December 23, 1972--Part II

If that Immaculate Reception game wasn't bad enough for Raider fans, all of the Dallas haters like me (and millions of others like Mark & Paul and probably numeorus Raider fans, still depressed from the hard-to-digest Pittsburgh result) then had to swallow a very bitter pill later that afternoon in the Cowboys' impossible win over the 49ers, 30-28.

I remember being devastated after the Raider loss to the Steelers, almost in disbelief. In those days, being a Denver fan meant being something of a masochist, as we didn't even dream about playoffs. Even getting to .500 was considered impossible. So I would switch gears and usually pull for the Raiders come playoff time, even though brother Kris was a huge Oakland fan, the only times when he and I didn't really clash much with our favorite teams. That's probably because I viewed the Raiders as something of a representative in those days for the Broncos, being that they played in the same division and such. I always much preferred Oakland to the Chiefs, and by the late 60s the Chargers had begun to fade, to the point they were no factor in the early 70s. The only Raider playoff game I cheered against them until the mid '70s was the '67 AFL title game against the Oilers, who were my "second" AFL team in those days. I remember not even bothering to root much for Houston in that 1969 AFL division playoff, knowing the Raiders would romp, as they did, 56-7. When playoff time was on the horizon before Christmas vacation that year in '69, I had talked up the Raiders good at my new elementary school in Long Beach, and was looking forward to a Raiders-Rams Super Bowl. And in '72 I was really looking forward to the Raiders getting their shot at the unbeaten Dolphins the next week. Didn't work out the way Mark, Paul, Kris, or I wanted.

Anyway, I can remember getting cheered up in '72 in the afternoon game when the 49ers jumped on the Cowboys early, with Vic Washington taking the opening kickoff back for a TD. I also liked the 49ers in those days, and was wondering what I might do if the Niners played the Raiders in the Super Bowl.

You all know the rest of the story, Dallas rallying from a late 28-13 deficit, and 28-16 in the final few minutes, to prevail as Staubach (who had missed almost all of that year with a separated shoulder) bailed out Craig Morton in the 4th Q and started throwing those late TDs, the final one to Florida State's Ron Sellers after Dallas recovered an onside kick. To add insult to injury, the 49ers made one last stab at getting into FG range for Bruce Gossett, Brodie hitting Gene Washington down to the Dallas 39 in the closing seconds (in '72, the goal post was still at the goal line, so it would have been a makeable 46-yard FG try for Gossett), but a holding penalty nullified the completion, and moments later Dallas had won.

I don't know if I've ever had a more depressing football day. The old L.A. Herald Examiner summed it up pretty well the next morning in its sports section, with a big photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, with superimposed logos of the Raiders and 49ers leaping off into the cold bay. It still depresses me to think about it all...