’76 Steelers “Steel Curtain”

’76 Steelers “Steel Curtain”

  1976 was one of the few seasons the Steelers didn’t win the Super Bowl. Much of that can be traced to Terry Bradshaw’s injury thanks to Turkey’s pile drive. Believe it or not, Bradshaw’s replacement, Mike Kruczek, went 6-0 for the Steelers. Alas, it wasn’t him who was winning those games. Rocky and Franco can do a lot but they can’t stop teams from scoring.

    Speaking of which…

    The season actually found the Steel Curtain amidst a pretty bad start. They gave up 111 points in their first five games. They were 1-4 and it was looking like the Steelers were about to bomb out to what they were before the winning ways arrived. Thank god, those days were over for good as the Steelers unleashed their junkyard dog on the league.

    It was called their defense, which gave up 28 points over the next 9 weeks. I mean…what? How? Steroids? Spygate? Football gods? It was the 70s. Half of these players might’ve been under the influence (or several). Nothing can explain, 28 points allowed in nine games. Needless to say, the Steelers did not lose a single one of those last nine games.

    They recorded five shutouts and the other three games saw the Steelers allow an embarrassing 28 points. Why couldn’t they have allowed 27? Why couldn’t have Terry Bradshaw been healthy? Matter of fact, I’m willing to bet the Steelers would have three straight rings had Bradshaw been healthy.

    But would they have beaten the Raiders?

    Well, they played the Raiders and were defeated 24-7 in the AFC Championship. That’s why this defense had kind of faded away in time. We hear about the 2000 Ravens and the 85 Bears but their damage was done in the postseason as well as the regular season. The Steelers allowed 38 points in their two playoff games, not quite what the Steel Curtain had done that season.

    Was the defense burnt out? It might’ve been. They carried the team so much in the regular season that they were pretty gassed when the playoffs started. The other Super Bowls prove just how amazing this season was. It’s a shame they didn’t pull it off in ’76 because if they had, there’s no question this team would take the cake for best defense ever.

28 points in 9 games…

-By: Thomas P. Braun Jr.