In 1980, the Jets and Dolphins played in television silence

In a forgettable 1980 game between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, NBC tried the unthinkable. 

Dec. 20, 1980: The only time an NFL game was seen, but not heard.

In Week 16 of the 1980 season, the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins clashed at the Orange Bowl with little at stake. Neither was in the postseason race, as New York limped in with a 3-12 record while Miami sported an 8-7 mark.

For NBC, the station tasked with televising the affair, the upside was non-existent. Ratings were likely to be poor, even with the New York market involved.

With little to lose, Don Ohlmeyer, then-executive producer of NBC Sports, came up with a radical notion: what if the game goes without announcers?

Ohlmeyer, who talked to ESPN in 2010 for the game’s 30th anniversary, said he oftentimes felt broadcasters clogged up the telecasts. Instead of hearing about the action, what would an NFL game be like without the constant narration fans had become accustomed to?

“Here we had this dog of a game,” Ohlmeyer said. “Part of my thinking was what could we possibly do to get fans to watch this? People could follow a game with pictures, graphics, and hearing the PA announcer in the background.”

As it turned out, too much sound was the biggest problem NBC faced that sunny afternoon. Arnie Reif, then NBC’s director of sports technical operations, told the Washington Post it was mostly a frustrating day with the network attempting innovation.

“It’s the crowd noise,” Reif said. “It is drowning out the sounds on the field. We are trying to turn off all but can’t get the line of scrimmage. We can get some of the quarterback and the punts and kickoffs, but we can’t get the sounds on the line.”

The Jets won, 24-17, but the score and winner are long forgotten. Instead, what’s remembered is one of the more bizarre episodes the game has seen from a television standpoint. Oddly enough, despite all the issues NBC endured during the telecast, more than 60 percent of fans polled who watched the game were bullish on the new format.

Yet the reaction wasn’t enough to make announcers obsolete, much to the relief of NBC telecaster Dick Enberg.

“My first reaction was of incredible nerve, nervousness,” Enberg told ESPN in 2010. “We’re paid to talk, so all of us want to fill the air with lots of exciting words. We all gathered together, hoping that Ohlmeyer was dead wrong. I mean, he was flirting with the rest of our lives. What if this crazy idea really worked?”

From Ohlmeyer’s perspective, the game was a success. NBC pulled down a 13.5 rating, close to the average 14.9 rating of the year.

Ultimately, the day was summed up best by the only man to speak for NBC during the broadcast, NFL ’80 host, Bryant Gumbel.

“It lacks a degree of drama,” Gumbel said, “unless somebody is there to say, ‘All right, here’s why we’re going to shut up and just watch this. Here’s what’s at stake.’ Whenever they do the match-play championships in golf, on paper it looks like a wonderful idea. In truth, what you find is there’s a lot of dead space in between shots.”

Even in a contest with no meaning outside of gambling and draft positions, it’s hard to imagine someone in Ohlmeyer’s position taking such a chance. The NFL has become a multi-billion dollar industry with carefully crafted narratives and graphics packages going into each game. Today, the reaction would be overwhelming with social media ruling the reaction.

In 1980, the league was still burgeoning even as it had clearly become America’s pastime. The NFL and its partners weren’t under scrutiny on a consistent basis, with football still seen as a game played by wealthy men, but not ones enjoying generational wealth.

In short, the National Football League was big-time with the occasional small-time feel, able to experiment without seismic blowback.

More than 40 years ago, NBC and Ohlmeyer had some fun with a bad hand. They provided an indelible memory, one without a soundtrack.