The Immaculate Reception
- Episode aired Dec 19, 2012
The Immaculate Reception: A Football Life" - A Football Life features the iconic "Immaculate Reception" play that has been described in various ways - a myth, miracle, conspiracy, crime and ... Read allThe Immaculate Reception: A Football Life" - A Football Life features the iconic "Immaculate Reception" play that has been described in various ways - a myth, miracle, conspiracy, crime and a detective story.The Immaculate Reception: A Football Life" - A Football Life features the iconic "Immaculate Reception" play that has been described in various ways - a myth, miracle, conspiracy, crime and a detective story.
- Self - Pittsburgh Local Sportscaster
- (archive footage)
- Self - Author Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper
- (as Stephen J. Dubner)
- Self - Steelers Running Back
- (as John 'Frenchy' Fuqua)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Self - Former Director Central Intelligence Agency
- (as General Michael Hayden)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Self - Raiders Head Coach
- (archive footage)
Storyline
Did you know
- Quotes
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: Ballistically all we need are Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of gravity to decide the question whether it was a legal play or not.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: When I finished the analysis I was astounded.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: There's still a space between the two, two players haven't collided yet.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: If you look carefully at the evidence on the film, the collision between Tatum and Fuqua occurred after the ball already started back.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: Many of the shots show the football going past Fuqua's head, going past Fuqua while it's still going down field
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: I needed to learn something about how fast and how far a football would rebound.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: I did the experiments outside throwing the football against a brick wall.
Self - Narrator: The professor's hypothesis was simple.
Self - Narrator: If Bradshaw's pass hit Fuqua, who was running parallel to the line of scrimmage, the ball would have rebounded at roughly the same speed as from a stationary wall.
Self - Narrator: A higher speed would prove that the assassin, Jack Tatum, had struck the ball.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: The rebound from the brick wall was 12 feet per second, less than half of the rebound on the football field.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: A ball striking Fuqua could never reached the speed and distance that you saw on the field.
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: As far as I am concerned and as far as
[Isaac]
Self - Professor Emeritus Carnegie Mellon: Newton is concerned, that's it.
In the 1972 AFC divisional game, the Pittsburgh Steelers played the (then) Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were the more successful team, with the teams that defeated them regularly going on winning the Super Bowl. Losing, on a fourth down, and with only 22 seconds left to play, Pittsburgh QB Terry Bradshaw threw a pass that rebounded off the helmet of Raiders player Jack Tatum and to Franco Harris, who ran in a game winning touchdown for the Steelers. The play is controversial for a number of reasons and established a bitter rivalry between the teams.
It's a controversy that endures because there's not footage that establishes exactly what happens. There is another Steelers player, John Fuqua, next to Tatum who was the intended target of the pass and if he touches the ball - which he is very close to - it should have been an incomplete pass and the ball should have passed to Oakland. In additional, the ball is very close to the ground as Harris catches it. No footage exists that proves conclusively either of these arguments and the players involved, even to this documentary, refuse to budge on the idea that they were right.
There are some interesting aspects, such as seeing the game ball that is in the locked vault of Jim Baker, a man who was at the game. There are some less interesting aspects, such as the CIA guy, whose watched the footage intensively but isn't able to provide any more insight than what you would gather from seeing it yourself.
The interviews with the players are quite good, and its clear that some of the bitterness about the situation still hasn't dissipated.
- southdavid
- Jan 17, 2023
- Permalink
Details
- Color