John Riggins knew he needed to get something off his chest after Washington wrapped up the 1982 regular season against the St. Louis Rams. Not wanting to have any regrets, he went into his head coach's office the day after the game.
"Maybe I realized it's like when they say in a wedding, 'Is there anybody who has an objection to this? Step forward or forever hold your peace,'" Riggins said.
Washington was poised for success in the 1982 playoffs. Riggins, though, had been stung before in a similar situation. Flashes of the heartbreaking 1979 loss against Dallas in the last game of the regular season popped into his head.
The NFC title and a playoff berth were on the line in that game. Washington squandered a significant lead late in the contest. Riggins was distraught, thinking, "That was last chance saloon" and his longtime goal of winning a Super Bowl might just not happen for him. He stepped away from the game after '79 in part because of the idea that, even though he'd given so much, the Lombardi trophy may always be out of his reach. Now, three years later, he was back and standing in front of another prime opportunity.
"If I didn't do something, I would always probably go, 'Gee, I wonder if I'd have went in.' So that's why I went and I told [head coach] Joe [Gibbs] to give me the ball. 'I'm the guy.' And I was dead serious at the time. I meant it."
Gibbs responded with something to the effect of "Well that's good to know, John."
"That wasn't what I thought he would say. I thought maybe we'd get into a conversation about it," Riggins said.
Riggins had been used sparingly in the final two weeks of the regular season because of a sore thigh. But there was no pushback from Coach Gibbs, no back-and-forth. Perhaps that was because Gibbs trusted Riggins and had no doubt in his mind either that Riggins was indeed the guy who could help bring this team to the mountain top.
In the first playoff game against Detroit, Washington faced the NFC's top-ranked defense against the rush. Just like he had asked, Riggins got the ball a lot, gaining 119 yards on 25 carries, in the 31-7 win at RFK stadium.
Next up: the Minnesota Vikings in the Divisional Round. Again, Riggins was the go-to weapon on offense, rushing for 185 yards and a touchdown on 37 carries. With the win secured late in the game, Gibbs subbed out the star back, and Riggins, ever the showman, exited the game with some flare.
"He starts walking off. He just had a feeling for what's the right time to do something. And the crowd's cheering like mad and he just stopped, and he took a bow in all four directions," Gibbs remembered with a laugh. "It's just great to see an athlete that has that kind of a feeling for the fans and big games and what it meant. And you could tell he was one of those guys that was going to produce."
When the stage was at its biggest, so often Riggins was at his best. Energy from the crowd was a major reason the Hall of Famer was able to unlock that next level.
"I got goosebumps thinking about it. It's the people up in the stands," he said.
That desire to bring the fans joy converged with an innate ability to meet the moment when the pressure was on. This mixture was just part of his greatness.
"We have to get some psychologist to tell us. I gotta believe some people, and I may be one of them, that when you put them in a certain situation and there's a lot on the line or they perceive there's a lot on the line, their ability to tap into their adrenaline is greater than other people," Riggins said. "As the playoffs went on, I think it just kept feeding into that … I'm not quite sure how to describe it, other than it was something that you wanted and because you'd said, 'Give me the ball,' you want to be good at it, and ultimately, I didn't want to disappoint the people, because you could feel their passion and you wanted to make sure that you gave them what they wanted."
In the NFC Championship against the Dallas Cowboys, Riggins electrified RFK Stadium yet again. He scored twice and ran for 140 yards on the 36 carries. Washington won, 31-17, and the running back was one step closer to his dream of lifting a Lombardi.
The Burgundy & Gold faced Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII. The Dolphins were the favorite, and their dominant defense, nicknamed the "Killer Bees/"Killer Bs" (many defensive starters had last names that started with a B), presented a formidable challenge for Washington. Riggins and the Hogs offensive line were up for it.
"We thought as an offensive line that that we can handle these guys smashmouth, just go at them one-on-one and play hard nose football, and give Riggins the ball, and he can do a lot of damage," said Hogs member Donnie Warren.
Not far into the fourth quarter, the teams were separated by four points. Miami led 17-13. With a little over ten minutes left to play, the Burgundy & Gold had the ball on Miami's 43-yard line. It was fourth-and-inches.
"Do I have great confidence in going against their defense? Is there a weakness on their defense where I think we are just stronger. And then the next thing I think about is in this case, we got Russ Grimm, Joe Jacoby, and Donnie Warren, and going against their right side of their defensive line?" Gibbs said about his thought process on fourth down. "I felt like we had superior strength and force with that group. And then you got Riggins…To me I think that is what you're thinking about when it comes to fourth and one."
Washington was going for it, and the whole team – maybe even everyone in the stadium – knew where the ball was going: to Riggins.
"The play comes in, and we knew it was gonna be 70 Chip, which was our stellar play to the left side," Grimm said.
If Washington didn't get this first down, Miami would get the ball back in prime field position to extend its lead.
"I think I went straight to my knees because there's those times as a coach, really, where your life kind of passes before your eyes, because I know this is huge," Gibbs said.
It didn't matter that Miami's defense knew what was coming. This was the biggest moment in the biggest game Riggins had ever played in. He said he was "the guy." "The guy" makes a play in this scenario. Riggins didn't just get a first down. He broke a tackle and ran 43 yards to the end zone.
"We were so excited," former kicker Mark Moseley said of the play. "When he was going down the sideline, our whole bench was running with him on the sidelines."
It was "almost like you wrote a script" Riggins said. The drama. The stakes. The huge gain to take the lead in what would go on to be the franchise's first Super Bowl win. Many call it the single most important play in Washington football history.
With two minutes to play, a Charlie Brown touchdown sealed it. 27-17. Washington was the Super Bowl champion. The guy who wanted the ball showed up in the biggest way to make it happen.
"It was unreal. It was a dream come true," Riggins said. "I remember sitting at about the 50-yard line. The stadium's empty, maybe a few people cleaning up or something, and behind us is the scoreboard, 27-17. And I just sat there, and I looked up and I thought, 'Wow this is it.'"
