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1973 AFC Wild Card Game
Another in a series of stories about the 47 playoff games in Steelers history.
The Raiders get revenge in '73 playoffs By BOB
LABRIOLA Steelers.com
The hunter had become the hunted.
In 1972, the Pittsburgh Steelers had experienced a whole bunch of franchise firsts. First division title, first home playoff game, first playoff win, first appearance in a conference championship game. It was all very heady stuff, but then came 1973 and a different Steelers team also found itself going through a whole new batch of franchise firsts that in many ways were even more challenging.
First team to try to defend a division title, first to make the playoffs two years in a row, first to win playoff games two years in a row. And that first Super Bowl championship was still floating around somewhere in their future.
"For the baker, it's that big pie, or that big batch of donuts. For us, it's that Super Bowl," said receiver Ron Shanklin during training camp in 1973. "We got a glimpse of it last year. Now we want to go back and see – was that what I thought I saw?"
What the Steelers showed throughout
the first couple of months of the season was that their showing in 1972 had been
no fluke. They opened with four straight wins, including a 33-6 trouncing of
There, without Terry Bradshaw, the Steelers were hammered statistically but found a way to win the game, 17-9, with their toughness and the big-play ability of the defense. Mike Wagner recovered a fumble, and Mel Blount, Glen Edwards and Dwight White (with two) combined for four interceptions.
As the Steelers' flight crossed back
into the Eastern time zone, they were 8-1 in spite of injuries that would have
reduced a lesser roster to a sub-.500 season; they were in complete control of
the AFC Central Division; and they had beaten the Raiders three straight times.
Life was good. Maybe too good.
The Denver Broncos (
When it was over, and the Broncos
had won, 23-13,
Two more losses – in Cleveland and in Miami – tightened the division race considerably, but the Steelers rolled over a couple of patsies in the Oilers and San Francisco 49ers by a combined 70-21 over the final two weeks to clinch the AFC Central for a second straight year and get into the playoffs for a second straight year.
They would begin these playoffs the
same way as they had in 1972 – against the Raiders – only this time the game
would be staged in
Spending a week in
The Raiders had convinced themselves they had been cheated the previous postseason at Three Rivers Stadium, and their demeanor for this Dec. 22 playoff game was very un-Palms-Springs-like. Based on what transpired on the field, that difference proved to be as significant as the difference on the scoreboard.
Like the regular season meeting between these teams, the Steelers offense sputtered, but this time the defense couldn't take the ball away. After Bradshaw threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Barry Pearson in the second quarter, the Raiders' lead at halftime was just 10-7, but there was an air of inevitability about the outcome.
When Noll spoke to the team in the
locker room after the game, he made a promise. "We're too good a team to be
losing. We're going to take a long, concentrated look at the season. We're going
to find out where the mistakes came, and why. All I can say now is, Merry
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