Jerome Bettis began his NFL career with the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams, where he donned the horns on his helmet for the first three seasons of his career. Bettis was a First Team All-Pro as a rookie with 1,429 Rushing Yards, but in his third season, he dropped to 637 Yards and was deemed expendable by the Rams. "The Bus" was traded to the Steelers, and the Rams regretted that decision ever since.
A member of the Pittsburgh Steelers for his entire career, Hines Ward is one of the most successful Wide Receivers in team history, and that says an awful lot!
James Harrison's road to professional football stardom with the Steelers was full of potholes.
After being a 16thRound Pick from Missouri in the 1963 Draft, Andy Russell made the Pittsburgh Steelers team. That in itself was a nice accomplishment, but Russell would prove that just making it to the National Football League wasn't enough.
A late First Round Pick from LSU, Alan Faneca became precisely the Left Tackle that the Pittsburgh Steelers hoped he would be.
Maurkice Pouncey was Pittsburgh’s First Round (18thOverall) Pick in 2010, and the Center would instantly become their starting Center.
Greg Lloyd played all but his last season in professional football with the Pittsburgh Steelers, which was an incredible accomplishment for a player at Fort Valley State.
In terms of recent popularity, it is hard to come up with a player who exceeds Troy Polamalu.
How good was the 1974 Draft Class for the Pittsburgh Steelers?
Antonio Brown wasn’t taken until the Sixth Round of the 2010 Draft, but the Wide Receiver from Central Michigan would become one of the best Wide Receivers of the decade.
If you got past the Steel Curtain, you were not that lucky. You had Mel Blount to contend with.
Donnie Shell was a superstar at South Carolina State, so much so that he was named to the College Football Hall of Fame. This did not translate into a drafted selection for the Safety, but the Steelers signed him that year, thus adding to the four players that year who they did draft who entered Canton.
With ten members of the 1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers already in the Football Hall of Fame, you would think that the team that won four Super Bowls in that decade would be sufficiently represented in Canton. Some have said that they have the right amount, but the wrong representatives. Those people point to L.C. Greenwood as the omission.
How good was the 1974 Draft Class for the Pittsburgh Steelers?
Finally, we have a player who predated their 1970s Super Bowl era with Ernie Stautner, one of the toughest men from the toughest period of the toughest sport.
After being drafted in the Fifth Round in 1974, Mike Webster worked on Special Teams, Center and Guard in his first two seasons, contributing to the Steelers in little ways while helping them win their first two Super Bowls. What followed was one of the greatest runs ever by an NFL Center.
Rod Woodson may not have won a Super Bowl with the Pittsburgh Steelers, unlike some of the other elite Defensive Backs on this list, but he was, without a doubt, the best player regardless of position for the team for nearly a decade.
A 1971 Second Round Pick from Penn State, Jack Ham brought a speed dynamic to the Linebacking corps of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
With all due respect to the many great Running Backs that the Pittsburgh Steelers had, they are all in line behind Franco Harris, who is still the team’s all-time leading rusher.
The Steelers had already put together a powerful defensive corps before they used their Second Round Pick in 1974 to take Jack Lambert, the MAC Defensive Player of the Year two years before.