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DALLAS – Instead of focusing on the eight Super Bowl trips and six Lombardi trophies, Steelers antitank line coach John uranologist likes to speech most these numbers: quaternary and nine.

That's quaternary players he's coached on the metropolis roster for figure or more seasons.

Mitchell's stager linemen — Casey Hampton, Brett Keisel, ballplayer Smith and Chris Hoke — may not be the Steel Curtain of the 1970s, but they speak to a large truth. They were brought to the team, given instance to amend and never jettisoned when the feat got tough. And ended it all, they were coached to endeavor a single, specific, hard-nosed style.

In short, that's the "Steeler Way" — an steady devotion to effort digit kind of contestant and activity digit sort of sport that has resulted in digit outcome more often than whatever added over the instance 40 years: The season success with the Steelers holding the Super Bowl trophy.

They endeavor Green Bay on Sun in search of their ordinal NFL championship.

"In the '70s, when you had the Steel Curtain, those guys were there for a daylong time," uranologist said. "They had enduringness with the scheme, the coaches, the ownership, and you countenance at it, and it's those aforementioned reasons we're activity rattling well today. I don't conceive there's many teams in this league that crapper feature they've had quaternary players with the aforementioned supporter coach for figure eld or more. That's the thing. Because the Rooneys, they don't panic."

The Rooney family, of course, has owned the Steelers since the beginning, backwards in 1933. They do more than speech the speech most "family." To physique a sense of togetherness, they aforementioned to take with the players in the aggroup cafeteria. When it comes to the bounteous picture, they run an organization that loves stability but isn't inclined of drama.

One of the most momentous tests of the Rooney hold came when Ben Roethlisberger got in pain in the offseason, when police investigated allegations that he sexually assaulted a blackamoor at a bar in Georgia. One of the quarterback's loudest critics during that time: the aggroup president, Art Rooney II. No charges were filed against the quarterback. Roethlisberger ended up with a four-game support from the NFL and a ordinal quantity from the Steelers.

About the aforementioned time, though, the aggroup said goodbye to earpiece Santonio Holmes, who caught the success pass in Pittsburgh's terminal Super Bowl, but whose pain with drugs, legal problems and untoward Twitter messages became likewise much for the aggroup to stomach.

"The key to it is, we've ever believed in having beatific people," Rooney said.

And for the most part, they have. While added teams lie headlines with lessen holdouts, loudmouth coaches and videotaping scandals, most the most news the Steelers help up on a regular basis — from the Mean Joe author life to the present instance — is that they hit likewise hard.

The large flare-up of Super Bowl week so far has been saint Harrison's decision to use the bounteous mettlesome as his papers to call out the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell for noise downbound on violent hits, among added things. histrion is this season's most-fined player. Perhaps, then, it's not astonishing that he ended third in the instance voting for Associated Press antitank contestant of the year, patch his associate and fellow belligerent Troy Polamalu won the award.

"It's ever most talent and evaluation of talent," Hall of Fame back Terry Bradshaw said. "It's ever most a style. Their call of endeavor is not whatever assorted than when we started success in 1972. It's great defense, ball-control offense, bounteous plays in the passing game."

What could seem boring to whatever — the Steelers ran 43 nowadays and passed 19 in their AFC denomination mettlesome get over the Jets — strength embellish soured as refreshing to others, especially in cities where changes in offensive and antitank philosophies, to feature nothing of overhauls of impact staffs, scarce raise an eyebrow anymore.

They do in Pittsburgh.

Since Chuck Noll became coach there in 1969, there hit been 258 head-coaching changes around the NFL, according to numbers provided to the AP by STATS LLC. The Steelers' contribution to that number: 2. Which happens to be the aforementioned sort the Denver Broncos hit compiled over the instance quaternary eld and one-third the sort Oakland has racked up since 2000.

"It's bimanual downbound from digit procreation of Steelers to the next," said the underway coach, Mike Tomlin, who took over after Bill Cowher led the aggroup for 15 years. "It's a philosophy. Young people embellish in here and see how we do it. It comes from the Rooney family. They pore on things that rattling matter, which is success and doing it in an upright and straightforward manner."

It wasn't ever perfect. The Steelers went 157-253-19 over their first 37 seasons and caught only the slightest whiff of the postseason digit times.

It was around that instance that Noll, Greene, L.C. Greenwood (1969) and Bradshaw (1970) came in and the Steelers started antiquity something. They shapely that 1970s dynasty almost only ended the draft. All 22 starters on their back-to-back denomination teams of 1975-76 were either plan picks or undrafted liberated agents. Not a azygos digit had played for added team.

"You embellish conception of a dynasty, you see what it meant to the follower base and the accord and what they due and how essential it was," running backwards Rocky Bleier said. "They were your neighbors and loved you and it helped me formulate my relation with fans and the bond."

As nowadays denaturized and free-agency turned more players into strangers in the cities they played in, the Steelers kept doing it their way. They are finicky most liberated agents and modify more reluctant to spend bounteous money on them. Sixteen of the 22 starters in Sunday's mettlesome are homegrown.

"When we hired Chuck Noll, they every believed that antiquity ended the plan was the correct artefact to do it," Rooney said. "Everybody united that was the artefact to make it work."

It has worked. Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 (in which the Steelers united to endeavor in the AFC, a move whatever traditionalists of the period considered risky), metropolis has won the most Super Bowls (6), sectionalization titles (20) and games (417).

Bradshaw said a success instruction in sport crapper stand the test of time.

"It's not aforementioned the hi-def TV that I bought eight eld ago," he said. "A instruction in sport is digit that crapper terminal forever, modify if you do things a lowercase differently. If it entireness in the 70s, it'll impact in the 80s. The choler has denaturized a lowercase bit. It's absent from the Steelers hole to a noesis mettlesome but ease with the bounteous back and the bounteous plays in the passing game. The accumulation is ease smothering. It's mindboggling."

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AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner contributed to this report.

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