Todd ArcherDec 28, 2025, 06:00 AM ETCloseTodd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.Follow on X
Flashback: Cowboys advance on Roger Staubach’s Hail Mary TD pass (0:32)Roger Staubach launches a long touchdown pass to Drew Pearson to give the Cowboys a victory over the Vikings in their 1975 playoff game. (0:32)
Bryon Adams makes his living in management consulting, but he is also a sports collector, specifically Dallas Cowboys memorabilia. One of his pieces, a Tom Landry fedora, is on display at The Star after he loaned it to the team.
He has long wanted a game-worn jersey of a Cowboys’ Ring of Honor member. When he received the list of items available from Goldin Auctions, a Cowboys jersey was not among the 100 offered, but a football was.
It was purported to be the football receiver Drew Pearson threw out of Metropolitan Stadium in celebration after catching the famed “Hail Mary” pass from Roger Staubach on Dec. 28, 1975.
“I won it at an auction,” Adams said. “One of the things I tell people: Your heart wants to believe everything you see is real, so you’ve got to be careful because your wallet gets attached to that fast and you bought something not legitimate.”
The origin story of the football goes like this: A man was refilling his flask outside the stadium when this ball landed not far away and ended up under the rear quarter panel of his car. He put the ball in the back of the car and reentered the stadium for the final seconds.
Adams has the bill of sale. The paper used for the sale is consistent with what was used in the 1970s. The stamp matched the stamp used by the Cowboys back then, too.
The man passed the ball down to a nephew in 1981, and he kept it until 2016. It was purchased at another auction and stored in a safety deposit box until Adams bought it in March 2024.
Adams also called Wilson, the football maker. Their footballs had time codes with letters on either tip of the ball. Wilson confirmed the codes — two Hs — were on footballs given to the NFL in 1975.
“What I can’t believe is no people decided to go public with it,” Adams said. “It’s just stayed hidden. I was highly skeptical at first.”
Knowing this is the 50th anniversary of the Hail Mary, Adams said he offered to loan the football to the Cowboys. For reasons he does not know, the organization cooled on the idea. Recently, he met Pearson and said the conversation did not go well between the two.
“When I was a kid and you played football at recess, you were either [Pittsburgh Steelers stars] Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann or Roger Staubach and Drew Pearson.”
Adams grew up in Indiana and moved to Dallas in 2001 and “became one of those obnoxious super fans when I moved down here.”
He said he was just a steward of the ball. He would offer it to Staubach or Pearson for the amount he paid for it.
Flashback: Cowboys advance on Roger Staubach’s Hail Mary TD pass (0:32)Roger Staubach launches a long touchdown pass to Drew Pearson to give the Cowboys a victory over the Vikings in their 1975 playoff game. (0:32)
Roger Staubach launches a long touchdown pass to Drew Pearson to give the Cowboys a victory over the Vikings in their 1975 playoff game. (0:32)
CloseTodd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.Follow on X
Within a week after the game, Adams said the man went to Minnesota Vikings headquarters and got a bill of sale from their general manager, Mike Lynn — the same person who made the famous trade in 1989 to acquire running back Herschel Walker from the Cowboys, who used the massive trade haul to jump-start their triple Super Bowl championship stretch of the 1990s.
Staubach’s Hail Mary for Cowboys left a 50-year Vikings beef
“If Drew or Roger wanted it, that’s where it ought to go,” Adams said. “They invented the play.”