The 4pm kickoff had appeared amiable enough, until legendary kicker Jan Stenerud’s field goal attempt sailed wide to the right of the goalposts at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium. Dinner wouldn’t be late, but those who were due to consume it would be.

It was a new dilemma. Sure, there had been conflicts between football and fare on Thanksgiving for as long as could be remembered, but football was as big a part of that day as anything else. This was Christmas. And this was the second game of the day.

Prior to the NFL-AFL merger, most seasons had already concluded before the festive period got into full swing and, when they hadn’t, the league was wise enough to schedule accordingly, keeping the family day for family. This, however, was the brave new world of unity and the enlarged National Football League, which had previously staged playoff games around Christmas Day, instead scheduled the first two matchups of the Divisional round for the 25^th. The opening fixture, between Dallas and Minnesota, kicked off at 1pm and ran its expected course, with the visiting Cowboys winning a battle of 11-3 teams at a frigid Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, whetting the appetite for the AFC clash between an emerging Miami side and a Kansas City franchise many — not least Chiefs founder, the late Lamar Hunt — believed to be at their best two years removed from winning Super Bowl IV.

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It was comparably balmy, with the mercury nearing 60 degrees, as the teams ran out onto the Municipal Stadium field, the last combatants to grace the turf at the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and E. 22nd Street before the hometown Chiefs would move to the all-new, and far bigger, Arrowhead Stadium, being built where Interstate 70 and Interstate 435 met in nearby Jackson County. The game, already a rarity due to the date, had further significance, as the Chiefs had never played a home playoff game at Municipal (and would not host another anywhere for a further 20 years), but would add notoriety as afternoon turned into evening.

Both teams had ended the regular season with 10-3-1 records, but the Dolphins, in just their sixth season, were on the up. Led by head coach Don Shula, they had claimed their first AFC East crown by narrowly improving on their 1970 record — itself a vast improvement over previous campaigns that had failed to yield more than five wins — and were studded with future Hall-of-Famers, including quarterback Bob Griese, fullback Larry Csonka, linebacker Nick Buoniconti and wide receiver Paul Warfield, acquired from the Browns for a first-round draft pick in 1970. The Chiefs, meanwhile, were — despite what Clark and others believed — headed in the opposite direction, a slowly ageing group that, under head coach Hank Stram, had reached their peak in continuing the AFL’s surprising Super Bowl success against the NFL champion Vikings in 1969. Nonetheless, quarterback Len Dawson and wideout Otis Taylor led an offense still potent enough to finish eighth in scoring, while future Hall-of-Famers Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas, Bobby Bell and Johnny Robinson anchored a defense that had allowed a mere 14.9 points per game, not that far removed from the 12.3 allowed by the ‘No Name’ group on the opposing sideline.

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Once Santa Claus, riding a sleigh drawn by ponies and steered by a well-dressed cowboy, had cleared the field, there was little to separate the sides through the first half, as the Dolphins countered Stenerud’s opening 24-yard salvo and a seven-yard Ed Podolak reception from Len Dawson — a score set up by Willie Lanier intercepting Griese in his own half — with Csonka pounding his way to paydirt from a yard out and Garo Yepremian capitalising on a Podolak fumble deep in Chiefs territory with a field goal that ensured 10–10 parity at the interval. The score could have been very different had a Chiefs fake punt not gone awry, the result of Stenrud and snapper Bobby Bell receiving conflicting communications from the sideline, but Kansas City nevertheless felt that they retained the upper hand.

“As the game unfolded, with the team that we had, we felt that we had an advantage from a superior skill standpoint,” Lanier told the Pro Football Hall of Fame on reflection. “It was not unreasonable to feel that Miami, recognising that, might have felt that their odds of winning were not that great. But, as it turned out, we started to have miscues — a missed field goal, a fumbled punt — and, all of a sudden, a game that we should be in control of at the midway point, is tied.”

Kansas City were again first to score after the restart, capping a time-consuming 75-yard drive with Jim Otis going over from a yard, only to be pegged back as Jim Kiick — Butch Cassidy to Csonka’s Sundance Kid — replicated the score at the other end to ensure that the teams remained level through three quarters. Swapping takeaways — a Buoniconti fumble recovery matched by linebacker Jim Lynch intercepting Griese with the Dolphins threatening the Chiefs’ endzone — provided brief respite for the scoreboard before Dawson marched the home team 91 yards downfield — highlighted by a 63-yard pass to rookie receiver Elmo Wright — to set up Podolak from three yards out.

“We had a very versatile type of offense, and I think we kind of used whatever became available to us,” Podolak recalled. “Hank Stram had the offense designed that way and, that day, Miami decided they were going to take Otis Taylor out of the game by double-teaming him. We ran a bunch of screens on them, and I think all of that really came out because of their defensive plan to not let Otis beat them.”

Again, however, Miami came back immediately, as Griese, defying a shoulder injury he brought into the game, went 71 yards before finding tight end Marv Fleming for a five-yard touchdown. Just under 90 seconds of regulation remained at this point, and the previously-unheralded Podolak — who had a game for the ages with 350 all-purpose yards (8/110 receiving, 17/85 rushing and three kickoff returns for 154) having played only sparingly on special teams during the Chiefs’ 1969 Super Bowl run — brought the restart back 78 yards to set Stenerud up from the Dolphins’ 22.

“There was a hole that opened up right over the middle,” Podolak (pictured) told Fox Sports of the return. “It just opened up immediately, and I could see that there was a seam straight up the middle. Soon there was only Garo Yepremian between me and the goal line and I knew Garo wasn’t going to tackle me — but he didn’t get out of the way either. Because I had to dodge a little bit to the left to get past him, it gave (cornerback) Curtis Johnson an angle on me.”

Alas, for an exuberant Stram, Chiefs fans and those hoping to sit down to dinner at a reasonable time, the ensuing chip shot went the wrong side of the upright.

“I make that kick 49 out of 50 times,” Stenerud would admit. “To this day, I still have no idea how I missed it.”

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With Miami unable to move the ball, and amid no little confusion over the possibilities of a free kick on the ensuing punt, the clock expired, sending the game to overtime. Incredibly, both sides then suffered further kicking woes, with Stenerud’s 42-yard field goal attempt being blocked by Tim Foley and Yepremian coming up short on an ambitious 52-yard effort, before Dolphins safety Jake Scott ended the first additional period by intercepting Dawson on the Chiefs’ 46.

“Only in overtime can you feel the efforts of fully giving maximum performance on each play because, the next play, you could either win or lose,” Lanier explained. “In that moment, you find an expression of skill — on your side or their side — that creates a joy.”

“We burned up a lot of turkey dinners that day because everyone was waiting on the game — and it felt like we had played in three games because, by the fourth quarter, you had already played your heart out,” Bell told the Hall of Fame. “Overtime becomes like a game in itself, and that was one of the toughest games I ever played in. I hit Csonka, he gets up, goes back to the huddle and, what do you know, here he comes again! That went on all day…”

Bell wasn’t the only one feeling it, with players on both sides showing the exertions of what would become — and remain — the longest game in NFL history.

“In the sixth quarter, I looked at Nick Buoniconti after we’d run into each other for about the 30th time that day, and I said, ‘Do you think this thing will ever be over?’,” Podolak recalled. “At that point, it was almost like sleepwalking. You were playing on pure adrenaline.”

Again, perhaps, afraid of making the mistake that would determine the outcome of the game, both offenses stuttered through the ensuing extension, exchanging punts before Csonka rumbled 29 yards to finally put his team in position to seal it.

“It was one of our favourite plays, one of our best plays that I had forgotten about,” Griese would reveal to NFL Films. “It was called ‘Roll Right, Trap Left’ and, when I called it, I’m looking at Csonka and the offensive line, and I could see their eyes light up.”

“We knew Lanier and company would, quite possibly, run themselves out of the play if we set up, and pulled off, a good-enough looking fake,” Csonka added. “The defense was so aggressive that they were out of position because of their intensity. It worked — but I just ran out of gas about four yards down the field!”

After six quarters, or 82 minutes and 40 seconds of playing time, Yepremian — the diminutive Cypriot with more hair in his impressive sideburns than on top of his head — just had to convert from 37 yards and, with the ball invitingly situated between the hashes, this time there was no mistake.

“That game was a struggle,” admitted Csonka, one of football’s hard men who coincidentlly celebrated his birthday on the 25^th December. “You had to concentrate so much on the struggle, and keep renewing your enthusiasm, your determination to hang on and not let them take it.”

Because of the numerous complaints fielded by the league as a result of the prolonged game, shared equally between those upset that their Christmas dinner had been thrown into disarray and others who felt that football should never have intruded on a traditional religious and family holiday — a Kansas state legislator even proposing a bill to ban future Christmas Day games — the NFL subsequently opted not schedule anything on the 25^th December.

For the next 17 seasons at least.

As of the end of last season, there have now been 30 game played on Christmas Day, with the advent of more and more broadcast options making the opportunity too good to resist. Two games were played each Christmas Day from 2004 to 2006, 2016-17 and again in 2021, with three scheduled for both 2022 and 2023. This year, the Chiefs are back on the slate, taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers, while the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans also meet, with both contests available to nearly all of Netflix’s 270m+ international subscribers and broadcast in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French.

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Main image courtesy of Kansas City Chiefs/AP