Team History: Steelers went from early futility to stellar defense and championship success
Team History: Steelers went from early futility to stellar defense and championship success
The Pittsburgh Steelers began with growing pains, operated through the unstable era of professional football during World War II, and rose to prominence thanks to a dominating defense. Here is a look at one of the NFL’s most storied franchises.
Professional football in Pittsburgh got a late start compared to other cities on the East Coast, thanks to blue laws in Pennsylvania, which prohibited athletic competition on Sundays because it was the Sabbath. This left semi-pro teams as the only option during football’s early days in the city.
One of the most well-known of those clubs was Hope-Harvey, which was founded and owned by Art Rooney, a local athlete who starred at Duquesne and Temple, played in the Boston Red Sox minor league system, won the AAU welterweight boxing championship in 1918 and tried out for the U.S. Olympic Team two years later. Rooney was also a halfback on the team, which included his brother, Jimmy, at quarterback.
When the blue laws were finally repealed, Rooney, who also operated a boxing promotion company, paid the NFL a $2,500 franchise rights fee and the team started play in the fall of 1933. However, the newly christened Pirates (after Pittsburgh’s baseball team) had to play their first four home games on Wednesday because the new law did not take effect until November.
The Pirates saw little early success, winning just 22 games in their first seven seasons. The team found themselves spurned by the best college coaches, and former Duquesne coach Joe Bach left after only two seasons. During this time, the NFL Draft began (in 1936), and two years later, Pittsburgh found its first star in Colorado quarterback Byron “Whizzer” White. However, he left after just one season to pursue a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University in England.
After years of losing, Rooney wanted to create a new image for the team. He worked with the local newspaper, the Post-Gazette, to choose a new name, and Steelers was chosen in honor of Pittsburgh’s leading industry. On the field, the team had a new head coach in Walt Kiesling, who was a star player in the NFL during the 1920s.
The Steelers had another losing season in 1940, and in December, Rooney decided to sell the team to Alexis Thompson, a steel company heir, and entrepreneur from New York. What happened next was the strangest four months in the history of not only the franchise but possibly the NFL.
After the sale of the Steelers, Rooney purchased 50 percent of the cross-state Eagles, which were owned by his friend, Bert Bell. The three owners got together after the sale and decided to pool players and hold their own mini-draft. Thompson also renamed the Pittsburgh team the Iron Men.
The original plan was for Thompson to move his team east, possibly to Boston, while Bell and Rooney would have the Eagles split home games between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. However, there were two issues. First, the league rejected both ideas, and second, Rooney had second thoughts about his decision to sell the Steelers.
Rooney made another deal with Thompson. He and Bell would move the Philadelphia team to Pittsburgh and once again take the name Steelers, while Thompson would move the Iron Men to Philadelphia and call them the Eagles (thus getting him a team closer to New York as he wanted). The move, which was dubbed the “Pennsylvania Polka,” was finalized on April 3, 1941.
After a failed experiment involving Buff Donelli as coach of both Duquesne and the Steelers (a conflict of interest), Kiesling returned and led Pittsburgh to a 7-4 mark in 1942 for its first winning season. Bill Dudley was the club’s jack-of-all-trades star, leading the NFL in rushing and the Steelers in passing, kickoff returns, punt returns, and scoring.
The NFL’s player pool was decimated by the need for men during World War II, and the Steelers were down to five active players by April 1943. Rooney and Bell proposed combining the Eagles and Steelers for the season, and Thompson agreed. The team was called the Phil-Pitt “Steagles” (although the Eagles get credit for the 5-4-1 record).
In 1944, Rooney combined his team with Charles Bidwell’s Chicago Cardinals (who had tried to combine with the Bears the year before), and the club known as “Card-Pitt” or the “Carpets” finished 0-10. Dudley returned after the war and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1946, but Pittsburgh went 5-5-1.
The following year, the Steelers made the playoffs for the first time. Coach John “Jock” Sutherland, a former star player at the University of Pittsburgh, led the team to an 8-4 record and a first-place tie with the Eagles. Philadelphia won, 21-0, in what is still the only time the two Pennsylvania teams have met in the playoffs. After the season, Sutherland died following surgery to remove a brain tumor.
Pittsburgh brought Kiesling back one more time in the 1950s, and the team also had moderate success under former Lions head coach Raymond “Buddy” Parker. However, the Steelers would endure a 25-year playoff drought in which they had just five winning seasons. Their best chance came in 1962 when former Detroit quarterback Bobby Layne led the team to a 9-5 record, which was still two games out of a postseason spot.
The Steelers wanted a new coach for the 1969 season but were turned down by Penn State’s Joe Paterno. Instead, Rooney hired Chuck Noll, a former player with the Browns who had spent the previous three seasons as a defensive coordinator under Don Shula with the Baltimore Colts. At 37, Noll became the youngest head coach in the NFL.
After a 1-13 debut season, Noll began to assemble a dominant team through the draft. The Steelers selected linemen “Mean” Joe Greene, L. C. Greenwood and Dwight White, linebackers Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, and Robin Cole, and defensive backs Mel Blount, Mike Wagner and J. T. Thomas, with all of them playing a role in the “Steel Curtain” defense of the 1970s. In addition, the team added quarterback Terry Bradshaw, running backs Rocky Bleiler and Franco Harris, wide receivers John Stallworth and Lynn Swann, tight end Bennie Cunningham, and offensive linemen Mike Webster, Jon Kolb, Gerry Mullins and Larry Brown over a nine-year period.
Pittsburgh went 11-3 and won the AFC Central in 1972. In their first playoff game in 25 years, the Steelers faced the Oakland Raiders in the Division round, and one of the most memorable plays in NFL history occurred late in the game. Trailing by a point with 40 seconds left, Bradshaw threw a pass to John Fuqua. The ball was knocked away by Oakland’s Jack Tatum, but Harris corralled the deflection and returned his “Immaculate Reception” 60 yards for a touchdown and a 13-7 victory. Unfortunately, they lost to the perfect Dolphins, 21-17, in the AFC Championship game the next week.
After another trip to the playoffs the following year, Pittsburgh finally won a title, dispatching of the Bills and Raiders in the AFC before holding Fran Tarkenton and the Vikings to just 119 yards in a 16-6 win in Super Bowl IX. The Steelers cruised to a 12-2 mark in 1975, then finished off the season with Bradshaw throwing two touchdown passes in a 21-17 win over the Cowboys in Super Bowl X.
Eventually, Pittsburgh’s playoff streak reached eight straight seasons. The Raiders finally stopped them in the AFC Championship game in 1976, but the Steelers put together another set of back-to-back titles. The “Steel Curtain” worked well during this time, starring in a Super Bowl XIII victory against Dallas again after a 14-2 mark and two dominant playoff wins in 1978. Bradshaw threw two touchdown passes and Harris ran for two scores in a 31-19 title victory over the Rams the following year.
Pittsburgh made the playoffs just four times over the next 12 seasons, with the best chance ending with a loss to the Dolphins in the 1984 AFC Championship Game after reaching the postseason as a wild-card team.
Noll retired after the 1991 season, and he was replaced by former Chiefs defensive coordinator and western Pennsylvania native Bill Cowher. The Steelers made the playoffs in the first six years of Cowher’s tenure, including three AFC Championship Games and a 27-17 loss to the Cowboys and their trio of offensive stars (Aikman, Smith, and Irvin) in Super Bowl XXX.
Pittsburgh went 15-1 in 2004, their only blemish was a road loss to Baltimore in Week 2. However, the season ended with a 41-27 loss at home to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. The following year, the Steelers earned a wild card spot, then won three road playoff games to reach Super Bowl XL. Willie Parker and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger each ran for touchdowns, and Pittsburgh clinched its fifth championship with a trick play. Receiver Antwaan Randle El threw a 43-yard scoring pass to Hines Ward to finish off the 21-10 win over the Seahawks.
After an 8-8 record in 2006, Cowher stepped down as head coach after 15 seasons. He was replaced by Mike Tomlin, who made his mark as defensive coordinator of the Vikings. The Steelers lost in the Wild Card round in Tomlin’s first year but won their sixth title the following season. Linebacker James Harrison set a Super Bowl record with a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown, and Roethlisberger hooked up with Santonio Holmes for a six-yard scoring pass with 35 seconds left to give Pittsburgh a 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.
The Steelers had a chance at another title two years later, but Roethlisberger was outdueled by Aaron Rodgers in a 31-25 Packers victory. Pittsburgh made the playoffs five times over the next eight seasons, with their best chance at a title ended once again by the Patriots in the 2016 AFC Championship Game.
Pittsburgh will have a new-look team for the upcoming season, with running back Le’Veon Bell and wide receiver Antonio Brown no longer on the roster. Roethlisberger’s new top target is JuJu Smith-Schuster (1,426 yards), and James Conner ran for 973 yards and 12 touchdowns. Former Rams linebacker Mark Barron joins a defense that only recorded eight interceptions last season.
-By: Kevin Rakas