Together Again

The officials rule the play a touchback. Buffalo gets the ball back on the 20.

"That would have made it 59-17," proclaims Enberg, and that reminds Beebe of office-pool squares.

"Do you ever get people telling you, 'Hey, you cost me $500, man'? " Beebe asks.

"I had a policeman tell me that," says Lett. "Now I'm scared to get stopped by the Dallas police."

"The worst I got was some guy told me I cost him $20,000," says Beebe.

"Probably the guy that sent me the hot dog," says Lett.

All those 9-7 office-pool-square owners who wrote to him, Lett noticed, tended to think alike. "They all sent me the squares," he says. "It was like they felt I needed to sec them, like it was their receipt or something. One guy told me that thanks to me, he lost the money he was going to use to have a backyard pool put in for his kids. Another guy told me I cost him the $150 he was going to use to take his family on vacation. I'm thinking. Where were you going to take them—the movies?"

The tape winds down. An NBC camera finds Lett smiling on the sideline, but the smile is forced.

After the game his teammates celebrated, but Lett locked himself in his hotel room. When he got home, he wouldn't pick up his phone for two weeks. Big Cat was scared for his job. Ridiculous? Consider that against the Bears on Dec. 27, Cowboy tailback Curvin Richards fumbled twice. Johnson summoned Richards to his office the next day and cut him. Merry Christmas to you, too, Coach. Lett's teammates had to persuade him to attend the victory parade thrown by the city of Dallas.

Johnson, in his mercy, spared Lett...this time. Some time after the Super Bowl, Johnson playfully told reporters, "Leon is extremely fortunate it was the last game of the season and we won, so I won't cut him."