The Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland Raiders meet this week on the NFL schedule, and this week’s Throwback Thursday post will feature a game played from the past between these two old rivals. The most famous contest ever between these clubs was the “Immaculate Reception” game, but since we already featured that one last season, this year we’ll move a few years deeper into the 1970s and look at a game in which Steeler coach Chuck Noll, a pretty low-key guy and one of the all-time greats, became incensed at Oakland’s physical, and sometimes borderline dirty, style of play on defense. After a vicious hit on Pittsburgh receiver Lynn Swann by Raider safety George Atkinson, Noll complained that Oakland’s secondary, and their defense in general, were part of a “criminal element” in the league that needed to be dealt with.
Atkinson’s hit came in the opening game of the 1976 season. He leveled Swann with a forearm smash to the head on a play in which the ball wasn’t even thrown to him, leaving the future Hall of Fame Steeler receiver out with a concussion. The hit was bad enough, but the fact that Atkinson had done the same thing to Swann in the previous year’s AFC Championship game, also causing a concussion, led to Noll’s post-game reaction. This particular game, played on September 12, 1976, was a completely frustrating experience for Noll and the Steelers. The two clubs had evolved into bitter rivals as they had met in the two previous AFC title matches, with Pittsburgh winning both on their way to back-to-back Super Bowl wins. On this day, however, the Raiders extracted some revenge, not only with the Atkinson hit on Swann but by wiping out a 28-14 deficit and rallying to beat the vaunted Steelers 31-28.
The first half of the game was a defensive struggle, as expected between these two proud, hard-nosed defenses, while both clubs exploded in the second half, as 45 total points would be scored. Raider quarterback Ken “The Snake” Stabler led the furious Raider comeback by throwing for three scores (2 to Dave Casper and one to Fred Biletnikoff) and running for another, and also drove his team into position for kicker Fred Steinfort to boot the winning field goal. Stabler also threw 4 interceptions in the see-saw game, but kept his composure and led the comeback. The win was a huge boost for the Raider franchise, as they cruised through the ’76 season with only a single loss on their way to the first Super Bowl win in franchise history, finishing 16-1. Atkinson, who was a boy scout compared to his secondary teammate of that era, Jack “The Assassin” Tatum, wound up suing Noll for defamation of character for the “criminal element” comment, but lost the suit.
Bitter rivals in the 1970s, the Steelers and Raiders really didn’t like each other