Tag: Pittsburgh Steelers.

This was the decade where the Steelers continued to have regular season success but had 6 frustrating playoff failures during this decade. The decade started out fine with the Steelers making it to the Super Bowl, but losing to the Green Bay Packers, in a game that was made close by the Packer receivers’ failure to catch the football. The Steelers were in the same position they were, 2 Super Bowls before, with a chance at a game winning drive late in the 4th quarter, but this time they turned the ball over on downs. Green Bay then ran out the clock to win the game. The Steelers would only get to one Conference Championship game in 5 more playoff tries. Those playoff losses could be attributed to star players not playing, and to some surprise performances from their opponents.

Record For The Decade: 102 Wins 57 Losses 1 Tie

Best Year: 2017 13-3 2010 12-4 Lost Super Bowl.

Worst Year: Three years at 8-8 2012, 2013, and 2019

Why The Steelers Won More Than They Lost: The Decade was built around 3 offensive players who when they were well, were 3 of the best players in franchise history. Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell, and Antonio Brown. Bell played from 2013 to 2017 and in 3 of those years he had around 2000 yards from scrimmage in rushing and receiving. One year he was only able to play 6 games due to suspension and then injury, and his rookie season he put up a little over 1200 yards from the line of scrimmage. Antonio Brown was even more spectacular. For 6 straight seasons Brown caught over 100 passes and gained at least 1200 yards per season with his top year being 2014 when he gained 1698 yards. Ben played for all 10 years, and we know that he is going to the Hall of Fame. The defense had its ups and downs during the decade and also had some bad playoff games. Overall, the defense contributed mightily to the success of the decade.

Significant Games: I always thought the most significant game of the decade was the opening round loss to the Denver Broncos in the 2011 season. We were a wild card team because we had lost the tie breaker to the Baltimore Ravens. The Broncos were 8-8 but that was good enough to win the weak Western Division. We had the no. 1 defense in scoring and total yards in the NFL. We were also no.1 against the pass. This was the game that Tim Tebow decided to have his greatest game, by far, in his NFL career. The next week against New England he would go back to being his mediocre self. He would only start 2 more games for Denver after that playoff loss. On that day against the Steelers, he accounted for 366 yards and 3 TD’s. Denver won 29-23 in overtime and that seemed to set the tone for rest of the Steelers’ playoff runs for the rest of the decade, even continuing into this decade. Tebow had never accounted for 300 yards and 3 TDs in a game before, and he would never do it again. Bell and Brown would only play in 3 full playoff games together winning 2 and losing the 45-42 debacle to the Jacksonville Jaguars where the Steelers played their worst quarter and a half of football in history until the 1st quarter of the 2020 Wild Card game against the Cleveland Browns where they fell behind 28-0.

The Decades Best Player: Ben Roethlisberger was the constant glue that held the team together through thick and thin. According to Pro Football Reference he is the Steelers all-time best player. I could give some argument for that, but certainly for this decade he was by far the best. No question that Bell and Brown had some great stretches during the decade but for various reasons they flamed out quickly and became non-factors for a lot of the decade.

The final full decade that the Steelers’ played football was the decade of playoff frustration. The Steelers have played 3 seasons in the 2020’s and that frustration is continuing. The last 2 years the Steelers have been in the throes of mediocrity. They are having in my view, the most important draft since the early 70’s. They are going to have 3 of the first 51 picks, no. 17, 32, and 51. If the Steelers are going to get out of this rut of playing close to .500 ball but not much better, then these picks better have an immediate impact. I know that is a tall order and a lower pick can always surprise, but if the Steelers are going to get to the next level and finally make a playoff run this needs to happen.

The Steelers are having a rough season that could best be called mediocre. Listening to personalities on the radio, many are calling them one of the worst Steeler teams of all time. It’s time to look at some Steeler history beginning in the 60’s when pro football started to make its climb to being the most popular sport in America. This is not going to be in depth look at each decade of Steeler history but more like the Morning Report of the Pirates. A look at what they did, why they did it, what were the most significant happenings on and off the field in each decade. We begin with the 60’s that did indeed have some of the worst teams in Steeler history.

Record For The Decade: 46 Wins 85 Losses 7 ties

Best Year: Their best year record wise was 1962, when they went 9-5, but the closest they came to the NFL Championship Game was 63 when their record was 7-4-3. If they had beaten the New York Giants in the last game of the season they would have won the division.

Worst Year: The worst year was 69 when they went 1-13, which was Chuck Noll’s first year of being the head coach. They won their season opener, thanks to a lucky deflected pass in the waning moments of the game for a winning touchdown, or they could have gone 0-14. “““““““`

Why They Lost More Than They Won: The decade started out with Buddy Parker being the head coach and his philosophy was to get veterans and forego draft picks. This worked for a while, but Parker was not near as sharp in evaluating veterans as Geoge Allen, and this philosophy finally caught up with the Steelers. When Noll took over the Steelers in 69, they were just starting to get their full complement of draft picks. Even the few draft picks they had turned out to be huge busts, including the biggest of all time, when they drafted Ohio State fullback Bob Ferguson in the first round. He gained 209 yards rushing for his entire NFL career. Najee Harris doesn’t look too bad, now. Another huge blunder was when the Steelers traded Buddy Dial to the Dallas Cowboys for the rights to Scott Appleton a lineman out of Texas. He signed with the Houston Oilers of the rival American Football League and even though Dial never put up huge numbers for the Cowboys, it was just the idea, they traded Buddy Dial for nothing. Finally, the 60’s were famous for quarterbacks slipping through the Steeler’s fingers. Beginning in the late 50’s the Steelers had these quarterbacks in their camp and one time, Len Dawson, Johnny Unitas, Earl Morrall, Jack Kemp, and Bill Nelson. All these quarterbacks led their teams to some kind of division title or championship.

Significant games: As bad as things were for the Steelers, they did have their moments. Their best game of the decade was the 23-7 drubbing they gave the Cleveland Browns on a Satuday night in Cleveland. The Browns went on to win the NFL Championship that year, but on that night the Steelers were the dominant team, with John Henry Johnson leading the way gaining 200 yards on the ground, scoring 3 touchdowns, on runs of 33, 45 and 5 yards. To this day, it was one of the most glorious nights in Steeler history. Then there was the strange 1963 season where the Steelers had 3 tie games, 2 with the Philadelphia Eagles to stand at 7-3-3 going into the last week of the season. In those days tie games were considered to be no game at all. Even though this was not changed for years, I always felt that this season was the reason they changed tie games to being a .5 loss and a .5 win. The New York Giants stood at 10-3 going into the last game against the Steelers. If the Steelers would have won the game, they would have been 8-3 and the Giants 10-4. The Steelers would have had a higher winning percentage .727 to .714 and would have been the division winner. But alas, it was not to be, as the Giants dominated the game and won easily 33-17. To say the decade went downhill from there would be an understatement. The Steelers never came close to having a winning season the rest of the decade.

The Decades Best Player: This is an easy one as John Henry Johnson played 5 full seasons for the Steelers from 1960-64. He led the team in rushing 4 of those 5 years gaining over a thousand yards twice. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987 which took way too long to happen.

The Steelers were a hard nose group even when they were having horrible seasons. Nobody ever came out of a Steeler game without some severe bumps and bruises. No team ever looked forward to playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 60’s. At the end of the decade the Steelers hired Chuck Noll to be their head coach. It would lead to their greatest decade ever.