One of the fun exercises around every Super Bowl is debating. The media and talking heads will debate everything tangentially related to Super Bowls this time of year. Who’s the best quarterback to never win a Super Bowl? What was the best halftime show?
It should not surprise anyone that Wednesday’s episode of Undisputed on FS1 featured a Super Bowl-related debate. This time, it revolved around the best Super Bowl-winning team, and Skip Bayless dug into the history books for his answer.
“Super Bowl 13 featured the greatest collection of talent in a championship game I have ever seen on any field, any floor, any championship in any sport you ever want to talk about…” Bayless said. “Lynn Swann was on his team, but Terry Bradshaw was the regular-season MVP that year in 1978. And he was the Super Bowl MVP because he threw for 318 yards on a hellacious, good defense in the days when nobody threw. That was the most yards anybody ever thrown at that point in a Super Bowl game.”
Super Bowl XIII was arguably one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time. The Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31, in a game that featured Hall of Famers darn near everywhere you looked. The Cowboys themselves had seven eventual Hall of Famers on the field plus their head coach. As for the Steelers? Eleven in total.
“We’re talking about both sides of the ball were just flat-out loaded,” Bayless said about the Steelers. “You got Franco (Harris) and Lynn Swann and John Stallworth and Mike Webster, center, was maybe the greatest center ever… They had 13 either Pro Bowlers or first-team or second-team All-Pros, 13 out of 22. On defense, it’s the Steel Curtain with Mean Joe Green and the two linebackers are Jack Ham and Jack Lambert.”
Even Bayless, a man known for being able to talk at length about anything (and nothing at all) couldn’t name everyone on that Steelers squad who either played at a Pro Bowl level or was an eventual Hall of Famer. On offense, the Steelers had Hall of Famers at quarterback (Bradshaw,) running back (Harris,) wide receiver (Stallworth and Swann,) and on the offensive line (Webster).
Having five Hall of Fame talents on one side of the ball is incredible enough. Then there was that Steel Curtain defense anchored by Hall of Famers at all levels: Greene on the defensive line, Ham and Lambert at linebacker, and Donnie Shell and Mel Blount in the secondary. That meant 10 players on the field that day for the Steelers would eventually end up in Canton, Ohio, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They would all be joined by their head coach, Chuck Noll.
If that’s not enough, remember that Blount is also responsible for the modern NFL’s progression to a pass-heavy league in a way. Due to his physical nature, the NFL changed its rules and made contact between a defender and receiver a penalty after five yards from the line of scrimmage. It didn’t stop him, though. That rule was implemented ahead of the 1978 season, so he was still winning Super Bowls after the fact.
Not only was it the fact that the Steelers themselves were loaded, but their opponent was loaded, too. The Cowboys were coming off a 28-0 shutout of the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship game and had a defense with prolific sack artist Ed “Too Tall” Jones and Hall of Famers in DT Randy White and S Cliff Harris. Then you factor in Hall of Famers all over the offense in QB Roger Staubach, RB Tony Dorsett, WR Drew Pearson, and OT Rayfield Wright, and the Steelers were facing one of the most talented teams possible.
So, it makes sense that even a well-known Cowboys fans like Bayless would pick the ’78 world champion Steelers as the best Super Bowl team. Winning the game with that sheer amount of talent on the field is incredible.
