Keith Srakocic/Associated Press
With their deeply-talented roster, sack-happy style and early-season success, the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers conjure grainy, romanticized images of the team’s 1970s glory days: quarterbacks fleeing their defense in terror and opponents driven facemask-first into the dirt, while foundry workers cheer them from smoky tap rooms and John Facenda narrates over a cinematic soundtrack.
It’s tempting — and incredibly premature — to draw parallels between the current unbeaten Steelers and their Steel Curtain predecessors: T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree walloping quarterbacks like Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Greene; Minkah Fitzpatrick as turnover-hungry Mel Blount; James Conner hammering out yardage like Franco Harris; Juju Smith-Schuster and the rookie sensation Chase Claypool channeling the graceful Lynn Swann and the physical John Stallworth; and Ben Roethlisberger orchestrating the havoc like the wily Terry Bradshaw.