From the imminently quotable Tuesday Morning Quarterback:

Let us now praise the most important player in NFL history. We speak, of course, of Preston Ridlehuber….

Who was he? He was the guy who won the Heidi game, way back in 1968, a game where the Oakland Raiders beat the New York Jets in the final 50 seconds of play – after NBC had cut away to begin showing the movie “Heidi”. Millions of people called NBC to complain.

Within mere hours of the Heidi Game, all networks had announced that henceforth they would never cut away from pro football for other programming. This established a vital premise: Nothing is more important than football. The president might be giving a news conference to declare plans to invade Canada; the Pope might be reading a homily at which he announces his conversion to Zoroastrianism; Ashlee Simpson might actually be singing instead of lip-syncing; regardless, there is no chance any network would cut away from any NFL game.

Another excellent column from the best NFL columnist on the web.