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The Biggest Rivalry of the 1970's · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: Hello and welcome to another edition of Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_05: This time we'll be covering a rivalry.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: And Tim uh is there's no rivalry between us, right?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_05: I I don't think so.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh usually to have a rivalry you have to have like the two sides being pretty even.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: And uh clearly, you know, there's one side of this that's way better than the other.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_05: So well, that's very humble of you to admit that.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um and anyway, uh rivalry.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh what what's the uh I mean what's the biggest rivalry in sports, if you had to guess off the top of your heads?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: I I I don't know.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, Green Bay, Detroit, that's probably the oldest rivalry in the NFL.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: I thought Green Bay, Chicago was the oldest rivalry.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean that people always cite that as one.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: Red Sox Yankees would be uh one that people would cite Duke North Carolina.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Duke North Carolina is a good one, yeah.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it'd be nice to mention one in college football, but hey, we don't have any of those anymore.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_05: So I digress.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um today we're gonna go over one of the biggest rivalries of the 1970s.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_05: And um, well, there's a couple other teams, and we kind of went over the Houston Oilers of that era uh in another where we did a Houston Pittsburgh rivalry and then Tennessee slash Tennessee.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but definitely the rivalry the Steelers had of the 1970s, and it wasn't you would think it would have been Cleveland or Cincinnati or even maybe Baltimore.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, it really was these uh Oakland slash, well, they were Oakland for the whole decade, the Oakland Raiders versus the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_05: And even like the Dallas Cowboys kind of fit in there, but it definitely was more the Oakland Raiders and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_05: And um, the two things that made this uh interesting were um this this was a yin and a yang, kind of a good guys, bad guys kind of thing.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_05: You can guess who the good guys were and the bad guys were, I guess.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um one was definitely a homegrown team that was built through the draft, that would have been the Steelers, and the other team um they kind of focused on getting outcast players or players that were unconventional, and that would definitely have been the Raiders.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Steelers were new to winning.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: The Raiders had won an NFL, an AFL championship.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_05: And um, well, both like definitely personified the style of football of the 1970s with that tough, hard-hitting, hard-nosed defense.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_05: Um, that you know, definitely changed some rules because of it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um there was an intensity to this rivalry that not only was on the field but actually spilled over and you know came off the field.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_05: There was some off-the-field stuff legitimately, court cases and hurt feelings and all kinds of fun stuff with that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_05: So I think we kind of all know, being this is a Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast, we know the Steelers were founded in 1933, they didn't win a lot until the 70s, so you know you kind of know that our chief and all that and Dan took over.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: So we'll kind of focus on the Raiders to begin with, because I didn't know a lot about the Raiders until I started researching them for this.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_05: So the Raiders were founded in 1960, and they were an AFL team, which meant they were different than the NFL, they're a different league, and they were actually an extra team.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like when the AFL started, they didn't even have a team in Oakland.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_05: They had a team in LA, and they were the LA Chargers, Tim.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_05: Believe it or not, the San Diego Chargers were the LA Chargers before they went back to LA.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know who owned the LA Chargers when they first started?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_05: I do not.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_05: It would be a gentleman named Baron Hilton, who was the uh heir to the Hilton.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_05: He was the son of Conrad Hilton, which I only know Conrad Hilton from watching Mad Men, so I don't know.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: There's some rich names there, Conrad and Barron.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's what you name your kid if you're got a lot of money.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: Well, ask Trump, I guess.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um so at the time, the I guess this Baron Hilton guy didn't want to be the only team on the West Coast, so he said, I'm not gonna have an LA team if you don't give me another team.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_05: So they're like, Okay, we're just gonna put one at Oakland.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: And it was funny because the Oakland, there was no ownership, they didn't have a stadium, they just kind of like, well, we're giving Oakland a franchise.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_05: That's a pretty interesting way to get a football team, but that's how it happened.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it is.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it it's kind of weird.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: So the this would go on that this uh Oakland team would develop into the Oakland Raiders, and uh they had won a contest and they became the Raiders, and they said the uh the Raiders actually um modeled after a famous actor at the time.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_05: I don't remember the actor's name, but uh and the Raiders and the Steelers, uh, they actually meet um one, two, three, four, five, six, six times in the playoffs in the 70s, and overall they meet a fair amount of time times.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um if you go to 1983, that's kind of kind of the the rivalry starts in 1972 with something that happens and ends in 1983, and you can guess what happens in 1972.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: So you can't know the players without a score scorecard.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_05: So, first off, we'll introduce some players and coaches.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: Art Rooney and Dan Rooney, and uh good old Al Davis.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there are the owners involved.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_05: Art, you know, was kind of the lovable loser.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_05: He had his own he had owned the team since 1993, definitely more into racetracks than uh or horse tracks, uh I should say, than football.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_05: And Dan, Dan was his son.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_05: He was a young enough becoming Steeler executive, and he'd become in charge of running the Steelers.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: He had finally said to his dad, let me do the hiring.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_05: Him and his brother, they definitely were handling the personnel decisions, and art was just kind of the figurehead right in the checks, I guess.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, as for Al Davis, um he had uh some college experience as a recruiter.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he had actually, I think, coached at Army at one point.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he did some scouting, he was an assistant coach on the LA Chargers uh from 1960 to 1962.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_05: And would you believe it, it was the same exact time as a little guy named Chuck Knoll was the so Chuck Knoll and Al Davis had uh coached it around this uh at the same time with the LA Chargers.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and um Al Davis actually didn't take over the Raiders until 1972, and until that time, there was a three-man ownership group of uh people named a gentleman named Wayne Valley and Ed McGall.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_05: And um it's kind of very Al Davis-like how he takes over the Raiders.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: So while Wayne Valley was out of town at the Munich Olympics in 1972, I wonder if uh Wayne had a good time at the 72 Munich Olympics.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: Probably probably not.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what happened at that Olympics?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so while he's out of town doing that, um, I think which they they actually happened in September, so this would have been during the season, I I guess.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_05: And uh they voted uh Al Davis and this Mc this McGaugh guy voted two to one to rewrite the ownership rules, which gave Al Davis like all the power and basically got rid of like Wayne Valley, didn't have any actual power, was just like a part owner almost.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_05: And so the the ownership you know was in complete turmoil in the time of the 1972 playoffs.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: And uh that that whole situation actually went to court in California and was uh upheld under um California's partnership rules at the time.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_05: So and I guess this Wayne Valley guy was just like, whatever, you run the team, Al, I trust you, and we're gonna you know get rid of this.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: I know the McGaugh guy was like, get rid of this valley guy, you run the team, and I'll just kind of be a part owner, a silent more silent owner.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so so yeah, because I was gonna say, how did Al Davis have like the money if he's like a footballer?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_05: He didn't have much.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_05: I think he only only paid like like 10,000 or 5,000.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_05: Like it wasn't a lot of money that he bought into the ownership with.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: I guess when they I guess if they were an AFL team when he bought into that, then they probably wasn't worth a lot at the time, so it was easy to do.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like typical Al Davis, like everything Al Davis does seems to end up in court.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: So And he seems to win a lot too, unfortunately.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um, like I said, Al Davis, he'd like to build even back then, like, because I guess when he went to Army and he'd he coached the Citadel, he'd learned how to really evaluate talent.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_05: And Al Davis is a pretty good evaluator of talent, a pretty good coach in his own right.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_05: He'd actually been the coach of the team that uh was very successful in the AFL.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, Al's a good football guy and kind of like Dan Rooney.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_05: Dan Rooney and Al Davis are very similar, like they're what would you call contemporaries of each other, is the word I'm looking for.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_05: So another key key player was uh Terry Bradshaw.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_05: We all know his story.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he had his ups and downs throughout the rivalry.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: He really wasn't a settled starter until 1974.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: Like that's hard to believe, but even in 1974, their first Super Bowl season, he really didn't become the settled starter until halfway through the season.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um Ken Stabler, who is the ends up being the quarterback of the Raiders, um, he played at Alabama in college.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_05: He was a backup to Daryl LaMonica, who was the quarterback from the AFL days.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: And in 1972, he became the starter the next season in 1973.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_05: So uh Ken Stabler actually spent a couple years on the bench, much like uh Terry Bradshaw learning the game, you know.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Raiders actually had Ken Stabler play for a minor league team, the Spokane Shockers.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_05: And I guess uh Stabler had a bad knee his whole career, and so he he was there kind of rehabbing him.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um Stabler, you know, of course, played an immaculate reception game.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um is one of his he was like a very party kind of guy, kind of fit that Raiders attitude.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_05: He used to say you study his playbook by the light of the jukebox, you know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: They go out and party, but they definitely when it comes game time, they're ready to play, even if they might be a little, you know, had a little fun the night before.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe it helped them.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe he had a really nice prime of his career.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he completed that the the Sea of Hands play against Miami, and of course the infamous Holy Rollers play, which once again the Raiders they had to change the rule book because they basically like forward laddered their way to a win against San Diego.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: So um he actually uh uh Stablard signed a WFL contract in 1971 to play for a team in I think Birmingham, Alabama, in 1976.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: So he was kind of making it where when his NFL contract ran out, he would go to this other league and play in the South.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_05: And uh that's what he wanted to do.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_05: He wanted, I guess he's from Alabama, he's from the South, and that's where he wanted to play.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he never got to because the league folded, and he said the people in the South just cared more about football.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I guess even back in the 70s, it just meant more too much.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's that's interesting because I mean the NFL is pretty big.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, he was Raiders were pretty big at that time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that that would have been at 76 would have been the super the year that they were in the Super Bowl, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, like I said, Chuck Knowle, obviously, the weird connection with him and Al Davis coaching on Sid Gilman's staff, because Sid Gilman kind of taught Al Davis the offense, and I guess Chuck Knowle learned more of the defense from Don Shula.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we all know who he is.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um, John Madden.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he had actually become the coach in 1969.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um he only coached until 1978.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's hard to believe he only coached nine years.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: He did not coach very long.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_05: He won one Super Bowl and he seemed to lose in the playoffs a lot.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_05: They were kind of like Dallas, they were considered like next year's team there a lot.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um but maybe they didn't get that moniker as much as you know the Cowboys did.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he did go on to have a successful video game and broadcast career, Tim.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean it's it's funny because I don't know that you'd find too many other coaches that coach our last game in 1978 that like a a 12 or 13 year old kid would know today.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_04: And every every not every, but a bunch of 12 and 13-year-old kids know who John Madden is.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_05: And and it, you know, his last I think it was fitting, his last uh game that he announced was do you remember?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Super Bowl 43.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he had to sit there and watch the Steelers win another Super Bowl, which I just always found fitting.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_04: That was fitting.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's he really became a larger-than-life figure.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: He wouldn't take remember, he wouldn't fly to any of the football games.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: He would only take a bus.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, there was some incident that happened with the Raiders, yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: Where they almost wrecked or something in a plane, and he was like, Oh, is that what happened?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_05: I I I thought that's what happened.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_05: He used to fly and he had a really bad scare in a plane, and then he he took the Madden Cruiser.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_05: Whatever happened to the Madden Cruiser somewhere.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Good question.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_04: But but yeah, I mean he he he was so big as an announcer, and then that video game is just you know larger than life as well.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_04: I I used to I used to take off work every year when they would release the new version.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: What's your favorite version of Madden football?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: Oh gosh.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_04: Probably like the 2003, around that time, because that's when that's when they started doing uh i I might have the wrong year, but it was one of those years where they started adding in all this stuff where you could like develop the players, you could do like these like preseason like running drills to like up your running backs points and stuff like that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh probably around that time.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_05: My favorite was still the 1998 version, which is a long time ago.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_04: What did you like about that one?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: You know why?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: Because I won the Super Bowl with the St.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: Louis Rams and Tony Banks.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_05: So no, 99.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: It was nine because they didn't have Kurt Warner even on that team.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_04: It would have been it would have been the 98 season, but they would have called it 99, probably, is what you're thinking of.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_05: So but Kurt Warner was not the quarterback, but you had every you literally had every other piece in place for that Rams greatest show on turf team.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I so you had a PlayStation, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: If I remember correctly.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I had a Nintendo 64 back then, and what I remember about that year or around that year was they had changed the the Madden games, when you wanted to tackle somebody, you dove at them.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: You like dove at them to make the tackle, and the developers are like, that's not realistic.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_04: So they added like this tackle animation.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, and you would like wrestle the guy to the ground, yeah.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: Which which was a good idea, which they perfected a lot in the later games, but but that first year, whether it was like 90, it was bad.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: It was real bad, so bad that I I used to play as the Carolina Panthers.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: They had this running back who nobody would ever remember.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_05: A guy went to Michigan Tishmonga, Biacka Batuka.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_05: I remember that, yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I would just call the same play up the middle every single time and get four yards.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: And it just my brother used to hate that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_04: He used to hate playing against me because I would just Byakobatuka up the middle, Byakabatuka up the middle, because attack animation did not work very well the first year.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I remember little like idiosyncrasies like that.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: I I just there's so many good memories of playing that game against like friends and if you can find the 1999 version of it, Tim, I'll play you.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_05: I will be Tony Banks and the St.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_05: Louis Rams with Dick Vermeal's playbook.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_05: I probably still know all the plays.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: Ricky Prohl in Friends.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: You had Isaac Bruce.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if you had Azir Hakeem.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: You might not had him, but you'd have to go back and look at the roster.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_04: They they used to have a tournament at Hines Field every year.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: It was a national tournament, but it came to Hines Field.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, of like Madden players.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_04: And I I would always go down and enter.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_05: Did you ever win?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: No, I never made it past.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_05: So the first round you I mean, did you ever win like even one game?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so you had to you had to get out of the first round, you had to win four games in a row, and they were two-minute quarters.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, wow.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: So basically that amounted to you basically had like if you got the ball in the first half, you pretty much had the ball, that was your possession.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then the other team got their possession in the second half.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_04: Now there was a chance you could make them punt or get the ball back, but two-minute quarters went really fast.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: And you had to win four of those in a row.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: And the closest I ever came to getting out of that opening bracket was I think I made it to the fourth game and I lost that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I always remember it was the tight end for the Eagles, dropped a pass.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_04: It was wide open on like third, and I had a third and like 17 because I'd gotten sacked.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I hit him right in the hands and he dropped it, and that's what that's what lost me the game.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_05: You didn't get to pick your team, they just picked them for you.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: No, I picked the Eagles because they had Donovan McNabb, and I always liked back then to pick a team that had a running quarterback.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_04: So for years, I for years I always used Minnesota because they had Call Pepper and he could run around.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_04: And then by that point, I was using McNabb.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, we're digressing, but I have so many good memories of that game.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: Well, what that has to do with the 1970s Raiders, barely, but it was a great story.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_04: It was.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Phil Vilpiano, another player in this saga here, Raiders linebacker.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: He still says he was clipped on the Immaculate Reception.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he seems like be one of the good guys on the Raiders.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_05: He he becomes friends with Franco, and he he seems to have embraced his role in the Immaculate Reception, and he's always at the reunions giving the Raiders perspective, and it's fun.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_05: He's not like a super guy, bad guy like George Atkinson, who I just think is just kind of a jerk.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: Or I I don't know.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like in Jack Tatum, you don't hear much from Jack Tatum ever, but it seems to be Filipiniano and George Atkinson and John Madden are the and Stabler, are kind of the guys you hear from in the media.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I don't know.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: I guess I could save this for the immaculate reception part of the um I'm gonna save it for later.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_05: I have a story, a really cool story about Phil Villa Piano, we'll save for for later.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_04: Well, just just going back to him being kind of one of those voices, he he he is like the like the WWF heel that you're supposed to boo and you're supposed to hate, but you kind of just you really like him.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's what it's yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, didn't they try that with The Rock?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_05: They tried to make him a heel that everybody liked him.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: That's Phil Vilipiano.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_04: I I was kind of hoping that they would invite him when they had the 50th anniversary a couple years ago.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_04: I was kind of hoping that he that they would invite him just to be like one of the Raiders players, but like like introduce him in front of the crowd and everything because I think people would have cured him.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_04: I really did.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's part of my story.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_05: I'll have to read you this.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: Well, we'll when we go over the Immaculate Reception, I'll include that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, okay.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_05: So um, George Atkinson, um, he's a very dirty player.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and he's kind of like talks crap.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like, if you ever watch the NFL like top 10 stuff, like when he talks about Heinz Ward, he talks about how much he loves Heinz Ward cheap shots, people.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um he's like a key player, and he's gonna have this whole off-the-field issue with Chuck Knoll.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_05: So um, yeah, whatever.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, some other Steeler guys, mean Joe Green.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he's a legendary player.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he very much respects the Raiders, especially after the 1975 AFC Championship game for his part, for as much as Mean Joe like kind of like carried on and did some stuff early in his career.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_05: I guess by that point, Mean Joe was maturing.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_05: And uh poor Lynn Swan, I don't know what Lin Swan ever did, but maybe they just figured he was an easy target.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_05: He just seemed to be the target of all the Raiders, like cheap shots.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: I I I don't know why they didn't go after Terry or Franco or any of those other guys, but Lin Swan, even Stalwart, they just seemed to always go after Lynn Swan.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: I have no idea.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was an odd target.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, why why Lin why did they hate Lin Swan?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe because he was like a finesse player.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I don't know.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: Or or maybe because he was really good, and you know, but but like you said, Franco was really good, Terry Bradshaw was really good, why why Lynn Swan?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, that's you're right, they did go after him a lot.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we'll go over some of the uh big games here.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um let's see here the nineteen seventy three divisional playoff game.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um this is Is actually after the immaculate reception, and the Raiders dominate the Steelers.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: Bradshaw, I can see why Bradshaw got benched in 1974.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, two touchdowns and three interceptions.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and and there's a key play that was the turning point.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: Um, they were trailing 16 to 7 with two minutes left in the third quarter.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_05: They'd moved across midfield with a chance to get back in the game.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_05: And uh Chuck Knoll said they put in this special play for this exact situation.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: But unfortunately, old man Willie, if you remember, remember the NFL films in Kansas City Super Bowl where he's like running the Willie Brown, who's a Hall of Famer in himself, um ends up getting a uh interception.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Terry Bradshaw called an Audubill, and a second later the Steelers season was fluttered away and down the sidelines in Willie Brown's hand.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_05: This is written by um, I think this is a writer in Oakland called Bob Valley.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: We had a play action pass to our halfback, but Brown rotated up, Noel said.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: The quarterback is supposed to pre-read the coverage, but he didn't.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know what that sound is, Tim?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_05: That's the sound of the bus running over Terry Bradshaw.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: And then you want to hear the sound of the bus backing up over Terry Bradshaw?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_05: Oh no.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't see Brown, admitted Terry.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: That interception and my two others killed us.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oakland just wanted it worse than we did.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: That uh that 73 season is one of those, like nobody really remembers it because everybody remembers oh, the Immaculate Reception, and then the dynasty started.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: It really did until 74.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_05: And they had no quarterback halfway, like they had Joe Gilliam start the 74 season.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_04: There's a um there's a book.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't read the whole thing, but I've read a big chunk of it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_04: It was written by Roy Blunt Jr.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: It was called uh Three Bricks Shy of a Load.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: He followed that team around the 73 scores and he wrote a whole book about them.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I I think that would make an interesting episode at some point to.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'll have to pick up that one then for sure.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's a good read.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_05: Well, uh, for Willie Brown's part, he said I was reading the quarterback, and when he looked at the halfback coming out, I decided at the last second to go for the ball.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: It was an instinctive move.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_05: He was just trying to knock the ball down.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: Then we'll come to the uh bigger games.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the AFC Championship game.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_05: They actually met three years in a row, Tim.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_05: You believe it or not.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_05: So in 1974, the uh Steelers have to go on the road to the Oakland Coliseum, which I have uh I have attended a baseball game there, Tim.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_05: You can't say that, can you?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_05: No, it wasn't that great of an experience.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: No rats, at least.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: You didn't see any rats.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_05: No, no.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_05: I did get to see Mount Davis, though, which they when remember they went to LA and they moved back to Oakland.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_05: That was part of the deal to get the Raiders back to Oakland.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_05: They had to build this monstrosity of a section up on.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'll I have a picture of it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: I'll I'll send it to you too.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: You can include it in the links for our podcast.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: You can show Mount Davis.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_05: It was not there in 1974, but in whenever two years ago was there when they're still playing baseball there.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Steel Steelers defense holds the Raiders, who are a pretty good running team, too.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: 29 yards rushing.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_05: The Raiders are pretty physical team.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um in the uh on the conversely, uh Franco has 111 yards rushing.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: So uh the Steelers dominate the line of scrimmage.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um they actually beat the Raiders for the first time in two tries.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: I think they had lost the regular season game and the playoff game.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_05: So 74, they have finally kind of broken through on the Steelers.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_05: And um Dwight White quote, Dwight White had a great quote in the paper.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Dwight White summed up the difference between this encounter and the last two, both lopsided Raiders wins.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: Last year in the playoffs, they just blew us out because we were so banged up with injuries.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: Earlier this season in Pittsburgh, they whipped us good too, but we hadn't peaked yet.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_05: Things had fallen into place.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_05: The ping, the big thing though, was that today they kept running at us and never gained an advantage.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_05: They were expecting us to fall apart like we did those last two games, but we didn't.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_05: So the Raiders for three quarters, John Madden, for whatever reason stuck with his running game, and the Steelers were up to the task.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, John Madden, and this kind of kind of becomes a theme with him.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: I noticed this when I was researching that John Madden whines a lot.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_05: I don't remember him whining like this.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um, naturally, Raider coach John Madden tried to downplay losing the big game.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_05: I don't feel that way, he said.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: The first thing that goes through your mind is not to panic.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_05: A few hours ago, we had the best record in the NFL.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_05: We have no reason to believe that we needed wholesale changes.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_05: The whole season boiled down to one quarter and we lost the fourth quarter.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_05: That's interesting.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: And uh what was the final score of that game?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: 24 to 13.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think you lost more in the fourth quarter.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: 20 yards yards rushing.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's it's your head coach, you gotta uh rationalize, I guess.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_05: So this be brings us to the probably the PS desistants, the uh classic one of the probably the second most classic game in this rivalry, I would say, under my estimation.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the AFC championship game in 1975.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_05: So this game was played in late December.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's December 26th or 23rd.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_05: It was like right around Christmas.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_05: And the Steelers win the game 16 to 10, and it was played quite like a game like you know, the weather is in Pittsburgh in December, which meant it was 70 degrees and sunny, right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_05: Not so much, huh?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it was like a freezing rain and like not freezing, but it was snowing and freezing and cold, and of course, Al Davis complains about the field being frozen.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_05: And um, here's a clip of Al Davis complaining about the field.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our game was to throw them, the deep ball.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mel Blunt, if there's one play he dreaded, it was Cliff and Branch, but they all dreaded Cliff and Branch.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so with that ice, we had to move those receivers in, and that narrowed the field for us.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget Pete Rossell said to me, Well, it's the same for both sides.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, damn it, Pete, you don't even understand what you're talking about.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the same for both sides.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_05: So that's Al whining about compete Rosell, even though Pete Rossell astutely you know said, Hey, both teams have to play on it, but that wasn't good enough for Al because his game is the deep pass, and that's because John Stalworth and Lynn Swan never run deep.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: They just run short passes all the time.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: I mean that's a good point because that was the argument.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's like, well, the Steelers, the Steelers were only a running team and they didn't start throwing the ball until later.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: But if you look at what happens in the Super Bowl that year, Lynn Swan catches a whole bunch of big deep passes.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_04: So it does hurt the Steelers, too.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Madden complains about letting the John Madden complaining again.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um there's a play at the end of the game where because it was a close game, um, they clear they complete a pass to the sideline, I would say, that's near the I want to say the home sideline because it's the way the view of the camera is.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Because I watched the highlight and Cliff Branch catches it, and you can't tell if he gets tackled inbounds or out of bounds, because I guess the Steelers allowed like a bunch of fans to stand down there, or just people, random people, like VIPs, and they all are like just standing there, and it's like the end of the game.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_05: So they called him down in the field of play, and the Raiders didn't have any timeouts, and the time ran off the clock.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um Madden's like, I couldn't see if he went out of bounds.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he said, if he would have gone out of bounds, I had the perfect play called from the 15 and we would have scored, which seems kind of presumptuous on John Madden's part, but hey, I guess he he knew he knew more than I did.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_05: Who am I?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not a video game guy, so yeah, that's that sounds like a uh again, um wishful thinking and trying to rationalize your loss.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean uh did the Raiders lose any games in the 70s that were like they legitimately lost.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_05: Probably not.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_05: Well, they they they had a mis there was supposedly the two things that like kind of were off-the-field issues on this were there was a hole in the tarp in 1975 that supposedly allowed like the ground to freeze, and then Dirk Donardo supposedly was you know hosing down the sidelines.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_05: He was the groundskeeper of three.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: What a grow what does a groundskeeper of three ever stadium do?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like tend to the artificial turf?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, what's the den to?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: Especially that time of year.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's not like the pirates are playing baseball or there's a concert or something.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that apparently they were like hosing down the sidelines from the hash marks out, and they're like, What are you doing?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like, oh, we're defrosting this field with cold water.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's how it works.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, uh who knows the real story of that game.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh whatever.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, home field advantage is home field advantage, Steve.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_05: Well, there was lots of turnovers in this game.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_05: So, um, I mean, i it was a sloppy game because it was so cold.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_05: I think both teams had a bunch of fumbles and stuff, so yeah.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: Which brings us to the AFC Championship game in 1976, which is this, like now it's the third time.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_05: And Rocky and Franco, unfortunately, are hurt for this.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_05: But and this one had lots of off-field issues.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like the it just seems like each game, the off-field issues seem to intensify as they played bigger, these big games.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, John Madden thinks Chuck Noel is lying, and that Franco and Rocky will play.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, here you go.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: From what I can tell, anything is speculation.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, however, Madden either isn't believing the Steeler backs are lame or he's preparing himself for the worst.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_05: They'll play, Madden said.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_05: You watch the Super Bowl's at stake, they'll be healthy.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_05: So he basically accuses Chuck Knoll of lying.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so this is I'm going to go with the Pac-Man Jones logic.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_05: Chuck Noel had realized he'd been caught in the lie.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_05: So to enforce that law and to protect his reputation, he didn't play Rocky Blair or Franco Harris.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_04: Just sacrifice his two best running backs because you know, can't like John Madden caught him.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:24
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_05: So I actually weird thing too.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_05: The Coliseum had to tighten security.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, security will be Titans.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_05: Special emphasis will be getting to those attempting to bring cans and bottles or fireworks um to the stadium.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um will not conduct tolerate a very small percentage whose actions may disrupt the safety and enjoyment of the mass majority.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_05: Also, the FAA have uh banned uh light aircraft away from the Coliseum.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know why there's no airport near that stadium, so I don't know there is.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's across like even the because I flew into Oakland and you still gotta go across a bridge to get to that stadium.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_05: So interesting.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, I only know this because I've been to Oakland.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I wonder if they had like credible threats of stuff happening.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was just more just fans bringing like back in the 70s.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_05: Remember, people used to bring all kinds of crazy stuff in there and like throw stuff on the field and firecrackers.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure like people were doing silly stuff.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: You can find a clip uh of a game around that era.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_04: I believe it was New Orleans, it was a dome, where someone sets off a really loud firework during the game.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_04: It was like an M80 or something, and you just hear this explosion, it kind of like rocks the camera.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_04: And they're just kind of like, oh, somebody threw a firework.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, second and seventeen.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's so people weren't as skittish back then.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, yeah, you didn't have the incidents that you had after that that that made people more understandably skittish about large gatherings and security.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, 70s were a different time.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Al Davis was another one who um didn't didn't believe the hype on the injuries.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_05: He said um Harris, who hadn't practiced all week, he was given a painkiller before the game, but Noel decided not to risk further injury.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um Blyer sprained toe, kept him out.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_05: Al Davis implied a bit of disbelief that Harris and Blyer weren't playing.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_05: You can't wait for a whole team to get perfectly well, Davis said.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_05: Blyer appeared to thinking the same thing he wanted to play.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_05: Blyer said, I was ready to play.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_05: I told Chuck I was fine.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: There was no pain, and I felt I could contribute.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_05: It was Chuck's decision all the way.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I think I don't think Al Davis was as skeptical as the paint.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_05: I I just think Al Davis makes a good point.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like sometimes you gotta play guys' heart, if especially in a big game, but hey, it is what it is.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um Ken Stabler thought the game was overhyped.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um he said uh Ken Stabler said the game was built up to be the invasion of Normandy, and it wasn't.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because it really wasn't, it it was pretty uh well handedly in hand.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_05: It was uh well what was the final score of this one?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_04: 24 to 10, something like that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, something like that.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, when we we talked about this game in our uh in our three rings episode.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_04: And the the the so the the the the narrative over the years is oh the Steelers would have made their third Super Bowl.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_04: They had such a great team that year, but Franco and Rocky got hurt, and so that cost them a trip to the Super Bowl.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_04: Which it's it's valid.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it's definitely valid that Franco and Rocky not playing in that game badly hurt them.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_04: But when you're giving up 24 points, that was the year that the D that was the 76th defense that had five shutouts.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was gonna mention that next.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Chuck Knoll says for his part, I'm sorry we weren't able to have more weapons available.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_05: That's why it hurts so much to lose this one.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Steelers had come back from a one and four start to win 10 straight.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it kills you, it killed every one of those guys in there.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'll remember this team as long as I live.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_05: The fine things that were done, they exemplate they exemplified everything that's good about pro football in my mind.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_05: It's a lousy way to end the that kind of year.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_05: You can't say enough about the struggle we put on, and to have it end up like today, it tears you apart.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_05: So, like you said, 9.9 points per game that season.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and they only allowed 28 points in the last nine games.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like we said, this is the three-peat that could have been, but was not to be and they allowed 24 points in that game.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_04: So that's that's what I mean.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: If if that game I've always said if that game ends uh you know 10 to 7 or 13 to 7, right?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: Something like that, then I think I think that narrative about Franco and Rocky holds up a little bit better.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: But 24 I I looked it up, it's 24 to 7.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: I said 24 to 10.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: They gave up 24 points.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't know.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_04: Like even if Franco and Rocky.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well it says here there was a partially blocked punt, an interception, and a controversial call by the officials set up Oakland 17 points in the first half.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: So Yeah, there were some turnovers.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: But but again, I don't know.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: I I I just I think that I think that you have to if you're gonna rely on your defense, and that's maybe that's why Technol didn't play Franco and Rocky, thinking like, well, we don't necessarily need them because our defense will you know is so strong.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't know.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know, Steve.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: I just feel like it's a uh it's it's I I just don't think that narrative is as cut and dry as everybody thinks it is.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's all.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was a tough season, and the 76th season was a tough year for them.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_05: They had a lot going on.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: As well, you know, there was a lot going on.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: Ended up being a lot going on off the field, too.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: And that was probably one of the wilder seasons.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_05: So uh let's move on to a happier memory.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the Immaculate Reception, Tim.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_05: So, first off, um, it's the Steelers' first playoff game since 1947.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and they're losing um seven to six with a minute seventeen left.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_05: Why they're losing is because Darrell La Monica, who had the flu, is replaced by Ken Stabler, who makes a 30-yard run late in the game.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_05: The Steelers had actually been winning six to nothing the whole game, and it was like seven to six, and everybody's kind of like, well, this is how it goes.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_05: This is a sad sack franchise, they always lose.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_05: SOS, same old Steelers, right?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: Well, so the Steelers get to a fourth and ten with 22 seconds left when the Terry Bradshaw calls this play 66 circle option right, and its intended receiver is Barry Pearson.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_05: So let's watch what happens.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: And Rabbit Shaw is back and looking again.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: Red Shaw running out of the pocket, looking for somebody in the throw to fires it down the field, and then there's a collision.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's cut out of the air.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: The ball is pulled in by Franco Harris.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: Harris is going for a touchdown for Pittsburgh.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: Franco Harris pulling the football.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_06: I don't even know where it came from.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so what happened there was Terry Bradshaw runs around after the Steelers' offensive line just decided not to block anybody.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_05: You might want to block somebody at fourth and ten.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not a football expert here, but uh that sounds like a good idea.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: Bradshaw in his credit just throws a desperation pass that deflects off of Jack Tatum.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_05: Off of Jack Tatum.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_05: Back and to the left, back and to the right.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um and is caught out of the air by Franco Harris on his white horse, who credits Joe Peterto and telling him to go to the ball.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: That's why he was running that way.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: Although he'd missed his block, according to Phil Vilipiano.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he goes there, catches the ball, runs down the sideline, stiff arning Oakland defensive back Jimmy Warren, and scores with five seconds to go for the first playoff win in Steeler history.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_05: Unbelievable, huh?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_04: Still remember to this day.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_04: Over 50 years later.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_05: So uh fun facts about this game.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, we all know the uh Chief decided that he had seen enough Steelers football for one afternoon, and I don't blame him at that point.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_05: He was just trying to get a jump on the traffic and head down to the locker room and congratulates.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um George Atkinson, for his part, calls it the Immaculate Deception because at that point two offensive players weren't allowed to touch it consecutively.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um here's a fun one.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_05: Uh one of the I didn't catch I didn't catch the guy's name, but one of the Oakland players, he actually got in an altercation with the Pittsburgh police officer the night before, trying to get into his hotel room.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I guess they thought he was like one of this crowd that was trying to get into the Raiders hotel.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_05: And he got like six stitches in after a fight with the Oakland police, with the with the Pittsburgh police.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_05: So the city council in Oakland and all their wisdom, um, they tried to pass a resolution condemning the action by the Pittsburgh police and also protesting the score of the game.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_05: So Oakland City Council was rather upset.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and also, you know what?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um Madden said after the game that there was no way that the refs could rule against the Steelers since there were so many fans on the field.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_05: And he stated that the refs would not have made it out of a live off the stadium if if they would have ruled the other way, Fred Swearingen and people.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then in 1995, in a history moment, remember to us all, it became the topic of a speech by uh Tim Hannon, which our principal attended.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: That was a um was that a journalism class that we were taking?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_04: Speech.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: So it was like public speaking, and we had to do a speech on a historical event.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: And somehow I got away with that being my historical event.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_05: It's history.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_05: It is history.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_05: And our principal was like a old football coach came down and like watched it.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_05: It was pretty fun.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: It was.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so uh Phil Villa Piano, going back to him who says he was clipped on the play.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_05: Um, this is a story from ESPN in December 23rd, 2022, which would have been the 50 year anniversary of the play.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um, in fact, every year on December 23rd, Harris will call, Franco would call Philville and say, Hey Phil, what were you doing this time 30 years ago?
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_05: Philip will growl and grimace and shout out, We are getting screwed.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_05: And they will laugh and laugh, and it is how they say, I love.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: So this year, three days before Christmas, Vilipiano comes to Pittsburgh.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: He is here for the game between the Raiders and Steelers, where the NFL will celebrate 50 years since the Immaculate Reception.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: He is here to see the Steelers retire, the Her Franco's Harris's number.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_05: He is here to honor his friend.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_05: I came to be with my buddy, Villa Piano says in the airport on Wednesday night, pausing in front of the statue of Harris that greets everyone coming off the plane.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_05: Then he takes a breath, bends down, and signs the book that was placed in front of the statue early that morning.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: Franco, he writes in swooping script, you were the best.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_05: I will miss you.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, this is after just Franco had died just a couple days before.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_05: I thought that was a very touching moment and story from Phil Bill Philip Piano.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_05: Like you said, he he's one of the raiders that you know he definitely, you know, he still likes to yuck it up, but he seems like a good guy, took it in stride.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_04: Agreed.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_05: But now we'll get into the uh off-the-field stuff.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um this gets a little interesting.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um so in that 73 season, they lost that regular season game, and um Dan Rooney was apparently rather upset about some things that went on.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_05: This was in Oakland um during the 73 season when they lost.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_05: Let's see what the score was in 73.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_05: It would have been 17-9.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_04: That's a game you talked about earlier where Bradton made a bunch of mistakes.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_05: Or that might have been the playoff game.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_05: I think that was a playoff game.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_05: This is a regular season game.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, this is a regular season in 73?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: Gotcha.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so uh Dan Rooney says unexplained lags in the official clock, including one that helped Oakland kick a field goal on the last play of the first half.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Raiders defensive linemen had greasy substances smeared on the top of their shoulders, making them difficult to grab.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_05: Remember when the uh Broncos did that against the Jets that one year in the championship game and they had to wipe it off?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_05: That was Belichick uh catching the Broncos cheating.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_05: So I guess one cheater knows another, huh?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um a partially deflated football, speaking of the Patriots, was handed to the Steelers center Rain Mansfield before a field goal.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_05: Mansfield refused to use it.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_05: I guess what they were figuring they wouldn't be able to kick a field goal with the ball, it'd be some would be like bloop.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_05: Probably.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_05: Um, an obscenity was printed in ink on the strings of another ball handed to the Mansfield.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_05: I wonder, Mansfield, the center.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_05: I wonder if it just said, hey, you're the best Steelers.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: Whatever.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: It's kind of like very petty, isn't it, Tim?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um, even the uh, you ever heard the the Raiders song, which I love, The Autumn Wind?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_05: We'll we'll listen to that now.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Autumn Wind is a pirate.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Blustering in from steam with a rollicking storm speaks along.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Swaggering voice to its face.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's face to switch.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: He wears a hooded sash with a silver hat about his head and a bristling black mustache.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: He growls as he storms the country, a villain big and bold.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the trees all shake and quiver and quake as he robs them of their gold.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: The autumn wind is a raider, pillaging just for fun.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: He'll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he's conquered and won.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's even better with John Facenda reading the little, you know.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_05: And I love the Raiders.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I, you know, I can't for as much as I can't stand the Patriots, and I know, and this is probably heresy to say in Pittsburgh, but I love the Raiders because they're just straight up evil and they don't care.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_05: And they're pure unadulterated evil, Tim.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_05: And uh there's there's no uh no debating that.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um the Super Bowl ring, um, when the Super Bowls won, when the Raiders won that 76 championship game, they went on to beat the was that the Vikings or the Vikings, yeah.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_05: Vikings in the Super Bowl.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um they actually stopped the Steelers you know, quest for a three-peat.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_05: And um instead of getting the score of the Super Bowl with the Vikings on the ring, they actually got the score of the Steelers AFC championship game on the ring.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_05: So a very Raiders thing to do, huh?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, that's how much that's how big that rivalry was.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_04: That was the game that mattered to them the most was the championship game.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um remember when I think we went over this before.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_05: Remember when the Raiders sued the Steelers and the Yeah.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_05: So in 1976, the Steelers opened opener.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_05: We talked about this, they lost 31 to 28 in Oakland.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the Steelers blew a fourth quarter lead.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_05: Chuck Noll was not happy about it, but he really wasn't happy about some of the extra hits on Lynn Swan during the game.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, they for some reason they picked on Lynn Swan.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: I never understood.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there was a play in question that was a third and five from the Oakland 44 with a minute 24 in the first half.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Terry Bradshaw jumped a ball, threw a ball to Franco down the left side.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: Swan was coming across the field like the other side of the field, and as Swan's just like not blocking or doing anything, Jordy Atkinson comes up and just bloop, like basically karate chops him, as Don Meredith describes it in the back of the head.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_05: Listen to uh Dandy Dawn.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_05: He says it better than I do.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see if we can take a look and see how Lynn Swann got hurt.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, they're picking on Lynn.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think he's supposed to do that.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think Agnes is in another no-no and give him a karate jump across the back of the neck.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: You mean you're not supposed to take it off?
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a no-no.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think he's supposed to do it.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: I really do.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Chuck Knoll, so after all that, Chuck Knoll's kind of annoyed by losing and his team getting his team getting cheap shotted.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, they went after Swan again.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_05: People that sick shouldn't be allowed to play this game.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_05: Watching something like that clouds the hell out of whatever their offense did.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_05: It seems to only come from their defensive unit.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe that's a reflection on their coaching.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_05: And then he says citing the blows as being applied with the intent to maim and not with football in mind.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_05: People like that should be kicked out of the game or out of football.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_05: There's certainly a criminal element in every aspect of society, and apparently we haven't in the NFL, too.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the line that would haunt the Steelers for the next six months.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_05: So uh Chick No Chuck Dole also said, um, remind reminded the Steelers have also been the dirty play.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_05: Noel answered, we usually hit people straight on, nose to nodes.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: There's nothing wrong with hard-hitting football, but not when your back is turned.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's something that has to be straightened out.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think that's football.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_05: We play football, we don't want to get involved with criminal actions.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 51:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_05: George Atkinson says, it was nothing intentional.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_05: The game is a contact sport.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_05: It might be different if we had flags in our pockets.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_05: I get knocked around.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_05: I've had concussions.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_05: I don't complain about it.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_05: I don't even think it was that severe a hit.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_05: The hit I gave him last year was worse.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Pete Rossell, his fart, uh, to get involved.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he's decided I'm fining everybody.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_05: Atkisson,$1,500.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: Tatum,$750 for a different incident.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Noel got fined$1,500.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: Ernie Holmes got a$200 fine.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so Noel did get fined for those comments.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but the Raiders, the Raiders thought or claimed that Roselle only took all those actions after Noel made the comments.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_04: And and he kind of was like, okay, they shouldn't say that, but you're right, so I'm gonna find all the Raiders.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_05: But he fined the Steelers.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_04: I know, I know, but that's what they that's what they claim.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: If if Chuck Nortons make those comments, Pete Rosell doesn't have the reactionary response.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_05: Well, so what happens is Atkins stated that this was defamation of his fine upstanding character of the person that Jared Jatkinson is.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_05: He filed a slander and libel lawsuit on December 6, 1976, which is curiously, Tim, did you notice that's right before the playoffs?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_05: That's an interesting timing.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he hires a lawyer who is none other than Willie Brown.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if you're familiar.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_05: Willie Brown was a longtime San Francisco politician, longtime California politician.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_05: He actually was mayor of the city from 1996 to 2004.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know who succeeded Willie Brown as mayor of San Francisco?
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_05: No idea.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_05: Won Mr.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_05: Gavin Newsom.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it all comes full circle, doesn't it?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, for the Steelers part, they hired a defense team that had lawyer James McGuinness, who had famously represented Patty Hearst at trial.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_05: So this is this is a California trial, by the way.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um the trial actually was held in July, which meant Chuck Noel had to miss training camp.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_05: So good for them, I guess.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_05: This is exactly what the Raiders wanted.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Noel was the first witness.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_05: He'd been called by Ax and lawyers.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um, he was uh actually questioned by a lawyer named Dan Mason.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um Mason asked him, is there anybody else who constitutes Knowles criminals?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_05: The criminal element is Noel, is made up of people who break the rules wantonly.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_05: I'd have to go back and review the films and find who fits into that category.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_05: Come up with another name other than Addictson.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_05: There have been people played against us, Tatum.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: Then they bring in like literally a film and a projector into the trial, and they play like all these hits of like the Steelers, like Mel Blunt and Glenn Edwards, and all these guys doing hits that were common in the 70s.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_05: And the the lawyer Mason is like, should I add those games there, those names to your list?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: And Noel said, Well, that's not mine your list, that's your list.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_05: Noel says Addison was breaking the rules of football.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_05: Eventually, that's what it comes down to.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_05: No makes his point.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_05: He said he was just talking about breaking the rules of football.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_05: He wasn't calling him a criminal in a societal sense, and it's just a whole big mess.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_05: And Addison's like signing autographs while the jury's out, and it was pretty obvious by the end of the trial that this was just gonna be tossed out, and that's what the jury did.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_05: They found in the Steelers' favor.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um Mel Blunt gets really ticked off because he was named in this lawsuit and he was holding out that summer, and he actually holds out for like 56 days and uh sues.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_05: He counters he not counter, he sues uh Chuck Knoll also because he used that term criminal element regarding him.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_05: Eventually, Mel Blunt does drop the lawsuit and he finishes out his Hall of Fame career.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um Will Willie Brown stated the jury has substantially sanctioned Chuck Knowles' right to use that term against anyone he deems appropriate to do so.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_05: They should be ashamed of themselves.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_05: I don't understand how any citizens could sit back and let someone say someone is a criminal element without doing something about it.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_05: Would you like to hear Dan Rooney's reaction to all of this?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_05: I'm pleased about the verdict.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_05: I it has been the most depressing experience of my life, but I am happy the way it turned out.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_05: In his book, Dan Rooney suspected that Al Davis was behind this to help distract the Steelers from the playoffs.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_05: What say you, Tim, about this whole ridiculous farce of a trial?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly what it was.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_04: It was just there to mess with the Steelers, and then they had to be just jumping with joy when you know Noel kind of talks about Mel Blunt during his nine hours of questioning, and now Mel Blunt's upset, and Mel Blunt said he's never gonna play for the team, and he's suing.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's exactly what they just wanted to create chaos.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it it's it's like these you know, these bots that like these China China, Russia, these countries put out there just to try to do nothing constructive but cause chaos, you know, on like social media.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_04: It's like that, it's like that kind of thing.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly what they were just trying to do, was cause chaos.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_04: And it works because that's the first year that they the Raiders are back in the AFC Championship game in 77, but the Steelers aren't.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_04: And and because the way the season starts is with Chuck No missing training camp to testify in this sham of a trial, and then Melblunt suing the Steelers.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean it was a mess.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, you want to hear about the Raiders rules?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_05: So they they had a letterhead and it said pride and poise, and Al Davis had this on all the stationery as a letterhead.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_05: And then during the 74 uh game they won in the championship, the Steelers were like, Yeah, we have like pride and professionalism or something.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like Chuck Knoll made fun of them.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, how about commitment to excellence, Tim?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_05: Remember that one?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_05: I do.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_04: Seems a long time ago.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, just win, baby, in my tracksuit.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_05: I should have worn a tracksuit for this episode.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_05: Al Davis used these, he learned these from the army.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_05: These are motivational tactics that Al Davis had learned.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and according to Matt Millen, now I don't know if this is true or not, but this is according to Matt Millen, and he played for the Raiders.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know the Raider rule number one?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_04: Don't get caught cheating, something to that effect.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_05: You're close, you're close.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_05: Cheating is encouraged.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_05: And do you know rule number two?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: Uh don't get caught.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_05: See rule number one.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_05: Oh I see.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_05: I see.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_05: So, I mean, it it slows down.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_05: The the Steelers kind of like don't really meet the Raiders until 1983.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_05: And the Raiders are still okay.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: And in this, I mean, I included this divisional game.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's kind of the end of the like core rivalry, but there really isn't anybody left in this night.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like, Bradshaw isn't there.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Mark Malone doesn't even play.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's Cliff Stout plays this game.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_04: It is Cliff Stout, yeah.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_05: And and uh for the quarterback's Jim Plunkett for the Raiders, Marcus Allen is the running back.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_05: So it's really and Flores, Tom Flores.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_05: Is Tom Flores in the Hall of Fame finally?
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_05: Did they finally I think they finally put him in?
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_05: I think so, yeah.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like why he wasn't in the Hall of Fame, I never understood.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and the the highlight, there's a guy's name Bruce Keaton.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_05: I think he writes for the Postgazet or the AP, and he he he writes about this game because the Raiders win 38-10.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_05: They blow the Steelers out, and it's it's called Massacre in Smogland.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_05: And um in the loss of the team, he says uh team, football teams that suffer this sort of roster casualties the Steelers did this year, whether by injury, retirement, or defection, simply do not win championships.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_05: And that's kind of a nice bow tie on the Steelers of the 70s or 83.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_05: They that was kind of the end of their dynasty for sure.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_04: It was.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and that you're right.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_04: By that point, pretty much everybody was gone.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_04: Terry Bradshaw had was still on the roster, but he had played his last game already.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_04: And uh the Raiders had turned over too.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, because at that point, like you said, Plunkett and Marcus Allen and those kinds of guys, Todd Christensen.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_04: The only thing I remember about that game was uh they were really upset about something that Tunch Elkin had said, like in in the media, and they they were like determined to like get him back, and it was a that was a whole thing.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_04: So there were still like echoes of the rivalry at that point, but it wasn't the same.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_04: And they were in Los Angeles too.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_04: That was another thing that by the time.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's right.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they were in LA, yeah.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_05: So in '99, uh this I I think this is kind of the last hurrah of the Steelers Raiders.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, the December 3rd, 2000, the last Raiders game in Steel 3 Stadium.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_05: We've covered this before.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_05: 21-20 win, great touchdown by Mark Brunner, good game by Cordell.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's a blowout game at the beginning of the 2002 season.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's some bad losses by Tomlin when they move back to Oakland.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_05: I remember the one where Chris Boswell fell down on a field goal, Tim.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but probably I mentioned this game.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_05: We kind of mentioned this game in passing.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_05: The 22, 2022, December 25th, the Christmas game, the Franco retirement game were I can't believe this.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_05: This seems like this was 20 years ago, Tim, and this was only what three, four years ago is that?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_05: Three years.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um during halftime, Harris's widow, Dana Domankovich, and their son Doc joined team president Art Rooney the second for a tearful ceremony that included um Doc Demon leaning into Rooney for support after he presented her with her late husband's jersey.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, Kenny Pickett, who had actually engineered a game-winning drive, the Steelers win 13 to 10, said, We dedicated this to Frank, or we felt like he was with us tonight.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_05: There were articles saying, hey, the Steelers have a young cast, this Pickett and Pickens guys, they're gonna be good for years to come, Tim.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness, this is the core of a new beginning, and Matt Canada's got it all figured out.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_04: That does seem like a long time ago.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think that just set us back so many years.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like, not anybody.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_05: Pickett's gone, Harris is gone, Pickens is gone.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_05: Every one of those like core players is gone.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_05: So why did the rivalry fade, Tim?
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the Steelers became mediocre in the 80s.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, the Raiders kind of became they were good all the way to the 90s.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_05: The Raiders, I remember an NFL Films blurb, I didn't write this down, but I remember they they were like out of all like Notre Dame football, the Bears, all the other like the Yankees, like they had one of the top winning percentages at the end of the 80s of any of the professional sports teams.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_05: And then the Raiders were kind of good.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_05: They they kind of went back and forth, they were decent in the 90s, and then um it all kind of like fell apart with two events for the Raiders.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_05: The Tuck game in 2001, which that would have been great.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_05: Another Steelers, Raiders, AFC Championship game.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_05: That would have been in Pittsburgh, right?
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_04: Correct.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that would have been I was because I remember looking forward to that with Rich Gannon and John Gruden, but no, we had to witness the Patriots dynasty take flight.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_05: We lost to Drew Bledsoe.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's great.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then uh and then there there was a uh there the the really what ended the Raiders was that Super Bowl against Tampa Bay when Gruden had gotten traded from the Raiders to Tampa, and then they they had a lot of people say that game was fixed, but I I don't know.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I don't know why Bill Cal and Han didn't change some of the offense.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like they literally knew the Raiders' play calls, and there's audio of them knowing the Raiders play call.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like, why don't you change some of the audibles and stuff?
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, and you're right, Steve.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_04: They really haven't done a whole lot since then.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_04: I I want to say they had like one or two pretty good seasons when Derek Carr was their quarterback.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_05: But I don't think they made the playoffs, did they?
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_04: I think they may have made the playoffs once or twice, but I mean it's it's it they haven't done a whole lot in the last 20 plus years.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_04: So and then they moved to Las Vegas.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_04: So you're right, that there hasn't been a whole lot to write home about what the Raiders Al Davis died.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and even before he died, he was that's when they were drafting DeMarcus Russell.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_05: Lane Kiffin, yeah.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Lane Kiffin was a coach.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_04: They you know it it they become they became sort of a parody of themselves a little bit.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and they've never really fully recovered from, like you said, from really from that tuck roll game in that Super Bowl the year after that.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_04: That was really the last time they were uh a real threat in the NFL.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_05: So uh going back to the 70s, the rivalry of the 70s, um, is this the top rivalry of the 1970s, Tim?
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_05: According to CBS Sports article, it is.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_05: I I I don't know.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, Cowboys Steelers, I would say, would be the second, and then they had Cowboys Redskins, Dolphin Raiders, Cowboys Rams, Rams, Vikings.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_05: I kind of added Houston in there just to inflate my own ego.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: I I I think so.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_05: I I think I would put this over the Cowboys.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_05: There seemed to be more venom and more off-field stuff than there was.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_05: There was some venom in the Cowboys.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_05: The Cowboys came close just because they they were Super Bowls.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_05: They were technically bigger games.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_05: And the Cowboys, what they had, Terry Bradshaw couldn't spell CAD if he gave them the C and the T, you know.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think there's a difference.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_04: Even though they were Super Bowls, I think there's a difference between two big games versus five consecutive years in the playoffs, plus like the regular season games where there's like lawsuits coming out of it and everything else.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_04: The Raiders Steelers had way more.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like if you were going to do a book about like Raider Steelers or Cowboy Steelers, you'd have a lot more material for the Raider Steelers.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_05: And it was just so physical.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_05: It was so physical.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_04: And you had the Immaculate Reception.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think that that puts it over the top as well.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_05: Favorite Raiders.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_05: I I I still like the Raider.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_05: They're my second favorite team if I have to have one.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know why.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_05: I know why, because it's just it's just pure unadulterated evil.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_05: They they are just the evil, the bad guy, the heel.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's like like going back to that whole they're they're they're that WWW, like the they're they're they play the bad guy and they like playing the bad guy.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_05: And that was they're not like the Patriots who are the bad guy, who deflate the ball and then tell, no, I didn't.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_05: Or I taped packets, no, I didn't.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_05: No, the Raiders would tape your practice and make fun of you while you did it.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_05: While they did it, you know.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they would have like a mystery science theater 3,000, like uh that play's gonna work against us, you know?
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, you gotta give them credit.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_04: They were honest about who they were.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's for sure.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_04: They were proud of who they were.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and it made for a great rivalry.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_04: It really did.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that was a lot of fun talking about the Raiders.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_05: I I I I just like I said, I I I love the Raiders.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_05: I just think they're a lot of fun to talk about, a lot of a lot of fun to renew that uh rivalry.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_05: If it ever, if either team ever gets good and plays meaningful football again.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_05: I it's not even like that with Baltimore, is it, Tim?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_05: Because like it Baltimore is like a very respectful, like there it's a rivalry, but I don't I don't see the off the field.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if like the way they're all millionaires and stuff now, and they're all like buddy buddy off the field.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_05: I don't see anything like this ever happening ever again.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I think the closest we came was the the Bengal years where Vontez Berfect and Pac-Man Jones that you mentioned earlier.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_04: I I think that's probably the closest we ever came to replicating the Raiders Rivalry in terms of style and and kind of like hatred.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I'll leave it at that, Tim.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um thank you for tuning in as usual.
• 1:08:54
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• 1:08:57
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• 1:09:01
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• 1:09:03
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• 1:09:04
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• 1:09:06
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• 1:09:10
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• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_05: And uh we'll catch you next time and God bless.