Celebrating the Butt Fumble, a play everyone is thankful for — except the Jets
Editor’s note: Throughout the month of November, we remember some of the best NFL , college football and sports culture occasions around the Thanksgiving holiday in Thanksgiving Sports Moments .
The day will come when the Jets win another Super Bowl. We must begin with that premise. The Jets will win another Super Bowl. And it’ll make for an epic, thank-God-it-finally-happened Tri-State sports celebration, right up there with the New York Rangers defeating the Vancouver Canucks in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final and, for you old-timey lords and ladies of Flatbush, the Brooklyn Dodgers taking down the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series.
Until then, there’s the Butt Fumble.
Butt. Fumble. As stand-alone words, there’s nothing to see here. One word is shorthand slang for buttocks, the other is a common football term. But put these words side by side and you have one of the goofiest plays in sports history .
On Thursday, Nov. 22, 2012 — Thanksgiving night, which is central to the story — the Jets hosted the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium. In the second quarter, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez had an unfortunate run-in with teammate Brandon Moore that resulted in a fumble.
All fumbles are unfortunate, but this one resulted in Patriots safety Steve Gregory scooping up the loose ball and carrying it to an easy touchdown. New England rolled to a 49-19 victory.
That’s the Dragnet-style, “just the facts” version of what happened. But there’s so much more to the story, beginning with the fact that Sanchez’s run-in with Moore was, to be precise, a run-in involving the quarterback’s face and the offensive guard’s backside. It took a replay and slow motion to confirm the hilarity, but there it was: On a busted play where Sanchez zigged when he should have zagged, thus missing a handoff, he plowed bravely ahead for what would go into the books as a 1-yard gain.
Alas, there was a wall separating that 1-yard gain from being more — and the wall was Moore’s rear end.
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The ball popped loose. Gregory did his thing. And hundreds of thousands of alert Twitterites did their thing, using the social media platform to send a video snippet of the play ricocheting around the cosmos.
The Butt Fumble was born. And it returns each Thanksgiving, a holiday staple on par with “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Why has the Butt Fumble held up so well over the years? Surely we’ve seen similarly comically bad plays, such as that time outfielder José Canseco somehow managed to have a fly ball bounce off his head and over the fence for a home run. It’s a fine piece of comedy that’s had a nice run, but c’mon ... it’s not in the same league as the Butt Fumble — figuratively and literally.
The magic ingredients that went into making the Butt Fumble a cult favorite include the following:
And then there’s Sanchez, the handsome quarterback who in his first two seasons in the NFL (2009 and 2010) took the Jets to the AFC Championship Game. Such was Sanchez’s emerging star power — and his widely agreed-upon good looks — that GQ magazine put him on the cover of its September 2011 edition. We see Sanchez, football cradled in his hands, decked out in a form-fitting green V-neck sweater and flashing a winning smile. The headline read, “Mark Sanchez: The Bright New Face of the NFL.”
One year later, that handsome yap of his went flying into the rump of an offensive guard listed at 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds.
It was a classic case of the irresistible face meeting the immovable object.
The fallout was fast and furious.
The New York Daily News went with “Butt Heads” as its headline. The New York Post weighed in with “Butt Ugly.” The Jets lost six of their remaining nine games following the debacle against the Patriots, finishing 6-10 and out of playoff contention.
Sanchez missed all of the 2013 season, his last with the Jets, because of a shoulder injury suffered during the preseason. He wound up as a journeyman for the rest of his career, including game action with the Eagles , Cowboys and Washington .
Sanchez has gone on with his life. Now 37, he has forged a successful career on various media platforms, including working as a game analyst for Fox Sports since 2021.
As for the Butt Fumble, evidence suggests he’s able to have some fun with it, if only to a point. During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” in 2020, the host said to his guest, “The Butt Fumble. Let’s talk about it,” whereupon Sanchez emitted a for-real burst of laughter while falling backward .
“One of these days, there’ll be a good ‘30 for 30’ about it, and we’ll all look back and laugh,” Sanchez said. “But that’s probably still a ways away.”
But he was already laughing about it, right?
“Listen, I do,” Sanchez told McAfee. “I’m a pretty easygoing guy. ... It was just frustrating because of the fallout. It’s one thing to have an embarrassing play, and it’s like, all right, whatever. But when it feels like the organization and people just kind of write you off because of that ... all the hard work and everything you put into it just gets erased because of one play. Well, that’s not necessarily fair. But what is fair? There’s two sides to fair, right? My version of fair and everybody else’s. That’s what you sign up for.
“It’s not the end of the world, and you can look back and laugh.”
It appears he’s still laughing. A year ago, the “butt punt” became a thing when Miami Dolphins punter Thomas Morstead booted the ball from his own end zone directly into the end of his blocker, Trent Sherfield . The ball wound up in the Miami end zone for a safety — and right away, the Twitter folks went to work.
As did Sanchez.
“Woah ... stay out of my lane bro,” tweeted Sanchez, who included the requisite zany smile emoji.
Sanchez’s actions bring to mind Mariano Rivera, the Hall of Fame Yankees closer. For all of his postseason heroics, Rivera blew a save in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Boston Red Sox, setting the stage for Boston’s epic comeback against their longtime tormenters.
The Red Sox went on to win their first World Series in 86 years. The following April, it so happened that the Yankees provided the opposition for Boston’s home opener. When Rivera was introduced and received a thunderous mock ovation from the Fenway Park crowd, the closer stepped forward, doffed his cap and smiled broadly . Red Sox fans loved it.
Legendary burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee is believed to have said, “Nobody laughs at me, because I laugh first.” That’s what Rivera did. Good for him. It’s what Sanchez appears to be doing. Good for him, too.
And why not? The Butt Fumble is funny. Frankly, I’m stunned Mel Brooks hasn’t announced plans to write and produce “Butt Fumble: The Musical.”
But while Sanchez gets to work as an NFL analyst and have a little fun with the whole thing, it’s the Jets organization that must pay the freight. They’re still looking for that elusive first Super Bowl victory since Namath’s guarantee. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, and they haven’t defeated New England since 2015.
Whenever things go wrong for the Jets, as they so often do, it’s the Butt Fumble that gets thrown into their faces. And it’s doubtful they see anything funny about that.
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(Top photo: Robert Sabo / New York Daily News via )
