It's here: Your guide to dealing with that obnoxious Steelers fan (or confronting lies with basic stats)

Been waiting for the right time to do this during the summer–didn’t want to cramp the flow of the excellent stuff Chris and Adam have been doing. But with the ridiculous ESPN contest Adam alluded to in his last post (seriously, didn’t we just do this with the “new Titletown” thing, and the fact that the most obnoxious Steelers fan we know is on his honeymoon, I figured it’s time to roll this thing out.

So here it is: Your guide to dealing with that obnoxious Steelers fan in your life.

Like some of you, I’ve been confronted by a recent and troubling problem. Emboldened by their Super Bowl win–and now even moreso by their Stanley Cup victory–Pittsburgh fans aren’t content being happy with their recent success. They’re shooting for bigger things, giving themselves nicknames like “City of Champions” (hey guys, how’s that baseball team?) and trying to rewrite history by claiming the Steelers are the greatest franchise in the history of pro football.

We’ve got no beef with the Steelers at OBOD–God knows the Packers are modeling their entire defense after the Pittsburgh 3-4, and six Super Bowls is pretty impressive. But let’s keep things in perspective here.

What we’re going to do is use some simple, concrete, basic facts to explain why the greatest franchise in the NFL resides in Green Bay. Provided you can get a Steelers fan to count past 10, this little guide should do the trick.

First, the most basic (and ludicrous) argument you’ll get from a Steelers fan: They have twice as many titles as the Packers. Uh, sorry guys, you have that backwards. 12 is twice as many as six.

So how do we get this Bushian fuzzy math? Well, they’ll try to discredit all nine (!) titles the Packers won before the Super Bowl era. “The titles in the 30s? Who’d they beat, the Pottsville Maroons?” That’s the kind of stuff you’ll get. And for a moment, we’ll indulge some of that lunacy.

But here’s the problem: Of the nine titles the Packers won before Super Bowl I, three of them were in the same decade as the first Super Bowl! In fact, one of them (the win over the Cleveland Browns in the 1965 NFL championship game) started the second of the Packers’ two three-peats, combined with the first two Super Bowls. No other team in NFL history has won three consecutive titles once.

Here are the numbers since 1961:

Packers: Six titles in 48 years, five titles in seven years from 1961-67

Steelers: Six titles in 35 years, four titles in six years from 1974-79

Again, we’re not belittling what the Steelers have done. To win six Super Bowls is an incredible accomplishment. But we ain’t exactly chopped liver here either, guys. The NFL  had 14 teams in 1961, all of which are still in the league today. And because there was no free agency and a smaller pool of players, you could argue teams were less diluted than they are in a 32-team universe. But we’ll move on to more modern times.

Second, you’ll hear Steelers fans say, “When was the last time the Packers were in the Super Bowl? 1997?” True enough, but I seem to remember quite a few Pittsburgh choke jobs in the mid-90s while the Packers made their back-to-back appearances (One More Yard, anyone?). And again, when we go to the numbers, we run into a few problems.

Let’s take 1992 as a point of comparison. Why is that significant? It’s the year both teams started their resurgence; the Packers in Mike Holmgren’s first year, the Steelers in Bill Cowher’s first year. Since then, the Steelers have been to three Super Bowls, winning two. The Packers have been to two Super Bowls, winning one.

Overall won-loss record, though, tells a different story.  Since then, the Packers have won 167 games and are 12-10 in the playoffs. The Steelers have won 166 games and are 15-10 in the playoffs. That’s a razor-thin margin for the Packers on wins, and a comfortable victory for the Steelers in the playoffs (thanks, Brett). So we’re willing to concede a close victory for the Steelers in the last 17 years or so (though to be fair, they should probably talk to a few Dallas or New England fans before they start beating their chest).

But wait, what’s that noise? It’s all those years we locked in the past coming back to tip the scales!

Third, Let’s revisit the years before 1961. The Packers began NFL play in 1921, the Steelers in 1933. And while the Packers were defining pro football by winning all those titles (the last three in playoff games not against the Pottsville Maroons, but against the Redskins once and the Giants twice), the Steelers were, well, terrible.

From 1933-1945, they had one winning season–or one less season where they had to merge with another team to field a full squad because of World War II. Their only playoff appearance before 1972 was in 1947, a 21-0 loss to the Eagles.

And fourth, the overall ledger. It’s easy to sit back and parse championships from the record books based on the quality of play. But here’s the thing: The NFL doesn’t do that. They all count. And we don’t do this with other sports. The Chicago Bulls’ six championships in the 1990s don’t put them ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers’ 15 overall titles because the Lakers won a few in Minneapolis in the 1950s. The New York Yankees don’t lose any of their 26 titles because some of them were in eras without black players. The Montreal Canadiens aren’t punished for winning Stanley Cups with the Original Six. You can cry and moan about the standards, but they all count.

Maybe the reason Steelers fans do this is because when you take ALL the championships won in the NFL since 1921, they’re not going to like how they fare.

The Packers are first, of course, with 12. But where are the Steelers? Not second. Not third. They’re fourth, with six. That’s three behind the Bears and two behind the Giants. And if you want to throw in the eight titles won by the Cleveland Browns in the NFL and the All-American Football Conference, they’re fifth.

What about wins? The Packers are second all-time, with 643. The Steelers are fifth at 520.

Here comes the next whiner’s argument. “It’s no fair! The Packers are 12 years older!” OK, fine.

Winning percentage: The Packers are fifth all-time at .556. The Steelers? 18th at .516! If you throw out the Jaguars and Ravens (remember, we can’t compare them to teams that are too old or too new), they’re still only 16th.

Hall of Famers? Packers are second with 21, Steelers are tied for third with 18 (though I’m sure Ben Roethlisberger’s bust is being prepared as we speak).

And none of this takes into account one important fact: The Packers, the most successful NFL franchise of all time by most metrics, are also the smallest. They shouldn’t even be around. When the team was near bankruptcy in 1950, fans bought stock to keep them afloat. They have a season-ticket waiting list so long, I’ll have to wait until I’m retired to even have a shot at them.

Look, none of this is a shot at the Steelers. They’re absolutely one of the great NFL franchises, with an impressive run of success in the last 30 years, the league’s model ownership group in the Rooney family, a tremendous track record hiring coaches (three in the last 40 years, all of which have won titles) and one of the league’s best fan bases.

There’s no problem putting them in the conversation with the Packers, Bears, Browns and probably the Cowboys as the greatest franchises of all time.

But when you go to the numbers, there’s only one right answer.

One, two, three and four reasons, Steelers fans. Time to punt.

–Gene Bosling