Tim Benz: The best Steelers teams that did not get to the Super Bowl
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When the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers got off to their 11-0 start, most of us in Pittsburgh were having dreams of talking Super Bowl LV this week leading into the bye after the conference championship games.
How can the Steelers slow down Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints? Can they win a Super Bowl XLV rematch against the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers? Is Tom Brady going to sink the Steelers’ hopes again, this time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?
Instead, we are reduced to watching everybody else break down Brady and the Bucs against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Rather than force-feed you of more of that, let’s do what Pittsburgh does best — make the Super Bowl all about us, even if the Steelers aren’t in it.
I was inspired by my occasional WDVE colleague Dave Dameshek. You can find him waving a Terrible Towel on the “Extra Points with Cousin Sal” podcast, as well as the “Minus Three podcast with Shek & (Geoff) Schwartz.” He recently compiled a list of the top 32 NFL teams who failed to win a Super Bowl.
Now we're cookin' with gas…
The 32 best Super Bowl winners & the 32 best non-Super Bowl winners pic.twitter.com/hEeapYf95G— Dave Dameshek (@Dameshek) January 23, 2021
I took that thread and tweaked it to make it a little more timely for Pittsburgh — and 100% local.
So here is a list of the five best Steelers teams who — like the 2020 squad — failed to make the Super Bowl.
1. 1976 Steelers
Every Steelers fan over 30 years of age has a parent, or an uncle, or a day-drinking regular at the corner bar who has regaled them with tales of yore about the fabled 1976 Steelers.
“Yinz know that was the best Stiller team Chuck Noll ever had. If Rocky and Franco don’t gets hurt against the Colts in the first rahnd of the playoffs, they’re going aht to Oakland an’ winnin’ ‘at AFC Championship. ‘Den we woulda had one fer the thumb by 1979 against the Rams!”
That Stillers holy gospel to you is right. You need to know that story to pass “Yinzer Civics 101.”
From 1-4 to 10-4. Rocky Bleier and Franco Harris both went over 1,000 yards rushing. Ten straight wins before falling to Oakland in the AFC title game. All by an average score of 27-4. Six with rookie backup Mike Kruczek at quarterback. Five shutouts.
But Franco and Rocky did get hurt the prior weekend versus the Baltimore Colts. And Terry Bradshaw only had 176 yards passing. So the Raiders won that game in Oakland and eventually Super Bowl XI.
The deceiving record and the fact that the Steelers didn’t even make the Super Bowl allow people outside of Pittsburgh to forget how great this team was. But Western Pa. folklore never will.
Not only was this the best Steelers team to miss out on the Super Bowl. It may be the best team ever to fall short of “the big game.”
2. 2004 Steelers
This was Ben Roethlisberger’s rookie year that resulted in a 15-1 record and a 14-game regular season win streak heading into what would eventually be an AFC Championship game loss.
But because Roethlisberger and the rest of the team were so bad against New England that fateful Sunday at Heinz Field and because they barely scraped by an underdog New York Jets team in the divisional round, we sometimes forget the how good that team was.
It was only derailed by a 14-2 Patriots outfit that the Steelers had beaten earlier in the year. Then they beat the other Super Bowl participant — the Philadelphia Eagles — the next week. Bill Cowher’s defense led the NFL in fewest points, total yards allowed and rushing yards allowed. And it was fourth against the pass. The offense had the second-best rushing total in the league at 2,464 yards. And Roethlisberger was Rookie of the Year.
Would they have beaten the Eagles as the AFC Super Bowl representative as the Patriots did? Given how bad Roethlisberger was in those two playoff games and how shaky he was the next year in his first Super Bowl, I don’t know. Donovan McNabb may not have been an emotional rock that day either for the Eagles, though.
So … maybe.
3. 1994 Steelers
Again, another Cowher defense that was second in points and yards allowed. The “Blitzburgh” or “Steel Trap” or “Blast Furnace” defense — depending on your Strip District T-shirt of choice — was also tops in sacks (55), third against the pass and fourth in rushing yards per attempt. And on offense, they led the NFL in rushing.
A 12-4 team that would beat the 11-5 Cleveland Browns twice during the regular season and again in the playoffs, only to lose in stunning fashion against the Cinderella San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship game.
The 1995 team went on to the Super Bowl behind improved quarterback play from Neil O’Donnell. But the 1994 group did not, even though that team was better — in my opinion.
Would the ’94 team have beaten the powerhouse 13-3 San Francisco 49ers that year? Unlikely. But they didn’t have to go out like that at Three Rivers Stadium.
4. 2017 Steelers
Some might be surprised at the inclusion of this iteration of the franchise. Especially because it was roadblocked from Super Bowl glory by losing at home to Blake Bortles and the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars in its first playoff game.
You could make a case for the 1997 AFC Central championship team that lost to the Denver Broncos in the AFC title game. Or the 12-4 bunch in 2011 that somehow lost on the road to Tim Tebow and the Broncos in the wild-card round. Or even the 2016 team that got to the AFC Championship game against the Patriots.
But Mike Tomlin’s ‘17 guys were 13-4 overall with two losses to Jacksonville. They should’ve had 14 regular-season wins, including one over the Patriots, were it not for the infamous “Robbery of Jesse James” play.
They won eight straight games in the middle of the season and were an offensive force. Antonio Brown was No.1 in the NFL in receiving yards. Le’Veon Bell was second in yards from scrimmage. And Ben Roethlisberger was fifth in passing yards. Martavis Bryant was still in the mix, too.
The locker room was also an emotional mess, and the team was a circus for about 20 straight weeks, not even considering Bell’s first franchise tag situation during the offseason. And despite all that talent, Tomlin’s team exited ‘17 without a playoff win or another crack at New England.
5. 2001 season
Thirteen of Heinz Field’s 20 seasons have resulted in the postseason. The first of which was its debut year in 2001.
The Steelers went 13-3 to open the new building and went all the way to the AFC Championship game before losing to the Patriots. Jerome Bettis played hurt and had only eight yards rushing. Kordell Stewart threw three interceptions in his worst game of what was otherwise his best season. And the Patriots went on to the first of their six Super Bowl titles by upsetting the juggernaut St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl.
Would the Steelers have been able to beat the Rams that day, too? Unlikely. The Steelers had Kordell. The Patriots had Brady. New England had a better secondary and better special teams, too.