For most athletes who make it to the NFL, reaching the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. Sure, every kid in the backyard pretends to catch the pass in the end zone to win the championship, but for the men who actually beat the tremendous odds just to suit up at the professional level, actually hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is almost too much to dare to dream.
Winning or losing any single game is usually beyond any one player’s control, and when the larger-than-life hype is stripped away, the Super Bowl is, at its core, like any other 60-minute gridiron battle between two teams. There will be a winner, and there will be a loser; just being in that rare position is enough for most men to call it a success.
Jackie Smith’s 16-year NFL tenure was a success, but it’s a career that included the highest of highs as well as the lowest of lows. He’s one of the sport’s all-time elites, with a gold jacket and records that still stand… but he’s also most closely identified for dropping an easy touchdown in the biggest game of his life, a momentary failure that follows him to this day, four decades later.
This is the extraordinary story of a Hall of Famer who has, incredibly, been shunned by a faction of both franchises he played for: by the ownership of one who won’t forgive him for comments made in the heat of the moment of an offseason negotiation, and also by the fanbase of the other who won’t forgive him for an on-the-field error he made in the heat of battle.
His time with one team earned him football immortality. His time with the other made him the poster child for letting the moment slip away when it matters most.
It almost defies explanation that a player who made just three catches in a Cowboys uniform is remembered at all, given all the larger legends in the team’s illustrious history. But not all tales have a happy ending, and sometimes there’s more to a player’s story than the catches he made. Sometimes, unfair as it is, the story ends up being largely about the one catch he didn’t make.
Every young football player dreams of making it to the Super Bowl. But Jackie Smith might tell them to be careful what they wish for.