Super Bowl IX was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Minnesota Vikings to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1974 season. The game was played on January 12, 1975, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Steelers defeated the Vikings by the score of 16–6 to win their first Super Bowl championship.[6] This game matched two of the NFL's best defenses and two future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Led by quarterback Terry Bradshaw and the Steel Curtain defense, the Steelers advanced to their first Super Bowl after posting a 10–3–1 regular-season record and playoff victories over the Buffalo Bills and the Oakland Raiders. The Vikings were led by quarterback Fran Tarkenton and the Purple People Eaters defense; they advanced to their second consecutive Super Bowl and third overall after finishing the regular season with a 10–4 record and defeating the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. The first half of Super Bowl IX was a defensive struggle, with the lone score being the first safety in Super Bowl history when Tarkenton was downed in his own end zone. The Steelers then recovered a fumble on the second-half kickoff and scored on fullback Franco Harris's 9-yard run. The Vikings cut the score, 9–6, early in the fourth quarter by recovering a blocked punt in Pittsburgh's end zone for a touchdown, but the Steelers then drove 66 yards on their ensuing possession to score on Larry Brown's 4-yard touchdown reception to put the game out of reach. In total, the Steelers limited the Vikings to Super Bowl record lows of nine first downs, 119 total offensive yards, 17 rushing yards, and no offensive scores (Minnesota's only score came on a blocked punt, and they did not even score on the extra point attempt). The Steelers accomplished this despite losing starting linebackers Andy Russell and Jack Lambert, who were injured and replaced by Ed Bradley and Loren Toews for most of the second half. On the other hand, Pittsburgh had 333 yards of total offense. Harris, who ran for a Super Bowl record 158 yards (more than the entire Minnesota offense) and a touchdown, was named the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player. Pittsburgh advanced to their first Super Bowl and was playing for a league championship for the first time in team history. Their 73-year-old owner Art Rooney founded the Steelers as a 1933 NFL expansion team, but suffered through losing seasons for most of its 42-year history and had never made it to an NFL championship game or a Super Bowl. But in 1969, Rooney hired Chuck Noll to be the team's head coach and its fortunes started to turn following a disastrous 1–13 first year under the future Hall of Fame coach. Noll rebuilt the Steelers through the NFL draft, selecting defensive tackle Joe Greene and defensive end L. C. Greenwood in his first season as head coach. In 1970, Noll drafted quarterback Terry Bradshaw and cornerback Mel Blount. In 1971, linebacker Jack Ham, defensive tackle Ernie Holmes, defensive end Dwight White, and safety Mike Wagner were selected by the team. Fullback Franco Harris was drafted in 1972. And in 1974, the Steelers picked linebacker Jack Lambert, center Mike Webster and wide receivers Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, and signed safety Donnie Shell as a free agent. Bradshaw, Webster, Swann, Stallworth, and Harris ended up being Hall of Fame players on offense, while the others formed the core nucleus of their "Steel Curtain" defense, including future Hall of Famers Greene, Ham, Blount, Lambert and Shell. But en route to Super Bowl IX, the Steelers had started the regular season slowly, as Bradshaw and Joe Gilliam fought to be the team's starting quarterback. Gilliam had started for the first four games of the season, but Noll eventually made Bradshaw the starter. Although Bradshaw ended up completing only 67 out of 148 passes for 785 yards, 7 touchdowns, and 8 interceptions, he helped lead the team to a 10–3–1 regular-season record. The Steelers' main offensive weapon, however, was running the ball. Harris rushed for 1,006 yards and five touchdowns, while also catching 23 passes for 200 yards and another touchdown. Running backs Rocky Bleier, Preston Pearson, and Steve Davis also made important contributions, gaining a combined total of 936 yards and eight touchdowns. Receiver Lynn Swann returned 41 punts for a league-leading 577 yards and a touchdown. But the Steelers' main strength during the season was their staunch "Steel Curtain" defense, which led the league with the fewest total yards allowed (3,074) and the fewest passing yards allowed (1,466). Greene won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award for the second time in the previous three seasons, and he and L. C. Greenwood were named to the Pro Bowl. Both of the team's outside linebackers, Ham and Andy Russell, had been also selected to play in the Pro Bowl, while Lambert already had two interceptions for 19 yards in his rookie year. In the defensive backfield, Blount, Wagner, and Glen Edwards made a strong impact against opposing passing plays. Sports writers and fans predicted that Super Bowl IX would be a low scoring game because of the two teams' defenses. The Steelers' "Steel Curtain" had led the AFC in fewest points allowed (189) and the Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" had only given up 195. As the NFC was the designated "home team" for the game, by NFL rules at the time the Vikings were required to wear their purple jerseys. Although the league later relaxed the rule from Super Bowl XIII onwards, the Vikings would've likely worn their purple jerseys anyway, given that they've worn their purple jerseys at home for much of their history aside from a few games in the 1960s, when the NFL was encouraging (but not requiring) teams to wear white at home. This was the only one of the four Super Bowls the Steelers of the 1970s played in that the team wore their white jerseys, and the only Super Bowl the team would wear white at all until Super Bowl XL 31 years later. This was the first post-merger Super Bowl to not feature an East Division team from either conference. The previous season's Vikings were the only non-East Division team to appear in any of the previous four Super Bowls. This would be the final Super Bowl to feature the flag style pylons. of young men become a special team. Not only winning, but being the best. That happened in Pittsburgh. It was a glorious time.' - Dan Rooney Sr. on the 70s Steelers That quote by late Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney summed up best what the 1970s Steelers were all about. It was a 'glorious time' for those wearing black and gold, and it was a time that began 50 years ago, when the 1974 season turned into a dream year for a team that had been searching for success for decades. It was at the end of that 1974 season that the Steelers won their first Super Bowl, defeating the Minnesota Vikings, 16-6, in Super Bowl IX. And now, the Steelers are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of that remarkable season and win, with members of the 1974 team being honored at this week's game against the New York Jets to celebrate together and be recognized as a group. "It's hard to believe it's been 50 years," said Steelers President Art Rooney II. "Some of those memories are still pretty fresh, pretty strong. "It was just a magical time. The determination those players and coaches had was unlike anything I had ever seen before and maybe since." You can point to various events in the history of the Steelers for when the turnaround occurred, a team that lost for 40 years before finally finding success in the 1970s. There was the hiring of Coach Chuck Noll and the selection of Joe Greene in the NFL Draft, both of those occurring in 1969. You can point to Franco Harris' Immaculate Reception in the 1972 playoffs, the greatest play in NFL history, and the Steelers first playoff win. But, you can also point to the 1974 NFL Draft, which produced five Hall of Famers for the Steelers, and kicked off a dream season for the black and gold. Those players selected by the team in the draft might have been names that didn't excite the masses back in 1974, but they are now household names for Steelers Nation, and beyond. Lynn Swann. Jack Lambert. John Stallworth. Mike Webster. All four players were selected by the team in the first five rounds of the NFL Draft in 1974, and then Donnie Shell was signed as an undrafted free agent. Five players who will always share a bond. Five players who were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after their careers ended. Five players who made up the NFL's greatest draft class ever. "No question it's the best draft class," said Stallworth. "And I'm not just saying that just for the heck of it. If you look at the draft class, and then Donnie as a free agent, I don't think there's any other class closer than that. I think that entire NFL draft class, there may have been two other guys that made the Hall of Fame that were not in Pittsburgh. "If you look at our numbers, in the same place at the same time, that has to be pretty amazing." What Noll was able to do was take that group of rookies and blend them with other stars who were already on the team, players like Franco Harris, Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Jack Ham, and the list can go on. It's a group that was starting to see success but hadn't reached that pinnacle. Until the 1974 season, that is. While the 1974 team made history winning the franchise's first Super Bowl, it wasn't always easy. There were bumps along the way, starting with the 1974 NFL player strike. Training camp opened in a strange manner in 1974 when Steelers veteran players didn't report to Saint Vincent College because of an NFL players strike. The hope going into training camp was the Steelers would have a chance to be a serious contender for their first Super Bowl, but the strike was expected to be detrimental to that goal. "You build a team up to this point and then this happens," said Dan Rooney Sr. during the 1974 training camp. "We were thinking this was our year to really make a run at the Super Bowl. These disruptions bother us seriously." Coach Chuck Noll, a man whose main focus was preparing for the season, wasn't happy with the strike. "The strike is screwing up our plans the whole way," said Noll in 1974. "It makes it very difficult to put a team together." But after a draft that landed Lambert, Shell, Stallworth, Swann and Webster, the Steelers plans were in good shape. The rookies reported to camp as they were not part of the players union, and with jobs on the line, many of them got to work. "I think the strike in our first year helped a lot of us," said Stallworth. "If you look at the number of rookies that made the team that year, it gave us an opportunity to acclimate ourselves to the system, to the environment, and get to know the coaches and the coaches get to know us free of any veterans being there." As the strike wore on, the number of veteran players crossing the picket line grew, one such being third-year quarterback Joe Gilliam. Gilliam looked good in camp, but once the strike ended, it would be Terry Bradshaw and Terry Hanratty at the helm at quarterback. Or so it seemed. "As a rookie, everything's new to me. I don't know Bradshaw," said Stallworth. "I get there and the quarterback that's getting the playing time during training camp is Joe Gilliam. So, he's the quarterback I know. I'm acclimated to him and what he likes to do. I learn more about Chuck and the kind of system that that he wants to play. Chuck wants to run the football. Joe wants to throw the football. So, there's a natural conflict there, that I didn't see until maybe I got a little bit more into the season. I think we adjusted to it. "Then in season, at quarterback you go from Joe, then Bradshaw, then Hanratty and you come back to Bradshaw. I think it helped in the sense that there was a toughness in Terry that developed that year, he saw things not the way he wanted them to be. He bared down to try to make it happen for himself and concentrated on what was in front of him. I think it made him a better quarterback. I think I've even heard him say that it made him a better quarterback." How it played out was Bradshaw was hurt in the preseason, and with Gilliam getting work in camp, he started the season opener against the Baltimore Colts, leading the team to a 30-0 win. Gilliam would start the first six games of the season, before giving way to Bradshaw for the next three. "It wasn't like if Joe was playing or if Hanratty was the starting quarterback or Terry Bradshaw, that we were not going to play our best. We were definitely going to play hard. Make it work. And I think it probably did not impact the run game to any degree." With Noll's mantra of 'Whatever it Takes,' the Steelers did just that. They relied heavily on the ground game led by Harris and Rocky Bleier on the offensive side of the ball, with the passing attack shining at the right times. And defensively, they couldn't be stopped. With the Steel Curtain defense that included a front four of Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and Dwight White, a trio of linebackers in Lambert, Ham and Andy Russell, and a secondary that included Mel Blount, Mike Wagner, J.T. Thomas and Glen Edwards, opposing offenses didn't often stand a chance. The Steelers controlled the AFC Central, finishing the regular season in first place in the division with a 10-3-1 record. They went on to defeat the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Divisional Round, the defense shutting down the Bills potent rushing attack. The following week they would take on the Oakland Raiders in the AFC Championship game, with Harris' touchdown run securing the win and sending the team to their first ever Super Bowl appearance.

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