Immaculate Reception - Controversy

Controversy

The critical question was: whom did the football touch in the Fuqua/Tatum collision? If it bounced off Fuqua without ever touching Tatum, then Harris's reception was illegal. If the ball bounced off only Tatum, or if it bounced off both Fuqua and Tatum (in any order), then the reception was legal. The rule stated in pertinent part that once an offensive player touches a pass, he is the only offensive player eligible to catch the pass. However, if a defensive player touches the pass "first, or simultaneously with or subsequent to its having been touched by only one player, then all players become and remain eligible" to catch the pass. (This rule was later rescinded in 1978.) If the reception were illegal, the Raiders would have gained possession (via a turnover on downs), clinching a victory.

One official, Back Judge Adrian Burk, signaled that the play was a touchdown, but the other game officials did not immediately make any signal. When the officials huddled, Burk and another official, Umpire Pat Harder, thought that the play was a touchdown because Tatum and Fuqua had both touched the ball, while three others said that they were not in a position to rule. Referee Fred Swearingen approached Steelers sideline official Jim Boston and asked to be taken to a telephone. Boston took Swearingen to a baseball dugout in the stadium. There was a video monitor in the dugout, but it was not used by Swearingen. (Terry Bradshaw's assertion that a special television was rigged up on the sideline so that Swearingen could watch the replay is not supported by other accounts.) From the dugout telephone Boston put in a call to the press box to reach the NFL's supervisor of officials, Art McNally. Before the call McNally had "an opinion from the get-go" that the ball had hit Tatum's chest, which he confirmed by looking "at one shot on instant replay." In the press box the telephone was answered either by Dan Rooney, son of Steelers owner Art Rooney, or by Steelers public relations director Joe Gordon (reports vary), and McNally was put on the line. According to McNally, Swearingen "never asked me about the rule, and never asked what I saw. All he said was, 'Two of my men say that opposing players touched the ball.' And I said, 'everything's fine then, go ahead.'" After Swearingen hung up the phone Boston asked, "What do we got?" "We got a touchdown," answered Swearingen, who then went back onto the field to signal the ruling to the crowd. Fans immediately rushed the field, and it took 15 minutes to clear them so that the point-after conversion could be kicked to give the Steelers what turned out to be their final margin of victory, 13-7.

Although this has been described as the first known use of television replay to confirm a call (there was no instant replay review then), at the time the NFL denied that the decision was made in the press box or using a television replay. An Oakland Tribune article two days after the game reported that Steelers publicist Joe Gordon told reporters in the press box that the decision had been made using the replay. Gordon has dismissed this as "a total fabrication." NFL officials Jim Kensil and Val Pinchbeck, who were in the press box with McNally, also deny that replay was used in making the decision on the play.

The play is still disputed by those involved, particularly by living personnel from the Raiders and their fans, who insist the Raiders should have won (in an NFL Films production about the play years later, Raider guard Gene Upshaw theorized that the real purpose of Swearingen's phone conversation was to see if there were enough police on hand to ensure the players' safety if the play was ruled incomplete, and was then called in the Steelers' favor out of fear). Tatum said that the ball did not bounce off him, both immediately after the game as well as later; however, in his memoirs, Tatum equivocated, stating that he couldn't honestly say if the ball hit him. Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano, who was covering Harris at the time, maintains that the ball hit Fuqua. Fuqua has been coy, supposedly saying he knows exactly what happened that day but will never tell.

John Madden, coach of the 1972 Raiders, has said that he will never get over the play, and has indicated that he's bothered more by the delay between the end of the play and the final signal of touchdown than by which player the ball truly hit. After the game he indicated that from his view the football had indeed touched Tatum. Although a few days later Madden indicated that the Raiders game films showed that the ball hit Fuqua's shoulder pads, Jack Tatum has conceded that "even after we viewed the game films with stop action, nobody could tell who the ball hit on that moment of impact." Years later Madden wrote, "No matter how many times I watch the films of the 'immaculate reception' play, I never know for sure what happened."

In 1998, during halftime of the AFC Championship game, NBC showed a replay from its original broadcast. The replay presented a different angle than the NFL Films clip that is most often shown. According to a writer for the New York Daily News, "NBC's replay showed the ball clearly hit one and only one man Oakland DB Jack Tatum." Curt Gowdy, doing the live TV play-by-play, called it has having been deflected by Tatum, and reiterated that during the video replay.

Pittsburgh sportscaster Myron Cope, in a 1997 article and in his 2002 book Double Yoi!, related that two days after the game he reviewed film taken by local Pittsburgh TV station WTAE-TV, and that the film showed "o question about it -- Bradshaw's pass struck Tatum squarely on his right shoulder." Cope stated that the local film would be next to impossible to find again, because of inadequate filing procedures.

In 2004 John Fetkovich, an emeritus professor of physics at Carnegie Mellon University, analyzed the NFL Films clip of the play. He came to the conclusion, based on the trajectory of the bounced ball and conservation of momentum, that the ball must have bounced off Tatum, who was running upfield at the time, rather than Fuqua, who was running across and down the field. Fetkovich also performed experiments by throwing a football against a brick wall at a velocity greater than 60 feet per second, twice the speed that Fetkovich calculated that Bradshaw's pass was traveling when it reached Tatum and Fuqua. Fetkovitch achieved a maximum rebound of 10 feet when the ball hit point first, and 15 feet when the ball hit belly first, both less than the 24 feet that the ball actually rebounded during the play. Timothy Gay, a physics professor and a longtime fan of the Raiders, cited Fetkovich's work with approval in his book The Physics of Football, and concluded that "the referees made the right call in the Immaculate Reception."

Terry Bradshaw himself had made points similar to those of Fetkovich 15 years earlier, stating that he did not think that he had thrown the ball hard enough for it to bounce that far back off Fuqua, and that since Fuqua was running across the field, the ball would have veered to the right if it had hit him. Bradshaw opined that the ball must have bounced off the upfield-moving Tatum – if that had happened then "Tatum's momentum carries the ball backward."

Another widely held point of contention to the play was whether the ball had hit the ground before Harris snatched it and ran with it. The sideline views of both film and video gave no answer, as Harris had caught the ball out of frame, and came running into frame from the right side on his path to the end zone. The only other known NBC video was an end zone shot from above and behind the goalposts and, in keeping with the mystery of the play, one of the posts was exactly in the line of sight of Harris' hands and the ball. The best NFL Films shot of the play, from ground level, which is probably the most-often seen clip (along with audio of an excited Jack Fleming, the Steelers' radio announcer at the time) is a tight shot from the end zone of Harris snaring the ball, with his feet and the ground just out of frame below.

Villapiano has also stated that he was illegally blocked by Steelers tight end John McMakin as he was pursuing Harris following the reception. Raiders coach Madden echoed this complaint.