Who ran back the second half kickoff for a touchdown in the very first monday night football game?

Answer 1

Source: http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/article.php?id=6345 In 1970, when most other teams were scared stiff about taking a chance on this new venture called Monday Night Football, the Browns were confident enough to offer themselves up as one of the sacrificial lambs for that first game. At that time, no one knew for sure what would happen when a football game was aired nationally at night, during primetime, and on Monday, when the NFL had always played on Sunday afternoon. Nobody had ever tried that combination. So when MNF was launched 36 years ago, it could have become the equivalent of today's "American Idol" and been an immediate smash hit, or it could have blown up in everyone's face by drawing a miniscule audience and made the league and ABC the laughingstocks of all laughingstocks. There were some ABC affiliates who thought the latter and opted not to pick up the game, choosing instead other programming such as movies. But we all know how well it turned out - for the NFL, ABC, the Browns, who got to display their talent to the nation with a 31-21 victory in front of the largest crowd in club history, 85,703. It is also important to note that this was the first season after the full merger of the AFL and NFL, so this marked the first regular-season game for the Browns against an old AFL club. That juiced up the atmosphere even more. What got lost in the shuffle, though, was how the game also became a defining moment in the career of a man named Billy Andrews. Billy Andrews, the original Monday Night Football star. So how did it all come about? The Browns, who had jumped out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead on an eight-yard pass from Bill Nelsen to Gary Collins and a two-yard run by Bo Scott, added another touchdown just moments into the second half to go up 21-7 as Homer Jones returned the kickoff 94 yards. But the Jets, only 18 months removed from their incredible Super Bowl upset of the Baltimore Colts, rallied and eventually cut the lead to 24-21 with 3:22 left in the game as Joe Namath passed 33 yards to George Sauer. After the Browns went three-and-out on their next series, the Jets took over at their own 4 with 1:30 remaining after a booming 69-yard punt by Don Cockroft. With just 38 seconds left, the Jets had gotten only as far as their own 18, but with the dangerous Namath in there, the Browns knew the game was far from over. After all, Namath had taken the Jets 80 yards on four plays -- all passes -- for their last score. The Browns needed to make one more big play, and Andrews was the man who did it. He intercepted a Namath pass intended for Emerson Boozer and returned it 25 yards for the clinching TD. "It was an option route where I was one-on-one with Boozer," Andrews said. "He made a move to the outside and I had him covered. Namath threw the ball to the inside, probably because Jack Gregory (Browns defensive end) was in his face. I think he was just trying to throw it away. "I was laying on the ground, and the ball just stuck in my hand. It just stuck in my hand. When I got up, I was initially headed toward the wrong goal line, and then I got turned around and headed the right way." There was no one in Andrews' path to the goal line except Namath. "He just stood there. He had his head tucked down," said Andrews, who played 11 NFL seasons, including eight (1967-74) with the Browns. "As slow as I was, if he would have chased me, he would have caught me." Andrews, now 61, remains a busy man. Just as was the case when he was with the Browns, he and his brother operate a 2,000-acre beef and dairy farm in Clinton, La., a ftiny country town of between 800 and 900 people located 30 miles north of Baton Rouge where Andrews has lived his entire life. Though hardly inconspicuously since 1970. "That play has always been a topic of conversation for me," he said. "Wow, what an experience that was. Even when I watch Monday Night Football now, I think back to that game and to the play. "It was a big deal. I intercept a pass from Joe Namath, and it changed my life." In retrospect, that first Monday Night Football game changed a lot of lives.