(Strahan records his record-setting sack. Photo by AP Photos)

1/06/1951 - Royals-Olympians goes six

In the infancy years of the NBA, the Indianapolis Olympians beat the Rochester Royals, 75-73, in six overtimes -- still the longest game in NBA history. You can tell this game occurred in the pre-shot clock era because of the score. A 78-minute game with both teams scoring less than a point a minute... that must have been... fun to watch...

Only once has this record been seriously challenged -- in 1989, the Seattle SuperSonics and Milwaukee Bucks played a five-overtime game; the final score was more appropriate: 155-154. Generally, triple overtime games in the NBA are about as common as a no-hitter in baseball. Seeing a quadruple overtime game is like finding plutonium in your backyard, and any number of overtimes beyond that is more or less unheard of.

1/06/2002 - Strahan's record comes on Favre fall

On the final day of the year, Michael Strahan records a sack in a game against the Green Bay Packers. For Strahan, it was sack No. 22.5 on the season, moving him past Mark Gastineau for the single-season record. While Strahan was lauded for his impressive record, and was later named the Defensive Player of the Year, many took umbridge with the way the record was set.

With just under three minutes left in the fourth quarter, Strahan had run at Packers quarterback Brett Favre. As Favre shifted back in the pocket, he fell on the ground to avoid impact, allowing Strahan to lightly wrap him up.

"He went down," Strahan said. "I hopped on him. What else was I supposed to do?"

Although Favre, Strahan and even Gastineau said they had no problem with the way it went down, everyone else appeared to be outraged. Favre and Strahan were good friends, and with the Packers' 35-24 win already secured, many people felt that Favre had taken a dive and allowed him to tie him up. Favre steadfastly denied it, though in the eyes of sports fans, it was an inescapable fact.

"Favre is incredulous that the entire Western world is down on him for the Strahan sack," Sports Illustrated's Peter King wrote. "I explain why -- that people don't like it when records are manipulated, and when Favre changed a play in garbage time so he could roll out toward Strahan's side, without the rest of the team knowing he was going to do it, and dove right at the feet of the onrushing Strahan ... well, it looked precisely like nice-guy Favre was handing the record sack to Strahan, his buddy."

1/06/2007 - Romo fumbles the snap

The Dallas Cowboys lose a wildcard playoff game when rookie quarterback Tony Romo fumbles the snap on a potential game-winning field goal.

To read more about this story, click here for an in-depth Inhistoric article:

Further reading:

Favre was not the first to grant special favor [New York Times]