Sports Then and Now

All eyes will be on Ben Roethlisberger during Super Bowl XLV.

The quarterback is the heartbeat of any team. All possessions go through him, and he makes the decisions on the field, albeit with the advice of his coaches. Win the Super Bowl, and the QB is a good bet to be named MVP (Most Valuable Player). Lose, and the same guy often takes a large shame of the blame.

Benjamin Todd ‘Ben’ Roethlisberger, nicknamed Big Ben, is the man tasked with leading the underdog Pittsburgh Steelers to victory against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. At 6 foot 5 and 241 pounds, Roethlisberger is certainly not small. He will however need to be at his best in what the Super Bowl odds suggest should be a really tight game.

Fortunately for Pittsburgh fans, being at his best is what Ben does, well, best, at least most of the time. He has a 63% pass completion percentage and averages 8 yards per completion, which puts him near the top of the field. In layman’s terms, he is super-efficient. When he picks out a man, he usually finds him, for a significant gain. Read the rest of this entry →

Despite not having a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback, the Washington Redskins clearly ranked as the best of the 44 Super Bowl Champions.

Since the first Super Bowl was held in January 1967, 44 teams have hoisted the Vince Lombardi Championship Trophy. But which of these championship teams was really the greatest of the greats?

In part two of our countdown of the Super Bowl Champions, we count down to the number one champion in Super Bowl history. For more details about the categories used to rank the teams, check out part one.

20. 1977 Dallas Cowboys – Record: 15-2 (32 points); Average loss by 11 points (9 points); Average win by 14.6 points (23 points); Opponent winning percentage: .485 (29 points); Wins over +.500 teams: 4 (25 points); Total Points: 118
Arguably the best of Tom Landry’s 29 Dallas Cowboy squads, the 1977 Cowboys combined an explosive offense led by Roger Staubach, Drew Pearson and rookie Tony Dorsett with a dominating defense led by linemen Randy White and Harvey Martin. Dallas finished 12-2 during the regular season with their two losses coming back-to-back after winning their first eight games. In the Playoffs, Dallas out-scored the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings by a combined score of 60-13 to reach the Super Bowl. Facing the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII, the Cowboys were dominant in a 27-10 victory.

19. 1990 New York Giants – Record: 16-3 (26 points); Average loss by 8.7 points (20 points); Average win by 11.4 points (9 points); Opponent winning percentage: .500 (36 points); Wins over +.500 teams: 4 (28 points); Total Points: 119
Because the 1990 New York Giants narrowly won the NFC Championship Game over the San Francisco 49ers and then had to withstand a last second missed field goal to win Super Bowl XXV, the Giants are often overlooked when the best championship teams are discussed. However, the second of Bill Parcell’s Super Bowl teams was a solid team led by a defense that allowed the fewest points in the NFL. After starting quarterback Phil Simms was lost for the season in the 14th week, backup Jeff Hostetler stepped in and did not throw an interception in three playoff wins. Read the rest of this entry →

Ben Roethlisberger has the Steelers one win away from their third Super Bowl appearance in seven seasons.

With Ben Roethlisberger poised to lift the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Super Bowl for the third time in his seven year career, some sports talk hosts and NFL analysts have started asking the question of whether “Big Ben” should now be mentioned in the discussion of the best quarterbacks of all-time.

While Roethlisberger is a better than average NFL quarterback and seems to be heading toward a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to even waste breath on comparing him to the best quarterbacks in NFL history is an example of how desperate sports talk radio can sometimes be to find topics of interest and controversy.

When it comes to looking at all-time greats, there is a definite difference in how quarterbacks are evaluated than players at any other position. Statistics are given some weight when looking at the best quarterbacks of all-time, but they are just one factor.

Of the 10 quarterbacks we recently ranked as the best of all-time, eight led their team to at least one Super Bowl title and Dan Fouts was the only one who never played in the NFL’s biggest game.

But all 10 of these quarterbacks had something in common and it is something that Roethlisberger has yet to, and probably is never likely to, achieve. Each of these quarterbacks was unquestionably the best player on their own team and there was little doubt that the team would not have enjoyed as high a level of success without them under center.

This is one reason that three quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl rings and spots in the Hall of Fame are rarely mentioned when talking about the greatest quarterbacks of all-time.

While Terry Bradshaw, Troy Aikman and Bob Griese were all very good quarterbacks and deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, they were never “the man” that opponents had to game plan for when playing against their squad. Read the rest of this entry →

Many Jets fans will tell you that they are the unluckiest franchise in the National Football League because the Jets always find a way to lose in the most important games.

Another chapter to the Jets’ star-crossed history was added in their 2004 AFC Divisional Playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers when kicker Doug Brien missed not one but two field goals in the final two minutes of regulation that could have won the game for New York, but ended up losing the game in overtime.

In 2004, the Jets finished with a 10-6 record to earn a wild card berth, the team’s third playoff appearance in four years under head coach Herm Edwards.

In the Wild Card Round, the Jets pulled out a 20-17 overtime victory over the San Diego Chargers when Brien made a 28-yard field goal with five seconds left in the first overtime period to give New York an upset victory and sent them to Pittsburgh to face the Steelers in the AFC Divisional Playoffs.

The Steelers had the best record in the NFL during the 2004 season, a 15-1 record thanks to the league’s best defense and best rushing game lead by Jerome Bettis.

The biggest surprise of this season was the fact that the Steelers were able to go 15-1 with a rookie quarterback.

The Steelers used their pick in the first round to select quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was designated to be their quarterback of the future and sit on the bench for the 2004 season.

But when incumbent starting quarterback Tommy Maddox was knocked out of the second game of the season with an elbow injury in a loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Roethlisberger was forced to step in and take the reins as the starting quarterback.

Roethlisberger started 13 games and won all 13 of them, which included a 34-20 win against the New England Patriots that ended their 21-game winning streak, and a 17-6 win against the Jets. Read the rest of this entry →

In week 3 of the 2005 NFL season, the New England Patriots traveled to Heinz Field to face the Pittsburgh Steelers in a rematch of the AFC Championship Game from the season before.

Eight months earlier, the Patriots traveled to Pittsburgh and knocked off the Steelers 41-27 and advance to Super Bowl XXXIX where they would win their third Super Bowl in four years.

Led by head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, the Patriots had a dynasty and the top dog in the NFL.

Entering the 2005 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers were seen to be one of the favorites to knock k off the Patriots.

The Steelers were led by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger who in his rookie year won his first 14 starts as he led the Steelers to a 15-1 regular season record before losing to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.

One of the Steelers’ wins in the 2004 season was a 34-20 beat down of the Patriots on Halloween in Pittsburgh, which ended the Patriots’ 21-game winning streak.

For the third time in less than a year, the Patriots and the Steelers met in Heinz Field. Read the rest of this entry →

Since their arrival into the National Football League in 1967, the New Orleans Saints had earned the reputation as the most notorious loser in the league.

In their first 20 seasons, the Saints had never had a winning season or been to the postseason with their best seasons being in 1979 and 1983 where the team finished 8-8 in both seasons.

In 1986, Saints owner Tom Benson hired Jim Finks to become the team’s new general manager, who then proceeded to hire Jim Mora as head coach.

Mora came from the USFL’s Philadelphia Stars where he coached the team to two championships in the league’s three-year history.

As the league folded in 1986, Mora was able to convince former USFL players such as quarterback Bobby Herbert and linebackers Sam Mills and Vaughn Johnson to join him in New Orleans.

Mills and Johnson joined veteran linebacker Rickey Jackson and rookie Pat Swilling to form the famous “Dome Patrol”.

The Saints went 7-9 in 1986, and then split the first two games of the 1987 season before the NFL players went on strike.

Week 3 games were cancelled and never made up, but games in weeks 4-6 were played by replacement players.

The Saints’ replacements went 2-1, giving the team an overall record of 3-2 when the regular players came back for their week 7 showdown against the San Francisco 49ers.

The Saints lost the game 24-22 as Morten Andersen missed a last-second field goal that would have won the game.

In his postgame press conference, Mora proclaimed that the Saints “ain’t good enough” to beat a team like the 49ers.

The speech seemed to light a fire under the Saints as they won their next four games, including a 26-24 win over the 49ers in San Francisco.

The Saints were 7-3 and had five games to go in the regular season to give their long-suffering fans a winning season.

For week 12, the Saints traveled to Pittsburgh to face the Steelers, who were 6-4 entering this game despite the fact they had the lowest-rated quarterback in the league, Mark Malone. Read the rest of this entry →