The first successful drop kick in pro football since 1941! Doug Flutie and I are (roughly) the same age, and I have always thought he was a class act. This confirms it.

When I was a boy, I was the kicker for our football team for three years (grades 7-9), and I practiced the drop kick. But I never attempted it in a game.

The Miami Herald's account is classic:

New England trailed late in Sunday's football game here as it lined up for a point-after-touchdown. Something was odd - and it wasn't just that the champs were headed for a rare defeat at home. See, Patriots players were down there grinning behind their facemasks. Yucking and joshing. All but giggling.

"Their offensive line was kind of giddy," Dolphins end Vonnie Holliday said. "One of them was saying, `Wait'll you see this!' ''

It was a moment later that the Pats let local hero Doug Flutie take a curtain call on his long pro career by drop-kicking the extra point.

Which is the NFL equivalent of the Heat allowing Shaquille O'Neal, in a real game, to attempt a free throw by heading the basketball, soccer-style, just for laughs.

...

Ricky Williams, asked about the rare, throwback play, said, "What's the big deal?" Told it hadn't happened in 64 years, he chided reporters: "Are you guys that bored?"

The existentialist running back then called our interest in the drop kick weird.

Being called weird by Ricky Williams is an interesting sensation. It's a little like being called fat by a 640-pound man.

I asked Ricky if he would prefer to back up a healthy Ronnie Brown again next season or be a featured back elsewhere. "I don't have a desire to be starter or not a starter," he said serenely. "It'd be nice to do anything and be anywhere."

Soon, he will be studying advanced yoga again in India, by the way.

Which might be weird to some.

But still not as weird as a drop kick.

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