by Mike Siani
“Franco is a good ballplayer, don’t get me wrong,” said Willie Brown. “I’m not knocking him, but he knew what had happened. He knew he caught the ball off the turf.”
“I saw it from across the field,” said George Atkinson. “The tip of the ball touched the ground and he trapped it.”
“More than likely because Franco doesn’t speak, he probably trapped it on the ground,” said Bradshaw. “No one will ever say, Frenchy won’t say and Franco won’t say and I understand that it is one of the greatest plays in the history of the sport, as long as we all sit here and say, ‘Did they touch it, did they trap it?’ then it keeps it going.”
The Riot Theory
“Once Franco got in the end zone, he then started getting piled on,” said Stephen Dubner. “The people started jumping from the stands. It was a total mob scene. I think, if I recall, you never actually see a touchdown sign. Humankind does not have the ability to reverse that kind of thing.”
“It was absolute mayhem,” said Raymond Chester. “And given the fear that was in the hearts of the officials, I don’t think they were going to change their decision.”
“I know for a fact that those officials knew that that play was not a legal play,” stated Atkinson. “I did hear one of the officials say, ‘How much security do we have?’ They talked a little longer then one of the officials went out on the field and signaled touchdown.”
Villapiano remembers it being out of control.
“There was no control. It was crazy what was going on. I think if he had reversed that call, that man might have died—and all the other officials, too.”
The Clip Theory
“Look at Gerber frame 325,” said Villapiano. “That will tell you all you need to know. Look at McMakin’s head. You can’t see his head ’cause it’s in my back. I was clipped and we totally got screwed. The officials had no clue what was going on and were afraid to throw flags. If it wasn’t for that trip, I would have made that play and there would be no Immaculate Reception.”
Steelers tight end John McMakin refutes Villapiano’s statement.
“It’s always been clear in my memory that it was a clean block with the head and shoulders in front. That’s why I call it the Immaculate Obstruction. That’s a pretty good name for the block.”
“That was no Immaculate Obstruction!” said Villapiano. “That was an Immaculate Clip!”
“I do think it’s puzzling that he feels that it was a clip from behind,” said McMakin. “But if you look at Gerber frame 325, you can tell that my head and shoulders are plainly visible in front of Phil.”
Mysteriously, both the network film and the coaching staff film have vanished. The network broadcast of the game was also believed to be lost. Then, right before the 1997 AFC Championship game, the tape mysteriously resurfaced.
Everyone loves a mystery, and that’s why the IR will always remain unsolved. There’s no way to prove it one way or the other.
“I personally thought we got taken,” said Al Davis. “We should have had that football game but we didn’t get it. Fuqua knows he hit it and it should have been our game.”
After the Immaculate Reception, the Steelers wilted in the heat of battle against the Raiders. They lost two of their next three games to Oakland—including the 1973 AFC divisional playoff game. The team was desperate for guidance—especially Bradshaw.
As the two teams moved toward a rematch in the 1974 AFC Championship game, another Raiders player would utter the words that pushed the Steelers too far.
Steelers defensive tackle Joe Greene responds to Madden’s claim.
“The Raiders had just played and beaten the Dolphins. Madden said that the best two teams in the NFL had played today and that was the real Super Bowl.”
Just prior to the 1974 AFC Championship game, Chuck Noll heard what Madden had said and replied with, “Well I want to tell you that one of the two best teams in the NFL (the Steelers) is in this room.”
The Steelers used 21 fourth-quarter points to beat Oakland after they had led 10–3. Pittsburgh’s 24–13 win humbled the confident Raiders in front of their home crowd. Oakland would have to wait a year to get even.
In the 1975 AFC Championship game, the plot thickened around a curious pattern of ice.
“The night before that game there was a mysterious tear in the tarp,” said Upshaw. “And we go back the next day and the field is frozen. The only part not frozen was between the two hash marks.”
Al Davis describes the effect the ice had on his team.
“Our game was to throw the deep ball. If there was one play that Mel Blount dreaded, it was the long ball to Cliff Branch. So with that ice, we had to move those receivers in and that narrowed the field for us. I’ll never forget what Pete Rozelle said to me, ‘Well it’s the same for both sides.’ I said, ‘Damn it, Pete, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. It’s not the same for both sides!’”
The Steelers won 16–10 as the ice along the sidelines neutralized Cliff Branch. But safety George Atkinson and the Raiders found their own way to neutralize Pittsburgh leading receiver Lynn Swann.
“We never go out on the field with the intentions of trying to hurt anyone, but we do go out on the field with the intentions of getting the job done. If he don’t want to get hit, his best bet is not to show up on Sunday, ’cause I guarantee he will get hit.”
“Swann is going to be thinking about it,” said Jack Tatum. “He knows that we are back there. And he knows that if he comes in my area or George’s area to catch a ball, he’s gonna get hit and hit hard. He’s a professional athlete too, and he has a job to do. If he can’t do it he’s going to have to be replaced by someone who can. He knows this and in the past he has done a lot of mouthin’ off, but personally I think he is more interested in being an announcer than he is a football player.”
Pittsburgh wide receiver Lynn Swann says that the Raiders’ key was to try and use intimidation.
“The Raiders’ secondary as a group attempted to intimidate people by playing on the fringe of what was legal and beyond the fringe. And I’ll tell you that as a fact. What you had to do as a receiver is not let that bother you.”
On opening day, September 12, 1976, on a running play, George Atkinson struck the rivalry’s most vicious blow.
“Whenever you end up with the Steelers and the Raiders, you’re going to have a tough football game, everyone’s gonna be angry when it’s all said and done, and eventually someone is going to get sued about it.”
After that game, Chuck Noll called Atkinson a “criminal.” Atkinson said he was slandered, and filed a two-million-dollar lawsuit against Noll. Atkinson’s claim was thrown out of court.
Villapiano sees it from a different perspective.
“It was such a joke. You got those maniacs over there and they say we’re too rough for them? Give me a break!”
The feud was taken back to the field during the 1976 AFC Championship between the two teams. But first we need to tell the story of how they got there.
In the first three games of the 1976 season, the Raiders beat the Steelers, Chiefs, and Oilers. But the loss to New England in Week 4 left a bad taste in their mouth, and the team decided to hold a players-only meeting. During that meeting the players said, “If you want to win the Super Bowl, we are not losing any more games.”
And they didn’t. The Raiders went on to beat San Diego, Denver twice, Green Bay, Chicago, and Kansas City. In Week 11 we beat the Eagles to clinch the division.
As usual, there were pregame parties in all of the cities, but the one that stands out most in my mind was the pregame party the night before we played Denver. Kenny Stabler and Fred Biletnikoff were the hosts.
“Sometimes the pregame partying would make you feel loose the next day and you’d come up with a real good game,” said Stabler. “I know a lot of players who would agree with that. Bobby Layne of the Detroit Lions always did. They used to say that if Bobby didn’t go out and get plowed the night before he playe
d, he wasn’t going to have a big game. I loved his style.”
“In Denver, Freddy and I called a couple of girls we knew after dinner and asked them to come over and bring four bottles of wine. Freddy was between marriages at the time, so what the hell? We already had a nice glow from our dinner wine and wanted to keep it alive. No problem. We got so ripped that by 4 a.m. we were all sitting around nude, making shadow puppets on the walls using the light cast by the bare bulbs from the table lamps. We laughed like there was no tomorrow.
“We finally went to bed around five. When I got up at eight-thirty for the pregame meal, I opened the blinds and it was snowing like hell.
“‘Look at this shit, Freddy,’ I said. ‘And we gotta play today!’
“We went down to breakfast and got a bunch of cold drinks to put out the fire, had coffee, then went out and had a big day. I threw four touchdown passes—two to Freddy and two to Cliff. They received game balls. I thought a third should have gone to Bobby Layne.”
Week 12 was special for the Raiders as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came to Oakland. Former Raider Bob Moore had been taken by the Bucs in the expansion draft and we all looked forward to seeing him once again. Art Thoms, along with Villapiano and Dave Dalby, met Moore with a limo.
“This was before terrorists, so we talked to some people at the airport and they agreed to let us drive onto the runway,” said Thoms. “Well, not the actual runway, but the apron. So the Tampa charter plane pulls up. They bring out those stairs they used to have to get off a plane, and right then we pull the limo up.
“Moore came out, walked down the stairs, and walked across the red carpet. We all hugged him, he got in, and we pulled away. The Bucs coach, John McKay, I think, wasn’t real happy about that.”
According to Moore, Coach John McKay was definitely not happy with the gesture.
“McKay had no idea what the hell was going on. In fact at first, I had no idea what the hell was going on. Or how they got to the tarmac. The doors open up and Phil and Dalby and Sistrunk all pour out to welcome me.
“I still had my condo in Alameda so we all went there to have a party. A couple of my Tampa teammates were with me. So girls are going in and out, and the television station shows up at about nine. It gets on the eleven o’clock news.
“When I get back to the hotel the following day, John McKay was really pissed off. He said he was watching the eleven o’clock news, and there I am drinking with the guys we’re playing the next day. At the same time, actually, I think Steve Spurrier, our quarterback, went over to the other side of the bay and had the same kind of party with his former San Francisco 49ers teammates.”
“We had a team that was not in very good shape that day—or for that matter on any Sunday.”
Oakland beat Tampa Bay 49–16, and the Bengals the following week. The defeat of the Bengals meant much more to John Madden than just a win.
“That was really big to me. Of all the games we played, I have as much pride in what we did to Cincinnati as any game I coached, because we had everything clinched. People were saying we were going to lose because we didn’t want to play Pittsburgh. And whoever said that said the right thing to get me pissed off.”
George Atkinson says it all.
“That was us telling Pittsburgh, ‘No, we’re going through these motherfuckers. We’re going to do you a favor first, and then we’re going to fuck you up next.’ The thing that was so beautiful about that Monday night game against the Bengals was the way we were calling Pittsburgh out: ‘Come on, guys, you’re not going to stop us this year.’”
The AFC divisional playoff game pitted Oakland against the New England Patriots. According to tackle Dave Rowe, “The team that won that game would win the Super Bowl.”
The Steelers beat the Colts 40–14 for a rematch with the Raiders.
The 1976 AFC Championship game was once again between the Steelers and the Raiders.
“The two Super Bowls that they went to were through Oakland,” said Villapiano. “They had beaten us up both times. We just couldn’t take it anymore. It was like we were going to leave it out there. If we don’t win that day, forget the season and here comes the Steelers all cocky, and we wanted them.”
The Steelers had to play the title game without Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, and the Raiders took full advantage of the circumstances.
“I wanted to play Pittsburgh all along,” said George Atkinson. “Baltimore made the Steelers look better than they were. The Colts were intimidated. That won’t happen to us. We have a team that can’t be intimidated.”
Steelers defensive tackle Joe Greene guaranteed revenge on Atkinson.
“I guarantee that if Atkinson starts pulling that stuff, I’ll come off the bench to get him if I have to.”
“The Friday before the game, we go in after practice, and then Madden calls us all back out,” said Villapiano. “The word came out that the Steelers might use a formation we hadn’t practiced; two tight ends and a fullback. Two tight ends are pretty effective. We were laughing, because we figured they were trying to surprise us. We didn’t realize Rocky [Bleier] and Franco [Harris] weren’t playing until game day.”
“I vividly remember the introductions to that game,” recalls George Buehler. “The Steelers had been introduced before us, and they were all over there on their sidelines jumping up and down like high school kids. I thought that was kind of amusing. I was thinking, ‘That kind of thing can disappear pretty quickly in a game.’ We were calm. Besides, they had snuffed our hopes too many times. This was something we wanted to close the book on.”
The Raiders were the first to strike with an Errol Mann field goal in the first quarter. From that point on, Pittsburgh tried to pull ahead, but their efforts were all in vain.
“Late in the game I ran a sprint out to the left, chased by Joe Greene and L. C. Greenwood, and I was right on that line of scrimmage when I threw the ball to Casper,” said Stabler. “Joe and L. C. screamed at the officials, ‘He was over the line! He crossed the goddamn line of scrimmage!’”
The referee spotted the ball and cried, ‘First down!’
“‘Close, wasn’t it?’ I said to Joe and winked.
“‘Close, shit!’ he said. ‘The goddamn ref needs a seein’ eye dog!’”
The best the Steelers defense could do was to keep the score down to Oakland 24, Pittsburgh 7. After that first score, the Raiders never looked back. Oakland was off to the Super Bowl.
Pittsburgh’s linebacker Jack Lambert was devastated after the game.
“The biggest heartbreak that I ever had on a football field. After the game I said, ‘Give me a six pack [and] a half hour rest and let’s go back out there and play them again. I think we can beat them.’”
George Atkinson had a few words for the critics of the Raiders.
“Critics said we couldn’t make it to the Super Bowl and that we were a dirty team. I say to them, ‘Eat your words.’”
Of course, Chuck Noll made excuses for his team.
“We played without fifty percent of our offense. I’m sorry we didn’t have more weapons.”
Madden’s response to Noll:
“That was our time. They weren’t going to stop us that day. They could have had Franco and Bleier and the whole thing, and it wouldn’t have made any goddamned difference. That was our day. That was our year!”
“Come on, the game was a blowout,” said Dave Rowe. “We beat them in every aspect of the game. You’re talking about two players. That game was not won or lost on offense or defense. That game was the Oakland Raiders going through the Pittsburgh Steelers. You’re talking about scoring 24 points against an incredible defense. And it wasn’t like we scored by intercepting a pass or recovering a fumble and getting the ball on the 10 or something. We put some drives together. We drove the football on a great defense. We scored 24 points on them pretty easily.”
After the 1976 championship game, the feud subsided, and as time passed, the players on both sides mellowed with age.
“Pretty much their guys got older and we got older and it ended,” said Villapiano. “I go to Pittsburgh now and I love to show my ring to these people because all those Steelers fans in all those office buildings and I go in there and show them this ring, and I show them the side of the ring that shows the score Al Davis had written on the side of the ring: Raiders 24 Steelers 7.”
With the Pittsburgh game and win now behind us, the Raiders were on their way to Pasadena to play the Vikings in Super Bowl IX and maybe do a little partying.
SUPER BOWL XI
One of the stories that stands out in my mind is the great time that Kenny Stabler, Freddy Biletnikoff, and Pete Banaszak had the week prior to the Super Bowl. Here’s how Kenny told it to me.
“Pete, Freddy and I had adjoining rooms at the Marriott Hotel in Newport Beach, where we stayed the week before playing the Super Bowl against the Minnesota Vikings. We prepared for the game as we would any other game: Monday we were off, workouts Tuesday through Saturday. Thanks to John Madden, we didn’t have a curfew until Thursday night and we took full advantage of it.
“Freddie and I were friends with actor James Caan. We called Jimmy to get into some action the first night. Jimmy was on location, but his bother Ronnie picked us up in a Rolls and took us to the Playboy Mansion. It was full of beautiful women who gave us a tour of the place. We had so much fun that we didn’t leave until about four a.m.
“The next night I went to the condo of a girl I had met at the Playboy Mansion. I stayed with her till morning. On Wednesday, Freddy, Pete, and I just barhopped in Newport Beach. That ended the partying, except for a little scotch sipping in my room to relax. I never got to sleep before two.”
On January 9, 1977, the Raiders met the Minnesota Vikings at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl for Super Bowl XI.
“When you have to go through the Steelers, you feel pretty good about playing Minnesota,” said Stabler. “We felt good about the matchup. We felt a little bit stronger.”
Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton felt the same about Minnesota.