For Charlie Batch, Thanksgiving Day in 1998 sticks out as a tough day in the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise, thanks to a simple thing like the coin toss at midfield.
Of course, on that day in 1998, the Steelers and Detroit Lions were tied up at 16-16 entering overtime. There, the 7-4 Steelers appeared set to win the coin toss and win the game on a short week against a bad Lions team.
Instead, referee Phil Luckett botched it. Or did Steelers’ running back Jerome Bettis?
Bettis and defensive back Carnell Lake represented the Steelers in the middle of the field for the coin toss, which Luckett conducted. As the road team then, the Steelers were tasked with calling heads or tails on the coin toss in the air.
From the sounds of it, Bettis called “tails,” but Luckett heard “heads” and gave the coin toss decision to the Lions, who took the ball and went on to win the game in overtime. That set off quite a controversy, leading to a rules change.
All these years later, then-Lions quarterback and current Steelers analyst Charlie Batch recalled that day that went down in NFL history. During an appearance on the 102.5 WDVE Morning Show Tuesday, Batch —who stated that he had 100 friends and family members at the Thanksgiving Game in 1998 — still wants to know what Bettis actually said 25-plus years later.
“…Because that game was at 12:30, so, of course, everybody’s watching it, and we’re all sitting there, and I just remembered as the coin flip was going up, and you see it’s a little chaos in the middle of the field. And as our team is running off the field, like we don’t know what just happened,” Batch said of the infamous coin toss debacle with Bettis and Luckett, according to audio via 102.5 WDVE. “But all I know is we needed to score real quick because they’re still gonna be complaining about this coin flip. But literally, when I say part of history, that was the last game that you can ever call the coin flip in the air.”
In front of a national audience, the inability to get the call right on the coin toss ultimately led to the Lions getting the football to open overtime. Seven plays and 41 yards later, the Lions won the game on a 42-yard Jason Hanson field goal.
That 19-16 loss to the Lions on Thanksgiving Day set off a five-game losing streak for the Steelers, who closed the season at 7-9 in disastrous fashion.
Following the call of “heads” on the field that Luckett heard from Bettis, Luckett then explained to Steelers’ coach Bill Cowher what happened, claiming that Bettis said “hea-tails” where Luckett heard heads. Even the broadcast crew on CBS that day of Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms were confused.
Gumbel immediately said, “Oh, I believe he said tails.” Simms said, “He did.”
Moments later, while listening to the exchange, Gumbel laughingly said, “Oh, man. Jerome Bettis said tails … oh, my.” Simms added, “Now we’re going to have to get all of the officials out there for the coin toss to see what’s going on.”
After that game, the NFL changed the coin toss rule so that the player calling heads or tails stated clearly before the coin was tossed into the air what his call would be.
All these years later, though, Charlie Batch still can’t get Bettis to fess up to what he said.
“Jerome never confessed that, and I was his locker mate for years. And I kept asking him that,” Batch said of Bettis. “I keep asking him to this day, and I said, ‘Jerome, it’s only been 25 years. Come on, man, tell me.'”
Bettis will never differentiate from his original story, which is that he called tails on the field and should have won the coin toss. However, due to what Luckett heard with “heads,” the Lions won the toss that was ultimately tails, setting them up to win the game in overtime.
Fortunately, the Steelers have had some success on Thanksgiving Day since then, but that 1998 debacle still stands out as a sore spot in the Black and Gold’s history.
