Ben Roethlisberger thinks the Pittsburgh Steelers tradition is dead because offensive coaches aren’t going Coach Kilmer from Varsity Blues on players. You might think this is an oversimplification, but it’s not. Here’s what the former quarterback had to say on the subject.
“Who is grabbing someone by the face mask and saying, ‘That’s not what we do.’ Is that happening? Yes, you have guys on defense doing it, but you need guys on other sides of the ball doing it. … You need someone to stand up in that room, on offense, and be like, hey, this isn’t what it means to wear the black and gold,” he said on his recent podcast. “This isn’t what has been handed down from those teams of the ’70s. The Steel Curtain, the four Super Bowls, the Nolls, the Bradshaws, the Blounts. All those people, it’s unbelievable.”
It’s a cool theory but also totally ignores vast chunks of the franchise’s history. From Mark Malone to Kenny Pickett, the real Pittsburgh Steelers tradition is mediocre quarterbacks winning games due to everything else being good.
More Football: NFL expansion needs to happen and here’s how to make it work
The real Pittsburgh Steelers tradition…
For all this talk about the decline of the Steelers, it is important to note this team is almost always average to good. They haven’t lost double-digit games in a season since 2003 under Bill Cowher. Finishing at or above .500 in the modern NFL for 19 straight seasons is a massive accomplishment. Yeah, there are a lot of 8-8 records in there but still. It’s certainly better than whatever is happening in Carolina at the moment.
When you look at Pittsburgh historically, two eras stand out. The Terry Bradshaw years from 1970 to 1982. We’re not counting his one appearance in 1983. And, of course, the Roethlisberger era from 2004 to 2021.
That’s a hell of a 31-year stretch of quarterback play, although both had some dismal stretches. It also doesn’t account for everything in Steelers’ history. Including this go around, there have been 58 seasons in the Super Bowl era. Do those other 27 years not count?
Because if they do, the real Pittsburgh Steelers tradition isn’t grabbing guys by the facemask or whatever Big Ben things it is. It’s the team staying afloat despite middling quarterback play. Let’s go over that.
More Football: A startup football league thwarted one of the NFL’s greatest teams
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback history
Kenny Pickett
We will start with the most recent passer and travel back through time. To quote Denny Green, Kenny Pickett is who we thought he was—the best prospect in a weak draft class who came into the NFL with red flags.
Pickett hasn’t been terrible, but he’s also not been good. His coaching and weak offensive line certainly haven’t helped his cause. However, he’s 14-10 as a starter in his career so far which, as you’ll see, hammers home the point that Pittsburgh wins despite their quarterbacks.
Tommy Maddox
The pride of the XFL, Tommy Maddox, was thrust into the starting role in 2002 as the Steelers on-again, off-again relationship with Kordell Stewart finally came to an end. The one-time LA Xtreme passer went 7-3-1 that year while winning a playoff game.
Pittsburgh decided to run back the feel-good story in 2003. This was not such a wise idea. The team went 6-10, their last season with a losing record, and drafted Big Ben ahead of 2004. Maddox started a couple of games that year, got hurt and, well, you probably know the rest.
Kordell Stewart
Is there a more polarizing player in NFL history than Kordell Stewart? I think many people my age who were in high school when Slash came onto the scene thought he was the coolest. It was hard for us to understand why people in Pittsburgh seemed to hate him or why the coaching staff thought benching him in favor of Kent Graham was a good idea.
Of course, this was pre-social media. We weren’t fed a steady diet of everything he did. It was highlights only. Stewart was inconsistent in hindsight. There was also a group of people who seemed hellbent on hating him for that wild rumor.
The thing is, Stewart was probably never as good or bad as people made him out to be. He was serviceable and if you put enough talent around him, he could get the team to the AFC Championship Game. And without the right support, a losing season was likely.
Neil O’Donnell
Neil O’Donnell made the playoffs in all four seasons he was the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback despite being nothing more than a passenger. And to that effect, he did a good job. Unlike Kordell Stewart, O’Donnell didn’t turn the ball over a lot. He wasn’t a liability. But he also wasn’t an asset.
Perhaps the only difference between the Steelers of 2023 and the 1990s is that the game played around the league is entirely different. Neil O’Donnell didn’t stick out like a sore thumb while Kenny Pickett doesn’t embody the modern NFL quarterback. Then again, winning games is winning games.
Bubby Brister
The man Jim Rome once glossed as Scrubby Brister, an all-time gloss, by the way, Bubby Brister was the quintessential backup quarterback. He could win you some games in a pinch, as he did for the 1998 Denver Broncos, but you would also rather have just about anyone else playing for your team.
He also loitered around Pittsburgh for some time under Chuck Noll. He was 8-6 in 1989 and 9-7 in 1990. If that isn’t proof that any ol’ slapdick could come in at quarterback and guide the Steelers to a winning record than nothing is.
Mark Malone
Mark Malone was supposed to be next in line after Bradshaw called it a career. At least that was the plan when the team took him with a first round pick in 1980. Unfortunately, he was injured quite a bit. However, the franchise still never really bottomed out. They went 9-7, 7-9, 6-10 and 8-7 during Malone’s time as a starter even though he never played a full season.
It could be worse
Before Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw showed up, the Steelers were really bad. Even if we toss out their time as the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team had seven winning seasons between 1940 and 1971. To put this in context, the Steelers have recorded seven winning seasons in the past eight years.
Ben Roethlisberger honking on about how the Pittsburgh Steelers tradition is dead makes no sense. The team’s tradition, at least since 1971, is overcoming mediocre quarterback play to win far more games than it has any right to.
These complaints don’t have anything to do with any sort of football tradition. Berating players isn’t a tradition to begin with. Let’s be real, would the team be better with a Hall of Fame player at quarterback? Yeah. So would every other team in the NFL. And when the Steelers have twice been fortunate to have one, well they have managed to win a few Super Bowls.
And when those Hall of Famers are in short supply, you still get a team that wins more often than it loses. There are surely worse traditions than that in football. But what do I know? I’m sure the Steelers would be undefeated with Coach Kilmer running the ship.
Keep Reading: 6 things the NRL does better than the NFL
