The Immaculate Reception: What the Hell Just Happened? | A Football Life 

You could not have gotten that quote more wrong

@@mtoboggan2364 If the quote is wrong, what's the correction?

Amen

Sure was. Legend. 🙏🏼 And I’m an Eagles fan.

O wow ...I didn't know...he was Legend!

Nfl is rigged

O'Harris, luck of the Irish!

And Troy

Best right fielder.

Best right fielder eva

72 May feel young, but 72 is not young. 72 is 72, whether you are living in 1972 or 2022.

@@frederickrapp5396 bull. I'm in my 60's going on 35.

Amen🙏🎄☃️

Same here ten years old at the time.

I don't get this. If a legal pass is thrown, the ball is live until it hits the ground, no? It doesn't (or shouldn't) matter how who or how many touch it, it's live until it touches the ground. No? So the question here it seemed to me was, did Harris get the ball before it touched the ground or not, and that event was off camera apparently. That's the best I can make of this very confusing event. I don't know where all this "did two players touch it" or what all comes from. Am I off-base here?

@@novavon88 As the comment you’re replying to said - the rules were different then. It’s even explained in this video.

@@novavon88 “After the play, a critical question remained: who 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 the pertinent part that if an offensive player touches a pass first, 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 (This rule was rescinded in 1978.) If the reception was illegal, the Raiders would have gained possession (by a turnover on downs), clinching a victory.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Reception

@@novavon88 The rules in those days stated if the ball was touched by two offensive players without a defensive touch in between, it was an incompletion. It was to eliminate a tip to another receiver to advance the ball.

@@novavon88 did you even watch the damn video?? Sheesh

The footage has ALWAYS been available, I saw it on the day the play occurred. The Networks and NFL Films just choose not to show the ONLY angle that captured the full play. Who CARES about a shot so zoomed in one guy fills the whole screen while ignoring the only meaningful perspective. It is akin to deceptive editing it is so poorly done.

@@MW-bi1pi I remember seeing a replay that showed virtually the whole field, and certainly the whole play, with Franco catching the ball. Watching this made me question my memory.

Very few dispute whether Franco caught the ball while it was still in the air. The main dispute is can the ball bounce off of only the first eligible receiver, and still have other receivers eligible to catch it. I think what the refs decided, is it actually bounced off the defensive back as well, not just another receiver, and thus Franco could still catch it.

@@richard40x from the angles I saw, it bounced off the Raiders DB’s shoulder pad, never touching the Steelers WR, and Franco managed to catch it just above the ground

That's more of a catch than the one in the end zone to beat the Cardinals during the Super Bowl decades later. If it's not the SB and/or Brady is on the sideline for the other team, that's not a catch most of the time.

And YOU call yourself a TRUE fan!

Because it was a invalid play a clear infraction. Raiders got ripped of karma at its finest 🙌🏽

Both involved a Noll. Chuck and Grassy

It was Rule 7, Section 5, Article 2, Item 1 (see Official Rules for Professional Football, The National Football League, 1971, pp. 44-45), which was rescinded in 1978. In 1972, when this game was played, it stated, in pertinent part, that once an offensive player touched a pass, he was 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. So, if Fuqua •alone• had touched Bradshaw's pass, and then it bounced back to Harris, his catch would have been an illegal reception, and the play would have ended an incomplete pass. But if •Tatum• touched the ball, at all, before Harris caught it, then it was a legal reception. And as long as Tatum touched the pass, then it did not matter if Fuqua touched the ball before Tatum, or after him, or simultaneously with him (or, of course, if Fuqua did not touch it at all). As for whether the ball touched the ground before Harris caught it, well, there are people who gripe loudly that Harris "trapped" the ball against the turf, so in an impartially descriptive sense, yes, there is a controversy. From all the videos of the action I've seen, it's just not plausible that the ball contacted the ground before Harris caught it, and the arguments that he did are simply bogus. But "controversy" is argument, and no one's ever going to stop people from arguing about this.

No. "Touching" the ball, for purposes of the rules, is NOT limited to a player's hands. Contact with •any• part of a player's body, or the equipment or uniform he's wearing, counts as a "touch".

Damn was it the same device that killed Kennedy also?

Tatum TRANSFERED his MOMENTUM to the ball. But was it through Frenchy's LEFT HAND? @2:54 exactly this time stamp. that ball hit Jack's shoulder pad, possibly Frenchy's left hand was between the ball and the shoulder pad, hit something else on the way back (helmet?). but to believe an entire football was neatly cradled by Frenchy's left had 100% protecting it from direct contact with Jack, is just not reasonable.

Even if the ball did contact Fuqua's hand, it's almost impossible to conceive that, as you noted, it bounced back so hard and fast to Harris if Tatum did not also hit the ball. I believe it's •possible• that Fuqua did touch the ball - but viewing all the replays, it's just not possible to imaging that Tatum did not contact the ball at all. And that's the critical point. If Tatum touched the ball (at all), then Harris (and, for what it's worth, all other Pittsburgh players), became eligible to make a legal reception on that play - even if Fuqua also touched the ball. And to be clear, if both Tatum and Fuqua touched the ball before Harris, it did •not• matter (even under the old NFL rule) in what sequence they touched it. Tatum-to-Fuqua-to-Harris, or Fuqua-to-Tatum-to-Harris, or Tatum-and-Fuqua-•simultaneously•, then Harris - in all those cases, it's a perfectly legal catch by Harris, just as much as if the ball bounced off Tatum alone before Harris caught it.

Not even with headphones..

I agree, but that was part of the rules in the NFL back then. A stupid rule to be sure, but it was there nonetheless. It wasn't until 1978 that the rule was finally abolished and rightfully so. I never understood what the point of it was to be frank. One guess is maybe they didn't want the teams implementing tipped passes among their game plan. Maybe they wanted to keep it simple on who could touch the ball and who couldn't when a quarterback threw a pass? Who knows?

Specifically, it was Rule 7, Section 5, Article 2, Item 1 (see Official Rules for Professional Football, The National Football League, 1971, pp. 44-45), which was rescinded in 1978. In 1972, when this game was played, it stated, in pertinent part, that once an offensive player touched a pass, he was 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. So, if Tatum touched the ball, at all, before Harris caught it, then it was a legal reception. And as long as Tatum touched the pass, then it did not matter if Fuqua touched the ball before Tatum, or after him, or simultaneously with him (or, of course, if Fuqua did not touch it at all).

@@ColumbiaB Thanks for presenting and explaining the rule pertaining to this play. I understand better now.

@@Jonathan83X I did not know the rule. Thank you for saying that it was in place at the time, and perhaps why the NFL wanted it.

There is no road to eternal peace via "namaste".

@@PeterKKraus A comment of idiocy by a Child. Further, mind your business and let your vapid opines be with your Plebeian bloodline, Son.