THOSE SAME OLD STEELERS

Players who could not or would not conform to Noll's methods were dispatched when replacements became available.  Cornerback John Rowser swore at defensive coordinator Bud Carson one afternoon and Carson said later, "believe me, he's gone.  It may not be for a while, but he's gone."  Rowser was traded several months later.

Defensive back Jimmy Alien boiled the waters publicly in a contract dispute.  He was quickly traded.  Safetyman Glen Edwards went AWOL for one game in a similar dispute.  He was traded.  Bruce Van Dyke once hid an injury in order to get a day off and when Noll discovered it, the Pro Bowl guard was doomed and later traded.

All things were and are measured against a single yardstick: The good of the team.  All things.  A magazine writer once asked Noll to provide some general insights on how a game-plan is produced.  "I can't do that," he said.  "Why? I don't mean anything recent.  Just one you used way back."  "No... it might let people get an idea on how we think."  

That is part of the Noll system.  Reveal nothing and no revelation will ever bring you harm.  It is a system which inarguably works.  In 1976, the Steelers lost four of their first five games and didn't escape last place in the AFC Central until the ninth week.

Bradshaw was lost for six weeks with an injury and rookie Mike Kruczek won six straight. "Injuries are part of it, someone has to take up the slack," Noll insisted. The Steelers won 10 consecutive games as the defense yielded just 42 points, ran up one incredible string of 22 scoreless quarters, didn't allow a touchdown in eight of its last nine regular-season games, shut out six of its last eight opponents and lent new meaning to the term defensive excellence.  

Routing Baltimore, 40-14, in the first round of the playoffs was expensive.  The Steelers were reduced to a single healthy running back, Reggie Harrison, and with Franco Harris (ribs) and Rocky Bleier (foot) on the sidelines, lost to Oakland in the AFC championship game.

The 1977 season was something of a puzzle.  Some 49 turnovers and 122 penalties, parlayed with Bradshaw playing 10 games while wearing a cast on his fractured left wrist, the Steelers lost five times and needed a Houston win over Cincinnati on the final Sunday to lock up their fifth division championship in six years.  But they turned the ball over five times and were mauled by Denver, 34-21, in the AFC championship game.

The system obviously wanted some tinkering and Noll did.  Ten players, including such familiar names as Jim Clack, Jimmy Alien, Gordie Gravelle, Marv Kellum, Bobby Walden and Holmes, were dispatched by various means.  Again, Noll's message was abundantly clear: The thirst for ultimate success had to be regained in 1978.  It was.

In a season without tumult, they won 14 of 16 games and in the playoffs, they were indomitable, outscoring three opponents, 102-46, and dominating Denver, Houston and Dallas far beyond the dimensions of the scoring.  Super Bowl XIII brought immortality, as they throttled Dallas, 35-31, to become the first team to ever win three Super Bowl championships. 

The final score was an inaccurate barometer.  Terry Bradshaw's passing, Lynn Swann's receiving and the defense of old smothered the Cowboys, who scored twice in the last two and a half minutes.  The game was rife with controversy. Veteran Dallas tight end Jackie Smith dropped a pass in the end zone which would've tied the game and a pass interference call against Cowboy cornerback Benny Barnes on Swann set up the pivotal touchdown.

More importantly, though, it was a game with historic overtones.  A dynasty to rival the Green Bay Packers' reign was born in Super Bowl XIII.  When it was over and he'd been vindicated for publicly predicting days before that "we're going to kick the Cowboys' ass," Joe Greene said quietly in the emptying locker-room: "It all boils down to one person... Charles Henry Noll. This is his team.  He built it.  He taught us how to win, how to keep winning.  There aren't any indispensable Steelers, just Chuck."

It was as precise an assessment of all that had happened to the Steelers in the 1970s as could've been rendered.  The Steelers were Chuck Noll.  From the opening game of 1969 through the final one of 1979, they had been his creation. No one questioned their dominance in the final year of the decade.  

To Noll's chagrin, no thoughtful person doubted they would win the AFC Central title and reach the playoffs for a record-tying eighth consecutive season; few even doubted they would not prevail in Super Bowl XIV and become the first team to collect four Vince Lombardi trophies.  

They did, not effortlessly, but certainly inexorably. No NFL club lost as few games (4), none was so dominant in the playoffs. Miami's romantic resurgence ended in Three Rivers Stadium in the opening round, 34-14, and it was the measure of the game that the Dolphins' fine running game was humbled.

A week later, Houston's glass slipper was shattered. The Cinderella Oilers, after a stirring upset of San Diego without quarterback Dan Pastorini and running back Earl Campbell, were dispatched, 27-13. For the sixth time against the Steelers, Campbell, the game's dominant runner, was shackled. The 12-point underdog Los Angeles Rams were resilient and gritty in Super Bowl XIV, but they lost, 31-19, in a game which classically defined the virtues of the Steelers of the 70s.

Pressured by the plucky Rams, the running game shut down and the defense continually hard-pressed, the Steelers' survival was limited to a single weapon... what Noll is wont to refer to as the big play.  Bradshaw and John Stallworth and Jack Lambert made them.  

"They are the National Football League team of the decade, no question," said the leading authority on the subject, Miami coach Don Shula, whose own team had been a candidate for that singular honor.  "What it all comes down to in deciding which team was the best is how many Super Bowls you won. The Steelers won four, no one else could. That's the truest measure."

The decade ended, it was left for the Steeler who always seemed to have the best sense of the team to speak of the 1980s. "We are still hungry," Joe Greene said. "We always will be... that's what it means to be a Steeler."  And the man who had charted the heady success of the 1970s? He went to a party and got a little swozzled and he next day he said, "No, our football team won't be satisfied with just winning four Super Bowls."