The Steelers and Patriots have met 29 times, and Pittsburgh holds a 15-14 series edge. Knowing that and nothing else, it would be reasonable to think that Sunday's AFC Championship Game would be an even matchup. That all changes when you hear the punchline: Since Tom Brady took over as the starter early in the 2001 season, the Patriots are 9-3 in head-to-head meetings with the Steelers, including 2-0 in the playoffs.
And just as evenly matched rivalries can heighten the bad blood, so too can lopsided affairs, when one team owns the other. And that "big brother always beats up little brother" dynamic is pretty much what we have here. The Steelers, for all the success, all the AFC North dominance and all the Lombardi Trophies, are perpetually looking up to the Patriots, who have been the closest thing to a dynasty we've seen this century.
The thing is, the Steelers, at least statistically, aren't far behind (via STATs):
Steelers vs. Patriots: 2001-2016
- Regular season wins: NE 196 (1st), PIT 166 (T-2nd)
- Playoff wins: NE 23 (1st), PIT 15 (2nd)
- Super Bowl appearances: NE 6 (1st), PIT 3 (T-2nd)
- Super Bowl wins: NE 4 (1st), PIT 2 (2-2nd)
In reality, however, Pittsburgh seems like a world away. Depending on who you ask, there are various explanations for that reality. Wherever you come down on the conspiracy theories, the Steelers could change all that with a win on Sunday. But we've already written about how they can finally upend the Pats; below we take a look at the partial, sometimes-sordid history between these two teams that brings us to this point.
Jan. 27, 2002
AFC Championship Game
Final score: Patriots 24, Steelers 17
The Steelers were the the AFC's No. 1 seed and Brady was in his first year as the Patriots' starter. On paper, this was a mismatch -- Vegas had Pittsburgh as a 10-point favorite -- but New England led 21-3 midway through the third quarter and went on to win 24-17. And while upsets happen, the Spygate revelations in 2007 revealed a pattern of skirting the rules in the years before that.
From the Sept. 2015 "Outside the Lines" report:
... Inside a room accessible only to Belichick and a few others, they found a library of scouting material containing videotapes of opponents' signals, with detailed notes matching signals to plays for many teams going back seven seasons. Among them were handwritten diagrams of the defensive signals of the Pittsburgh Steelers, including the notes used in the January 2002 AFC Championship Game won by the Patriots 24-17.
"Oh, they knew," former Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward said of the Patriots after Spygate broke. "They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field [in 2002]. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff."
Jan. 23, 2005
AFC Championship Game, The Rematch
Final score: Patriots 41, Steelers 27
The Steelers finished the regular season with a 15-1 record, thanks to a stout running game, a suffocating defense and the emergence of rookie Ben Roethlisberger. In fact, three months earlier, Pittsburgh make quick work of New England, cruising to a 30-14 victory at Heinz Field that some thought signaled an end to the Patriots' dominance.
But in the AFC Championship Game rematch, the Steelers looked out of sorts early -- Big Ben had three interceptions including a pick-six. The Patriots led 24-3 at the half before sashaying to a 41-27 win. When Spygate came to light two years later, it inevitably led to questions about what the Patriots did (or didn't do) or knew (or didn't know) during the '05 conference championship game.
The Steelers gave up a 60-yard touchdown pass in the game, and it's one of the plays some former players point to as evidence the Patriots may have been tipped off because it was the perfect play call for the Steelers' defensive coverage.
"They knew which blitzes were coming," former defensive tackle Chris Hoke told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette days after the "Outside the Lines" report was published. "They knew how to call plays that would best beat a coverage we were in. I can remember walking off the field that day saying 'What just happened?'"
"I have two observations from the 2004 game," former Steelers center Jeff Hartings told the Post-Gazette. "At the beginning of the game, in the first quarter or at halftime, I can remember thinking it seems like they made remarkable adjustments from the regular-season game. I just considered it great scouting, great coaching, great execution. Maybe there was something more to it.
"The other observation I have from that game is walking off the field and knowing everyone made mistakes in that game except for Tom Brady. He played the perfect game. He knew exactly what we were doing. If you rewatch that game, he knew exactly when we were blitzing."
Then there's this, from the New York Post, which was published Oct. 12, 2014.
Bryan O'Leary, author of the book "Spygate: The Untold Story," repeats a rumor that Pats backup quarterback Doug Flutie once said he accidentally picked up Brady's helmet during the 2005 season.
"He was amazed that the coaches kept right on speaking to Brady past the 15-second cutoff, right up until the snap," according to O'Leary.
"The voice in Tom Brady's helmet was explaining the exact defense he was about to face."
That same year, Pats linebacker Ted Johnson told USA Today that an hour before game time, a list of the opposing team's audibles -- the signals a QB would use at the line of scrimmage just before a snap to change the play -- would sometimes appear in his locker. He had no idea where the lists came from. Three years later, he said he was as surprised as anyone to hear about the cheating allegations.
The Patriots wasted little time refuting the "Outside the Lines" report, issuing this statement:
"The New England Patriots have never filmed or recorded another team's practice or walkthrough The first time we ever heard of such an accusation came in 2008, the day before Super Bowl XLII, when the Boston Herald reported an allegation from a disgruntled former employee. That report created a media firestorm that extended globally and was discussed incessantly for months. It took four months before that newspaper retracted its story and offered the team a front and back page apology for the damage done. Clearly, the damage has been irreparable. As recently as [August 2015], over seven years after the retraction and apology was issued, ESPN issued the following apology to the Patriots for continuing to perpetuate the myth. ...
"This type of reporting over the past seven years has led to additional unfounded, unwarranted and, quite frankly, unbelievable allegations by former players, coaches and executives. None of which have ever been substantiated, but many of which continue to be propagated. ... For the past 16 years, the Patriots have been led by one of the league's all-time greatest coaches and one of its all-time greatest quarterbacks. It is disappointing that some choose to believe in myths, conjecture and rumors rather than giving credit for the team's successes to Coach Belichick, his staff and the players for their hard work, attention to detail, methodical weekly preparation, diligence and overall performance."
And 18 months before the "Outside the Lines" investigation, former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who now works for CBS' "NFL Today," said Spygate wasn't the reason Pittsburgh fell to New England in the playoffs.
"We didn't lose the game because of any Spygate, because of them having any additional things," Cowher said during a January 2014 radio interview.
"Part of the things we had [were] wristbands that we were using to do it," he said. "It's not even an element anymore because of the communications that take place on the field to the quarterback, to the linebacker. So it's an element of the game that doesn't exist, and really, what happened when we lost that game is they outplayed us, and it has nothing to do with stealing signals, or cheating, or anything else. They were a better football team on that day."
Dec. 9, 2007
Week 14, Gillette Stadium: Guarantee nothing
Final score: Patriots 34, Steelers 13
It's hard to imagine but trash talk was part of sports long before the arrival of social media. And in 2007, ahead of the 9-3 Steelers facing the 12-0 Patriots, Pittsburgh safety Anthony Smith thought it would be a good idea to say this: "Yeah, I can guarantee a win." Of course, he qualified by adding, "As long as we come out and do what we got to do." But no one cared about those 13 words because, well, this dude had just guaranteed a win against the high-powered Patriots, the same outfit that would finish the regular season undefeated.
There really isn't much there, but never let it be said that the Patriots couldn't manufacture an "US AGAINST THE WORLD!" storyline to motivate themselves. That helps explain Brady trash-talking Smith after burning him for a touchdown.
"I don't care to repeat what I said, especially if my mother reads it," Brady said at the time. "She wouldn't be very happy."
Belichick had some thoughts as well: "We've played against a lot better safeties than him, I'll tell you."
When it was over, the Patriots had 399 passing yards and four touchdowns, and Smith had been exposed as a liability in the secondary.
"It was obvious that they didn't care about running the ball," Pittsburgh cornerback Ike Taylor said after the game. "Not at all. They were in attack mode all the way. The only thing we can do is keep playing hard and hope we get another shot at them. Hopefully, if we get that chance, we'll do things a lot differently."
Sept. 10, 2015
Gillette Stadium: About those headsets
Final score: Patriots 28, Steelers 21
The Steelers lost the season opener to the Patriots, 28-21, but the game wasn't without controversy (we're as shocked as you are). It started with Pittsburgh having trouble with the headsets.
"We were told a couple of minutes ago that [the Steelers coaches] were getting the Patriots' radio broadcast in their headsets," Al Michaels said during the NBC broadcast.
Michaels' colleague, Cris Collinsworth, then brought up the Patriots reputation. "Every team that I know of has some story about what happens to them in this stadium and that''s not going to help that they're getting those radio signals in their headset."
This brings us back to the "Outside the Lines" report -- and specifically this, which came out days before this game:
At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents' coach-to-quarterback radio line -- "small s---" that many teams do, according to a former Pats assistant coach -- occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches' box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out."
Worth noting: The league controls the headsets.
"In the first quarter of tonight's game, the Pittsburgh coaches experienced interference in their headsets caused by a stadium power infrastructure issue, which was exacerbated by the inclement weather," the NFL said in a statement released after the game. "The coaches' communications equipment, including the headsets, is provided by the NFL for both clubs use on game day. Once the power issue was addressed, the equipment functioned properly with no additional issues."
The league cleared the Patriots of any wrongdoing, but the Steelers will be prepared in the event it happens again.
"For whatever reason, there was an issue last time up there," Roethlisberger said, via Steelers.com. "That's why we have hand signals, we have wrist bands, and we were ready to move on with whatever we needed to do."
The Patriots were punished for Spygate, in part, because they were illegally taping opponents' signals. In related news: Roethlisberger might want to implement Plan C.
The Steelers are 6.0-point underdogs, and in case you're wondering, five of seven CBSSports.com experts are picking the Patriots to win. Honestly, given recent history, that sounds low. Either way, the fun starts Sunday at 6:40 p.m ET on CBS.
