The 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty is one of the most iconic and beloved eras in American professional sports history—and also among the most dominant. Over a six-year span, they won four Super Bowls, a feat that has not since been duplicated.
Largely driven at the time by a dominant defense that features about half a dozen or so Hall of Famers, they were an elite unit from the front to the back, where patrolled the great Mel Blount, one of very few players who have built such a legacy where a rule was informally named after them.
Implemented in 1978, the ‘Mel Blount Rule’ barred contact with wide receivers beginning five yards beyond the line of scrimmage, a rule that helped mark a turning point in the game that began to skew more heavily to an open passing attack.