A Life-Saving Football Blooper
On December 1, 2025, the New England Patriots hosted the New York Giants on Monday Night Football. The Patriots won, 33-15. But before the game was out of hand, the above blooper happened. The Giants kicker, Younghoe Koo, approached the ball, intending to kick it through the uprights to get his team three points. But he never made the kick. Koo, somehow, tripped over nothing, stumbling away from the ball. As Hall of Fame QB turned broadcaster Peyton Manning said on ESPN, “I have not seen that — ever.”
Peyton wasn’t alone. Millions of fans were watching, and many started to laugh. And it’s a good thing that Mark Toothaker, of Lexington, Kentucky, was one of those at home getting a good chuckle out of Koo’s misfortune. Because it probably saved his life.
When most people laugh hard, we may find ourselves a little short of breath or even pee ourselves a bit — not a great experience, but hardly something for concern. Toothaker, though, experienced something different — something he had never felt before. He told the Associated Press “I felt like I got electrocuted” — hardly a feeling one assigns to laughing.
Something was wrong, and his wife, Malory, sprang into action. A nurse who worked at a rehab facility near their home, she instinctively knew he needed immediate emergency care. She called 9-1-1, and Mark was rushed to the hospital.
It turned out that Mark was having a seizure. A CT scan at the hospital revealed something Toothaker had no idea existed: a tennis-ball-sized tumor on the left side of his brain. The mass had actually shifted his brain six millimeters to the right. He was transferred to the University of Kentucky’s hospital, where surgeons removed the tumor. It turned out to be benign. He was home by the end of the week with no lasting damage other than a cranial scar.
But had the tumor not been discovered and removed, the risk of real harm was significant. Toothaker was a stallion season manager at a local horse farm, overseeing the care of race horses. It’s a role that took him on the road often, traveling to race locations. In the months before the seizure, Toothaker had driven and flown all over the country as part of his job duties — and he realized that his tumor put not only him, but others, at risk. “I could have had it on a plane, anywhere,” Toothaker told the AP. “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t run over a family in my Expedition running up and down the road.” The thought of what might have happened haunts him. “Believe me, as tough as that thing was, as violent as that seizure was, I have no memory of it and I would find it hard to believe that I wouldn’t have hurt somebody or hurt myself if I would’ve been behind a wheel.”
As for Koo, he’s okay, too. The Giants cut him two weeks after the missed kick, but he recently signed a contract with the New York Jets.
Bonus fact: In 1995, a BYU student named Eli Herring was expected to be taken in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft, but fell to the sixth round due to concerns that he wouldn’t sign with an NFL team at all. Herring — an offensive tackle — was a devout Mormon who refused to play on Sundays for religious reasons, and the NFL plays most of its games on Sunday. Herring told the league he therefore had no intention of ever playing in the then-Oakland NFL, but the Raiders decided to take him anyway. Herring stuck to his word, turning down a $1.5 million contract. He’s made a career for himself as a bishop and schoolteacher instead.
From the Archives: Why the NFL Doesn’t Play on Saturdays in October and November: It has nothing to do with seizures or religion, unless you think high school or college football is a religion.