It wasn’t until Steve Gregory got back to the locker room at MetLife Stadium that he realized he might have just had a hand in one of the most iconic plays in Thanksgiving football history.
Gregory, now the defensive backs coach of the Detroit Lions, was in his second-to-last NFL season in 2012 when his New England Patriots annihilated the New York Jets, 49-19, in a primetime game that remains the most lopsided Thanksgiving affair this decade.
Gregory scored a touchdown early in the second quarter on a 32-yard fumble return. The touchdown, the only one of his NFL career, was part of a 21-point Patriot outburst in a 52-second span, but that was only a sliver of the reason it was so memorable.