lost the ball before he was down. That makes it a fumble, and a fumble is a live ball.
Anyone on either team can pick up a fumble and run with it. Gregory did. If you are still learning the game, our 10-minute guide to football covers turnovers and the rest of the basics.
It got worse
The Patriots kicked off. Jets returner Joe McKnight caught the ball, was hit, and fumbled too. The ball flew up into the hands of New England's Julian Edelman, who ran 22 yards for another touchdown.
| Clock, second quarter | What happened | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 9:43 | Shane Vereen, 83-yard catch and run | Patriots 14, Jets 0 |
| 9:00 | Steve Gregory, 32-yard return of the Butt Fumble | Patriots 21, Jets 0 |
| 8:51 | Julian Edelman, 22-yard return of a fumbled kickoff | Patriots 28, Jets 0 |
That is three touchdowns in 52 seconds of game time. In between, the Jets ran two plays on offense and returned one kickoff.
New England scored 35 points in the second quarter and led 35-3 at halftime. The final score was 49-19.
How one play became famous
Bad plays happen every week, and most are forgotten by Monday. This one had everything a blooper needs. It was on national television on a holiday. It involved a quarterback, a famous rival and a part of the body people find funny.
ESPN ran a weekly segment that ranked the worst plays in sports and let viewers vote. The Butt Fumble won for 40 weeks in a row. The network finally retired it in September 2013, just to give other plays a chance.
The NFL later auctioned the jersey Sanchez wore that night for charity. It sold for $820.
What it meant for the Jets
The play did not ruin the season by itself. It became the picture of a season that was already going wrong. The Jets finished 6-10.
Sanchez had led the team to the conference championship game in each of his first two seasons. He was benched a few weeks after the Butt Fumble and was released after the 2013 season. He played several more years for other teams, mostly as a backup.
The strange part is his stat line from that night. He completed 26 of 36 passes for 301 yards. On paper it was a solid game. Almost nobody remembers that.
Asked about the play the following summer, he gave the shortest possible answer. "It's embarrassing," he said. Since then most fans have stopped being angry about it. It has turned into something people share for a laugh every Thanksgiving.