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1972 AFC Championship Game
Another in a series of stories about the 47 playoff games in Steelers
history. By BOB
LABRIOLA Steelers.com Dan Rooney remembers a lot about the
locker room scene following the first-ever playoff win for the Pittsburgh
Steelers. He remembers it for the significance of the achievement, and he
remembers it for the electricity crackling through the whole room. But most of
all, he remembers it for the way it was handled by Coach Chuck
Noll. "You guys played a great game -- I'm
really proud of you!" is what Noll told his team after the Steelers' 13-7 win
over the Oakland Raiders on Rooney remembers that Noll was all
business, that he was able to maintain a level of professionalism in the
immediate aftermath of the Immaculate Reception. There was, after all, more
football to be played, and all of a sudden just one game and one opponent stood
between the Steelers and the AFC's berth in Super Bowl
VII. The undefeated Miami
Dolphins. But even though 1972 was a time
before the internet and without talk radio and ESPN, the hype surrounding the
Immaculate Reception would not die, and come the Monday before the AFC
Championship Game, Noll was itching to move on. In From But none of this put the
The idea of the Pittsburgh Steelers
in a conference championship game may have had the sound of fantasy-land, but it
was a reality. And the Steelers had earned their spot in it. There were two wins
over the Raiders, including the playoff game, and there were
confidence-establishing wins over Author Roy Blount Jr.: "When the
Steelers made Greene their first pick in 1969 they laid the first and biggest
building block of a six-year program that brought them up from perennial
failure. That primacy is one aspect of Greene's eminence on the team; another is
the assumption among the Steelers that Greene can whip any man, if not indeed
every team, when he wants to." The Steelers believed that because
Greene had shown them himself against the Oilers in
The Steelers were still fighting for
the division title and a spot in the playoffs – both franchise firsts – and even
though there had been some big wins to their season, a loss to the 1-11 Oilers
would un-do so much of that. Winning the games it's supposed to
win is a team's toughest challenge down the stretch of an NFL season, especially
for a team so new to any degree of success. Even though the Oilers were
finishing up a bad season, this was an important division game on the road for
the Steelers, the kind of game championship teams just don't lose. But there
were so many injuries … L.C. Greenwood and Sam Davis were
out. Jon Kolb and Gerry Mullins had the flu; while Kolb played, Mullins only
made it into the third quarter. Bruce Van Dyke pulled a calf muscle in the first
quarter and was done for the day; Jim Clack injured an ankle and was done for
the day. Craig Hanneman, The Steelers needed a hero, and Joe
Greene stepped up. He had five sacks and blocked a short field goal attempt by
the Oilers; he recovered one fumble and forced another, and those takeaways led
to two Roy Gerela field goals. The Steelers won, 9-3, and Greene was responsible
for nine of the points himself – six the Steelers scored and the three the
Oilers did not. The Steelers were in the 1972 AFC
Championship Game on merit, and Chuck Noll wanted the focus to be on the Miami
Dolphins and not what had or had not happened the previous weekend against the
Raiders. Those Dolphins were undefeated, and
if one reason had to be given for that status it could be "efficient."
Said starting center Ray Mansfield,
"Charging teams can make you look bad at times, but once in a while you can
break something by them for big yardage. In those days, the sites of the
conference championship games were part of a rotation system among the three
divisions and not tied to regular season records. The AFC East had been the host
in 1971, and the Dolphins played at home. In 1972, it was the AFC Central and so
the game was at Three Rivers Stadium. There was snow in
The Steelers responded to the
enthusiasm of game day by taking a 7-0 lead, but the touchdown came with a
price. Mullins would recover Terry Bradshaw's fumble in the end zone for the
points, but the Steelers lost their quarterback for a time to a concussion. Then
to compound their problems, the Steelers' inexperience began to
show. They lost contain on a Dolphins
punt, and instead of kicking the ball Larry Seiple ran 37 yards to set up the
tying touchdown. The Steelers fought back to take a 10-7 lead, but then
There were other mistakes, too.
Dwight White jumped offside to negate a Jack Ham interception;
Said Noll, "We made too many
mistakes, or maybe we didn't make enough big plays." Added Russell, "We could've beaten
them, and I think they know that. But it's one thing to have the potential to
beat them and another thing to do it." Dophins 0 7 7 7 21 Steelers 7 0 3 7 17
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