Kyler Murray’s desperation heave to wideout DeAndre Hopkins in the Arizona Cardinals’ instant-classic comeback over Buffalo on Sunday is understandably the talk of the league. Within hours, the miraculous 43-yard throw-and-game-winning catch already had a nickname; it had been dubbed “The Hail Murray.”

Clever, to be sure. But it wouldn’t exist if there weren’t already a universally-recognized play that served as the first Hail Mary. The most iconic moment in Dallas Cowboys history is also one of the most famous moments in NFL history, spawning terminology that has even transcended football to become an accepted part of the English language in every walk of life.

That the latest version of the play is stirring up memories of the original as the 2020 Cowboys prepare for a road game against the Vikings is just too delicious for words. Expect the heroics of Murray and Hopkins to resurrect even more stories this week of how Roger Staubach and Drew Pearson did it first, forty-five years ago.

The year was 1975.  Dallas had finished the season with a 10-4 mark, good enough for to earn the NFC’s lone wild card berth in the postseason. They traveled to frigid Minnesota for a divisional-round date with the top-seeded Vikings just three days after Christmas.

Down 14-10 with under two minutes to play, Staubach and the Cowboys offense began their last-chance drive deep in their own territory. In a heartbeat, it seemed, Dallas was facing 4th-and-16 from their own 25.

Staubach found Pearson for a sideline catch that gained 25 yards. It earned the Cowboys a new set of downs… and earned Pearson a kick in the side from a Minnesota security guard who was standing near where Pearson landed.

With the next first-down play, Staubach’s pass to Pearson fell incomplete. Second down. Thirty-two seconds left. No timeouts. Captain Comeback would be looking once again to get the ball to his trusted No. 88. And he would do so by going off-book, making up a schoolyard play from scratch in the huddle.

“So basically, I told everybody, ‘Go block, this will be pretty simple,'” Staubach would later recall. “‘And Drew, go deep, run an in-route, and I’ll look the free safety off.'”

Using the shotgun formation- newly-introduced to the league that same year by Cowboys coach Tom Landry- Staubach had a precious extra second or two to set up for a long throw. As promised, he looked off future Hall of Fame safety Paul Krause and pumped to his left to sell it.

Coming back right, Staubach unloaded from about his own 41. The wobbly ball was within Pearson’s reach about five yards away from the goal line as he jockeyed for position against Vikings cornerback Nate Wright.

“But the ball was underthrown,” Pearson said. “So I see that and then I use the swim move, right? To get the inside position. Use my outside arm and bring it in, and while doing that, there was contact on Nate. And with that contact, he fell down. No, there’s no flag. And the ball hit my hands and slithered through my hands and stuck between my elbow and hip.”

There was, as Pearson points out, no flag. Whether there should have been has been the source of passionate debate for decades. The Vikings were sure of it, pointing and gesturing toward officials. Their fans screamed for it. Pearson himself looked for a flag as he trotted into the end zone.

“It’s hard to say,” Pearson told the Star-Tribune back in the aftermath of the game. “I thought I might have gotten pass interference. It could have gone either way.”

“I had a clear view,” said Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton. “The man pushed his arm down and pushed Nate down. It definitely should have been offensive pass interference.” (In a bizarre twist, Tarkenton’s 63-year-old father suffered a heart attack and died while watching the game’s third quarter at his home; he never saw the stunning conclusion.)

Watching the play in slow-motion, there is a blur of color at Pearson’s feet. Turns out, incredibly, it was an orange. The Super Bowl that season was set to be played at Miami’s Orange Bowl, and Minnesota fans were so sure that their team would be headed there that they brought store-brought oranges with them to celebrate. A fan had fired his fruit from the stands onto the field as the play unfolded.

Bedlam ensued as the touchdown was signaled. Staubach hadn’t even seen the improbable completion; he was lying on the turf after being hit and knew Pearson had caught it only by the stunned hush from the crowd. Pearson heaved the ball toward the scoreboard in celebration. Minnesota fans began pelting the field with everything they could throw; the official who had not called a push-off on Pearson was hit with a whiskey bottle and knocked cold. Players and coaches from both teams ducked into the tunnel hurriedly after the game’s final 24 seconds ticked off.

In the locker room afterward, Staubach was asked about the dramatic play.

“I was a Catholic kid from Cincinnati,” Staubach explained, “and they asked me, ‘What were you thinking about when you threw the ball?’ And I said, ‘When I closed my eyes, I said a Hail Mary.'”

Some sources cite Notre Dame’s Four Horsemen of the 1930s as first using the phrase in football. There’s also evidence that Staubach himself used it to describe a desperation pass he completed against Michigan while playing at Navy… in 1963. Before then, a long, last-gasp pass was often generically referred to as a ‘bomb’ or an ‘alley-oop.’ But from that December day in Minnesota on, it would always be called a Hail Mary.

After the 17-14 playoff win over the Vikings, the Cowboys went on to top the Rams 37-7 the following week. They came up short in Super Bowl X versus the Steelers, but the Hail Mary took on a life of its own and has since become a common tactic for every team needing a last-second miracle and is a play that teams regularly practice.

The original play itself- now 45 years old- still surfaces in dealings between the Cowboys’ and Vikings’ bases.

Staubach has said he was booed at a Minneapolis luncheon as recently as 2018, during the run-up to that city’s Super Bowl hosting stint. Pearson has told the story of how he couldn’t get a taxicab in the Twin Cities years later and was left on the side of the road once his identity was confirmed. And remember the sideline security guard who kicked Pearson two plays prior to the Hail Mary catch? That guy had his own trading cards made and earned a tidy sum for years at autograph sessions in Minnesota. Once he was seated at the same table at Pearson and drew just as many fans.

“This guy has been making a living out of that, the guy who kicked Drew Pearson two plays before the Hail Mary,” Pearson said. “And he gave me his number, and said, ‘Keep in touch.’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.'”

And the ball that Pearson launched in celebration after his improbable score? There were no stands in that end of Metropolitan Stadium; Pearson’s heave landed in the parking lot and was never recovered. Incredibly, the ball from one of the most famous plays in NFL history could well be lost forever, buried in a box full of old forgotten junk in some dusty Minnesota attic.

At Cowboys team headquarters, though, proof of the Hail Mary still occupies prime real estate. Video of the iconic play was broken down into a series of 36 giant freeze-frame images that now adorn one of the main staircases inside The Star in Frisco. It’s literally a larger-than-life reminder of how in football, despite all the athleticism, all the preparation, all the exacting skill and finely-tuned choreography… sometimes, it still comes down to a bit of divine intervention.

“The Hail Mary became bigger than what actually transpired there on that day,” the team’s chief branding officer Charlotte Jones Anderson has said. “On that day it was important, but, wow, did it become significant in the world of sports, in the world of football, but certainly for us.”

In fact, the name coined that day for a final act of hopeful desperation now transcends football.

“Now it’s really used for everything,” Staubach has said. “If you’ve got a problem or something, you need a Hail Mary.”

The play comes up every time the Cowboys and Vikings play one another. Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins just made sure it will get a little extra airtime this week.