By Ernie Palladino
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The photo was not just a good shot of a player’s celebration.
It was iconic, encompassing not only the unbridled joy of success, but the violence of football, and the intent of its players to inflict their will on their opponents.
Most have seen it: the Eagles’ Chuck Bednarik fist-pumping over a motionless Frank Gifford, certainly oblivious to the fact that he nearly killed the great Giants running back, but just as certainly ecstatic over Gifford’s immediate incapacity.
It is one of the NFL’s flag-raiser photos, one of several Iwo Jima’s that stand right up there with a kneeling Y.