Major honours
Art Rooney founded the Steelers in 1933, and for the first 40 years they never won a playoff game — then swallowed the league whole in the 1970s. Under Chuck Noll they won Super Bowls IX, X, XIII, and XIV in six years, the first team to take four titles in one decade, built around the Steel Curtain defence of Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Mel Blount, and Jack Ham. The 1974 draft that landed Lynn Swann, Lambert, John Stallworth, and Mike Webster in one year is still called the greatest class ever. Ben Roethlisberger added Super Bowls XL and XLIII for six total, tied with New England for the most. The Rooney family has owned the club since day one, and only three head coaches since 1969 — Noll, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlin — made stability part of the identity.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
Since the Baltimore Ravens arrived in 1996, the AFC North feud with Baltimore has been among the league's roughest — low-scoring slugfests that regularly fill injury reports. The older Cleveland Browns rivalry, dating to the 1950s, still carries Ohio River Valley emotion.