The majority of Week 10’s Thursday Night Football game between the Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins was an ugly, boring mess. Lamar Jackson looked lost against the league’s 25th-ranked defense, spamming passes to Marquise Brown with a Sisyphean success rate. Jacoby Brissett left due to injury, leaving broken-fingered Tua Tagovailoa to heave 60-yard passes 30 yards downfield. Not a single touchdown was scored in the first three quarters. Justin Tucker, kicking god, missed a field goal.
But for one glorious moment, all was right with the world. With one beautifully illegal play, Dolphins offensive guard Robert Hunt was Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Truly, he was King of the world.
i don't care if he's not eligible, this counts for 12 points pic.twitter.com/iad8VzInyo
— Christian D'Andrea probably does not own a brewery (@TrainIsland) November 12, 2021
The touchdown, tragically, was deemed too beautiful to exist. More specifically, it was called back because there are only five eligible receivers (six, counting the quarterback when things get weird) on the field on Hunt, lined up at guard, was extremely not one of them. The Dolphins accepted the five-yard penalty knowing they’d produced the greatest illegal touch pass the NFL has ever seen. One play later, a drive one act of officiating malpractice away from the game’s first touchdown ended with a 29-yard field goal instead.
But while the refs took away the points, they can never take away the memory. Look as Hunt steps in perfect position for an off-target screen pass for Myles Gaskin, rips it out of the air like the league’s largest tailback, and rumbles upfield. At one point Gaskin, Mike Gesicki, and Albert Wilson all stop, fully knowing they can’t help Hunt but can appreciate his majesty as he flies, tail over teakettle, toward the goal line.
In the midst of a dark night, Hunt was a comet streaking across the sky. If the Dolphins don’t work up some kind of play where he clocks in as an eligible receiver and catches a touchdown out of a jumbo package against the Jets, we can finally disband the Miami football team.