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Happy Immaculate Reception Day!

Discussion in 'Steelers Talk' started by dobbler-33, Dec 23, 2021.

  1. dobbler-33

    dobbler-33 Well-Known Member

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    Yo Franco!!!

     
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  2. Ray D

    Ray D Staff Member Mod Team

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    2 alternate views of the play. One an alternate TV angle giving a clear view of Franco catching the ball (definitively). Also, the All 22 film clearly showing he caught it.

     
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  3. MojaveDesertPghFan

    MojaveDesertPghFan

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    Another benefit of being a geezer, I am old enough to have seen the 2 biggest moments in Pittsburgh sports - Immaculate Reception and Maz's walk off vs Yankees. Both on TV, not live though. Years later met Madden at a bar at Caesar's In Vegas and he bought me a drink. Of course I never told him I was from Pittsburgh and a rabid Steelers fan. :steelflag:
     
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  4. Rush2seven

    Rush2seven Well-Known Member

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    I watched TJ get the Steelers’ sack record live. That was pretty monumental. And Santonio’s time to be great.
     
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  5. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Beer is good

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    I remember where I was when Franco caught that ball:

    section 620 Row F Seat 18
     
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  6. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Beer is good

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    Back in the early 80’s Madden traveled to the east coast by train. I had a friend who loved to travel that way. He met Madden multiple times and my friend said he was a good guy. One time the train broke down in a small town and the two of them went bar hopping.
     
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  7. The Sodfather

    The Sodfather Well-Known Member

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    I have never seen that B&W panoramic view. I assume that was the Steelers game film. Pretty clearly shows that Harris caught it clean.

    After I watched this, I had to go and watch the call by the great Jack Fleming. It induces chills because he was as stunned as anyone. "I don't even know where he came from!" :roflmao:
     
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  8. The Sodfather

    The Sodfather Well-Known Member

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    Mom and dad were at that game. Dad's been gone nearly 30 years, but I remember him talking about that game and I thought he told me they were in 605. I'll have to ask my mom if she kept the ticket stubs.
     
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  9. Wardismvp

    Wardismvp Well-Known Member

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    And so it begins, young man in those days. I was so happy it felt like Christmas day before Chistmas.
    What a game. the dynasty beginning. What a team.
     
  10. FosterMorris

    FosterMorris Well-Known Member

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    There's no doubt that is a legal catch today. Isn't the argument that it was not a legal catch then? I don't understand the presentation of the video evidence. What new is being shown? Has anyone ever claimed the ball touched the ground it's at least a foot away?
     
  11. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Beer is good

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    It was more a question of who the ball hit when it ricocheted back to Franco. If it hit the defender, ok. If it hit the receiver, not a legal catch. Physics proves it was hit by the defender. Back then, the NFL wasn’t known for their physicists.
     
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  12. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Beer is good

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    I did not keep my stub. Keep in mind, before then, Steeler ticket stubs were not something you kept. And at the time, no one knew what was coming next.
     
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  13. Rollers

    Rollers Well-Known Member

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    Me as well! What memories
     
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  14. santeesteel

    santeesteel

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    To this day, Raider fans will tell you: A. the ball hit the ground. B. the ball came off of Fuqua first.
    Who you gonna believe? Madden, or your lying eyes?
     
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  15. steel machine

    steel machine Well-Known Member

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    My dad died when I was young and one of the few memories I have of him was when Maz hit that HR he picked me up and tossed me all over every bed in the house hooting and yelling. I remember his nerves during the game. My mom kept saying stay away from dad but man it was a great memory when he grabbed me (obviously in a good loving way) and ran around with me.

    Ashamed to admit this but I was a punk kid at the game and if I honest me and my friends gave up too early and were goofing off in the tunnels when we heard a huge roar. TBH we missed most the second half being stupid jerk kids.
     
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  16. AtlSteel

    AtlSteel Well-Known Member

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    Great memory. Listened to it on the radio. They blacked out Steeler games on the local station. Sucked.
     
  17. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    This is perhaps the best characterization I’ve ever seen of what that play meant to the Steelers franchise by Bob Labriola.


    KEITH WIMER FROM BOARDMAN, OH: Seeing as the 50th Anniversary of the Immaculate Reception is (unbelievably) upon us, would you choose that or James Harrison's 100-yard pick-6 in Super Bowl XLIII as your most exciting moment as a Steelers' fan? IF you had only one to choose. Or a different one? I know there have been so many. Like Polamalu's pick-6 against Baltimore in the 2008 AFC Championship Game that put Pittsburgh back in the Super Bowl.

    ANSWER: I have worked for the Steelers too long even to remember what it felt like to be a fan, and so my only way of approaching your submission is to change it around a bit to ask for what I believe to be the most significant play in Steelers history instead of the most exciting. For me, the most significant play in Steelers history was, is, and always will be the Immaculate Reception. I have noticed a recent movement toward anointing James Harrison's 100-yard interception return in Super Bowl XLIII as a replacement for the Immaculate Reception, but I attribute that to more people having seen that play live combined with a growing ignorance of the demons that were exorcised when Franco Harris caught that deflected pass and turned it into a 40-yard touchdown on Dec. 23, 1972.

    Prior to the 1972 season, the Steelers had spent 40 seasons in the NFL and accomplished virtually nothing. No division or conference titles. Only one playoff game, and that came in 1947 when the Steelers and Eagles finished the regular season tied for the Eastern Conference title at a time when the entire postseason consisted of the NFL Championship Game. And the Steelers got shut out, 21-0. During the Buddy Parker era, they traded away draft picks in bunches, one of which was used by the Bears to pick Dick Butkus. They cut Johnny Unitas and traded Len Dawson. In 1956, during the era when the NFL would award one team each year a "bonus pick" in the draft that came even before the first overall pick, the Steelers passed on Hall of Fame players Lenny Moore from Penn State, Sam Huff from West Virginia, and Forrest Gregg to pick Gary Glick from Colorado State sight unseen because of a recommendation from his college coach.

    The turnaround began when Dan Rooney was allowed to become more involved in football operations and he presented Chuck Noll to his father, Art Rooney Sr., to be hired as the head coach in 1969. Noll was tasked with building a winning program but first he had to overcome a losing mentality that had been 40 years in the making. Something dramatic needed to happen to break through the quagmire and accelerate the progress, and that was the Immaculate Reception. In 1972, the Steelers won their division and hosted the Oakland Raiders in a Divisional Round game, but after leading for the most part a blown assignment allowed a backup quarterback named Ken Stabler to escape down the sideline and score an unlikely touchdown to give the visitors a 7-6 lead late into the fourth quarter. This was the kind of game the Steelers historically lost every time over the course of their 40 years in the NFL, and if they had lost again on Dec. 23, 1972, who knows what damaging impact that might have had on the team's fragile psyche. But the Immaculate Reception happened, a veritable act of God, and the Steelers were winners for the first time in their history. There is no way another play in Steelers history had more impact on the franchise than that one, and for the team's fans there couldn't have been anything more exciting that watching a miracle come to life. And the Immaculate Reception was a miracle, because it not only turned the tide in a playoff game it also turned the tide for a franchise, for the city in which that franchise played, and it was the seminal moment that created a new power broker in the National Football League. James Harrison, Troy Polamalu, and all the other great players who authored great and memorable moments had the trail blazed by the Immaculate Reception.
     
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  18. steel machine

    steel machine Well-Known Member

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    I was at game as a young punk. Spent most of the game goofing off with friends and annoying the hell out of security. Can't say we watched much of the game. Were throwing a football in the tunnels when the play happened. It was a lot of fun outside the stadium.
     
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  19. jeh1856

    jeh1856 Beer is good

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    My dad never let us leave our seats until there are zeros on the clock

    Thanks dad
     
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  20. mac daddyo

    mac daddyo Well-Known Member

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    harrisons interception has to be included in these special moments.
    :cool:
     
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  21. Jball

    Jball Well-Known Member

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    Dude, you were seriously there? Wow. That must've been unreal.

    My big moment was being at Mario's return game in '01. When I got out of the T at Steel plaza, and walked up the hill and saw "He's back!" projected on the roof of the Igloo, I can say with no shame that I started to cry. It was surreal. But the Immaculate Reception, wow. I wasn't born yet. I don't know the 70's Steelers. It must've been an amazing time.
     
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  22. Formerscribe

    Formerscribe Well-Known Member

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    I always wonder if Chuck Noll was asked about the theory that the Immaculate Reception was crucial to the dynasty in the '70s. I wonder if he would have dismissed that idea as foolish, crediting the team's talent, hard work and preparation as the reasons for their success. Would have have argued that the Steelers would have still won four Super Bowls whether the play happened or not?

    I'm sure I see it differently because it happened the year I was born. I have heard and read so much about that era, and the decades of awful that preceded it, but I didn't experience it. I'm sure that colors my experience. I still think it is the greatest play in team history. I'm not sure if it was more meaningful than Harrison's interception return or even the touchdown reception by Holmes, because those led to a Super Bowl victory and the Immaculate Reception did not. I am certainly open to the opposing argument, especially from those who are old enough to remember it.
     
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  23. Blast Furnace

    Blast Furnace Staff Member Mod Team

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    Bobs point though is that the stability wouldn’t have taken root and Noll wouldn’t have gotten all those great players and so forth. He’s arguing a domino effect that could have even affected Noll’s position as HC.
     
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  24. Formerscribe

    Formerscribe Well-Known Member

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    I get that. I guess it's possible, at least with the players, but I think Dan Rooney was smart enough that he wasn't going to make decisions based on a play that was 90 percent luck.
     
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  25. 88Unstoppable82

    88Unstoppable82 Well-Known Member

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    I was 8 years old and had watched the Steelers on TV for the first time in my life earlier that season. They instantly became my team the moment I saw them because I thought their uniforms were the coolest, baddest things I'd ever seen. I lived in northeast Ohio, so I, too, had no experience or, at that time, even knowledge of the team's history. So I DON'T have any colored glasses through which I saw, and still see, that play.

    Yet there's never been another moment in my 5+ decades now of watching this game that equals what it felt like watching that moment. Even "just" on TV. I'll admit, though, that part of that feeling came from the camera having not caught all of it as it happened. There was something extra "unreal" about it because of how it appeared to us live on TV. These types of "not completely seen" plays happened more often in those days than they have for several decades now, because of the improvements in and differences in resources devoted to sports coverage between the two eras. Having it happen on THAT play, though, actually made it even more magical. The sight of the ball being batted away into defeat not quite immediately followed by the electric jolt of euphoria as the camera out of nowhere showed Franco running down the sideline to the victorious score was surreal.

    What can I say? There's just never been anything else like it for me in this game. The only other moment that equals it for me is the puck skittering down the boards as Al Michaels made his famous "Do you believe in miracles? YES!" call. That didn't seem real to me when I watched it after the fact for the first time, and I can still feel some of that same "unreal" feeling thinking back on it even today. As many great moments as I've been blessed to see in all of sports over the years, though, those two are still unequaled by anything else for me.
     
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