A new series I’m starting to help pass the time through the offseason until training camp starts in late July. Today and throughout these articles, we’ll look back on forgotten Pittsburgh Steelers plays and moments. Usually, they were overshadowed by other big plays or games but often played key roles in the team’s success. There will be a mixture of offense, defense, and special teams.
Forgotten Steelers Plays: Bob Gage’s 97-Yard Rushing Touchdown Ties NFL History (1949)
There aren’t many Steelers’ achievements from the team’s first 30 years that still stand the rest of time. One could potentially fall in 2024 if new punter Cameron Johnston can average 47.1 yards per boot. That would break Bobby Joe Green’s 47.0-yard mark set in 1961.
One less likely to be broken is Bobby Gage’s longest rushing score. Despite being the Steelers first-round pick in 1949, he played just two NFL seasons. That was still typical for the time, players coming and going as professional football was still overshadowed by the college game and baseball.
But Gage left his mark. In the penultimate game of his rookie year, he made lemonade out of a sour pile of lemons. In rare footage from the contest, Gage went backward in the fourth quarter. Way backwards. Tackled for a 20-yard loss that nearly resulted in a safety, taking the team from their 23 to the 3-yard line.
All it did was make the next play sweeter. Aligning deep like a punter, he took off instead of kicking. It’s not known if that came on his own accord or was a designed fake-out by the Steelers, desperate for an edge in a game where Chicago was pummeling them (and spoiler alert, still went on to win). Gage sprinted off the right side, turned upfield, alluded a tackler or two, and outraced everyone into the end zone.
From the line of scrimmage, an official 97-yard score, though with Gage deep in his own end zone, this was well over 100. Technically, it’s almost certainly the longest touchdown run in NFL history.
As far as NFL records are concerned, it tied the longest rushing score ever, equaling the mark first set by Green Bay’s Andy Uram ten years prior.
Perhaps what makes Gage’s mark even more amazing is his final stat line: six carries, 87 yards, two touchdowns. The man with a 97-yard touchdown run finished with ten fewer total yards. Even with another score from six yards out (44 seconds after his record-tying run), that 20-yard loss and potential other negative plays left him with only 87 yards for the day.
Gage’s mark is no longer tied for the NFL record, but it would take more than 30 years for someone to do better. Tony Dorsett, in 1983, went 99 against the Minnesota Vikings, setting a record that can’t be broken. To date, Gage’s run is still tied for the fifth-longest ever.
In Pittsburgh, it remains the Steelers’ longest rushing touchdown—by a wide margin. No other Steeler has more than an 87-yard score, second place going to the great John Henry Johnson. In the modern day, QB Kordell Stewart and RB Willie Parker had 80-yard runs in 1996 and 2005, respectively.
It’s a forgotten play for its period—an era when the Steelers were just happy to hang with the big boys, the Post-Gazette noting the next day that their 21 points versus the Bears were the most they had ever scored on them. And it’s forgotten because many who witnessed the play live aren’t here to tell the story. Gage himself died nearly 20 years ago.
