PITTSBURGH — The season began with what is considered the greatest draft class in NFL history and ended with the beginning of one of the greatest periods of dominance in league history.
In 1974, the Pittsburgh Steelers added to pieces already in place with a draft-day haul that included five future Hall of Famers and started in motion a six-year stretch in which they won four Super Bowls with two different styles of offense and one suffocating, destructive defense.
Fifty years later, the Steelers are still celebrated as one of the winningest teams of the Super Bowl era. The six Vince Lombardi trophies they won under three different coaches — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin — are tied for most in NFL history.
When they report for training camp at Saint Vincent College, it will officially kick-start the black-and-golden anniversary of their first Super Bowl title — and serve as a reminder of what Sundays once were in the fall and winter in Western Pennsylvania.
"The 1974 draft gave us the final pieces of the puzzle that propelled the franchise into the team of the decade and one of the greatest teams of all time," said Steelers president Art Rooney II, grandson of the team's founder, Art Rooney Sr. "Of course, at the time none of us understood that we made history with what is inarguably the greatest draft of all time."
50 years
Two years after winning the first playoff game in franchise history in what became known as the Immaculate Reception game, the Steelers won the first of their four Super Bowl titles in six years when they shut down the Minnesota Vikings, 16-6, in Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Franco Harris rushed for 158 yards and was named Super Bowl MVP, L.C. Greenwood batted four Fran Tarkenton passes and the defense culminated a postseason performance in which they allowed just 33 points in three games.
The Vikings had just 119 yards offense, still the fewest in Super Bowl history, and their 17 yards rushing remain second-fewest. The Vikings' only touchdown came when Bobby Walden's blocked punt was recovered in the end zone.
"We let nothing stand in our way," Noll said afterward. "It's especially fitting in a championship game that our defense shut out the National Football Conference champions."
Afterward, the elder Rooney, the team's founder, said he was not concerned the Steelers had never played in a Super Bowl game before.
"I was more worried about them walking up and down Bourbon Street at night," he said.
While that period is fondly remembered by anyone over the age of 60 — everything from Franco's Italian Army to Myron Cope delivering televised directives to "Gerela's Gorillas" to hex opposing kickers — it remains a distant part of franchise lore. Even after their 1970s heyday, the Steelers enjoyed another dominating six-year run three decades later, winning two Super Bowls and getting to another from 2005 to 2010.
They beat the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit in Jerome Bettis' farewell in 2005 and three years later produced two of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history — James Harrison's 100-yard interception return and Santonio Holmes' spectacular toe-tapping catch — when they defeated the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa Bay.
However, after losing to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, Texas, to end their 2010 season, the Steelers have not been back to the Super Bowl. They came close in 2016 when they lost in New England in the AFC championship game, but they haven't won a playoff game since. It is the franchise's longest drought since the 1970s merger.
They are hoping they can generate some synergy in the golden anniversary season of their first Super Bowl title into another chapter of playoff success. After an offseason of major changes, none bigger than signing former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson, the Steelers have set themselves up to recapture some of their past playoff magic. Or, at least, they hope.
"It's time to get some wins," Rooney said. "It's time to take these next steps. There's some urgency there, for sure."
From good to great
The 1974 season began in spectacular and glorious fashion, though nobody could even begin to dream that it would start this way.
The Steelers drafted four players in the first five rounds — Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth and Mike Webster — who wound up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Almost incredibly, they signed a fifth player who wasn't drafted that year — safety Donnie Shell — who also ended up being enshrined in Canton, Ohio.
While the Steelers had already started building the foundation of their great Super Bowl teams when they hired Chuck Noll in 1969 and drafted future Hall of Famers Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Jack Ham and Franco Harris, the 1974 draft haul triggered arguably the most dominating run in league history.
"We went from being a really, really good team put together by the draft to being a great football team," said Art Rooney Jr., the man in charge of the Steelers scouting department in the 1970s.
Only one other team in the history of the NFL draft, which was started in 1936, has selected more than two Hall of Famers in the same year. The Dallas Cowboys landed three players in the HOF from the 1964 draft class: cornerback Mel Renfro, receiver Bob Hayes and quarterback Roger Staubach.
Nobody has ever drafted four, which is why what happened in 1974 is universally hailed as the greatest draft class in league history.
That draft did not have an immediate impact on what would happen nine months later in Tulane Stadium, but it would eventually allow the Steelers to transition from a run-oriented offense with Harris to a team that relied on Bradshaw's powerful arm to produce big plays with Swann and Stallworth.
"You take those players off that football team, it's not the same team," said Tim Rooney, one of the Steelers scouts at the time who went on to front-office personnel positions with the Detroit Lions and New York Giants. "That draft allowed that transition to be made to keep up with all the other teams. That draft allowed us to get into the later stages of the '70s and still win."
The only rookie to start in 1974 was Lambert, their second-round pick from Kent State, and only because veterans Henry Davis and Ed Bradley were hurt in a strike-shortened training camp. That opened the door for Lambert, who likely would have won the starting job anyway without the injuries.
By 1975, Swann, Stallworth and Webster were all starters. Shell, a converted linebacker from South Carolina State who didn't become a starter until 1977, was a special teams star. When he ended his career in 1987, he had the most interceptions (51) by a strong safety in NFL history.
That draft was so good it even overshadowed the Steelers' 1971 draft when they obtained eight Super Bowl starters, including Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Ham, receiver Frank Lewis, safety Mike Wagner and defensive linemen Dwight White and Ernie Holmes.
"That '71 draft with Ham in the second round and all those other guys, that is the draft that made them competitive," said Ernie Accorsi, a former general manager of three NFL teams. "I know they had Terry Bradshaw and Mean Joe Greene, but that's the one where they turned the corner, in my opinion."
In the beginning ...
After back-to-back playoff seasons, the Steelers had the look of being even better in 1974 when they were the only team to be undefeated (6-0) in the preseason. However, that doesn't mean the season wasn't without its tumultuous moments.
Based on an impressive preseason, Noll began the regular season with Joe Gilliam, not Bradshaw, as the starting quarterback. Gilliam became the first Black quarterback to start an NFL season opener since the 1970s merger.
After going 4-1-1 in the first six games, Gilliam's play slowly deteriorated, and Noll went back to Bradshaw in Week 7. But, after a 17-10 loss in Cincinnati, Noll benched Bradshaw and started Terry Hanratty, a Butler native, against the Cleveland Browns. Despite a 26-16 victory, Hanratty completed just 2 of 15 passes for 63 yards and was benched before the game even ended.
Noll went back to Bradshaw in Week 12 against the New Orleans Saints — a 26-7 victory — and never turned back. The Steelers finished the regular season 3-1 and beat the Buffalo Bills at home and Oakland Raiders on the road in the postseason to get to their first Super Bowl.
The victory against the Raiders is considered one of the turning points of the franchise because the Steelers scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to rally for victory. They did it behind a combined 209 yards rushing by Harris and Rocky Bleier and a pair of interceptions by Ham against quarterback Kenny Stabler, who almost beat them with his late touchdown run in the Immaculate Reception game.
"Our offense was running the ball with Franco and playing defense," said Tim Rooney, the Steelers scout. "The team was a defensive team. We'd play low-scoring games. That was the kind of team it was."
The 1974 draft changed all that. By the time the Steelers won their third Super Bowl in the 1978 season, the offense had undergone a transformation. They no longer relied solely on Harris as they had in their first two Super Bowl victories. Instead, they became an offense built around Bradshaw's powerful throwing arm, Swann's acrobatic catches and Stallworth's big-play ability.
And it all fit in with a blue-collar city whose steel-town image suddenly was thrust on a national stage. While the Steelers were on their way to a fourth Super Bowl in 1979, the baseball Pirates won the World Series, earning Pittsburgh the self-proclaimed title of "City of Champions." Not since New York's Mets and Jets won world titles in the 1968 season had one city hosted World Series and Super Bowl winners in the same year.
And it all started in 1974, 50 years ago.
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