Take one look at the Steelers’ all-time passing list and the first thing that jumps out isn’t who ranks No. 1.
It’s the gaps.
Ben Roethlisberger sits at the top with 64,088 passing yards. Terry Bradshaw is second with 27,989.
And then there is everybody else.
Kordell Stewart ranks third with 13,328 yards, less than half of Bradshaw’s total and barely one-fifth of Roethlisberger’s.
For a franchise that has been playing football for more than 90 years, it is a remarkable snapshot of Steelers history. Pittsburgh has had plenty of quarterbacks. It has had some good ones, some fascinating ones and certainly some unforgettable ones.
But it has really had only two eras in which there was no question who owned the position.
Bradshaw and Big Ben.
Everything before, between and since has largely been a search.
Jim Finks, seventh on the list with 8,622 yards, was throwing passes for Pittsburgh in the 1940s and ’50s, long before the Steelers became the Steelers as we know them today. Bobby Layne, the colorful Hall of Famer who arrived late in his career, threw for 9,030 yards in Pittsburgh and remains sixth.
Then came Bradshaw, the No. 1 pick in the 1970 draft, and eventually everything changed.
It didn’t happen immediately. Bradshaw’s early years were difficult, and there was plenty of doubt about whether Pittsburgh had found its quarterback.
We know how that turned out.
Four Super Bowl championships later, Bradshaw had become one of the faces of the NFL’s team of the 1970s.
His 27,989 yards might look modest by today’s standards, but comparing Bradshaw’s statistics to modern quarterbacks misses the point. Those Steelers were built around Franco Harris, the Steel Curtain and a style of football that didn’t require 40 passes every Sunday.
When they needed Bradshaw to make the big throw, though, he usually made it. A true pure passer.
Then he retired.
And Pittsburgh learned just how difficult replacing a franchise quarterback can be.
Mark Malone. Bubby Brister (yikes). Neil O’Donnell. Mike Tomczak. Kordell “Slash” Stewart.
Different players, different styles, different degrees of success.
There were good seasons in there. O’Donnell, fourth on the passing list with 12,867 yards, helped take the Steelers to Super Bowl XXX. Stewart, third with 13,328, was one of the most dynamic and intriguing players of his generation.
But none became the next Bradshaw.
Tommy Maddox wasn’t supposed to be that guy, either. His route to Pittsburgh included stops in the Arena Football League and XFL before one of football’s great career resurrections. Maddox eventually threw for 7,139 yards as a Steeler.
More importantly, he was the last bridge before the Steelers finally found what they had spent two decades looking for.
In 2004, Roethlisberger arrived.
And the search stopped.
For 18 seasons, the Steelers never had to wonder who their quarterback would be.
Roethlisberger won his first 13 regular-season starts as a rookie. By the end of his second season, he was a Super Bowl champion. Three years later, he won another.
By the time he was finished, Roethlisberger hadn’t simply passed Bradshaw’s franchise passing record. He had obliterated it.
Bradshaw finished with 27,989 yards.
Roethlisberger finished with 64,088.
That number may sit atop the Steelers’ record book for a very long time.
Which brings us back to where Pittsburgh finds itself again.
Kenny Pickett is already 12th on the franchise list with 4,474 yards, despite spending only two seasons as the Steelers’ starter. His selection in the first round of the 2022 draft seemed almost too perfect — the Pitt quarterback staying home to become Roethlisberger’s successor.
Instead, Pickett was gone after two years.
And once again the Steelers were reminded of the lesson hidden inside their own record book.
Franchise quarterbacks are rare.
The Steelers went from Bradshaw’s final season in 1983 until Roethlisberger’s arrival in 2004 without finding another quarterback who could truly make the position his own for a generation.
Twenty-one years.
That’s what makes this list more interesting than simply counting passing yards.
Brister’s 10,104 yards bring back one era. Stewart’s 13,328 bring back another. O’Donnell’s 12,867 evoke memories of a team that came painfully close to another championship.
But then your eyes reach those top two numbers.
27,989.
64,088.
Bradshaw and Roethlisberger.
For a franchise famous for continuity — the Rooney family, three head coaches since 1969, defense, toughness and a certain stubbornness about the way Steelers football should look — quarterback has been a surprisingly different story.
Most of the time, Pittsburgh has been searching.
Twice, it found exactly what it was looking for.
And those two quarterbacks helped fill the trophy case with six Lombardi Trophies.
That’s the history behind the numbers.
And that’s the standard every Steelers quarterback who comes next will be chasing.