The Green Bay Packers are football’s original Titletown, U.S.A. They have won more titles than any other franchise. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the new Titletown, U.S.A. They have won more Super Bowls than any other team. Which is the real Titletown? This Super Bowl may very well help to determine which one can make that claim to fame. Of course, in this microwave, nanosecond world, nothing is once and for all. The best that can be hoped for is for a decade or two.
If the Packers win, there can be no doubt of their pedigree as Titletown with thirteen championships, many more than any other team, including the Steelers. However, if Pittsburgh wins yet another Super Bowl, they can lay claim to that moniker. Seven Super Bowls put up against four as the max won by any other team spells Titletown. Of course, Pittsburgh got started late. They never threatened anyone for a title before the early Seventies.
Unfortunately for me, I never watched the teams of Curly Lambeau, but they were without a doubt dominant. It was this legendary coach that finally stood up to the Big, Bad Bears. George Halas is the father of modern football, but he was second banana to Coach Lambeau. To date, he is the only man to coach a three-peat in professional football. Granted, that was in ’29, ’30, and ’31. So, in the ensuing eighty years, the Packers have “only” won nine more championships.
The Steelers never had a storied tradition or any other tradition except for regular losing seasons. They didn’t get their first legendary coach until Chuck Noll showed up. Up until then their main legacy was cutting Hall of Fame quarterbacks: first, Johnny Unitas, then, Len Dawson. All those guys did was go on and win championships and Super Bowls before the Steelers ever got to a championship game. On the other hand, since 1969 the Steelers have only had three coaches and, more importantly, each of them has won at least one Super Bowl.
The Packers have great players in their history. So do the Steelers. However, the Packer players are all spread out throughout their history. They also have two Hall of Fame coaches with one of whom is the namesake for the Super Bowl trophy. Chuck Noll is a Hall of Famer and Bill Cowher will likely get there one day. But, except for their strong and obviously dominant stretch through the mid-seventies, the Steelers don’t have a history of great personnel. The Packers have great players starting in the thirties and going through the sixties, seventies, nineties, and the current batch of players. The Packers have icons; the Steelers have stars.
The Steelers have the players of the Steel Curtain; the greatness of Polamalu; maybe James Harrison if he keeps out of trouble. The Packers have Don Hutson, who invented pass patterns; Bart Starr, the original game manager; then, basically the Packers of the Sixties and Brett Favre. In the end, the Packers have the second most players in the Hall (second to the Bears) with 21, followed closely by the Steelers with 19.
This Super Bowl will settle this dispute for the near future. It is likely that Pittsburgh will be back to the big game before the Packers. However, with thirteen titles and four Super Bowls (if the Packers win it), the Pack will be undisputed Titletown for at least another decade unless the Steelers make another Seventies-type run. The way football is played (or rather, managed) nowadays makes the dominance of the Steelers from 1973 through 1979 an unlikely occurrence. Look at the New England Patriots; they’ve had the most consistent team of the last ten or twelve years and they still have only three Super Bowl wins in that time period. That is not to say that three championships is not noteworthy, but the Steelers won four in six years. To call the Patriots a “dynasty” in comparison to that is ludicrous.
Despite all this obnoxious history of winning, you have to root for these two teams because they are “working class” champions. The Steelers have a devoted and passionate following that reflects the blue-collar style of play the Steelers have always been about. Yes, I know they featured Bradshaw, Swann, and Stallworth, but they won because Franco Harris kept the defenses honest and the defense allowed them to take ridiculous chances without the personnel.
The citizens of Green Bay own the Packers. How much more democratic can you get? If you doubt the working class pedigree of the Green Bay Packers consider where the team nickname comes from: meat packers. Neither team is hated in the sense that the Cowboys or the Raiders are. Neither evokes the kind of visceral response that the Jets or the Patriots do. Sure, Browns and Ravens fans hate the Steelers and Bears and Vikings fans despise their division rival, but that’s animosity by birthright.
Here’s the irony of this: both the Packers and the Steelers have frustrated the Dallas Cowboys in any manner of ways (although the Cowboys got some revenge when Neil O’Donnell had a brain fart). Now, they are playing for the right to be called Titletown in Dallas, Texas. It’s unfortunate that this game has turned into a corporate board meeting instead of a fan friendly game. I’d like to see for whom the Dallas fans would root if they had their choice.
Well, the game is coming up and it will crown the latest pretender to the throne. The current holder of the moniker: Titletown, U.S.A. It’s great to be able to watch a game and realize that the history still remains. That we can watch a game and not be overly invested in the result except in what it means to the NFL. Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews will, relatively speaking, soon be forgotten. Roethlisberger and Hines Ward will fade by the wayside. But in the current zeitgeist, the winner is the home of Titletown for a while. For how long, we don’t know. Will we ever root for them again? Who knows? But it will be fun to watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment