Mike Wallace has 1949's Bobby Gage in his sights.

Gage's 97-yard touchdown run on December 4th, 1949 at Wrigley Field in Chicago remains the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise record for longest play from scrimmage, just 2-yards longer than the Ben Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace TD pass Sunday at Arizona.

Pittsburgh news archives of the late 1940's read that the "baby-faced freshman" Gage ran his record setter out of a fake punt on that December day, the pen-ultimate game for the 1949 Steelers who would finish in second place in the NFL East to the eventual champion Philadelphia Eagles. Gage "fielded the pigskin" 7-yards deep in his endzone and became "Rapid Robert" as he raced "gingerly" up the right sideline to cut the George Halas-coached Bears lead to 30-14 in front of 36,000 fans.

The NFL record at the time of Gage's run was also of 97-yards by Green Bay's Andy Uram (set in 1939), and the Clemson product's jaunt came during an era where college football had five runs of 97-yards alone in the previous season.

The all-time football record was set on October 15, 1909 by G.S. McCaa of Lafayette against Swarthmore, do-able only because the field wasn't shortened to 100-yards in length until 1912.

At least Wallace can now proudly boast the longest reception in Steelers history, as his 95-yarder bested the three-way tie for first place of 90-yards most recently done by Bobby Shaw on December 16th, 2001 in Baltimore from the arm of Kordell Stewart.