The Immaculate Reception The Immaculate Reception is the nickname given to one of the most famous plays in the history of American football . It occurred in the AFC between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , on December 23 , 1972 . The play has been a source of unresolved controversy and speculation ever since . NFL Films has chosen it as the greatest play of all time , as well as the most controversial . The play was a turning point for the Steelers , who reversed four decades of futility with their first playoff win ever , and went on to win four Super Bowl s by the end of the decade . The play ' s name is a neologism derived from the Immaculate Conception , a dogma in the Roman Catholic Church . The phrase was first used on air by Myron Cope , a Pittsburgh sportscaster who was reporting on the Steelers ' victory . A Pittsburgh woman , Sharon Levosky , called Cope the night of the game and suggested the name , which was coined by her friend Michael Ord . Cope used the term on television and the phrase stuck . Events of the play . After Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler scored a touchdown on a 30 - yard run with 1 : 17 left to go , the Pittsburgh Steelers trailed the Oakland Raiders 7 - 6 , facing fourth - and - 10 on their own 40 - yard line with 22 seconds remaining in the game and no time - outs . Head coach Chuck Noll called a pass play , 66 Circle Option , intended for receiver Barry Pearson , a rookie who was playing in his first NFL game . Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw , under great pressure from Raiders linemen Tony Cline and Horace Jones , threw the ball to the Raiders ' 35 - yard line , toward halfback John " Frenchy " Fuqua ( see ( 1 ) on diagram ) . Raiders safety Jack Tatum collided with Fuqua just as the ball arrived ( 2 ) . Tatum ' s hit knocked Fuqua to the ground and sent the ball sailing backward several yards , end over end . Steelers fullback Franco Harris , after initially blocking on the play , had run downfield in case Bradshaw needed another eligible receiver . He scooped up the sailing ball just before it hit the ground ( 3 ) . Harris ran past Raiders linebacker Gerald Irons , while linebacker Phil Villapiano , who had been covering Harris , was blocked by Steelers tight end John McMakin ( 4 ) . Harris used a stiff arm to ward off Raiders defensive back Jimmy Warren ( 5 ) , and went in for a touchdown . The touchdown gave the Steelers a 12 - 7 lead , allowing them to win the game . 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 [ offensive ] player , then all [ offensive ] 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 . " 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 " [ n ] 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 . Aftermath of the play . The week after this playoff victory , the Steelers lost the AFC championship game to the Miami Dolphins 21 - 17 , who won Super Bowl VII in their landmark undefeated season . The Steelers , however , reversed four decades of futility and went on to become a dominant force in the NFL for the subsequent decade , winning four Super Bowl s with such stars as Bradshaw , Harris , John Stallworth , and Lynn Swann and the Steel Curtain defense led by Jack Ham , Jack Lambert , " Mean Joe " Greene , Mel Blount , and Dwight White . 1972 was the team ' s 40th year in the league , during which they had finished above . 500 only nine times , and until then had never won a playoff game . In fact , before this game the only playoff game the team had ever played in was a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1947 after the two teams finished tied for the Eastern Division championship . ( The Steelers also lost to the Detroit Lions in the 1962 Playoff Bowl , though this was considered an exhibition game between the two second place teams in league record books and not an actual playoff game . ) They had long been regarded as one of the league ' s doormats ( as the 1944 Card - Pitt merger was 0 - 10 and was ridiculed as the " Carpitts , " a play on the word " carpet " ) . As recently as 1969 the team had posted a 1 - 13 record , thus securing the first draft choice in the subsequent NFL draft ( in which the Steelers chose Terry Bradshaw ) and seeding their remarkable turnaround . Since the AFL - NFL Merger , the Steelers have the NFL ' s best record ( surpassing Miami in 2007 because of the Dolphins ' recent struggles ) , have had a league - low three head coaches , and have had only nine losing seasons , none worse than 5 - 11 . Only twice since the Immaculate Reception has the team had losing seasons two years in a row and none three years in a row . The Immaculate Reception spawned a heated rivalry between the Steelers and Raiders , a rivalry that was at its peak during the 1970s , when both teams were among the best in the league and both were known for their hard - hitting , physical play . The teams met in the playoffs in each of the next four seasons , starting with the Raiders ' 33 - 14 victory in the 1973 divisional playoffs . Pittsburgh used the AFC championship game victories over Oakland ( 24 - 13 at Oakland in 1974 and 16 - 10 at Pittsburgh in 1975 ) as a springboard to victories in Super Bowl IX and Super Bowl X , before the Raiders notched a 24 - 7 victory at home in 1976 on their way to winning Super Bowl XI . The two last met in the playoffs in 1983 when the eventual Super Bowl champion Raiders crushed the Steelers 38 - 10 . The play itself started another , rather unique rivalry between the Raiders and the rest of the league , as Oakland fans have long thought that the league has wanted to shortchange the Raiders ( and specifically Al Davis ) . NFL Network in 2007 ranked the " Raiders versus the World " as the biggest feud in NFL history . For the 1978 NFL season , the rule in question regarding the forward pass was repealed . There are no longer any restrictions on any deflections of passes . The game itself was not seen on TV in Pittsburgh - 1972 was the last year that the NFL forbade " any " local telecasts of home games . Starting the next year , any home games that sold out 72 hours before kick - off could be televised locally . As the Steelers began their home sell - out streak in 1972 , blackouts have never been needed in the Pittsburgh area . References . Bold text