In inverse order....

#13: Plaxico Burress...at Jax '00
Plax catches a ball in the field of play, is on the ground, isn't touched, rises to his feet and spikes the ball. Jax recovers. Steelers win. A legacy is borne.

#12: Willie Parker...'08 AFCCG
Willie's all alone on the sideline in the first quarter, Ben floats it to him perfectly, gonna be 6...clang...off the face mask!! FWP can't catch. Steelers get 3. Oh...and if you're thinking about it, don't even...

So, reportedly, said Raymond (Buddy) Parker to Art Rooney when he resigned his post as their Head Coach on September 5, 1965, two weeks prior to the season opener.

To the extent that Parker had a "bunch of stiffs" though, it was largely his own doing. Known to eschew the draft, and cut player in piques of anger during flights home from road venues, after he'd had a few, other reports had Parker resigning in a power struggle with Dan Rooney, who required Parker to cease his giving...

COWHER OUT…TOMLIN IN

Hopes were high during the ebullient off-season post-Super Bowl XL. Would the Steelers, per past practice, follow up their Super Bowl victory with yet one more? Would they win two in a row for the third time? The off-season though was marked by one near-tragic event, and one other notable non-event.

Ben Roethlisberger, on June 12th, nearly lost his life in a motorcycle accident, sans helmet, on the South Side. Ben survived, had his face...

ONE FOR THE THUMB

One for the Thumb, finally!! Some of my clearest memories involve a couple of early season-losses. Mrs. Swiss was away in PEI during the Steelers-Patriots contest in September. Her sister, Alfred, invited me over again to watch the game with her, and her brother. My first response was a negative, telling her that I couldn’t watch the game with “you people.” I then relented, given pressure from my kids who wanted to visit their cousins. Mrs. Swiss’s brother...

Y2K DECADE: FIRST FIVE YEARS…STILL WAITING

At the turn of the century, once we survived the Y2K Scare, the Steelers mirrored the onset of the ‘90s, having suffered 2 consecutive, non-playoff seasons, with losing records, the second of which nearly cost Bill Cowher is job via an internal power struggle. The new decade had similar beginnings to the ‘90s as well…a team that won more games than it lost, but came up short of an entry in the NFL’s Annual Tournament.

‘00...