Let there be no buts about it: To New Yorkers, the “Butt Fumble” is as synonymous with Thanksgiving as parade floats and pumpkin pie.
That’s because 13 Thanksgivings ago, then-Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez ran into the backside of teammate Brandon Moore, fumbled the football and watched the New England Patriots return it for the most improbable of touchdowns — all in front of a national audience.
In honor of the infamous flub’s 13th anniversary, let’s take a rear-view look at the Butt Fumble.
It was Nov. 22, 2012, and at 4-6, the Jets were clinging to the slimmest of playoff hopes. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the rival Patriots were as excellent as ever, and they already led, 14-0, when Sanchez took a snap under center with 9:11 left in the second quarter at MetLife Stadium.
The play was immediately broken as fullback Lex Hilliard, who was supposed to get the ball, ran to Sanchez’s right as the quarterback turned to his left.
That left Sanchez with the ball and nobody to hand it to, so he made the split-second decision to break into a dead sprint forward.
About six yards later, Sanchez slammed directly into the backside of his hulking guard, who was starting to be pushed backward by defensive tackle Vince Wilfork.
Sanchez ended up flat on his back. The live football squirted away. And safety Steve Gregory scooped the ball up and ran it back 32 yards for a touchdown in a moment that’s prevailed as the ultimate lowlight.
“It’s embarrassing,” Sanchez would say after that game.
“I guess more stunned than anything. Like a car accident. I was like whoa what just happened? And then the ball’s gone. It was weird. It sucked.”
The Patriots would go on to win, 49-19, in what was the 200th victory of Belichick’s career.
The Daily News had a field day, running a Nov. 23 back page that read, “BUTT HEADS: Mark, Jets hit bottom against Pats in Turkey Day rout.”
And a holiday audience that topped out at 24 million viewers watched the Butt Fumble game on NBC, tuning in as announcers Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth attempted to process what just happened in real time.
“It went wrong when Sanchez turned the wrong way,” Rex Ryan, the Jets’ head coach in that game, would say on a retrospective that aired on ESPN’s “NFL Countdown” in 2018. “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 play like it turned out.”
The Jets ended up finishing 6-10 in what was the second year of their ongoing playoff drought.
And while Sanchez played eight NFL seasons and helped lead the Jets to back-to-back AFC Championship Games in 2010 and 2011, the Butt Fumble always seems to, well, rear its head again at this time of year.
“That’s just the way I am. Being self-deprecating — No. 1, it’s funny, and it says, ‘Hey, get over yourself.’ The Butt Fumble? So what?” Sanchez told ESPN in 2014. “People screw up, and that happened to be a huge screw-up on a huge holiday when everyone is watching football.”
