Steelers "destroyers" from 1990s-Present Offense

I grew up in the 1990s, not being able to witness the dynasty of the '70s or the up and down years of the '80s. I was thinking today about a list of players that I can recall growing up and thinking they just lit Pittsburgh up every time we played them. I wanted to see if I could come up with an offense of Steeler "destroyers," as I like to call them from the 1990s-Present.

QB: Tom Brady (unfortunately)
Backup QB: Steve McNair

RB: Fred Taylor (don't think I've ever been more afraid of/had more respect for a player than this guy)
RB: Eddie George
Backup RB: Charlie Garner; Rudi Johnson

Offensive Line: Oakland (every time we play the Raiders we get beat on the ground)
Backup OL: Jacksonville in the late '90s- early '00s

WR: Jimmy Smith
WR: Larry Fitzgerald
WR: Demaryius Thomas
Backup WR: Derrick Mason

* For the record, Smith is the only receiver I can remember consistently playing well against Pittsburgh. Fitzgerald and Thomas are primarily known obviously for the Superbowl and '11 playoffs.


TE: Rob Gronkowski
Backup TE: Todd Heap




Feel free to add or substitute anybody you think deserves to be on this list.

 

I will add a couple special teamers...Josh Cribbs (Browns) always killed us..and before him Eric Metcalf

 

James Brooks RB Cincinnati

 

****ing David Garrard. Always played us beyond his talent level.

Justin Tucker too. Never misses in general but is lights out vs us.

And since around 2007... The Raiders. They've won some ghastly upsets against us and always play us super tough no matter their level of sucktitude.

 

Can we just say any sub-500 team?

 

I might add Curtis Martin, he just always seemed to have good days against what was a really stout run defense.

 

TJ Houshamandouchemanzadeh annoyed the $$$$ out of me.

And Torrey Smith.

Josh Scobee (when he played FOR us).

 

TE Frank Wycheck smoked us almost every time we played the Titans. We never had an answer for him. (And still have no answer for great TEs.) Our pass rush couldn't bring down Steve McNair and no one covered Wycheck. Third down conversion giveaways...

WR Qadry Ishmail was only with the Ravens from 1999-2001, but he was a real Steelers Killer in those games.

 

Surprised no one mentioned Tim Tebow. OK it was only one game but that one still hurts more than all those Fred Taylor games put together. If you had asked defensive destroyer then there's only one player who's name will not be spoken (but plays for the Bungles and will be suspended the first 3-4 games in 2016).

 

I remember Wychek the most, always smoking us twice a year in the old AFC Central, after he would get a 140 yards catching in our first matchup, when we played them again I always thought our defense cant possibly let him run wild again, but sure enough he would be running deep on us again, it got sickening year in and year out....

 

One guy I couldn't stand was Cleveland WR Webster Slaughter. And he was with the Titans..

 

Slaughter never played for the Titans. He was with the Oilers (if that counts) for a brief time after Cleveland.

 

yes you're right, I was looking at the Houston/Tenn starting lineups on pro football reference where they're combined.

 

Keenan McCardell produced about as well as Jimmy Smith did against us.

Carl Pickens and Darnay Scott gave us fits in Cincy (Jeff Blake was surprisingly good against us. He threw for over 3,000yrds and was a respectable 4-5 against us).

Haywood Jeffires put up monster numbers against us in Houston's run-and-shoot.

As far as running backs go, Corey Dillon rushed for more yards against us than Taylor and George did. Hard to consider him a "destroyer" though because those Bungals weren't that great. If it's a "destroyer" you're looking for I'd throw Curtis Martin or Natrone Means on the list ahead of Charlie Garner or Rudi Johnson. Martin and Means gave us playoff losses.

Neil O'Donnell was 3-0 against us with Cincy and Tennessee throwing 5tds in those 3 games. Just sayin' . . .

 

Any TE kills us and has for years when the opposing team uses them in that fashion. We haven't covered a 3rd and long up the seem consistently in decades.

 

The Oilers in general along with the Titans before the realignment... F them guys

 

And let me be the first.... Neil O' Donnell!!!! F him too! Hahahaha

 

Yeah, those games infuriated me, too. The Titans beat us 8 straight times in one stretch, and you would have thought we had never played against Wycheck before, each time.

 

I found this pretty interesting in diving into our team's statistical history:

Did you know? . . .

Antwan Randle-El finished his career completing 16 of his 18 passing attempts (88.9%) during his Steelers career for 4 touchdowns and a passer rating of 145.6.

His passer rating is second (minimum qualifying attempts thrown out the window, of course) to only Josh Miller who (and I have no recollection of this whatsoever) threw an 81-yard touchdown pass on his only professional attempt (in 2003 -- a dreadful season which turned out to be an epic season because it led us to Big Ben).

 

Impressive! Randle El was always one of my favourite players, A shame he went to Washington when he did.

(And somebody's now going to compare this to Landry Jones, surely...)

 

Tim @#$%ing Tebow

Am I allowed to actually type out the work @#$% on this site?

 

I don't believe so but At Pound Dollar Percent gets the point across just fine.

 

It wasn't so much Tbow... It was more our scared of the run/ run option play, everyone up in the box mentality that we refused to friggin adjust out of!