Franco Harris’s touchdown catch in a first-round playoff game 50 years ago Friday marked a turning point for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Harris’s assignment on the play — 66 Option — was to block the outside linebacker. In interviews over the ensuing years, Harris, who was a rookie in 1972, mentioned a mantra that had been instilled in him by Coach Joe Paterno during his college career at Penn State and which served him well: “Go to the ball.” Harris had started upfield a couple seconds before Bradshaw’s toss.
As hundreds of fans poured out of the stands, referee Fred Swearingen conferred with his crew and then used the phone in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ dugout to call the press box. After speaking with Art McNally, the NFL’s supervisor of officials, Swearingen emerged from the dugout and signaled touchdown. It took 10 minutes to clear the fans from the field so Gerela could kick the extra point.
“There was no way they were going to call it any other way with all those people on the field,” Madden, still stewing over the outcome of the game, told reporters back in Oakland two days later. “Somebody would have been killed.”Advertisement The Steelers lost to the Dolphins, 21-17, in the AFC championship game the following week, despite Harris’s 16 carries for 76 yards. Pittsburgh returned to the AFC championship game in 1974, and defeated the Raiders en route to winning its first of four Super Bowl titles in the ’70s.
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