My Steelers journey began in the 1970s, a decade that will forever be remembered for winning four Super Bowls over the span of six years. Ironically, we could have won six consecutive Super Bowls had it not been for injuries heading into the 1976 AFC Championship game and for basically sloppy play in the divisional round in 1977.
In any event, we won our fourth Super Bowl in 1979, and with the 1980 season right around the corner, I had no reason to believe we wouldn't win 'one for the thumb' in short order. Alas, it was not meant to be. The decade of the 1980s was frankly the worst decade of Steelers football, at least for me. It seemed we limped our way through most of the decade, making the playoffs only four times in ten years.
The Steelers opened the 1989 season by laying an emormous 'egg' against the Cleveland Browns
I don't think the word 'enormous' quite fits the bill for the performance the Steelers turned in against our division rival, the Cleveland Browns. I would use a more impactful word, such as 'gargantuan', but I think you get my drift, as it were. It doesn't matter what word you want to insert. The bottom line is that we stunk it up in that game.
We were down seventeen 'zip' in the first quarter. By half-time, we had built ourselves what would prove to be an insurmountable deficit of thirty points. Buuby Brister had a rather ineffectual day, completing only ten out of twenty-two pass attempts for eighty-four yards and tossing three INTs to boot.
The running game, which frankly had been a staple of not only the 1970s teams but of the 1980s teams as well, managed a paltry thirty-six yards on only seventeen rushing attempts. Up until that game, I could not remember a time when we went through an entire game and ended up with less than twenty rushing attempts. That was unheard of.
If that wasn't bad enough, the Steelers fumbled the ball six times, losing five of them. The offensive line, again a staple for essentially the previous two decades and one of the strongest position groups for essentially the previous two decades, gave up six sacks. I was simply beside myself.
There was also a 'story within the story', as it were, regarding the two opposing head coaches. On our sideline, there was Chuck Noll, the four-time Super Bowl-winning head coach who was entering the twenty-first year as the Steelers head coach.
On the opposite sideline was Bud Carson, who was our defensive coordinator from 1973 to 1977. I think it's fair to say that Carson's debut as the Browns head coach went 'swimmingly'. What I remember most about that game was the seeming ineptitude we displayed versus the seeming invincibility the Browns displayed.
After that game was over, I could not help but think that we would end the decade of the 1980s with yet another losing record because we had won only five games in 1988. I thought for sure that if we had another losing campaign, that might spell the end of an era for the Steelers and Chuck Noll.
Ironically, despite starting the 1989 season with two losses, we managed to win nine games, and beat the Houston Oilers on the road in the wild-card game, only to lose a heartbreaker to the Denver Broncos the following week.
Chuck Noll lasted two more seasons before retiring as the winningest head coach in Steelers history. Bud Carson lasted a total of two seasons as the Browns head coach. As for me, I went about my business as all fans do after a loss and after a decade of futility, but that game will forever be seared into my memory, for better or for worse.