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There was also an influx of bright young coaches and quarterbacks to further strengthen the AFC. Baltimore had become an uncomfortable place for Don Shula after the Colts' Homeric loss to the Jets, so he accepted the offer of Miami owner Joe Robbie to run the woebegone Dolphins. Shula inherited kid quarterback Bob Griese, who directed the coach's conservative offense so expertly he ended up in the Hall of Fame. Unstable coaching had been a hallmark of the Steelers since their inception, but their new coach, Chuck Noll, would lose all but one game his first year, 1969, then follow a straight path to the Hall of Fame where he joined fellow rookie coach Madden as well as his old boss, Shula. The Colts defeated Dallas to win the Super Bowl in 1970, their first year in the AFC, then disintegrated under the burden of age until they later rebuilt with a bright new quarterback, Bert Jones, in command. Late in the ‘70s, the Oilers would rebuild under Coach Bum Phillips and their great power back, Earl Campbell into the "Luv Ya Blue!" team. Even Denver, a moribund franchise during the AFL seasons and the first part of the ‘70s, would become a Super Bowl team with Craig Morton at quarterback and the "Orange Crush" defense. Madden and the Raiders would be challenged as they had never been challenged before. AFL/AFC teams would win eight of the ten Super Bowl games played in the ‘70s. In the introductory year of the AFC, Oakland won the Western Division championship by one game in a classic, season-long struggle with Kansas City. The Eastern Division was even tighter with the contestants compiling the best won-lost records in the conference. The newcomer Colts barely outlasted Shula's surprising Miami team with its "No-Name" defense. The honor of becoming the AFC's first champion in the realigned NFL was a matter of Baltimore vs. Oakland. Madden would get his "Mulligan," another chance to get his team into the Super Bowl. This one ended just about the way the Raiders' loss to Kansas City occurred in the final AFL game. Lamonica, the leading passer in the AFC, was knocked from the game early in the second quarter when the Colts' huge Bubba Smith made a crushing hit to the quarterback's thigh. Blanda entered the game and threw a pair of touchdown passes to pull Oakland back into contention, but the old pro was intercepted twice late in the game with the Raiders in scoring position. With Baltimore nursing a three-point lead, the great Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas made his last hurrah with a clinching, 68-yard pass play to Ray Perkins. The Colts went on to defeat Dallas in Super Bowl V. Two seasons later, 1972, Madden's Raiders would come close once again, this time in the divisional playoff game between Oakland and the Steelers in Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium, a meeting which would forever be known as the "Immaculate Reception" game. It was a game between two frustrated teams, the Raiders because they had come so close to a second trip to a Super Bowl and failed – and the Steelers, who had never even qualified to compete in a playoff game during their 40 seasons in business. That would change when this young team of future Hall of Famers – Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Joe Greene, Jack Ham and Mel Blount – erased the pains of the past. The outcome would leave the Steelers and Raiders bitter enemies. The word "unbelievable" has become the most overused in sports, maybe in American society, but in the case of this game's ending no other word applied. It was a game that had the feel of a soccer match, scoreless deep into the third quarter until Pittsburgh's Roy Gerela kicked an 18-yard field goal. In the fourth quarter Gerela kicked a 29-yarder for a 6-0 lead. It was then that Madden lifted Lamonica and replaced him with Stabler. The young quarterback read a blitz, and took off around the left side of the Steeler defense for a 30-yard touchdown. The extra point gave Oakland a 7-6 lead, which appeared as if it would stand, when in the final minute Pittsburgh was pinned on its own 40-yard line on fourth and 14. That's when "unbelievable" became appropriate. Bradshaw emerged from a hard pass rush long enough to throw the ball toward running back Frenchy Fuqua, who was covered by Oakland safety Jack Tatum. What happened then depends upon your perspective. If you were a Pittsburgh rooter, the pass bounced off Tatum's chest and hung low in the air for an instant. If you were an Oakland rooter, the ball touched Fuqua, which, under the rules of that time, would have made it an incompletion if any other Steeler caught it. Another Steeler, Franco Harris, did catch the rebound at his shoe tops, kept his balance, and ran into the Oakland end zone, completing a 60-yard play for what the officials agreed was the winning touchdown. The Raider nation will go to its graves insisting it was an illegal play, and the Raiders should have been declared the winners. The lasting picture of that game for Steeler loyalists was Harris being mobbed by teammates and fans in the end zone. The lasting picture for Raider fans was the face of John Madden, a study in biblical anguish. The "Immaculate Reception" is the lasting memory of the 1972 season, but for coaches like Madden, it was also the year the face of offensive football took on an ultra- conservative caste. In 1970, the first season of the merged NFL, there were five AFC teams, which rushed for 1800 yards or more. By 1972, that figure had doubled, and Miami gained nearly 3000 yards. The Dolphins were an infantry team, pounding the ball with future Hall of Famer Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick. Whether the quarterback was Bob Griese, another future Hall of Famer, or Earl Morrall, who took over when Griese was injured, it was not unusual for Miami to ration itself to 12 to 15 passes in a game. That was the way Shula wanted it, and the result was an amazing undefeated record over 17 games and the Dolphins' first Super Bowl victory.  On the green: Madden in July '06. In Oakland, Madden was paying attention. With defensive innovations such as the Raiders' own bump-and-run coverage, the cutting of receivers before they could get off the line of scrimmage as Washington did under George Allen or Shula's double zone, passing attacks were being stifled. The Raiders' offensive personality had been the vertical passing game since Davis assumed command of the team in 1963, but Madden convinced him that the prudent thing to do in the ‘70s was run the ball, frequently and brutally. It wasn't Oakland tradition, but it was effective. It helped that the Raiders' offensive line included three future Hall of Fame blockers, left tackle Art Shell, left guard Gene Upshaw and center Jim Otto. As rival coach Hank Stram of Kansas City once observed, "The Raiders would run left if they were playing the Russian army." The tone of the ‘70s was set by O.J. Simpson of the Bills, whose pro career exploded in 1972 when he won his first NFL ground-gaining championship, as he led a renaissance of sorts in Buffalo. The next season he became the first pro player to run for 2000 yards in a season. Madden's running attack was different, relentless and pulverizing as a jackhammer rather than breathtaking grace and speed. At first there were no 1000-yard gainers, just a committee of reliable pounders such as Marv Hubbard, Pete Banaszak and later Clarence Davis. There was no one feature back in Oakland until 1976, when Mark Van Eeghen, who had arrived as an unheralded third-round draft choice from Colgate, Hubbard's school, which was more noted for scholars than power backs, became a force. Van Eeghen produced three consecutive 1000-yard seasons, winning the AFC rushing title in 1977 with 1273 yards. Van Eeghen once described Madden's coaching style in a book of players' Super Bowl reflections, "The Game of Their Lives:" "When I was a rookie John Madden didn't communicate with me very much. That was his way. John was rough on rookies and young guys who hadn't yet earned their spurs, and if he perceived any attitude, he'd be all over you. Until you proved yourself, he had a tendency to ride you pretty hard. "It was probably for your own good – I'm sure there was a method to his madness. I'm not saying he was an ogre or unmerciful, because he was polite and kind and all those things, but until you showed him what you were made of, you couldn't progress to another level with him, and you didn't feel you were part of things. As time went on I'd say that John was extremely encouraging to me. He liked backs like Marv (Hubbard) and Peter (Banaszak) who put their bodies on the line and got their uniforms all muddy – I was like that too, John was a man of few words in terms of encouragement and motivation but the words he would say to you would speak volumes. If you got a pat on the back or a ‘job well done' or in an offhanded way he had complimented you, you knew that you had gotten his attention. "I know he was the best coach I could have had. He was extremely helpful to this small, back-east school guy who suddenly found himself in the NFL." The wisdom of the Raiders' turn to conservatism became evident in the 1973 playoffs when a measure of revenge for the "Immaculate Reception" was extracted in a bludgeoning of the Pittsburgh defense, which was in the formative stages of its "Steel Curtain" era. Oakland scored five times via drives of 82, 60, 68, 57, 62 and 58 yards on its way to a 33-14 victory. The tone was set on the first drive, which required 16 plays and ended with Hubbard punching across from the one-yard line. Nine days later, the Miami Dolphins demonstrated that no team did caveman football better than they in a 27-10 victory over the Raiders, extending Madden's Super Bowl frustrations. Griese completed only six passes for 34 yards, but Csonka battered for 117 yards and three touchdowns.
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