Head to Head comparison: Patriots vs. Steelers

NESilver, I really appreciate your digging around to put this together because it’s been bugging the heck out of me where our writer friends get off trying to sell Patriots Nation a load of bull-hockey. What the Steelers have going for them is that they are the recent winners, and all ‘greatest’ talk hinges on them winning next year’s Super Bowl.

By the way, notice how the Colts aren’t even mentioned anywhere? The greatest-team-ever with the greatest-coach-ever and the greatest-quarterback-ever a couple of years ago has suddenly become irrelevant to the press. Guess the ‘mighty’ Steelers, Mike Tomlin, and Big Ben have replaced everyone as the media darlings du jour.

Truthfully, I got some of this stuff from a message board I frequent, and took the liberty of correcting and adding some things to give us a bigger picture. Just thought it’d be good to put it up on the Pulpit. Also, I’m not as well-versed in the Steelers NFL records, so if anyone (perhaps a Steelers fan lurking around here?) wants to add anything I missed to that, feel free. I just put down what I knew.

As it stands, the Patriots are still the team of the decade. The last time I checked, three Super Bowl titles are better than two. However, if the Steelers win next year, the two teams would be tied – the Patriots dominating the first half of the decade and Pittsburgh owning the second half.

So what’s the tiebreaker? I would look at overall accomplishments and head-to-head matchups. The Patriots have better records in the regular season and playoffs, more Super Bowl appearances, the two longest winning streaks in NFL history, and they’ve beaten the Steelers twice on their own turf in AFC Championship games on the road to two of their three SB wins. The Steelers, on the other hand, never went through the Pats in order to win either of their titles.

Pittsburgh is the closest competition for the Pats to claim they are the team of the decade, but I still think the Pats have it all but locked up, though it’d be awesome if Brady could come back and lead the team to one more Super Bowl just to remove ANY doubts at all.

“Team of the Decade” is a consolation prize compared with “Best in the NFL.”

I think, objectively speaking, that you have to give the Steelers credit for that. Under the Rooneys and beginning with Chuck Noll, they’ve fielded consistently competitive teams for over three decades. We should check back in in 2020.

Naturally, I’d love nothing more than winning the league in 10. 4 in a decade would put our franchise in the same conversation with the Steelers. Arguably it’s harder to remain consistent now than it was in the 70’s and 80’s. But 6 is a lot, and you can point to the Steelers last two (though in deference to my Seattle friends, that game — and the playoffs that led to it — were the first solid indication of the NFL’s officiating and rules crisis, which continues).

The Krafts have created a model for the new era, and we’ve seen a team for the decade. Longevity is the true test, though, and I for one am happy to remain spoiled.

Steelers also have Youngest Head Coach to win a SB.

I still think yall are the team of the decade.

The only thing would be if Pittsburgh beat New England in the playoffs and won the superbowl next year….which is a VERY, VERY big IF.