Throughout the 70s, the rivalry between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders was as fierce as they come in pro sports.
The two teams hated each other and let it be known on the field. Nobody found that out the hard way more than Steelers Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann.
Swann, who was a first-round pick out of USC in the 1974 NFL Draft at No. 21 overall, had quite a few run-ins with Raiders defensive back George Atkinson.
Turns out, Atkinson and the Raiders had a bounty on the Steelers’ great young receiver in an effort to try and take him out of the game physically and mentally. Atkinson accomplished that in the 1975 AFC Championship Game, and then in the season opener in 1976 with two blows to the head, one of which caused Swann to be stretchered off the field. That infuriated the Steelers and head coach Chuck Noll, who called Atkinson and the Raiders the “criminal element” of the NFL.
Those words led to Atkinson filing a $2 million defamation lawsuit against Noll, which he lost.
“You have a criminal element in all aspects of society,” Noll said after the incident in the season opener in 1976 with Atkinson. “Apparently we have it in the NFL too. Maybe we have a law-and-order problem.”
Noll also went so far as to suggest that Atkinson be kicked out of the league for his actions toward Swann.
For Swann, who spoke with broadcaster Joe Buck for his podcast “Undeniable” on YouTube, the situation with Atkinson and the hits that came from the Raiders defensive back were “personal.”
“Oh, they were very personal. They didn’t know me, but they had George. George didn’t know me,” Swann said to Buck, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “Now, there were guys on that football team who were on my team at USC, Charlie Phillips and Skip Thomas, who played corner, and they were there. Skip told me before the [1974 AFC] championship game, He said, ‘Watch yourself.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘There’s a bounty on you.’ Now we know the familiar story in New Orleans and the whole deal.”
Swann, of course, was referring to Bountygate, for which the New Orleans Saints got into quite a bit of trouble, causing then-head coach Sean Payton to be suspended for a year and linebacker Jonathan Vilma among other Saints coaches and executives. The organization was also fined $500,000 and had to forfeit a second-round pick in 2012 and 2013.
The Raiders’ “bounty” was quite clear back then, especially when targeting Swann. The problem was, the hits from Atkinson were legal in that day, even the one in the 1976 season opener in Oakland.
Swann, who was running a pattern to the middle of the field with Atkinson in coverage, was unexpectedly hit with the forearm to the base of his helmet by Atkinson 15 yards away from the play. The play was not seen by the referees, and therefore no flag was thrown even as Swann lay unconscious on the field.
The national TV audience saw the hit in slow motion thanks to replay though, and it was egregious. Atkinson felt he did nothing wrong and that the hit to Swann’s helmet was within the rules of the game.
From Swann’s perspective, while the hits were very personal, it was quite clear what the Raiders were trying to do: take him out of the game entirely.
“They wanted to win the game, but in order to win the game, it’s like if we’re talking strategy and tactics, put your lockdown corner on the best receiver and take away the weapon, okay” Swann said regarding the Raiders and Atkinson’s tactics. “That’s what you’re trying to do, right? It’s partly the strategy.
“Well, other than Mel Blount, who was a locked down corner? So the strategy for them was, ‘We’ll take the best guys and we can knock ’em outta the ball game. They’re outta the ball game. It’s our advantage.'”
The Raiders had some great defensive backs, but they didn’t have that true shutdown cornerback like the Steelers had with Blount, as Swann pointed out. The Raiders adjusted their strategy and tried to violently take players out of the game. Swann was the direct recipient of that strategy, and it nearly cost him his career.
However, he came back after the AFC Championship Game in 1975 after being stretchered off the field and won Super Bowl X MVP against the Dallas Cowboys. The hit early in the year in 1976 from Atkinson almost made Swann walk away from the game for good, but he was determined not to let the Raiders win and run him off.
He went on to win two more Super Bowls with the Steelers during his Hall of Fame career, but the saga with Atkinson and the Raiders remains a stain on that time period of football due to not only the violence on the field but the war of words through the media and the lawsuit.
It was certainly personal though, especially from Atkinson’s standpoint. It cost Atkinson too as he was handed a $1,500 fine from then-commissioner Pete Rozelle, who blasted Atkinson in a letter.
“In sixteen years in this office I do not recall a more flagrant foul than your clubbing the back of Swann’s head totally away from the play…. Our sport obviously involves intense physical contact, but it requires of all players discipline and control and remaining within the rules,” Rozelle wrote to Atkinson. “Every player deserves protection from the kind of unnecessary roughness that could end his career.”
Thankfully, it didn’t end Swann’s career. Who knows how the 70s Steelers would have been different without Swann.
