The Greatest Raider Play Ever:  Plunkett to Branch for 99 Yards

There have been only 13 touchdown passes of 99 yards in NFL History, and fans of Raider Nation remember one in particular.

The Los Angeles Raiders were playing the Washington Redskins at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium on Oct. 2, 1983, and as you might expect it was an epic game with the Raiders coming in at 4-0, while the Redskins were 3-1 after having won Super Bowl XVII the previous season.

Early in the second quarter, the Redskins held a 10-0 lead and had the Raiders pushed back on their own one-yard line before lightning struck in the form of strong-armed quarterback Jim Plunkett and speedy wide receiver Cliff Branch.

Plunkett dropped back into end zone behind impeccable protection from his offensive line and spotted breaking free on a streak down the left sidelined. Plunk unleashed his pass and Branch caught it on the dead run at the Oakland 35-yard-line.

That was all she wrote, as Branch sprinted away from a desperate but futile attempt to catch him by Redskins safety Buddy Hardeman. Branch had already beaten cornerback Vernon Dean and safety Curtis Jordan, and Hardemann was on contest as Branch actually slowed down before he coasted into the end zone.

There was a reason why Branch slowed down.

"When I first looked up, Cliff was already 8-10 yards past the first guy, so I threw it and he took it the rest of the way,” Plunkett recalled. “I don’t even remember if I got hit. I just saw Cliff running. The cornerback tried to sneak up on him, Cliff went past him and we just threw it.

“At about the (Washington) 30-yard line, Cliff’s hamstring caught,” Plunkett said. “He strained it. They still couldn’t catch him. It was a great play on his part. Earlier in his career, he might drop the easy one. But no that one.”

Said Branch: “There was nobody on their team who was as fast as me. Once, I caught the ball, it was no contest. Even though might hamstring tightened up, there was no way anybody on their team could catch me. It was a touchdown from the time I caught it, and it was great to go 99 yards.”

The thing was, Branch, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016 not long after he passed away suddenly, was 35-years-old at the time he embarrassed the Redskins highly-regarded secondary.

Plunkett completed 16-of-34 passes in the game for 372 yards and four touchdowns in that game, but the Redskins would pull out a 37-35 victory in that game when quarterback Joe Theismann, who passed for 417 yards, threw his third scoring pass of the game to running back Joe Washington from six yards in the final minutes.

However, the Raiders would get their revenge when the routed the Redskins, 38-9, at Tampa Stadium at the end of that season in Super Bowl XVIII at the end of that season.

“We had a rematch with the Redskins in the Super Bowl and I threw another touchdown pass to Cliff, although it wasn’t nearly that long, but it didn’t matter because we dominated from the start to finish of that game.”

Plunkett’s scoring pass to Branch, who caught six passes for 94 yards in the game, gave the Raiders a 14-0 lead in the second quarter and they never looked back.

The other 99-yard passes in NFL history include:

--Frank Filcock to Andy Farkas of the Washington Redskins vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers on Oct. 15, 1939;

--George Izo to Bobby Mitchell of the Redskins vs. the Cleveland Browns on Sept. 15, 1963;

--Karl Sweeten to Pat Studstill of the Detroit Lions vs. the Baltimore Colts on Oct. 16, 1966;

--Sonny Jurgensen to Gerry Allen of the Redskins vs. the Chicago Bears, Sept. 15, 1968;

--Ron Jaworski to Mike Quick of the Philadelphia Eagles vs. the Atlanta Falcons, Nov. 10, 1985;

--Stan Humphries to Tony Marton of the San Diego Chargers vs. the Seattle Seahawks, Sept. 18, 1994;

--Brett Favre to Robert Brooks of the Green Bay Packers vs. the Bears on Sept. 11, 1995;

--Trent Green to Marc Boerigter of the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Chargers on Dec. 22, 2002;

--Jeff Garcia to Andre Davis of the Browns vs. the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 17, 2004;

--Gus Frerotte to Bernard Berrian of the Minnesota Vikings vs. the Bears om Nov. 30, 2008.

--Tom Brady to Wes Welker of the New England Patriots vs. the Miami Dolphins, Sept 12, 2011.

--Eli Manning to Victor Cruz of the New York Giants vs. the New York Jets on Dec. 24, 2011.

The only 99-yard touchdown runs in NFL history were by Tony Dorsett of the Dallas Cowboys against the Minnesota Vikings on Jan. 3, 1993, which was matched by Derrick Henry of the Tennessee Titans against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Dec. 6, 2018.

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