It started with a deflection that nobody is fully sure of to this day. December 23, 1972, the Steelers had never won a playoff game in their entire history, and they were seconds from losing another when Franco Harris scooped a ricochet off the turf and ran it in. The Immaculate Reception. That single play turned forty years of nothing into the launch of a dynasty.

The dynasty, and the standard it set

What followed was the gold standard of January. Four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s, six overall across the decades, a way of winning in the cold that the whole league spent years trying to copy. The Steel Curtain, the terrible towels, a postseason history as rich as any franchise has. For a long time Pittsburgh in January meant trouble for everyone.

The recent quiet

That is what makes the current stretch so strange. Pittsburgh has not won a playoff game since the 2016 season, a run of one-and-done January exits that does not fit the six trophies in the case. They keep making it and keep going home early, the latest a heavy wild-card loss to Houston. A proud franchise stuck on a number it is not used to.

Six rings, the most famous play in playoff history, and a current drought that gnaws at a fanbase raised on better. Steelers fans, you set the standard the rest of us chased. The recent Januarys do not erase that. They just make the wait for the next win feel longer than the scoreboard says.