That time when... Matt Millen punched New England Patriots general manager Pat Sullivan
Matt Millen saved his biggest hit for after the game.
Millen, a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners linebacker for the Los Angeles Raiders, was not in a pleasant mood after his team’s 27-20 loss to the New England Patriots in the 1985 AFC Divisional Round playoffs. Following the defeat, Millen and his teammates slowly walked off the field at the L.A. Coliseum, mixing with the victorious Pats.
Grumpy about the Raiders’ season ending in front of a home crowd, Millen spotted a guy talking smack to teammate Howie Long. Emotions running raw, this interaction did not please the feisty linebacker. Millen made a bee line for the man and… clocked him in the face with a vicious right hook. He had no idea it was New England general manager Pat Sullivan.
Millen’s haymaker plunged into the left side of Sullivan’s face. There’s no video of the actual punch, but a photographer perfectly captured the shot as it ran in newspapers across the country the following day. With the NFL playoffs set to begin, NFL Rewind takes a look back at one of the more dubious incidents in postseason history on Jan. 5, 1986.
Years after the punch, Millen explained his side to NFL Films.
“So, the game’s over and I’m walking off the field and this guy jumps into Howie’s face,” Millen said.
Millen’s wife, Pat, told NFL Films her husband thought the smack talker was some obnoxious fan who somehow strolled past security and got onto the field. Rowdy fans invading the field following games wasn’t uncommon in the 1980s. Thankfully, security has beefed up in the past 30 years to protect players and team personnel.
“He thought it was a fan who came up to Howie, and like Howie really needed help,” Pat Millen sarcastically quipped.
“I walked over and I grabbed him by the back of his head, shook his head, and threw him,” Millen said.
Sullivan, perhaps emboldened by his team’s berth in the AFC Championship Game, wasn’t about to take shit from anybody, even 250-pound men paid to knock the stuffing out of running backs.
“He got up and swung at me,” Millen said. “I was like, OK. I ducked and I freakin’ drilled him — POW!”
Millen left a nasty gash under Sullivan’s left eye. A melee ensued. Players, coaches, media members and God knows who else scrambled to break up the skirmish.
Millen was livid. Two Patriots stepped in, telling Millen to backoff. Millen, face snarled up like an angry dog, paced back and forth, ready for another shot at the fallen GM.
“You don’t punch me in the face!” Millen screamed. “What’s he (inaudible) Howie for?”
Cooler heads prevailed quickly, and the fracas was squashed before anything worse transpired. Millen eventually made his way to the locker room. An anxious Raiders personnel member was waiting.
“He tells me, “Ahhh, you might want to get an attorney for this,” Millen said. “I said, ‘For what?!’ He goes, ‘Well, that was the general manager for the Patriots.’ I’m like, oooohhhh nooooo.”
Pat Millen was right. The hulking 6-5, 268-pound Long probably could have handled his own business against the NOT 268-pound Sullivan, but the future hall-of-famer was glad to know his boy had his back.
“Right, wrong, indifferent… you gotta back your guy,” Long told NFL Films. “And he always did.”
The ‘85 Patriots toppled the Miami Dolphins a week later, advancing to Super Bowl XX where the Chicago Bears trounced the Pats, 46-10. Sullivan spent eight years as New England’s GM and was fired after a disastrous 1-15 season in 1990.
Millen logged 12 seasons in the league, retiring with four Super Bowl titles (Raiders, 49ers and Washington). His post-career run as the Lions GM was, eh, nothing to get punchy about.