You don’t realize how spoiled you are until you look around the league.
Four Super Bowls in the 1970s. Two more in the 2000s. And in between, almost never wandering into true quarterback wilderness. That’s not luck. That’s the Pittsburgh Steelers solving the hardest problem in football twice.
Start with Terry Bradshaw.
When the Steelers drafted him first overall in the 1970 NFL Draft, he didn’t walk into greatness. He threw 24 interceptions in 1971. Fans booed him at Three Rivers Stadium. There were real questions about whether he was the guy.
Then Chuck Noll stayed patient.
By 1974, the Steelers were 10-3-1 and rolling into the playoffs with the Steel Curtain defense and a quarterback who had figured it out. Bradshaw threw for 3,724 yards and 28 touchdowns in 1978, winning league MVP. He threw four touchdown passes in Super Bowl XIII against Dallas. Four Lombardis in six years. That’s dynasty stuff.
When Bradshaw retired after the 1983 season, the Steelers didn’t immediately reload. The 80s were respectable but not dominant. Mark Malone. David Woodley. Bubby Brister. Neil O’Donnell eventually steadied things enough to reach Super Bowl XXX after the 1995 season under Bill Cowher, but the position never truly felt locked in the way it had with Bradshaw.
Then came 2004.
The Steelers were 6-10 in 2003. They held the 11th pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. Ben Roethlisberger slid down the board after Eli Manning and Philip Rivers went early. When Pittsburgh pulled the trigger at No. 11, nobody could have known how clean the transition would be.
Roethlisberger didn’t even start Week 1. Tommy Maddox was the veteran. Then Maddox got hurt in Week 2 against Baltimore. The rookie stepped in.
He didn’t lose.
Fifteen straight wins to start his career as a starter, including the playoffs. The Steelers went 15-1 in 2004. Heinz Field was electric. The kid from Miami of Ohio looked unflappable. Big arm. Tough in the pocket. Shrugging off defenders like it was backyard football.
Two seasons later, at 23 years old, he won Super Bowl XL. The Steelers beat Seattle 21-10 on February 5, 2006. Roethlisberger became the youngest starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl at the time.
That’s succession done right.
Then he did it again.
Super Bowl XLIII. February 1, 2009. Steelers vs Cardinals. Down 23-20 late in the fourth quarter. Roethlisberger engineers a 78-yard drive, capped by that toe-tap touchdown to Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left. That throw into the corner of the end zone is still one of the greatest in franchise history.
Six Lombardis. Two quarterbacks.
From 1970 through 2021, the Steelers essentially had two true franchise quarterbacks. That’s 51 seasons. Think about that in today’s NFL where teams cycle through starters every two or three years.
The consistency goes deeper than the names.
Bradshaw had Chuck Noll for his entire career. Roethlisberger had Bill Cowher and then Mike Tomlin. Stability at head coach. Stability in ownership with the Rooney family. Stability in philosophy.
The Steelers never panicked.
When Roethlisberger went through turbulence in the late 2000s off the field, the organization didn’t flinch. When he struggled with interceptions in 2006 and 2018, they didn’t start drafting replacements in the first round every other year. They trusted the guy.
And he delivered.
Roethlisberger finished his career with 64,088 passing yards and 418 touchdowns. He led Pittsburgh to three Super Bowl appearances and two wins. He kept the team competitive into his late 30s, even in the 2020 season when they started 11-0.
Compare that to the chaos you see elsewhere. Franchises burning through draft picks, free agents, and coaching staffs just trying to find average quarterback play.
Pittsburgh didn’t just hit twice. They built environments where quarterbacks could grow into legends.
That doesn’t mean there weren’t bumps. The Steelers had playoff heartbreak. The loss to Green Bay in Super Bowl XLV. The upset against Jacksonville in the 2017 playoffs. Frustrating January exits when the Killer B’s offense felt unstoppable.
But the foundation was always there.
Now, as the franchise moves forward into the post-Ben era, there’s a reason Steelers fans expect competence. It’s baked into decades of experience. The standard isn’t just winning seasons. It’s finding the guy and sticking with him long enough to build something real.
From Bradshaw raising four trophies in the 70s to Roethlisberger slinging it in black and gold for 18 seasons, the Steelers didn’t just answer the quarterback question.
They mastered it.
And when you’ve lived through that kind of stability, you don’t lower the bar.
You expect the next chapter to be worthy of the last two.