List of the All-Time Top 1o Players for the Pittsburgh Steelers as of 2024.
There has never been a lack of outstanding players for a team with the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Picking the top ten Steelers is not a tough assignment. Hell, you could choose almost that many just from the 1970s.
It’s challenging to list so many outstanding players.
Must Jerome Bettis rank higher than Franco Harris? John Stallworth versus Hines Ward? Better than Terry Bradshaw, Ben Roethlisberger?
Although creating such a list isn’t exactly scientific, I’ve tried my best to rate these and other outstanding Steelers players.
See how your favourite Steelers rank and whether you agree by reading on.
10. Joey Porter
It took me some time to decide who should go in at number ten, but Joey Porter was the winner. While Aaron Smith and James Farrior were each excellent leaders in their own right, none of them had the same level of leadership that Peezy did.
Porter, like his predecessors Jack Lambert and Greg Lloyd, was often the most aggressive and nasty player on the pitch. He also had a talent for inciting opponents’ wrath.
Porter started seven seasons in Pittsburgh and amassed at least seven sacks in six of those seasons. In all three of the Steelers’ road games leading up to Super Bowl XL, he also contributed a sack.
9. Carnell Lake
Carnell Lake is not frequently regarded as one of the Steelers’ all-time greats because he played in the same secondary as Rod Woodson for the most of his career. But he ought to be.
If Bob Sanders had continued to be healthy, he would have become Lake.
With 25 career sacks, Lake ranks among the NFL’s top defensive backs ever. In 1997, Lake won the AFC Defensive Player of the Year award with six quarterback takedowns and three interceptions.
As the defensive backs coach for the Steelers, Lake has led the team to two top-ranked pass defences in the last three seasons.
8.Lynn Swann
This one is for you. Even now, Lynn Swann’s career reception and receiving yardage are surpassed by Nate Washington (do you remember him?).
Why, therefore, is Swann regarded as one of the greatest Steelers in team history? It’s simple: no one performed as well during crucial times.
At the end of his rookie season, in Super Bowl IX, Swann was statistically blanked. On each of his return journeys, he more than made up for it, though.
Swann only had four receptions in Super Bowl X, but he made every one of them count. In the end, he gained 161 yards, a score, and MVP status for the Super Bowl.
Swann’s team’s following two trips to the big game saw him add 203 yards and two more touchdowns.
7. Troy Polamalu
Since being selected by the Steelers in the 2003 draft, Troy Polamalu’s taste for the exceptional has been unmatched.
Whether Polamalu is diving over the line of scrimmage, making a critical strip-sack play or making a string of unlikely interceptions, supporters can always expect on getting their money’s worth.
Given the abundance of legendary defenders in Steelers history, Polamalu’s placement in the top half of this list is quite an accomplishment. Still, it’s impossible to argue that he doesn’t deserve it.
Both of Polamalu’s standout individual seasons came to a conclusion with the Steelers winning the Super Bowl. And that might not have happened in his absence.
Polamalu’s pick-six in the 2008 AFC Championship Game, which ended the Ravens’ season, will bring back happy memories for Pittsburgh supporters. The team’s record-breaking sixth Super Bowl championship was won at the end of that season.
6. Hines Ward
Hines Ward was a model wide receiver for his whole playing career.
In terms of receiving touchdowns and receptions, Wards is among the top 20 players in NFL history. His receiving yardage of 12,083 puts him just outside the 20-yard line.
However, Ward’s ranking in the top 10 isn’t just the result of his receiving prowess. It’s actually another facet of his gameplay that a lot of his admirers will cherish.
Ward had no fear when playing. Despite never being the largest player on the pitch, he was always able to lay a brutal block on any opponent. And he grinned while doing it.
5. Jerome Bettis
While a number of players on this list concluded their careers wearing various uniforms, Bettis is the only one who did it from the beginning.
In 1996, the Steelers traded St. Louis Rams second- and fourth-round selection picks for Bettis, and it was a wise move, to put it mildly.
The aptly called “Bus,” listed at 250 pounds (which in some years seemed generous), steamrolled opponents his route to becoming sixth on the NFL’s all-time rushing chart.
Although Bettis over 1,000 running yards in each of his first six seasons in Pittsburgh, his final campaign might end up being the most remembered.
Before the 2005 campaign, Bettis thought about retiring, but he ultimately made the decision to stay in order to try again for the elusive Super Bowl ring.
Fans of the Steelers are aware of how this tale ends, of course. During Super Bowl XL, “The Bus” visited his hometown of Detroit and was able to end his career in a way worthy of such an important player.
4. Ben Roethlisberger
Some would argue that Ben Roethlisberger is a tad overpaid in this position, but they only have to consider the time between his arrival and Terry Bradshaw’s retirement.
Despite fielding many competitive teams and All-Pro calibre players, the Steelers’ quarterback play looked to be their undoing.
Roethlisberger, please.
Indeed, he inherited a strong team. However, he also brought it to heights not seen in many years.
Roethlisberger has already bestowed onto younger Steelers supporters a golden age of their own with three Super Bowl appearances and two championships. His thirty-two career game-winning drives rank him eleventh in NFL history.
Of the thirty-two drives, one obviously stands out above the others. In Super Bowl XLIII, Roethlisberger’s game-winning drive against the Cardinals solidified his place among the greatest Steelers of all time.
3. Terry Bradshaw
In terms of quarterbacks with numerous Super Bowl victories, Terry Bradshaw isn’t the best of the best.
In five seasons, he has thrown at least twenty interceptions, and his quarterback rating is just around 70. In fact, his touchdown-to-interception ratio would be dead even if it weren’t for his two touchdown passes in his most recent campaign.
However, Bradshaw’s impact goes beyond data.
Despite any errors he made in the first three quarters of the game, Bradshaw often owned the fourth.
Bradshaw set an NFL record with nine touchdown passes in the Super Bowl, four of which came in the last two minutes of play.
Actually, nearly half (49) of the 103 points the Steelers scored in Bradshaw’s four Super Bowls occurred in the last quarter.
2. Jack Lambert
Jack Lambert is the best example of what the Pittsburgh Steelers are all about.
Despite his height, aggression, and lack of front teeth, Lambert remained unfazed. Furthermore, he wouldn’t allow anyone to frighten his comrades.
Famously, Lambert threw Cowboys defender Cliff Harris to the ground in Super Bowl X when Harris made fun of kicker Roy Gerela. After scoring 14 points in a row, the Steelers would go on to win the title for the second time in a row.
Naturally, following a few such events, Lambert was regarded by many as one of the league’s scariest players. And John Elway figured it out pretty quickly.
After Lambert and the Steelers eliminated the then-rookie from his first professional game, Elway began to think about other career options:
“He was slobbering all over himself and had no teeth. I’m thinking, just get me out of here, you can keep your money. I’ll go be an accountant, please. You have no idea how much I wanted to get out of there.”
1. “Mean” Joe Greene
“Mean” Joe Greene was crucial to the Steelers’ historic comeback, along with Chuck Noll.
At first, Greene was unhappy about joining a poor team, and he vented his frustrations on his opponents. One such instance involved a confrontation with the infamous and menacing Bears linebacker Dick Butkus.
Ndamukong Suh is, to put it succinctly, Joe Greene on Ritalin.
Greene was a formidable opponent on the pitch. Despite consistently facing double- and even triple-teams, he recorded 78.5 career sacks.
One of the select handful who won NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice was the ten-time Pro Bowler. Ray Lewis, Bruce Smith, Reggie White, and Mike Singletary were the other players to accomplish this.
Although he wasn’t the only outstanding player from the Steelers’ dynasty of the 1970s, Greene was the one who launched it.
Be the first to comment