I can definitely recall reading immediately after the game that Shula was offered use of the John Deere as well, but refused. He was sure that the league would overturn the result if the Patriots won. After all, the Dolphins were NFL royalty at the time, and the Patriots were anything but that. Miami drove deep into New England territory on the ensuing drive, but was intercepted in the final minute.
In an excerpt below from a book by John Hannah, he states that Miami later attempted a field goal, which was no good. But when I read play-by-play descriptions of the game, I don't see that FG attempt happening - only the pick. Miami did attempt a 45-yard field goal which was no good, but that was back in the third quarter.
An excerpt from 'Offensive Conduct: My Life on the Line" by John Hannah.
www.wbur.org
In the days preceding that December 12, 1982 game, it had rained almost non-stop. It hadn’t snowed yet because the temperatures hovered just above freezing, but still the rain was as cold and dank as it could be, and the frigid Boston air made it feel like a meat locker even without snow on the ground. There had been so much rain in the days before the game, the field at Schaefer Stadium was completely saturated.
The weather forecasters were calling for snow on gameday, but we did not know how much or hard it was actually going to snow. Frankly I think the intensity of the snowstorm actually caught everybody off guard, and even though it was coming down in huge, blinding sheets of white, the game kicked off as usual. When it became apparent it was going to accumulate heavily on the playing field, head coaches Ron Meyer (Patriots) and Don Shula (Dolphins) met and agreed to a special game rule that would allow the use of a small snowplow to come onto the field and clear the yard markers in order to give the players a general point of reference. Quickly the Patriots' maintenance crew rigged up a small John Deere lawn tractor with a spinning brush attachment normally used for clearing leaves off the field in the fall and trash debris from the stadium after home games. It saw repeated service as a snowplow to clear those yardage markers all through the game. . . .
Matt Cavanaugh had already done his best to sweep a clean spot for the placement of his hands, but to my utter amazement, just as the snowplow driver reached nearly the center of the line he cut the ersatz snowplow left and brushed a clear swath of snow right where our holder, Matt Cavanaugh, was already getting down on one knee to hold for John Smith’s field goal attempt. This part of the story is very misconstrued. In reality the tractor had not swept the exact spot where the ball was going to be placed. Instead the driver had actually thrown a whole bunch more loose snow over the spot Cav had cleared. So Cav and Smith had to quickly get down and sweep the spot clear with their hands again just in the nick of time. Bill Lenkaitis snapped the ball to Cav, who caught it and set it down perfectly for Smith, a lefty, to come sweeping in for the kick. Even in the driving snow, the kick was good and the Patriots went up 3–0.
. . . In all fairness the Dolphins were also offered the use of the snowplow by the head referee to clear the field for their kick, but with complete indignation and certainty the game would be nullified for the unfair use of it by the Patriots, Coach Shula adamantly refused to stoop to such tactics. . .
Shula appealed vehemently to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, who ultimately decided that since there was no specific rule prohibiting the clearing of a snow-obscured field for a field goal kick, he ruled the win would stand. Shula later was said to have called it the biggest event of overt cheating he had ever witnessed in professional football. If you look closely at the game films of that play, however, you’ll see exactly what I'm talking about. The snowplow didn't help us. It made the kick more difficult.
Looks to me that the Dolphins were playing to win, passing on 2nd-and-9 and 3rd-and-9 from the 19-yard line rather than setting up for a game-tying field goal.
Box Scores with full play-by-play:
Media Archive Suite
patriots.1rmg.com
Miami Dolphins 0 at New England Patriots 3 on December 12th, 1982 - Full team and player stats and box score
www.pro-football-reference.com
