Rivalry Rewind: Giants vs. Steelers – 90 Years of Football History

It's the New York Football Giants at the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And these two teams have had a rivalry beyond the ages.

Some 80 years, 90 years these teams have been playing each other.

And in the Giants 100th anniversary, we're going to talk about the coincidences and the meetings and the rivalry of these two great franchises coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anim anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskin dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another Monday edition.

We're going to talk giants.

It's the 100th anniversary of the New York Football Giants and we're going to talk about team that I've grown up supporting, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And it may be there on two different sides of the NFL this year there one's going on an upward trajectory, the other one's a little flat.

But they've had a great rivalry over the years and we're going to discuss that in just a moment.

And some of the coincidences and some of the stories that intertwine the two franchises.

I think you'll find it quite interesting.

But before we do that, let's make sure that you're aware we just had our second book come out.

It is called When Greasy Met the Wonder coach.

This is a great thriller that you're going to enjoy.

A football history, two coaches that maybe we don't know a lot about, maybe we don't celebrate very much.

But he was a great college coach and a great athlete as well.

And Andy Smith was a great coach too.

You know, so can't Coach too much when you do that when you get sick.

But he and Greasy Neal are two of the greatest coaches in college football history and we have a great book on them.

So make sure you check that out on Amazon.

Look at for Under Darren Hayes or When Greasy Met the Wonder Coach.

Now, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants have had a great rivalry.

And their owners who had a great friendship, they had a lot in common.

Tim Mara and Art Rooney Senior, the founders of these two great franchises and their families have owned each of their franchises for pretty much the entire journey of the each NFL franchise.

There was a few months there where the Rooneys did not own the Steelers.

And that's a long story we've gone into in some other episodes.

But for the most part every football season the Rooneys have owned the Steelers.

The Mars have owned the New York Giants.

Now they were such good friends that Tim Mara, in a way sort of save the Steelers.

Kind of an interesting story.

So just in the first couple years that Art Rooney brought his Pittsburgh Pirates into the National Football League after he paid, I believe $2,500 to get the team in, he was having some trouble making payroll.

It was an expensive venture, the NFL and the NFL wasn't the behemoth it is today where they had television contracts and you know, everything else.

Everybody wanted to advertise, they were sort of looked down upon.

College football was the king back then.

So it was a struggle, especially in the steel town with some, you know, blue collar workers to get people to go to a professional football game.

They had Washington, Jefferson, Duquesne, Carnegie Tech, Pitt, Panthers, West Virginia.

That's who the people wanted to see.

They wanted to see the college game.

So going to see a startup professional team wasn't all that big of a deal.

Even when the Giants came to town.

But the Steelers were saved by Tim Mara in a way.

Tim Mara was a gambler.

He loved the horses, loved the tracks he invested in.

I believe he owned a couple racetracks.

Art Rooney the same.

He was a gambler and a boxer and they both enjoyed the pugilism sport of boxing and betting on it.

And they loved the horses and the dog races and things like that.

And they both Owned football teams, lots of them have in common.

Great opportunity to have a friendship meeting at some of the coaches meetings, everything.

So Rooney travels up to upstate New York, goes to Saratoga Springs Raceway with Mara, and that weekend Rooney knocks down at the time $160,000, which I believe is between 350,000 and a half million dollars in today's money.

Not a bad earnings for a weekend playing, you know, trifectas and exactos on the horses.

Had a great streak going on there.

Well, it ends up saving the franchise.

He's able to make payroll the next year and pay for the team for the next couple years.

It's funded.

So can thank Tim Mara for being friends with Art Rooney and inviting him up for that weekend trip up Saratoga springs.

The Giants have the lead on the series.

44 wins, 31 wins for the Steelers, and there were three ties in this series.

Now the Giants have far and away outscored the Steelers.

So almost 210 more points in these 79 games have been scored the New York Giants.

But they've had some really good and memorable games over the years.

You know, we sit there and we think about it.

You know, the Giants are in the National Football Conference in the Eastern Division.

The Steelers are in the AFC North.

So it's not like they play each other not in the same division or play each other regularly.

They play each other basically once every four years, the home and away series.

The Giants won that game 23 to 2, beating up on the upstart Pirates at the time.

And.

But that's a.

Still, it's a memorable game.

Now we went through and we recorded all of the close games between these two teams over the years and they're kind of surprising.

1934, the Giants are Super bowl champions that year.

But on October 3rd, when they went to Pittsburgh, the Giants won 14 to 12.

So a very close game in that case.

They won 10 to 7.

So again, these are just games where there's a one score difference in the thing, there's plenty of them.

Where there's big blowouts one way or the other.

Mostly the Giants blowing out the Steelers early on, but we're going talking about these close games.

The Pirates in 38 went to New York City and they won 13 to 10 at the Polo Grounds.

Big win for the Pirates that year.

1939, the Giants doubled up the Pirates 14 to 7 in Pittsburgh.

All in that right before World War II broke out.

1942, the Giants lost to the Steelers 13 to 10 in Pittsburgh.

And they met again.

And the Giants won seven nothing in the Polo Grounds on Ken Strong Day.

We talked about Ken Strong, the great Giants star.

They had a special day for him and commemorations and tributes to him.

And the Giants paid tribute to him by beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 7 to nothing on Ken Strong Day.

In 51, the Giants and Steelers tie in Pittsburgh.

And again in 55, the Steelers win by 219 to 17.

Kind of an odd score.

Maybe that makes the scormonji Twitter page.

1917 has got to be an odd one.

And it goes through the whole bunch of, you know, close victories there, you know, that we got to talk about.

And so real close game.

Now.

It's kind of neat to go through and compare these quarterbacks.

And you can compare them because they're so similar.

Eli was a number one pick in the draft by the San Diego Chargers.

The Giants did not pick him.

He never played for San Diego.

He didn't want to play for San Diego.

They end up having to trade him right away.

Roethlisberger was the 11th overall pick by the Steelers.

Bill Cower was the coach at that time.

So Eli's about a year older than.

Over a year older than Roethlisberger is.

You know, Roethlisberger comes from Finley, Ohio, and Eli Manning grew up in, you know, New Orleans and, you know, where his dad was a famous quarterback, Archie Manning.

And the All Pros and Pro Bowls are kind of close.

I'm sorry, not.

Not all pros, but the Pro Bowls are kind of close.

Eli made it to four Pro Bowls.

Ben Roethlisberger was in six Pro Bowls.

They both won two Super Bowls.

Eli was 2 and 0 in his Super bowl appearances.

Roethlisberger 2 and 1 in his Super bowl appearances.

So very similar that these two had their trajectories in both.

Probably both will have bronze bus in Canton here before too long as two of the great quarterbacks of all time here coming out the same year.

And of course, you can't forget Philip Rivers came out that same time, too, but did not have the Super Bowls.

No super bowl appearances for Philip Rivers, even though he played on some good teams and really threw a lot of passes in the NFL.

So kind of an interesting that these two teams meeting here on Monday Night Football, maybe not a meaningless game by standards today.

And you never know what's going to happen.

You know, it could be an upset.

We've seen some happen already this season, and it happens all the time.

Especially a team that seems like they should be trounced and they all of a sudden get it all together and just have some momentum and take on the team that should win.

So who knows what's going to happen?

Enjoy the game.

And just think about this history between these two great clubs, right from the ownerships in the very beginning, all the way through their great quarterbacks and tonight on Monday Night Football.

So till next time, everybody have a great, great iron day.