With six Super Bowl titles, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the joint-most successful team in the competition’s history.
They share that record with the New England Patriots.
Formed in 1933, the Steelers are amongst the oldest franchises in the NFL, but they had to wait over forty years before claiming their first championship.
For so long, they existed as one of the great underachievers of the NFL, but that all changed in the 1970s, following the NFL-AFL merger, when they not only broke their Super Bowl duck, but won the title four times in the mid-to-late 70s.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are now considered as one of the greatest NFL teams in the modern era.
The Steeler Nation is always believing, and with fans now able to wager on future Super Bowl champions on US sportsbooks, optimistic Pittsburgh supporters have not been shy of taking a punt on their favourite team.
That trust has not always been repaid in recent times, with Steelers’ most recent triumph coming in 2008. Thankfully, US sportsbooks give out lots of NFL betting bonuses, which should ease the effects of these losses!
It is surely a case of “when” and not “if” before the Steelers regain the crown, but while we wait, let’s look back at the six previous Super Bowl titles.
1974-1975: Super Bowl No. 1
Prior to the NFL-AFL merger, the Pittsburgh Steelers made just one postseason appearance in the NFL (1947), but their fortunes began to change after the unification of the rival leagues.
Pittsburgh brought in legendary coach Chuck Noll ahead of the 1969 season, and slowly but surely, he would go on to build a side that became one of the greatest dynasties in the league.
With Noll at the helm, Steelers drafted a host of Hall of Famers in the early-to-mid 70s, and that would reap huge dividends in the latter half of the decade, starting with their maiden Super Bowl triumph in the 1974-1975 season.
With a 10-3-1 record, Pittsburg won the AFC Central Division in 1974, and had the third best record in the entire AFC.
They eliminated the Buffalo Bills 32 – 14 in the first round of the NFL play-offs on home turf before seeing off the Oakland Raiders 24 – 13 in Oakland to emerge as AFC champions and reach Super Bowl IX.
Franco Harris emerged as MVP as Pittsburg defeated the Minnesota Vikings 16-6 at the Tulane Stadium in Louisiana to finally open their Super Bowl account.
With quarterback Terry Bradshaw pulling the strings and the famous Steel Curtain defense typically standing firm, Pittsburgh controlled large parts of the contest.
After a scoreless opening quarter, Noll’s men slowly pulled away and were 9-0 up by the end of the third quarter. Minnesota attempted a rally in the fourth quarter, but it was all too little too late as Pittsburgh held on to their advantage.
1975-1976: Super Bowl No. 2
After waiting so long to claim their first Super Bowl, Pittsburgh repeated their championship run in the 1975-1976 season, defeating the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 in Super Bowl X in Miami.
The Steelers posted the best record in the AFC regular season, winning 12 and losing just 2 games, and carried that form into the play-offs, defeating Baltimore Colts and Oakland Raiders, both at the Three Rivers Stadium to advance to Super Bowl X.
Unlike the low-scoring affair from the previous year, the 1975 Super Bowl at Miami’s Orange Bowl Stadium got off to a speedy start, with both sides level at 7-7 after the opening quarter.
Pittsburgh had things their way for most of the 1974 final, but they had to dig a lot deeper a year later, with Dallas opening up a 10 – 7 lead at half time.
But dig deep they did as the champions went on a 14-0 run in the final quarter to effectively put the game beyond their opponents. Dallas wouldn’t go away quietly, and ate into the Steelers’ lead late on, but Pittsburgh held on to become just the third team to successfully defend the Super Bowl.
Lynn Swann became the first wide receiver to claim the Super Bowl MVP.
1978-1979: Super Bowl No. 3
Following their back-to-back triumphs at the 1975 and 1976 Super Bowls, Pittsburgh missed out on the main event in consecutive years, losing to Oakland in the AFC Championship match in 1976-77, and then to Denver in the first round of the play-offs in the 1977-78 campaign.
However, they came roaring back in the 1978-1979 season, beating Dallas at Super Bowl XIII in a repeat of the final from three years earlier.
Pittsburgh had put together a 14-2 record in the regular season, and got past the Denver Broncos and the Houston Oilers in the play-offs to set up a rematch with Dallas.
And as was the case in the previous final between these sides, the 1979 Super Bowl was contested at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
Dallas were the defending champions, and like Pittsburgh, were attempting to become the first team to win three Super Bowl titles.
It was another close one against the Cowboys, but a 14-7 score in the second quarter proved decisive as the Steelers ran out 35 – 31 victors.
Quarterback Terry Bradshaw was named Super Bowl MVP.
1979-1980: Super Bowl No. 4
In 1980, the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first NFL team to win four Super Bowls, and they claimed those titles within a six-year span.
They also became the first NFL team to successfully defend the Super Bowl on two different occasions.
After seeing off the Miami Dolphins and Houston at the Three Rivers Stadium to emerge AFC champions, the Steelers proceeded to take on the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl XIV at the Rose Bowl in California.
The Rams opened up a 7-3 lead in the opening quarter, but Pitsburgh chipped away at that lead, and trailed 17-19 at the end of the third.
However, the three-time champions raced away from the Rams in the final quarter, scoring 14 unanswered points to cruise to their fourth Super Bowl title.
Bradshaw was again at the heart of Steelers’ success, and was awarded the Super Bowl MVP for the second consecutive year.
2005-2006: Super Bowl No. 5
After winning four Super Bowls in six years, it took the Pittsburgh Steelers over a quarter of a century to reclaim the NFL’s big prize.
As their key players from their 70s dynasty retired from the sport, Pittsburgh slipped into an almost inevitable drought, leading up to the retirement of Chuck Noll in 1991.
Noll was replaced by Bill Cowher, who led the Steelers to the play-offs in his first six seasons, culminating in a return to the Super Bowl in 1996. They couldn’t quite go all the way, falling to old foes, the Dallas Cowboys.
Cowher and his Steelers would get their redemption a decade later, as they defeated the Seattle Seahawks in 2005 to claim a fifth Super Bowl title.
The Steelers compiled an 11- 5 record in the regular season to qualify for the play-offs as the sixth seeds in the AFC, and would defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, top seeds, Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos to win the AFC Championship and advance to Super Bowl XL.
Standing in their way were the SeaHawks, who were featuring in the Super Bowl for the first time at the Ford Field in Detroit.
Experience told in the end, as Pittsburgh overcame a 0-3 first quarter deficit to score a 21-10 victory and tie the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys on five titles.
2008-2009: Super Bowl No. 6
It didn’t take long before the Pittsburgh Steelers added title No. 6 to their Super Bowl haul, defeating the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa in 2008.
By then, Cowher had left his role as Steelers boss, paving the way for Mike Tomlin to take charge.
And just over two years after taking up the role, Tomlin led the Steelers to yet another Super Bowl crown.
With a 12-4 regular season record, Pittsburgh qualified as the second seeds from the AFC, and advanced to their 7th Super Bowl with play-off victories over San Diego Chargers and Baltimore Ravens.
Pittsburgh dominated the early stages of the contest, and sat comfortably at 20-7 heading into the fourth quarter, but the Cardinals threatened a dramatic turnaround in the final period, scoring 16 in a row to take a 23-20 lead with less than 3 minutes left on the clock.
But Steelers showed impressive steel to snatch the game late on, with wide receiver and eventual MVP, Santonio Holmes scoring a touchdown to win the contest with only seconds left to play in one of the most exciting finishes in Super Bowl history. The Pittsburgh Steelers became the first team to win six Super Bowl titles, while Tomlin, at 36, became the youngest coach to win the Super Bowl.