As a young Steelers fan one of the worst moments I’ve personally felt was watching Pittsburgh fall to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV. The Steelers battled the Packers in a high-scoring affair in Dallas, ultimately losing 31-25 to QB Aaron Rodgers and a prolific passing attack.
I remember watching the game in my Steelers man cave basement, completely beside myself with feelings of sadness and disappointment as the Packers hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. Even in the late stages of the game, with Green Bay ahead, the belief was that Pittsburgh was going to find a way to come back and win the game, just like it had done numerous times before.
Former Steelers CB Ike Taylor appeared as a guest on the DVE Morning Show with Randy Baumann and spoke about losing Super Bowl XLV, stating that he thought that Pittsburgh should have closed out the 2010s as a dynasty based on the team that it had.
“We never thought that we were going to lose that game,” Taylor said on the DVE Morning Show. “You couldn’t tell us that we weren’t going to win that game. From that 2005 to that 2010 era, we always thought as players we felt like, man, we should’ve won five. And we still talk about that to this day. But that Green Bay Super Bowl, [Aaron Rodgers]… dude was just on fire. there ain’t nothing that you could do. Everyone from a defensive standpoint…everybody was close. Everyone was on point, but he was threading the needle.”
Taylor is a two-time Super Bowl champion, having won Super Bowl XL in his third NFL season and Super Bowl XLIII in 2008. Taylor managed to play on some legendary defenses, including the 2008 unit, which statistically had one of the best defensive seasons in NFL history. Couple that with the play of QB Ben Roethlisberger and the likes of WRs Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes and Mike Wallace and the Steelers had offenses to complement their dominant defense as annual title contenders.
Pittsburgh had a knack for coming up with clutch plays in crucial moments of games to come out on top. Just in the 2008 season leading up to Super Bowl XLIII, we saw S Troy Polamalu come up with a huge interception returned for a touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens to put the Steelers in the Super Bowl. When they got to the big game, we saw two of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history with OLB James Harrison returning an interception for a touchdown before halftime and Roethlisberger connecting with Holmes in the end zone for possibly the greatest catch in Super Bowl history, putting the Steelers on top late in the fourth quarter.
Still, The Steelers met a foe that played better on that given Sunday in the Packers. Rodgers was surgical against the Steelers’ vaunted defense, completing 24-0f-39 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns. The Steelers also shot themselves in the foot offensively on several occasions with RB Rashard Mendenhall fumbling the ball away (contrary to his perception) and Roethlisberger throwing two interceptions, one being returned back 37 yards by S Nick Collins for a touchdown.
“I remember me and Troy [Polamalu], we were sitting in the tunnel walking back… just like looking at Green Bay celebrate,” Taylor said. “And then just like breaking down… just like crying.”
From 2005-11, the Steelers had five seasons with double-digit wins, being one of the top teams in the AFC. The Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots were the other two powerhouse teams in the conference with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady being the top two NFL quarterbacks at the time. Taylor may be overly optimistic in stating that the Steelers could’ve won five Super Bowls during that era, but they certainly would have won at least three had Super Bowl XLV gone their way and potentially another given the defense and quarterback they had at the time.
It was a golden era of Steelers football, and frankly, the era that made me a die-hard Steelers fan along with so many other young Steelers fans out there. We can still look back at what that group managed to accomplish with pride, seemingly pulling off the improbable on a weekly basis to give us that same feeling that Pittsburgh always had a chance to win.
