Turning Pages of ‘100 Things Colts Fans:’ ‘Monday Night Miracle’

How unforgettable was the Indianapolis Colts’ 38-35 overtime victory at Tampa Bay on Oct. 6, 2003, at Raymond James Stadium?

All these years later, quarterback Peyton Manning called the Monday Night Football comeback from 35-14 down with less than four minutes remaining his favorite game in a Colts video tweet on Monday.

What's Peyton Manning's favorite game of all-time?

The legendary QB's answer might surprise you... 🤔 (via @NFLFilms) pic.twitter.com/4bX2ZXe0it
— NFL (@NFL) May 4, 2020

The NFL recently ranked the comeback as the 65th greatest game in league history.

“It’s where the legend of Peyton Manning started.”

Our MNF comeback in Tampa is the 65th Greatest Game in #NFL100 History! pic.twitter.com/s3VQzC25Ub
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) September 28, 2019

The “Monday Night Miracle” will always resonate with fans, including so many who turned the game off at home or departed early from the stadium. Chapter 42 of the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (Triumph Books) recounted that night with insights from Colts head coach Tony Dungy, kicker Mike Vanderjagt, center Jeff Saturday, Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden and MNF analyst John Madden.

A one-sided game for more than three quarters sure didn’t seem like the best 48th birthday present for Dungy, nor was it the homecoming he had envisioned in his first game back in Tampa Bay, where he had been fired after 2001.

“I remember thinking in the first half, we couldn’t play worse if we tried to play worse,” Dungy said, almost a decade later in a telephone call from his home in Tampa.

The Buccaneers’ No. 1 ranked defense had allowed just 22 points in three previous games. The Tampa-2 defense designed by Dungy was built to finish games. Cornerback Ronde Barber picked off Manning and returned the interception 29 yards for a touchdown to make it 35-14 with 5:09 remaining.

“When you’re down 35-14, yeah, I figured we’d need a miracle,” Vanderjagt said.

He wasn’t the only one.

“You’re thinking it’s going to be an awful plane trip home,” Saturday said.

Gruden described what happened next as his “worst nightmare.”

Dungy was leaning toward pulling Manning when rookie Brad Pyatt returned the ensuing kickoff 90 yards to the Bucs’ 12. So the Colts stuck with it. James Mungro scored on a fourth-down rush with 3:37 remaining.

The Colts’ Idrees Bashir recovered the onside kick and Manning threw a 28-yard TD pass on fourth down with 2:29 remaining.

There still didn’t seem to be enough time remaining. But the Colts got the ball back and Manning hit Harrison for a 52-yard pass play to the Bucs’ 6. Ricky Williams scored on a 1-yard run with 35 seconds remaining to force overtime.

The game seemed like it didn’t want to end as the overtime lasted a while.

When the Colts finally drove into field-goal range, Vanderjagt pushed a 40-yard, field-goal attempt right. But he got a reprieve when the Bucs’ Simeon Rice was called for “leaping,” when a player is deemed to have been aided by a teammate in his jump to block a kick, be it propelling himself upward or landing on a teammate in the process. It was a rather obscure transgression, to say the least.

Vanderjagt’s second try summed up the crazy night. The 29-yard field goal veered right, deflected off the fingers of Bucs defensive end Ellis Wyms at the line, then fluttered like a knuckleball before banking off the inside of the right upright and through with 3:52 remaining.

“I called tip bank,” Vanderjagt said.

He also added, “Nobody and their grandmother picks us to win this game.”

It’s the first time in NFL history a team has ever come back from a 21-point deficit with four minutes remaining to win a game. And it was the Colts’ first 21-point, fourth-quarter comeback in franchise history.

In the fourth quarter and overtime, Manning completed 18-of-26 passes for 235 yards with one TD and one interception.

“That damn Peyton Manning,” Gruden bemoaned, “he really irritated me today.”

“It was very, very special, just the fact that our guys didn’t give up,” Dungy said. “More than anything, that kind of showed us what we could do and was a precursor to the AFC Championship Game (in 2007) when we're down three scores, that we could come back and win it. It showed me it didn’t matter what the score was, that we could still come back and win the game.”

Count Madden among the stunned.

“It was totally beyond belief,” he said. “I’ve never seen or taken part in a comeback like that in my life.”

Dungy, who was only too happy to share his recollections of this night for the book from his Tampa home, said that birthday turned out to be the best.

“I’d have to say that was the most memorable, no question,” he said.

(Phillip B. Wilson has covered the Indianapolis Colts for more than two decades and authored the 2013 book 100 Things Colts Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. He’s on Twitter @pwilson24, on Facebook at @allcoltswithphilb and @100thingscoltsfans, and his email is phillipbwilson24@yahoo.com.)