I was listening to Rich Eisen's podcast this week with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger as his guest. They were chatting about the Steelers upcoming game against the Raiders in Oakland. Roethlisberger mentioned that he's been approached by many Raiders fans telling him that the Steelers are their second favorite team. These fans say that they often cheer for the Steelers. I dropped my sandwich. And, I love a good sandwich. This is not possible. Raiders fans can not cheer for the Steelers. It's not in their genetic code to have positive feelings for that team. The teams hate each other. There is no other way.
Everything that I know about rivalries in the NFL starts with the one between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s. The two teams dominated the AFC for much of that decade. It became routine that they met in the playoffs. It started with the famous or infamous, depending on your side, Immaculate Reception in the 1972 AFC Divisional Playoffs. It was miraculous in Pittsburgh. It was larceny in Oakland. Officially, it was a 13-7 win for the Steelers. The hatred blossomed then. These were tough, physical football teams. They intimidated other teams. They only pissed each other off. They met again in the 1973 AFC Divisional Playoffs. Oakland walked away happy this time with a 33-14 win. Pittsburgh and Oakland met in the AFC Championship game in each of the next three years. Pittsburgh won in '74 and '75. Oakland won in '76. The winner of those games went on to win the Super Bowl. These were the two best teams in football. They tried to kill each other to prove which team was the best.
The rivalry even ended up in the courts. During a regular season game between the two rivals on September 12, 1976, Raiders defensive back George Atkinson dropped Steelers receiver Lynn Swann with a forearm to the head. Swann would miss the next two games with a concussion. The day after the game, Steelers head coach Chuck Noll spoke of the "criminal element" in the game. He said that players like Atkinson should be "kicked out of the league." Atkinson decided that Noll's use of the term "criminal element" was a slander against his good name. He filed suit against Noll and the Steelers for $2 million in damages. This has Al Davis' fingerprints all over it as the Raiders owner would bring a decent number of lawsuits against his fellow owners and the league. A jury eventually ruled against Atkinson. There were few festive moments with these two teams.
In dealing with the on-field incident between Atkinson and Swann, Rozelle sent letters to Steelers coach Noll and Raiders coach John Madden: "A full review of the available films and television tapes of your Sept. 12 game indicates that your 'intense rivalry' of recent years could be on the verge of erupting into something approaching pure violence. There is, of course, no place for that in professional football and you both know it...Aside form the specific incidents of flagrant action, there are any number of plays in which the action of many of your players can be questioned. No action was taken in these instances because reasonable doubt exists in my mind as to the intent and motivation of the individuals involved..." Little gray area there.
I grew up with this Steelers-Raiders rivalry. It defined my sense of sports rivalries. The Minnesota Vikings have divisional rivalries with the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Detroit Lions. They are all terrific, historic rivalries. In my formative football years of the '70s, the Packers, Bears, and Lions struggled. In my little football mind, the Vikings had bigger rivalries with the Dallas Cowboys and :Los Angeles Rams. Being in California also helped minimize the importance of the Vikings rivalry with the teams in their own division. While the Vikings faced the Cowboys or Rams often in the playoffs, the Steelers and Raiders were always at war. There was no love there and you could feel it. I can not even imagine that there are Raiders fans that can cheer for the Steelers. It just doesn't seem possible. A lot has changed in the years since those Steelers-Raiders wars of the '70s.
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