Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

74_75_78_79_ wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2026 7:46 pm How about the Steelers in 1996...when they picked up Bettis, I was excited. I knew they'd utilize him properly, bringing him right back to his rookie season form. Many a casual fan, even a casual Steeler fan, may think that #36 actually played on the '95 Super Bowl team!

Rod Woodson...Kevin Greene...certainly wasn't happy with THEY now being gone!

And the Steelers started strong after that opener when they, again, lost to the new Jags in Jacksonville (a rivalry already, now, in-motion; a shame that realignment had to break-up that great big division thus separate them in 2002)! I felt optimism over JIm MIller and was surprised of his benching not to ever get back in. Some behind-the-scenes rift between he and Cowher, I believe, was the reason.

Mike Tomczak wasn't bad! That nice 5-1 start highlighted by Bettis's Pittsburgh "coming-out" party at Arrowhead on MNF! Slowly-but-surely they faltered down the stretch to that 10-6 finish in which they lost their last two though still winning the Central. But not before impressing me when they stopped Dan from getting into the end-zone at the end of their MNF-win in MIami.

Blind-optimism, I guess, but I thought going into the playoffs that they could still return to the SB. And when the Jags knocked Denver out, being that I very wrongly assumed we beat NE the following day, I thought we were going! "Pittsburgh and the Pack", I said, assuming we knock out Jags at home for the AFCC next week. Though the Pats had Tuna - and Belichick - and the game was at Foxboro, I still thought we'd win. I remember Hank Stram right before kickoff thinking that the Steelers would win as well. But Parcells WAS the reason as to why I should not have assumed such a thing! Didn't he script the first 20 plays of the game? And then his work was done! The Steeler-D came together in the second half, but it was too late as their lack-of-QB-power finally caught up to them.