The Best Steelers Quarterback Ever: Bradshaw or Roethlisberger?

Bradshaw Pros and Cons

Numbers, though, do not explain everything. Even if he did have the luxury of stricter passing rules and an expanded season, there is no guarantee he could or would have actually surpassed 35,000 passing yards. Keep in mind the Steelers never drafted John Stallworth and Lynn Swann until 1974, so he would not have those targets until then, still though Swann and Stallworth posted much higher receiving yardage after 1978 than before. Furthermore, Bradshaw had Franco Harris as his running back from 1972 through 1983. Considering Franco retired as the third leading rusher in the NFL at the time, even with liberalized passing rules, Chuck Noll came from the Paul Brown era of football. He believed in the run first and passing second.

Between 1972 through 1982, Franco Harris and Rocky Blier had a total of 15,985 rushing yards or an average of 1453 yards per season. Along with that, and to Bradshaw’s detriment, Chuck Noll was the last coach in the NFL to adopt the shotgun formation into the offense and not until Bubby Brister led the offense in 1989. So considering Bradshaw always started under center, if he could have started from deep in the pocket from the start and with his offensive line, even in the pre-Mel Blount rule era, he would or at least could have killed some teams.

If there are any downsides to Bradshaw’s career, there are two. First, the Steelers defense. Bradshaw played on a team that had a defense that destroyed teams. Whereas over Roethlisberger’s career, the Steelers needed him to score a lot of points as the Steelers defense since 2004 gave up a fair amount of passing yards and touchdowns. Whereas in the 70’s, the Steelers could easily score 14 points and know that was all the offense needed to win. In 1976, arguably the Steelers defense was at their peak; the Steelers had five shutouts. From 1970 through 1979, a 10 season span, the Steelers had 28 games in which they never allowed a touchdown, 2.8 games a year, and 11 games in which they allowed no points, a 1.1 game per year average. Bradshaw hardly had to worry about putting 30 points on the board.

Considering since 2004 through 2020, a span of 17 seasons, the Steelers have only had six shutouts .35 per season and  31 total games, not allowing a touchdown or a 1.82 game per year average. Yeah, that’s how much better Bradshaw’s defense was. The Steelers did not need to rely on Bradshaw’s arm; they had a killer defense and one of the best rushing games. Throughout Bradshaw’s career, he only had 15 comebacks and 23 game-winning drives. Another example of Bradshaw relied on his defense to avoid having to score as many points.

Bradshaw’s second knock is that as the passing game opened up in 1978, Bradshaw’s interception rate increased. Before 1978 he threw 1.21 picks per game and 14.75 per season. Starting in 1978, that went from 1.29 interceptions a game to 15.33 per season. As the passing game opened up, Bradshaw took more risks and turned the ball over more. Compared to Ben Roethlisberger, he never passed as accurately

Let’s look at Ben Roethlisberger now.