One for the thumb, only seven more to go for Steelers
Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 4:56PM TABLE: “Composite Super Bowl Records,” USA Today, 6 February 2006, p. 5C.
The Steelers get their long-awaited “one for the thumb,” and when Paul Tagliabue, commissioner of the NFL, gives the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the owner Dan Rooney, he congratulates the franchise on joining the Cowboys and 49ers as being the only NFL teams to win five Super Bowls.
Yes, yes, NFL history begins in January 1967, and nothing before that matters in terms of NFL championships.
Green Bay is 12-2 in NFL championships, and that’s all the Super Bowl is, despite all the hype. In the end, it’s just the NFL championship.
The Chicago Bears have 10 NFL championships, but are just 1-0 in Super Bowls. San Francisco never appeared in an NFL championship game prior to its Super Bowl appearances. Pittsburgh and Dallas never won any NFL championships prior to the Super Bowls. Green Bay won nine of them BEFORE the Super Bowls, and three Super Bowls since they began. Hell, Green Bay won six in the 1960s alone and six before Lombardi even showed up.
This is all NFL history, which began in 1920, with two teams surviving continuously since then: the Bears and the Giants. The Packers are the only team that has continuously survived since 1921. The Steelers, the 49ers, and the Cowboys all showed up several decades later, and they’ve all done well in recent decades, but they do not collectively define the NFL’s history.
Here endeth the lesson.
Reader Comments