I was going through the Giants website when I noticed a “Today In History” box mentioning
November 18, 1985 – Jay Schroeder comes off the bench to replace an injured Joe Theismann to lead the Washington Redskins to a 23-21 win over the Giants on Monday Night Football.
This means it was 20 years ago today that Lawrence Taylor ended Joe Theismann’s career. It was also the first time they used instant replay in Monday Night Football. After the incident, they replayed it over and over again. I’m still trying to find a copy of the video on the internet but for those of you who have not seen the video yet, Lawrence Taylor (Hall of Fame Linebacker) tackled Joe Theismann in the second quarter of a Monday Night Football game. As LT tackled him, Joe’s leg, the area between the knee and the ankle, bent in a 45 degree angle. I was only 10 when they played the game so I didn’t get to see it happen live but when I was watching I Love the 80’s 3-D on VH1 a while ago, they played the clip. UPDATE: Thanks to Technorati, I found another blogger posting about the same “anniversary”. He has a link to the video clip but it doesn’t seem to be working right now. If I can get a copy of the clip, I’ll post it here. The link to the clip he gives in his post is here. UPDATE: I finally was able to get a hold of the video of LT breaking Joe Theismann’s leg. You can see it either on the previous link or here
MSNBC has also mentioned the incident in a story. So has the Houston Chronicle
I have embedded the video here.