Steelers postseason history: Jan. 28, 1996 -- Super Bowl XXX

Written by Dan Gigler on Monday, 28 January 2013 1:51 pm.

Since the Steelers have the wrong kind of home field advantage this postseason, we'll take a look back at some of the highlights and disappointments of playoffs past ...

Today: January 28, 1996 -- Super Bowl XXX vs. Dallas

SUPER TRY: Steelers lose to Cowboys, 27-17

(reprinted from the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on January 29, 1996 - no byline)

SBXXX brentson In the end, there was the game.

After a bountiful decade, followed by 16 dry years, there was the game.

Dallas and Pittsburgh -- a self-anointed America's team met the indefatigable black and gold who rose, like their city, out of the ashes of decline.

They played the game.

After $1,200 third-hand tickets, the $1.2 million per half-minute commercials, the fortnight of marketing hysteria, it came down to 60 minutes of playing time in a place called Tempe, in a ritual called Super Bowl XXX.

There will be other seasons.

For now, it remains to the Pittsburgh Steelers to assess what this season has meant. It has been a team that, like the region from which it draws an unceasingly loyal legion of fans, has gotten up off its back again and again. Let history and bookies note: they covered the spread.

For fans, there will be memories of close games and the high hopes. The recurring off-season nightmare might well be a man in a white-and-blue uniform with the number 24 pasted on it, running down the sidelines twice with Neil O' Donnell passes that weren't meant for him, taking away a victory that many will say was meant for us.

And so they played the game and went home, 27-17 losers. The victory party will be held in Dallas this year. And in years to come, Pittsburgh will look for other chances to add a fifth Lombardi trophy to its case.

No longer locked irretrievably into glories of the past, the Steelers, like their city, still look very new this morning.

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