Sixty-two years ago this month, on October 25, 1964, Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall scooped up a San Francisco fumble at Kezar Stadium and ran 66 yards without anyone laying a hand on him. The problem was the direction. Marshall had run into his own end zone, and when he flung the ball away in celebration it landed out of bounds. Instead of a Vikings touchdown, the play was a two-point safety for the 49ers. Minnesota still won 27-22, and the run became one of the most replayed blunders the league has ever produced.
This is the first anniversary of the play since Marshall died on June 3, 2025, at 87. It also comes days after Baltimore’s Calais Campbell played his 283rd game and moved past Marshall for the most games ever by a defensive lineman, a record Marshall had held for decades. You can read about that milestone in our Calais Campbell record story.
How a big day turned upside down
The Vikings, in their fourth season, came to San Francisco at 3-3. The 49ers were 2-4. A crowd of 31,845 was at Kezar, the 49ers’ home in Golden Gate Park until they moved to Candlestick Park in 1971, and San Francisco led 17-13 going into the fourth quarter.
Marshall then looked like the hero. Fran Tarkenton ran in from 8 yards out to give Minnesota a 20-17 lead, and then Marshall hit 49ers quarterback George Mira and knocked the ball loose. Carl Eller picked it up and returned it 45 yards for a touchdown. That made it 27-17.
San Francisco tried to answer from its own 9-yard line. Mira threw to Billy Kilmer, then a 49ers halfback and later the quarterback who took Washington to the Super Bowl after the 1972 season. Kilmer caught it around the 27 and fought his way to about the 31 before safety Karl Kassulke knocked the ball out. It bounced forward to the San Francisco 34, where Marshall, trailing the play, picked it up without breaking stride and headed for the wrong goal line.
“He’s running the wrong way!”
Marshall was known for his speed, and nobody caught him. Teammates ran down the Minnesota sideline screaming at him to turn around. On the 49ers’ radio broadcast, Lon Simmons told listeners: “It’s picked up by Marshall who is running the wrong way! He’s running it into the end zone the wrong way… thinks he’s scored a touchdown. He’s scored a safety.”
Inside the end zone, Marshall threw the ball away and it sailed out of bounds. The first player to reach him was 49ers center Bruce Bosley, who had chased him the length of the field and patted him on the back. Tarkenton was the first Viking there, and he confirmed the bad news. “It’ll be a hard thing to live down,” Marshall said at the time.
Why it counted as a safety
Officials ruled a safety, and the logic matches today’s rulebook. Marshall’s own run had carried the ball into the Vikings’ end zone, so Minnesota supplied the impetus. Once the ball went dead there in Minnesota’s possession, or out of bounds behind the goal line, the 49ers got two points. Kilmer later said he was hoping Marshall would simply drop it, because Bosley was right behind him and a San Francisco recovery in the end zone would have been a touchdown. Throwing the ball out of bounds actually limited the damage to two points. Our safety vs. touchback guide walks through how impetus decides these plays.
The game: Vikings 27, 49ers 22
| Quarter | Scoring play | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | John Brodie 2-yard run (Tommy Davis kick) | SF 7–0 |
| 1st | Fred Cox 41-yard field goal | SF 7–3 |
| 2nd | Dave Parks 80-yard pass from John Brodie (Davis kick) | SF 14–3 |
| 2nd | Tommy Mason 7-yard run (Cox kick) | SF 14–10 |
| 2nd | Tommy Davis 37-yard field goal | SF 17–10 |
| 3rd | Fred Cox 37-yard field goal | SF 17–13 |
| 4th | Fran Tarkenton 8-yard run (Cox kick) | MIN 20–17 |
| 4th | Carl Eller 45-yard fumble return (Cox kick) | MIN 27–17 |
| 4th | Safety: Jim Marshall throws the ball out of his own end zone | MIN 27–19 |
| 4th | Tommy Davis 47-yard field goal | MIN 27–22 |
The safety cut the lead to 27-19, and Tommy Davis’ 47-yard field goal made it a five-point game, but Minnesota’s defense held. The Vikings intercepted five passes, three of them by linebacker Roy Winston, who later joked that nobody remembers his big day because of Marshall’s run. Brodie threw for 209 yards and an 80-yard touchdown to Dave Parks, who finished with 146 receiving yards, but he was also intercepted four times. Tommy Mason ran 20 times for 93 yards and a touchdown for Minnesota.
The win was part of an 8-5-1 season, the first winning record in Vikings history.
“Welcome to the club”
Marshall later heard from the one man who knew exactly how he felt. Roy Riegels of California had run the wrong way with a fumble in the 1929 Rose Bowl, and he sent Marshall a note that read: “Welcome to the club.”
Head coach Norm Van Brocklin told Marshall to put it out of his mind, because the defense had to go right back onto the field after the free kick. Back home, teammates teased him about it at practice, and Marshall took it well. Looking back on the 50th anniversary in 2014, he said: “There are a lot of mistakes made in games. That one just happened to be more visible than some of the others. But the name of the game is to win, and we did.” In 2019, as part of its 100th season, the league ranked the play No. 54 among the 100 greatest plays in its history.
Much more than one play
The wrong-way run tends to overshadow one of the most durable careers the sport has seen. Marshall played one season in Cleveland in 1960 and then 19 more in Minnesota as an original Viking, from the expansion year of 1961 through 1979. He never missed a game. His 282 consecutive games and 270 consecutive starts were both league records when he retired; punter Jeff Feagles later passed the first and Brett Favre the second. He recovered 29 opponents’ fumbles, a record later tied by Jason Taylor.
Marshall made two Pro Bowls, played with Eller, Alan Page and Gary Larsen on the Purple People Eaters line and played in all four of Minnesota’s Super Bowls in the 1970s. The Vikings retired his No. 70 and put him in their Ring of Honor. He was a Hall of Fame finalist in 2004 but has never been elected, and he was cut from the senior pool for the Class of 2026 when the list went from 34 names to nine.
Watch: the run and the man
The first clip shows the run itself. The second is a league-produced tribute to Marshall’s 20-year career.
For more October history on WhyNFL, read October 24, 1971: Chuck Hughes, October 21, 1985: the Refrigerator scores and October 17, 1994: Montana and Elway’s final duel. For today’s Vikings, see the 5-0 start by the numbers and our Vikings team page.
No published comments yet. Start the conversation.