Pittsburgh Steelers Legends team

The Pittsburgh Steelers Legends team represents the franchise's best players from the pre-1970 era. The team was chosen by a small group of Steeler officials and journalists and presented as a part of the Steelers' 75th season celebration in 2007.

The club presented an updated and expanded All-Time team at the same time, which was determined on the basis of fan voting.[1] The All-Time team represented the top 33 players in the team's first 75 years.[2] However, club officials recognized that since the All-Time team was selected by fans who had a natural bias toward choosing more recent players — due both to the team's struggles prior to the 1970s and because many fans never saw the older players perform — many noteworthy players from the team's first four decades would be overlooked. The Legends team was created to address this oversight.[3]

Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney summed up the sentiment to create the Legends team thus: "There were a lot of great Steelers prior to 1970 who were as good as today's superstars, but fewer people got to see them play. We are looking forward to welcoming the Legends Team and having today's fans see some of the great Steelers from the pre-1970 era."[3]

The eight-person selection committee that named the Legends team included Dan Rooney, Steelers Vice President Art Rooney Jr., team scout Bill Nunn, former long-time coach Dick Hoak, long-time Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope, former sports editor of the Pittsburgh Press Roy McHugh, and former team officials Joe Gordon and Ed Kiely. This panel chose the top 24 players in the club's pre-1970 history: eleven on offense, eleven on defense, one punter and one placekicker.[3]