A lot of fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers are the ones mostly celebrating the retirement of Tom Brady. Brady and head coach, Bill Belichick, was always a thorn in the Steelers' side during their time together with the New England Patriots. Now that Brady has retired for the second, and hopefully last time, it may be time to ask an important question. If the Steelers never had to go through Brady and Belichick, how many Super Bowls would they have now?
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Over the course of his 23-year career, Brady has stood in the way of the Steelers reaching the Super Bowl numerous times. For today’s discussion, we’re going to focus more on a few specific instances that could have changed the course of history for the Steelers if Brady wasn’t involved. To begin, we’re traveling back to the 2001 AFC Championship.
2001 AFC Championship
The more closely you look at this game, the more Steelers fans will be upset at the outcome. The reason why is because Brady didn’t have a huge impact in this game as he was taken out early after being hit by former Steelers safety, Lee Flowers. That means that Patriots quarterback, Drew Bledsoe led the team to victory instead of Brady. For the sake of argument, let’s say Brady never landed in New England, and go from there.
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Without Brady and the infamous “tuck rule” game against the Oakland Raiders, New England most likely doesn’t advance to the AFC Championship to play the Steelers in the first place. That being said, does Pittsburgh come out victorious over Oakland? It wouldn’t be fully guaranteed that they would, but let’s say they do. They would then have to travel down to New Orleans for Super Bowl XXXVI to play the NFC Champion St. Louis Rams and “The Greatest Show On Turf” offense.
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This Super Bowl was originally tainted for Brady and the Patriots as this was the notorious “Spygate” game. However, in this new timeline, it’s the Steelers facing the Rams, so there wouldn’t be any scandal. In this scenario, would Pittsburgh’s defense be able to quell St. Louis’s offense? Sadly, the answer would most likely be no. If the Steelers even made it to the Super Bowl that year, the Rams would still win, making no change to Steelers trophy case.
2004 AFC Championship
The next game we’ll be focusing on is the 2004 AFC Championship. It was the year a rookie Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a 15-1 record. Many fans believe that the Steelers would have won the Super Bowl that season if Brady wasn’t in the way. As it turns out, that may not be the case.
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If Brady wasn’t a Patriot, then Drew Bledsoe would still be the team’s starter instead of being the starting quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. From there, the Steelers would more than likely play the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning instead of New England. If they won against the Colts, they’d have an interstate showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles and Donovan McNabb.
So, in this new timeline in 2004, are the Steelers champions? Unfortunately, no, and here is the reason why.
As much as we love Roethlisberger, he wasn’t that great of a performer in the postseason. Yes, he made it to the AFC Championship, but it was only after squeaking out a win in overtime to the New York Jets. It doesn’t seem plausible to believe that after that performance, Pittsburgh would be able to defeat Indy, even at home. If they had, and that’s a big “if,” the likelihood of them beating the Eagles would’ve been very slim. So once again, removing Brady didn’t shift the odds in the Steelers favor as much as we’d like it to.
2016 AFC Championship
The last game we will be discussing is the 2016 AFC Championship. The Patriots were the number one seed in the AFC that year with a 14-2 record. The Kansas City Chiefs were second with a 12-4 record and the Steelers finished third going 11-5. Pittsburgh played New England twice in 2016, losing both times. Take away Brady and have the Steelers win just one of those two matchups and the playoff seeding, and subsequently the whole postseason, would have looked a lot different.
First, the Steelers going 12-4 meant they would end up as the number one seed in the AFC due to having the tiebreaker win over the Chiefs. With home field advantage, Pittsburgh would have hosted Kansas City instead of traveling to Arrowhead Stadium, but the results would remain the same as before with the Steelers still coming out on top, only this time in the AFC Championship instead of the divisional round. But what about facing the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl?
Finally, we see a major change in the history books. Even if it isn’t a 28-3 lead, Matt Ryan wouldn’t be able to keep a lead long enough against the Steelers, meaning Pittsburgh would hoist its seventh Lombardi in Super Bowl LI.
Final Verdict
As much as we blame Brady for costing the Steelers multiple championships, it looks as though his impact wasn’t as great as we initially thought. Pittsburgh would add only one additional title, but the repercussions afterwards are a different story.
The “Killer B’s” of Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le'Veon Bell would have won a Super Bowl together, cementing their legacy in Pittsburgh as potentially one of the best offensive trios in NFL history. Not only that, but it would be Roethlisberger’s third ring, which would help bump up his resume on the all-time Super Bowl quarterbacks list.
This win would affect Brown and Bell as well. Maybe Brown doesn’t ask for a trade and eventually aid Brady in Tampa to win him his seventh ring. Maybe Bell doesn’t hold out and eventually sign with the Jets. Perhaps both players stay in Pittsburgh and are possibly still on the roster today. These are a lot of “what ifs” and “what could’ve been” scenarios, but it’s interesting to see the effects of one man’s impact on not just a single team, but an entire league.
Do you think Brady cost the Steelers a championship(s)? Let us know in the comments section or on any of my social media accounts.
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