The Pittsburgh Steelers had just defeated the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional round of the 1974 AFC playoffs, and were getting ready to face off against the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders had just played the Miami Dolphins, and defeated them 28-26 in a heavy weight matchup. The Dolphins were coming off of back to back Super Bowl titles, and in 1973 had eliminated the Raiders in the AFC Championship game.
The game was ultimately decided in the final seconds by a now-iconic play in which Oakland quarterback Ken Stabler tossed an 8-yard touchdown pass to running back Clarence Davis, who somehow wrestled the ball away from multiple Miami defenders to secure victory for the Raiders. The legacy of the Super Bowl era began with the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, and had switched to the Dolphins for the previous two seasons. NFL fans alike thought they had witnessed the passing of the torch to Oakland.
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In the ensuring aftermath of the game, comments from Miami's offensive lineman Larry Little, and then Raiders head coach John Madden, set off Steelers head coach Chuck Noll.
“The two best teams in football played today,” said Little after the defeat.
It was called "Super Bowl 8.5" prior to the game by NFL analysts. The winner was supposed to steamroll the upstart Steelers and head on to Tulane Stadium and wallop the NFC challenger. Noll had been watching then. And if that wasn't enough disrespect for the Steelers, what Madden said would be:
“When the best plays the best, anything can happen," Madden told reporters.
Madden had no idea what he had done at the moment. He had set Noll into a fit of rage. A rage that slow burned at Noll all night. Noll would gather the Steelers for practice the next day, and he would give the Steelers one of the most important pep talks in team history.
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Steelers Hall of Famer Joe Greene remembers the scene at Three Rivers Stadium vividly:
“The thing that really, really gave us the impetus and the mind-set, and gave us – as Chuck always said – the refuse-to-be-denied attitude – came on the Monday after we beat Buffalo in the first round of the playoffs in 1974. People on the outside would always hear things like the refuse-to-be-denied attitude and call it a cliché, but to us it was real," Greene recounted. "But anyway, we were sitting in the team meeting room over at Three Rivers Stadium, and Chuck said, ‘You know, the coach of the Raiders said the two best teams in football (Miami and Oakland) played yesterday, and that was the Super Bowl.’ Then he said, ‘Well, the Super Bowl is three weeks from now, and the best team in pro football is sitting right here in this room.’”“I’m telling you, I think I levitated right out of my seat when I heard that. Saying that was very un-Chuck-like, and that’s why it had so much power to it.”
The Steelers would hear the message from Noll. Greene was the sure fire leader of the Steelers. He had seen it all during his time in Pittsburgh. He once famously got into his car to leave the team before he was convinced to stay because he was tired of losing. The speech Noll would speak that day at Three Rivers Stadium would set the Steelers in motion to winning back to back Super Bowls, and 4 in 6 years. They would beat Madden's Raiders again in 1975, before finally losing to them in the 1976 AFC Championship game. Though, had the Steelers been healthy heading into that game the Raiders probably wouldn't of stood a chance.
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