More on one of George Blanda's spectacular comebacks:

Raiders vs. Browns
November 8, 1970
Oakland 23, Cleveland 20

The same day that Tom Dempsey kicked his record-setting 63-yard field goal, Oakland's 43-year-old George Blanda was in the midst of a magical five-game streak in which he produced a victory or a tie either from his kicking or his play at quarterback. On November 8, his 52-yard field goal gave the Raiders a 23-20 victory over the Cleveland Browns.

Two weeks before, Blanda relieved Daryle Lamonica at quarterback with the score tied 7-7 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and went on to engineer a 31-14 victory. A week later against the Raiders' archrivals, the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamonica was back at quarterback, but, in the final seconds of the game, Blanda kicked a 48-yard field goal with 3 seconds to play that gave the Raiders a 17-14 victory.

Against the Browns, he again relieved an injured Lamonica early in the fourth quarter with Oakland trailing 17-13. Cleveland's Don Cockroft kicked a field goal to increase the Browns' lead to 7 points with 4:10 left in the game.

Oakland began its next drive from its 30-yard line, and Blanda completed a 22-yard pass to Warren Wells. Three plays later, on fourth-and-16 with 1:55 to play, he scrambled and tossed a 17-yard pass to Fred Biletnikoff for a first down. From Cleveland's 17-yard line, he threw a low strike to Wells in the end zone, then kicked the extra point to tie the score at 20-20. There still was 1:34 to play.

After the kickoff, the Raiders' Kent McCloughan intercepted Bill Nelsen's pass for tight end Milt Morin and returned it to Cleveland's 49-yard line with 34 seconds left. On third-and-20, Blanda threw an incomplete pass. But the Raiders were whistled for an illegal procedure penalty, and, astonishingly, the Browns accepted it. So instead of facing a fourth-and-20 at Cleveland's 49-yard line, Oakland had a third-and-25 at its 46-yard line.

"They weren't going to let us throw to get out of bounds," Blanda explained later, "but Hewritt [Dixon] kept saying, 'Give it to me, give it to me, I can get out'." So Blanda did, hitting him with a 9-yard pass. Dixon got out of bounds with 7 seconds to play.

All Blanda could do at that point was try a 52-yard field goal. "We weren't on the temporary sod they had laid over the infield, so I had a good spot," Blanda said. His kick was good, giving Oakland a 23-20 victory.

Blanda's odyssey wasn't finished. The following week, he came off the bench with Oakland trailing the Denver Broncos 19-17. In a minute-and-a-half, he led a drive that ended with him throwing the winning touchdown pass to Biletnikoff. A week after that, he finished his astounding run when, with 7 seconds to play, he kicked a 19-yard field goal that gave Oakland a 20-17 victory over the San Diego Chargers.

"Anybody could have kicked that field goal," Blanda said later. "It kind of embarrassed me that everyone made such a fuss about it. Pressure? Nah. By then the pressure was on the other team."

Source: NFL.com