Welcome to episode eight of Run It Back! Today, we are going to rewind about 30 years and revisit the 1995 playoff game between the Detroit Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Eagles just trounced the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game by a score of 55-23. The last time Philadelphia scored over 50 points in a playoff game was in 1995, when they faced the Lions, the team the Commanders beat to advance to the NFC Championship.
Back in 1995, Philadelphia and Detroit met in the Wild Card Round, the first round of the NFL postseason. Throughout the decade, both teams had fared moderately well, reaching the playoffs at least twice between 1990 and 1994. That said, they usually never made it very deep into the postseason, being outshined by a superior opponent each time.
The Eagles had won just one playoff game during this period, a win against the New Orleans Saints in the 1992 Wild Card Round; this was the team’s first playoff win since beating the rival Dallas Cowboys in the 1980 NFC Championship Game. Unfortunately for Philadelphia, this winning feeling did not last long, as the team lost to Dallas in the Divisional Round.
In 1991, the Lions bested the Cowboys in the Divisional Round to advance to the NFC Championship Game; this ended Detroit’s lengthy playoff win drought, being their first postseason victory since winning the 1957 NFL Championship Game. By ‘95, though, this win was starting to fade away, as the Lions had just endured back-to-back wild-card eliminations at the hands of the hated Green Bay Packers.
Needless to say, both teams were hungry for a win in their impending playoff contest.
After two disastrous finishes under head coach Rich Kotite, Philadelphia fired Kotite and replaced him with Ray Rhodes. A long-time assistant coach and former cornerback, Rhodes had just won Super Bowl XXIX as the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers. Having previously worked under the likes of Bill Walsh and George Seifert in San Francisco (as well as Mike Holmgren for a brief two-year stint with Green Bay), Rhodes had a lot of potential to be a great head coach himself.
Through the first four weeks of the season, the Ray Rhodes era in Philly was not looking promising. The Eagles had dropped three of their first four games, losing by as many as 31 in Week 4. Running back Ricky Watters—whom Philadelphia had just signed in free agency from the defending champion 49ers—had a troubling debut, fumbling twice and losing the ball on his second fumble as the Eagles lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 21-6. Watters, who also missed two somewhat catchable passes sent his way, did not make up for his performance when speaking to reporters after the game.
Following a 48-17 loss to the Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia fell to 1-3, but promptly turned things around in Week 5. Rhodes switched Randall Cunningham with former Lion Rodney Peete at the quarterback position, and the Eagles won seven of their next eight games to improve to 8-4 on the year. Sitting just two games behind Dallas through the first 12 weeks, Philadelphia had a real shot to qualify for the playoffs, and maybe even win the NFC East. In Week 15, the Eagles hosted the Cowboys at Veterans Stadium for a pivotal late-season matchup.
Coming into the game, Dallas had won seven of their last eight contests against Philadelphia, including a 34-10 victory in the 1992 Divisional Round. Would the Cowboys’ run of dominance continue? Or would the Eagles get a much-needed win in the heat of the playoff race?
Dallas jumped out to a 17-3 lead in the second quarter, thanks in part to a rushing touchdown by Emmitt Smith and Larry Brown’s 65-yard interception return. Shortly before halftime, though, Philadelphia kicker Gary Anderson (yes, that Gary Anderson) got his second field goal of the game to cut the Eagles’ deficit to 11. Although Philadelphia was down 17-6, anything was possible in the second half.
After a series of punts to open the third quarter, the Eagles got going on their third possession of the half. Watters had the drive of his life, rushing for 33 yards on seven carries as Philadelphia reached the Cowboys’ one-yard line. Watters then punched it in for a touchdown, bringing the Eagles within five. Peete then cut Philadelphia’s deficit to three with a pass to Fred Barnett for a successful two-point conversion.
In the fourth quarter, Anderson kicked a game-tying field goal, making the score 17-17 with just three minutes remaining. On the next drive, the Eagles’ defense carried the momentum and got a crucial stop on fourth-and-one, preventing Smith from getting a first down for Dallas. Due to a lack of clarity over whether the two-minute warning had arrived, they made the stop a second time. One possession later, Anderson delivered the game-winning field goal, which held up as the winning score as Philadelphia prevailed over the Cowboys, 20-17.
The win brought the Eagles (9-5) within one game of Dallas (10-4) with two left to play. A victory over the Arizona Cardinals allowed Philadelphia to secure a playoff berth, but a loss vs. the Chicago Bears in the regular season finale kept them from overtaking the Cowboys in the standings. As a result, the Eagles got the NFC’s fourth seed in the 1995 postseason.
Having reached the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, Detroit was determined to make it back again in 1995. Under head coach Wayne Fontes and star running back Barry Sanders, the Lions had risen to the top of the NFC Central division, winning two division crowns in three seasons between 1991 and 1993. Although Detroit had only won one playoff game during this period, they always had a shot to go far as long as Sanders was lighting the league on fire. However, the Lions did not start 1995 the way they planned to.
Similar to Philadelphia, Detroit began the season very rocky, losing each of their first three games. The Lions were 3-6 after nine games, sitting three games out of first place and three games under .500. If Detroit wanted to get back to the postseason and potentially exact revenge on Green Bay, they needed to act quickly.
And so they did. The Lions won seven consecutive games to end the year, including four-straight division victories from Weeks 11-14. During the season-saving win streak, Sanders rushed for 618 yards and seven touchdowns, and wide receiver Herman Moore caught 59 passes for 751 yards and five TDs. At season’s end, Detroit finished 10-6, good for the NFC’s fifth seed (the Eagles finished 9-3 vs. the NFC, while the Lions went 7-5 against conference opponents).
Both teams had a lot of momentum going into the playoffs; in spite of their loss in Week 17, Philadelphia had won nine of 11 to secure a spot in the postseason. In a similar vein, Detroit essentially came back from the dead, winning seven in a row and 10 of 13 after beginning the year 0-3. No matter who came out on top in the Wild Card round, one thing was for sure: both combatants put up stellar performances to make it this far.
Before the game, Lions offensive tackle Lomas Brown felt extremely bold, guaranteeing a victory for Detroit. “Any oddsmaker who doesn’t pick us is doing himself a disservice,” Brown told reporters in the locker room (via The Spokesman-Review). “There is no question in my mind that we’re going to win this game. It’s just a matter of how much we are going to win by.” Oh boy, this just got really interesting.
The game was tied 7-7 through the end of the first quarter, with plenty of time for the Lions to pull away as Brown predicted they would. Just one problem: the Eagles wound up doing everything Brown said Detroit was going to do.
Philadelphia unleashed a barrage of offense on the Lions, scoring four touchdowns by the end of the second quarter. Peete hit Barnett for 22 yards, Barry Wilburn had a 24-yard pick six, Watters got his first playoff TD with his new team, and Rob Carpenter caught a 43-yard pass to the end zone. By halftime, the Eagles were up 38-7, and Detroit QB Scott Mitchell had thrown three interceptions. So far, Brown had failed to back up his smack talk.
In the third quarter, Philadelphia continued to pile on the points, as Watters caught a long pass from Peete to make it 45-7. Later in the quarter, Anderson continued the beatdown with two field goals, increasing the Eagles’ lead to 51-7. If I were in Brown’s position, I would have been beet red with embarrassment.
The Lions showed some life by scoring a pair of TDs, entering the fourth quarter down 51-21. Don Majkowski, who had replaced Mitchell at QB, threw an interception that was brought back for a touchdown by Philadelphia linebacker William Thomas. The Eagles were up by a whopping 37 points, and all that was left was for the clock to hit zero.
Detroit scored two more touchdowns in garbage time, reducing their deficit to 58-37 by the end of the game. This game wound up being the highest-scoring playoff game in NFL history for 14 years, being surpassed by the 2009 wild-card matchup between the Arizona Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers, in which Arizona beat Green Bay, 51-45.
With the win, Philadelphia advanced to the Divisional Round, losing to the eventual champion Cowboys, 30-11. This would be the last time the Eagles wore Kelly green on a permanent basis, as the team switched to midnight green for the 1996 campaign.
Philadelphia reached the postseason again in 1996, being shut out 14-0 in a rainy wild-card contest against San Francisco. Rhodes remained the Eagles’ head coach through 1998, by which point the team had declined to 3-13. Philadelphia fired Rhodes in the ensuing off-season, hiring former Packers assistant Andy Reid as their new head coach.
For the third consecutive year, the Lions failed to make it out of the Wild Card Round. This would be Fontes’s final playoff game as Detroit’s head coach; the Lions missed the playoffs after going 5-11 in 1996, and Fontes was fired at season’s end.
Mitchell had a fantastic regular season in 1995, throwing for career highs in passing yards (4,338) and TD passes (32). Nevertheless, his four interceptions in his first playoff start cost Detroit significantly. On the plus side, Mitchell helped Moore and Brett Perriman make NFL history, as the wide receiver duo became the first pair of teammates to each record over 100 receptions in the same season. Moore had a league-record 123 receptions, breaking Cris Carter’s record of 122 from the previous year, while Perriman came up with 108.
The honors kept on coming, as the Lions had four players reach the Pro Bowl: Sanders, Moore, Brown, and center Kevin Glover. All four were named All-Pros, and the former three were first team All-Pros.
Ultimately, how you finish a season is much more important than how you start one. Any team can be winless through their first few games, but if everything goes right, they can string a series of wins together and make it to the playoffs. With the right locker room environment, coaching, and willingness to succeed in the face of adversity, it is entirely possible to turn things around and make something out of nothing. You never know what surprises a season has to offer, like an opposing linebacker leaping over the line of scrimmage to try and prevent a touchdown.
