Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

A coach, begging for a miracle, pleading with his middle linebacker, "Gary, we gotta get the ball out, we GOTTA get the ball out"; a dream season, dangling on life support one moment, impossibly revived the next; a football, crashing into the crown of a helmet, floating ... up ... up ... up into the air; a fumble, scooped up by a player with a one-inch deep gash and three stitches in his right leg who had been stabbed with a steak knife 22 hours earlier by his wife in the bedroom of their home.

That miracle, tripped up by 240 pounds of quarterback. An upset saved. A legend born. A Super Bowl lost.

No other play in the Indianapolis Colts’ 32 seasons in this city – not Aaron Bailey’s dropped Hail Mary, not Hank Baskett’s botched onside kick recovery, not Tracy Porter’s Super Bowl-sealing interception – incites more ire, more agony, more gut-wrenching what-ifs than the one that unfolded on a first-and-goal from the 2-yard line with 80 seconds left in a divisional playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in January 2006. No, the game wasn’t decided by those 19 seconds. But it was defined by them. So was one player’s career.

You know: The Nick Harper Play.

It has been a decade now. Ten years since the most talented Colts squad of the Peyton Manning era – “our best team by far,” then-coach Tony Dungy and several players contend to this day – busted out of the playoffs, crumbling 21-18 to a Steelers team they’d dismantled by 19 points just six weeks prior. Ten years since Gary Brackett’s helmet sprung the football from Jerome Bettis’ grasp, 10 years since Harper picked up the fumble and darted for the end zone, the eruption of the RCA Dome crowd rising with every yard he covered, louder and louder and louder, the impossible suddenly possible, a dying season given second life.

Ten years since Harper inexplicably cut back toward the middle of the field.

Ten years since Ben Roethlisberger swiped at his knees and saved the Steelers’ season.

Ten years since Mike Vanderjagt missed that kick by a mile.

“The toughest loss of all those years to swallow, even tougher than the Super Bowl loss to the Saints,” says the architect of that Colts era, former team President Bill Polian. “Of all the guys on the field that day to pick up the football, it’s the one who’s basically playing on one leg. Why him?”

Ten years later, the wound still stings. The regret still burns. The questions still linger.

What actually happened in the bedroom of the Harpers' home the day before? What if someone else had picked up that fumble? What if Harper hadn’t cut back toward the middle of the field?

“No doubt in my mind, if he goes up the sideline, we win the Super Bowl that year,” Brackett says. “And that would have been the best play of my career. Instead...”

Instead they’re left to wonder, to shake their heads in regret, to seethe. Ten years after the most devastating defeat of their Indianapolis era, a retracing of the The Play That Cost the Colts a Super Bowl:

This story includes interviews conducted both then and now. Everyone below is identified by their title on the day of the game, Jan. 15, 2006:

The Season

It was supposed to be The Year. It sure felt like The Year. The Colts, hardened by bitter playoff losses in New England the previous two Januarys, exploded in the fall of 2005. They won their first 13 games by an average of 16 points, overwhelming teams with an offense drenched in talent – Manning, Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark all in their prime – and a defense that had finally caught up. “A juggernaut,” Robert Mathis calls them.

But before the Colts could commence what seemed an inevitable march to the Super Bowl in Detroit, tragedy rocked the franchise. James Dungy, the 18-year-old son of the Colts’ coach, committed suicide inside his Tampa-area apartment three days before Christmas. Team owner Jim Irsay flew the entire team – players, coaches, wives – down to the funeral. A pall engulfed the team. The Colts were heartbroken.

They lost two straight late in the year but rallied to win in Week 17, Dungy’s emotional return, to finish 14-2. The focus quickly shifted to the playoffs, where the Colts were the unquestioned favorites. This was the year they were supposed to deliver Indianapolis its long-awaited championship.

The first step: After a bye week, handle the underdog, sixth-seeded Steelers, a team they’d pasted 26-7 in late November at the RCA Dome. The Colts entered cocky and confident. They thought the Steelers would roll over. They were wrong.

Bill Polian, team president: To be honest, I still think our teams in ’04 and ’05 were a smidge better than the team that won the Super Bowl the next year. But oftentimes the best team doesn’t win.

Robert Mathis, defensive end: That ’05 team was the best team I’ve ever been a part of. Period. Best offense. Best defense. (Colts finished second in the NFL in both categories that year.) We were a juggernaut, no way around it.

Cato June, linebacker: We felt unstoppable. We said, "Here come the Steelers, we’re going to roll again." Going into that game, in our minds, they didn’t have a chance. They were no different than the team we’d beaten before.

Tony Dungy, coach: No doubt if we played that Pittsburgh team 10 times, in my mind, we’d win at least seven of them.

Mathis: I’d say nine or 10.

Bob Lamey, Colts radio broadcaster: It came too easy in ’05. We were beating the s--- out of everybody.

Gary Brackett, linebacker: Peyton is a QB based off so much rhythm, game rhythm. When you don’t play late in the year, then rest the first week of the playoffs, it throws everything off. It takes him a little while to get his rhythm back. Still, we thought it would be like the first game with (the Steelers). Everyone was saying the Colts’ "D" is small, that they were going to run it over us with Bettis. Instead they came out throwing.

Exactly. The Steelers, led by a fearless second-year quarterback named Ben Roethlisberger, bolted in front with a 10-play, 84-yard dissection of a confused Colts pass defense. The drive was capped with a Roethlisberger touchdown pass to Antwaan Randle El.

“The Steelers have come to play, and the Colts are trying to figure out what the heck is going on,” Lamey gruffed on the air.

“We slept through the first half,” Polian remembers.

It got worse before it got better. Manning and the Colts’ vaunted offense was in disarray, converting one of six third downs in the first half and mustering just three points (they averaged more than 27 a game during the regular season). Late in the third quarter, the Steelers were up 21-3. Indy’s dream season was dying. The dome was silent.

But the Colts finally rose from their slumber. Manning hit Clark for a 50-yard touchdown. On their next drive, after an interception by Steelers safety Troy Polamalu was incorrectly overturned – the NFL a day later conceded the referees got it wrong – James plowed into the end zone from 3 yards out. The deficit was down to three points, 21-18. The Colts had life. A disastrous upset, it seemed, would be avoided.

Then the comeback stalled. Manning was sacked twice in three plays deep in his own territory – “Let’s just say we had some problems in protection,” he’d famously quip after the game – and the Steelers took over deep in Colts territory, smelling the kill. They had a first-and-goal from the Colts’ 2-yard line with 1:20 left. Jerome Bettis, the bruising running back playing his final NFL season, entered the game intent to end it. To that point, he’d carried the football 136 times that year. He hadn’t fumbled once.

Then things really got crazy.

The Incident

While Bettis took the handoff from Roethlisberger, Daniell Harper sat in the Hamilton County Jail, held without bond and preliminarily charged with battery and criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon. The weapon? A large, straight-bladed fillet knife she’d stabbed her husband with the previous afternoon.

While the details of that afternoon remain cloudy, what is certain: Nick and Daniell Harper’s marriage, at that point, was a rocky one. She’would later tell police they were undergoing counseling. Six months before the incident in January, the Colts’ fifth-year cornerback had spent a weekend in jail, charged with hitting his wife in the face. (The case was eventually dismissed.) Eleven months after the stabbing, in December 2006, Daniell Harper requested court-ordered protection from a 25-year-old Indianapolis woman who said she had been Nick Harper’s mistress for three years. The woman was arrested outside the family’s home after Nick Harper refused to allow her inside.

Whatever Nick and Daniell Harper were arguing about on the afternoon of Jan. 14, 2006 – 24 hours before the Colts’ playoff opener – they did so in the bedroom of their Carmel home, while Nick lay in bed. All three of their young children were in the house at the time. Daniell, angry that her husband would not speak to her, retreated to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, according to court documents. She returned to the bedroom, waving the knife “in a back-and-forth slicing-type motion with her arms.”

The wound, just above Nick Harper’s right knee, cut an inch deep. He called 911.

When police arrived, both would describe the stabbing as “an accident.” In a sworn statement obtained by IndyStar, Hamilton County Sheriff Sgt. Kevin Fessell wrote: “The accused (Daniell) stated that at some point the victim leaned back in the bed and his knee came up as she was swinging the knife down, and it struck the victim in the right knee.”

Hamilton County sheriff Doug Carter wasn’t buying it.

“This was not an accident,” he said at the time. Carter believed the two had been involved in a fight that escalated.

Daniell Harper was arrested at 3:27 p.m. and booked into jail between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. Nick was rushed to St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital, where he received three stitches.

Meanwhile, the Colts gathered in a downtown hotel to prepare for the following afternoon’s kickoff. That’s when they realized one of their starting cornerbacks was missing.

Clyde Christensen, wide receivers coach: The distraction came at the hotel. It started leaking around that there had been a problem at the house. No one knew how serious it was, whether it was minor or if it was major. As a coach, that’s the last thing you want, a bunch of guys sitting in the corner talking about it.

June: We had no clue what was going on. There were rumors of a car accident. People just didn’t miss. It just didn’t happen. That’s not the type of team we were. And the night before a playoff game?

Dungy: When he did get to the hotel, Nick told us what happened. He explained his side of it to me. He said he could play, so we went forward. We would see how long he could play and what shape he was in. A strange, strange night for sure.

Polian: We got bits and pieces of what had gone on, and as I recall, I talked to Nick, Tony did, and his position was, "I want to play." He told us what happened. We said, "Do the best you can." He was certainly less than 90 percent. Probably more like 65 percent. He had a pretty good gash in his thigh, if I remember.

The Play

Harper started and played the entire game. But with 80 seconds left and the Steelers on the 2-yard line, the Colts’ fate appeared sealed. They needed a miracle. Brackett got the missive from Dungy on the sideline: “Gary, we gotta get the ball out, we GOTTA get the ball out.” When the Colts' defensive captain ran into the huddle and studied his teammates, he saw defeat etched across their faces.

So demoralized was one Colt – Nick Harper – that he didn’t even fasten his chinstrap until just before the Steelers lined up to snap the ball. Everyone knew they were going to Bettis. Everyone knew it was over.

Everyone except for one player: Gary Brackett.

Ken Whisenhunt, Steelers offensive coordinator: The play was Jerome’s favorite play. We talked about kneeling on the ball, but at that point we decided to push it in because Jerome doesn’t fumble.

Bill Cowher, Steelers head coach: We score and the game’s over. And you certainly don’t question that.

Jerome Bettis, Steelers running back: We got the ball on the (2-yard line), the goal-line offense goes in and I’m like, "Here we go." That was one of my strengths, to be a closer, to close the games out.

Brackett: The thing is, ever since I played for Greg Schiano at Rutgers, I was a 60-minutes-of-football guy. In college, we were the team that was trying to get the football loose and get one more possession and get a Hail Mary. My mentality was, "I’m gonna play this until it’s over." Coach is still coaching, telling me we had to force a fumble or that’s it. Season’s over.

So I run into the huddle and I’m pissed off. That was our best season by far. I’m just pissed we’re in this situation. All the defensive linemen are standing there with their heads down. So I just started screaming, "HEY, WHO CAN MAKE A PLAY? WHO CAN MAKE A PLAY? I CAN! I CAN!" They’re all like, "Whatever." So I’m sitting there in my stance before they snap it and I’m like, "Damn, I gotta make a play."

Back then, it wasn’t hit the football, it was bite the ball, meaning you put your helmet straight on the ball. Bettis was a big dude. I told myself I had to bite the ball. So I took out the lineman, shot the gap and bit the ball. It was perfect. I looked up and the ball was just floating in the air, like it was in slow motion.

Bettis: All of a sudden, BOOM! And I see it and I’m like, "Noooooooo!"

June: It was like time stopped. I saw the ball up in the air and I said, "OK, it’s hero time."

Mathis: The slowest play I’ve ever seen. When I saw our cornerback pick it up, I said, "Oh my God, oh my God."

Lamey: (Before the snap) you know we’re going to lose, you know they’re going to score ... then all of a sudden ... oh my God, we’ve got the ball! What the hell?

Bettis: As it popped out, I could kind of see it, then I lost it for a second. I didn’t know where it was. Next thing you know, I look up and see a guy running. It was the sickest feeling in the world.

Of the 11 Colts defensive players on the field, it was Harper, one-inch gash and three stitches just above his right knee, who scooped up the football at the 7-yard line and took off. The dome erupted. The improbable had happened. Brackett’s hit had given the Colts life.

Lamey’s voice on the radio jolts from a dejected drone to a lively screech: “The handoff is to Jerome Bettis ... THE BUS FUMBLED THE BALL AND NICK HARPER WITH A BAD LEG PICKED IT UP! THE COLTS HAVE A CHANCE WITH A MINUTE-NINE TO GO!”

Brackett: Nick was an extremely hard worker, a technician, a smart player. But his one bad practice habit was he didn’t always finish plays. Every time we got an interception or a turnover on defense, we would score with it. It would suck. You’d be at the 20-yard-line, you’d have to pick the football up and run 80 yards. The coaches would hate it because they’d have to sub another player in while you catch your breath. Some guys just wouldn’t do it. Nick wouldn’t do it. Before long, it was just second nature.

Dungy: We talked about it a lot in practice. Every single turnover, you head straight to the sideline and finish the play.

Christensen: Coach Dungy was all about fundamentals. He’d always tell the players, "All you have to do is what you’re coached to do." Taking turnovers up the sideline was one of those things.

June: Coach was really big on getting to the sideline. You get a turnover, you get to the sideline, period. You have such a better chance of running it back if you do that. If you didn’t do it in practice, coach Dungy would raise his voice a little bit, "Get to the sideline, get to the sideline."

Polian: Our basic return philosophy was after an interception, you head to the outside. For whatever reason, I’m sure because the ball just popped into his hands, he reacted instinctually. I’m sure he would have had more ability to explode, but he was basically playing on one leg. And there you have it.

As Harper tore across the empty turf, the crowd roared. Maybe this team wasn’t done just yet. Maybe their destiny, all along, was a championship.

Only one Steeler had a legitimate shot to slow him down: the quarterback.

Mathis: Old No. 7. He was a young pup back then.

Nick Harper, cornerback: It was right at my feet ... I knew immediately what I was going to do. I was thinking one thing: There’s no one on this field who is fast enough to catch me.

Dungy: At that point, you think we’re going to win the game.

June: In my mind, the game’s over. It’s going to be one of the greatest plays of all time.

In one play, the Steelers’ odds of winning, according to ESPN Stats and Information, sink from 99.5 percent before the fumble to 5.7 percent after it.

Harper runs untouched for 28 yards. He sneaks two glances behind him, surveying those in pursuit. Roethlisberger, 6-5 and 240 pounds, is an agile quarterback at this stage of his career but nothing compared to Harper, a fleet-footed, 180-pound defensive back. Big Ben is the Steelers’ only hope.

At the 35-yard line, Harper makes a crucial mistake: He cuts back inside. Roethlisberger tumbles backwards. As Harper tries to slip past his right shoulder, the quarterback sticks his arm out in desperation. He clips Harper just above his right knee – yes, that right knee. Roethlisberger holds on tight enough to make sure Harper doesn’t make it any further.

“A hell of a tackle,” Brackett calls it today.

Harper falls to the turf at the 42.

Harper: He was falling down, so I didn’t expect him to reach out and trip me. But that’s exactly what happened. Most quarterbacks are so ungraceful that they don’t even touch you. There was a one-in-a-million chance of him making that tackle. I’ve seen (the play) a lot, too many to even say. He made a good play. But I made a mistake. When you get the ball in your hands, you should (run to) the outside. I didn’t.

Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers quarterback: I remember thinking to myself, that can’t be Jerome’s last play ... this can’t be the lasting memory of him. My next thought was to find a way to get this guy on the ground.

Dungy: I don’t know what would’ve happened if he went up the sideline. Maybe he was concerned with his leg?

Marlin Jackson, cornerback: You get stabbed in your quad muscle, and running is a key part of your position. Maybe it slowed him down. All I know is if he hit the sideline, he would’ve scored. It could’ve been one of the most memorable plays in history.

Lamey: The emotions were despair to ecstasy to despair.

June: Why didn’t he just keep running? Why did he cut it back? Still, there was no doubt in my mind at this point. No doubt. We had Peyton. Everything was going in our favor. There wasn’t a person in the stadium except for Steelers fans who believed they were going to win. And half of them didn’t even believe.

Polian: It was beyond bizarre. For a defense loaded in speed, Big Ben is able to catch the guy and prevent the touchdown. Any other player on the field picks that up, it might be different. But sometimes, when you’re snake-bitten, you’re snake-bitten.

Mathis: (Shaking head) You just can’t make this stuff up.

The Kick

But it’s not over. Not even close. Manning and the offense trot back on the field. He hits Wayne for 22 yards. The crowd roars. He hits Harrison for 8. The crowd roars again. In a matter of 41 seconds, the Colts had risen from their deathbed – playing defense on their own 2-yard line – to seize control. They’d marched all the way down to the Steelers’ 28. They were going to pull off the stunner, save the season, avoid the disaster.

Turns out, they wouldn’t gain another yard.

Manning gets greedy. He throws deep to Wayne in the end zone. Wayne gets his hands on the ball before Steelers defensive back Bryant McFadden breaks up the pass at the last second. Oh ... so ... close. On second down, Manning again tries for Wayne. Incomplete. Pittsburgh calls a timeout. With 21 seconds left, Mike Vanderjagt, the most accurate kicker in NFL history and a man who’d missed just once in the dome all season, enters the game to attempt a field goal from 46 yards. If he makes it, the game goes to overtime.

“I made everything all day, in practice and pregame,” Vanderjagt would say later. “I made everything all week. I wasn’t worried about the kick at all.”

He should’ve been.

June: He’s a 98-percent kicker, and it’s the worst kick I’ve ever seen. Then you start to think, did he do that on purpose?

Polian: He tried to over-kick it. He just snap-hooked it. Simple as that. His leg was bothering him and he overcooked it.

The kick is the worst of Vanderjagt’s career. It never has a chance, sailing so far right it nearly escapes the view of the television cameras.

“He missed it badly,” Lamey sighs on the air. “Colts are going to lose.”

“He missed it,” Manning mouths to no one in particular on the sideline, his disgust evident.

Bettis raises his hands in the air, a mix of celebration and relief. Vanderjagt’s miss has nullified his fumble as the game’s biggest gaffe. The kicker slams his helmet to the ground in frustration – earning a meaningless unsportsmanlike penalty. Roethlisberger kneels three times. The clock expires. Final: Steelers 21, Colts 18. The dream season is dead.

In the locker room after the game, the Colts voice their frustrations, their disbelief, their regret.

Edgerrin James, running back: Everything was laid out for us. We just didn’t get it done. We folded, I guess. This is one of those things you’re going to regret.

Manning: There’s no question we were in a good position with home field and having the bye. At this point, it is hard to swallow.

Ryan Diem, tackle: I don’t think it could get any worse than this, the way I feel right now. This is the low point.

Bob Sanders, safety: It’s tough for everybody to believe. It’s tough for us to believe, but it happens.

Vanderjagt: I’m somewhat in shock that I’m standing here after a missed field goal.

The Aftermath

A week later the Steelers breezed past the Broncos to advance to the Super Bowl. There, they topped Seattle 21-10 for the franchise’s fifth world championship. The Colts, fueled by the bitter disappointment of that day, ran off four straight postseason victories in 2007 to claim the city’s first – and still only – Super Bowl.

Still, 10 years later, the pain persists. Harper’s career, one that spanned six years with the Colts – including the following year’s Super Bowl – is defined by one play, by those 19 fateful seconds, by the fumble he scooped up with a one-inch gash and three stitches in his leg.

Mostly, by the what-ifs.

What if he goes to the sideline? Do the Colts win two straight Super Bowls?

It’s possible. Perhaps even likely. If the Colts had escaped against the Steelers, they would’ve hosted the AFC Championship Game a week later against Denver, a team they’d pummeled by a combined 56 points in playoff games the previous two years. Win that and they’d have been heavy favorites against Seattle in the Super Bowl, which was just up the road in Detroit. What might have been ...

Brackett: No doubt in my mind, if he goes up the sideline, we win the Super Bowl that year. We would’ve destroyed Seattle.

June: We were one of the greatest teams ever that didn’t win it. I’ll always believe that. No question in my mind we win the Super Bowl if we beat Pittsburgh. We would’ve put 50 on Denver.

Dungy: We probably do win it all. You get through that game, and you have Denver coming in, who had struggled in Indianapolis the last two years. We had one bad game from a team that was as dominant a group as I’ve ever been around. But that’s the way football is.

Christensen: We would’ve been really, really hard to beat. We were handling anyone that was coming across our path, except for the Steelers on that one day. Still the most disappointing loss since I’ve been here.

Polian: In a span of about four plays, you saw everything you could see in a football game. But that’s fate. That’s what keeps people coming back. That’s what makes sports so interesting. The Pittsburgh game always sticks with me. That was the toughest one to swallow because I really feel that was our best team.

Mathis: By far the toughest loss of my career. I dare say that loss was worse than the Super Bowl loss to the Saints (in 2010). We thought that team was going to be the greatest team in the history of ... ever. The stars were aligned. The Patriots had been eliminated. We thought we had it in the bag. But that’s why you play the game. Nobody really talked about that game afterwards. I’ve never seen the film. That game is buried. Forever.

Lamey: When I woke up the next day, it was like, "Did that really happen? What time is kickoff?" It all felt like a really bad dream.

June: The Monday after, we still couldn’t believe it. We were cleaning out our lockers, like "We actually lost? There’s no way that happened."

Harper: We know we should’ve won that game. We know we were very capable of beating that team. We just didn’t get it done. They made more plays than we did. (If I could do it again) I wish I would have stayed to the sideline. If I had known (Roethlisberger) was farther away than I thought he was, I would’ve stayed toward the sideline. But for people to remember that play is shocking. For some reason, it’s sticking around.

June: Nick is blamed for everything, and that’s probably not fair.

It’s not. Nick Harper didn’t lose the game for the Colts that day – he just didn’t win it for them. Manning and the offense stumbled, again, under the glare of postseason pressure. The defense was outschemed and outplayed. As for Vanderjagt? That kick was his last in Indianapolis. Four days later he showed up on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and, wearing jeans, drilled a 46-yard field goal on the air. His appearance didn’t sit well with teammates, or management. The Colts signed Adam Vinatieri to replace him in the offseason and haven’t looked back.

Vanderjagt lasted 10 games in Dallas the following year, missing five of his first 18 attempts. His NFL career was over after that. In the spring of 2012, Vanderjagt’s name resurfaced in the news when he was charged with allegedly assaulting a high school student who was chanting, “Wide left! Wide left!” at him in a parking lot near his home in Marco Island, Fla. (A note to the student: It was actually wide right.) According to the police report, Vanderjagt approached the student, grabbed him by the throat and started cursing at him. Eventually, the charges were dropped.

The same went for Daniell Harper, who after stabbing her husband in 2006 – accidentally or not – entered a program for first-time offenders. Her charge of criminal recklessness was dismissed after she committed no crimes, underwent marriage counseling and passed all drug and alcohol test for a year. Nick Harper finished his NFL career with the Tennessee Titans in 2008.

Ten years later, the play endures, if not for those 19 seconds, then for the bizarre circumstances that surrounded them. Steelers fans consider Roethlisberger’s tackle among the greatest plays in their franchise’s storied history. One player, above all, remains most indebted. “Ben, without you making that tackle, I still might be on the doorsteps,” Bettis said in his Hall of Fame induction speech last summer.

In Indianapolis, the Colts’ Super Bowl triumph the following season eased the pain of Jan. 15, 2006. But The Nick Harper Play still haunts. One fateful decision amidst countless ones made over the course of a 60-minute game – cut inside instead of outside – and a decade later, the regret still lingers.

“A shame,” Dungy calls it. “But hey, that’s football. That’s life.”

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.

Note: Repeated attempts to reach Nick Harper for this story were unsuccessful. Additional sources: IndyStar, ESPN, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, NFL Films.