By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Post-Gazette
Chuck Noll receives the champion's ride after Super Bowl XIII.
Steve Sabol of NFL Films developed an idea in the 1970s that came up with the name "America's Team." Three decades later, the Dallas Cowboys still go by it, one of the great marketing names in pro sports history.
The Steelers might have had one of their own from Sabol, except they turned it down. After the Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl, Sabol had a title in mind that he thought would enhance sales for their home video, a highlights film.
He called Dan Rooney and suggested it: "The Greatest of Them All."
"Oh, no, we can't have that," Sabol quoted Rooney as saying nearly 30 years ago.
Sabol offered another: "Team of the Decade."
"Oh, no," Rooney answered again.
"Dan," Sabol said, "you're killing me."
They finally settled on the tame title of "Steelers of the '70s."
"It probably cost us $100,000 in sales," Sabol said this week, laughing. "But it tells you about the Rooneys and the way they've been so consistent; they don't brag or boast. I've said it before, they're like the mountains and rivers that surround that city, they always are."
Rooney's response: "We're Pittsburgh's team."
Today, America's Team will meet Pittsburgh's team in Heinz Field, a matchup that invokes a deep sense of pro football history as well as class warfare. Two of the NFL's best and most popular franchises clash for the first time in Pittsburgh in 11 years, possibly with their very playoff hopes at stake. It's the glamour game of the NFL weekend, as it has often been whenever they met over the past three decades.
"They are America's team," Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger professed. "I still think we have more fans. They are still America's Team, but as coach says -- it will be a five-star matchup."
The matchup still carries some of the old perceptions from the 1970s of the pretty-boy glamour team from Dallas vs. the hard-scrabble, blue-collar men from Pittsburgh. Back when they played in two Super Bowls in the 1970s, the late broadcaster Myron Cope dubbed the Dallas team the "Cryboys" because of what he felt was whining by them and their fans after the Steelers' two Super Bowl victories against them, X and XIII. The Cowboys earned a measure of revenge a generation later when they beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX.
Years have passed but here they are, two of the NFL's model franchises, teams with Super Bowl aspirations again late in the season, a 4:15 p.m. game on what promises to be a bitterly cold day in Heinz Field.
Both teams and franchises carry different philosophies and images, just as they have since birth.
Post-Gazette
Lynn Swann's diving catch in Super Bowl X remains one of the greatest in game history.
The flash remains with the Dallas Cowboys of this generation with a flamboyant owner in Jerry Jones, a free-spending way, those famous cheerleaders (they won't be at Heinz Field today), a celebrity quarterback, and players such as Terrell Owens and Adam Jones who, safe to say, would not find their ways onto a Steelers roster. Forbes Magazine pegged the value of the Cowboys franchise at $1.6 billion.
You won't find Steelers chairman Dan Rooney on the sideline behind his bench during a game, nor spending lavishly in free agency. His team still has no cheerleaders, and while Roethlisberger has a bit of celebrity in him locally, he's not regarded as Don Juan on a national scale. The five Rooney brothers, who own 80 percent of the team, placed a total value on the franchise of $800 million as they restructure ownership, about half the Cowboys' worth.
"They're the superstars, that's why they have the stars on their helmets," said that most blue collar of receivers, Hines Ward. "There's nothing flashy with this team. We just bring a lunch bucket to work and work hard, that's just the motto of this city.
"We like it that way. We don't care for all the superstars and who gets the publicity. We just go about our business, fly under the radar and go about the business of winning ballgames."
Steelers safety Ryan Clark played against the Cowboys twice annually when he was with the Redskins and Giants. He sees the Steelers and Cowboys philosophies as two different ways to get a job done.
"They have a glamour owner," Clark said. "You see Mr. Rooney, he walks around unassuming, just a great guy. He's never in front of the cameras and every time he is in front of the cameras, there's usually a good reason. Whereas Jerry Jones, he's a money-maker. He knows how to put his team in the forefront and he knows how to make his team Hollywood. They go to camp in California, they're always making blockbuster trades and free agent moves. When you put your team out there like that and they do perform well, they're going to be glamour team."
Three Super Bowls notwithstanding, this is no rivalry. It's hard to develop a rivalry when teams meet once every four years. Still, it has its history, and many in the Steelers locker room know it.
"You hear about the games in the '70s, the big battles, the Steelers and the Cowboys," said nose tackle Chris Hoke, who got his own big chance to shine when Casey Hampton was knocked out for the rest of the season in that 2004 game in Dallas. "There's a big history with these two teams that goes way farther back than any of us in this locker room."
Dallas believes the Cowboys should have won at least one of the two Super Bowls they lost to the Steelers, and Pittsburgh believes it should have won their last meeting in Super Bowl XXX.
Those arguments won't be settled today, but some fresh ones can take root.
Ed Bouchette can be reached at ebouchette@post-gazette.com.
First published on December 7, 2008 at 12:00 am
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