It was 1974, my second season with the Oakland Raiders, and the day before Ken Stabler had tossed a wobbly pass to Clarence Davis to beat the Miami Dolphins in the AFC Divisional Round. The play would be forever named “Sea of Hands,” and ended the Dolphins three year run as AFC Champions and their two year hold on the Super Bowl title.
I was working with other Oakland staff members to set up a press room at the Hyatt Hotel near our Oakport Street offices where the Pittsburgh Steelers would be arriving on Friday for our showdown with Terry Bradshaw and Company. Spirits were high in the Raiders camp. We had defeated the team everyone knew was our stiffest competition with the victory over Don Shula and his champion Dolphins.
Once the press room was set up, I took a break to look at a press release Tom Grimes had generated for the media. It included our season results and that of the Steelers game-by-game scores. As I sipped my coffee, I ran down the scores of each teams 1974 schedule and got a cold chill. My enthusiasm that we were just one game away from earning our second ever Super Bowl appearance turned to ice as I read the Steelers results.
It was the defensive side of the ball that got my attention. Pittsburgh had opened their playoffs the previous week by beating the Buffalo Bills while allowing 14 points. In the previous games they had allowed 3, 17, 10, 7, 16, 17, 0, 17, 16. While I wagered on no games during my years as an employee of the National Football League, I never turned off my handicapper eyes. I was still maintaining charts in my apartment on every NFL team and used my living room floor to lay out all 24 NFL pennants and walked up and down the floor display each night to see if that one should be moved ahead of that one as the display started with the Dolphins and ended with the Giants.
Our enthusiasm over beating the Dolphins was now running into a defense capable of shutting down anyone. I was suddenly struck out of confidence and put in a weird sensation that we were headed for trouble.
We were.