Or Are They?

DISCLAIMER: For this to make any sense, you must first read my earlier post titled "These Are Not Your Father's Pittsburgh Steelers..."

After I thought about the notion of our current Steeler offense, as it seems it will be this season, and re-evaluated my conclusion that our approach is different from what it had been in the past, I noticed the presence of potentially similar circumstances between the dominant Steelers of the '70s and the 2007 Steelers.

Now, as you may have already guessed, I am far too young to be solidly credible when discussing that Steeler dynasty. But it seems to me that with Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier, we employed a similar approach offensively.

From what I can tell, Swann and Stallworth were omnipresent deep threats because of their speed and athleticism, while Harris and Bleier could kill you up the middle, to the outside or catching the ball out of the backfield. Couldn't you say that's similar to what we're trying to do this year?

As I mentioned earlier, we've got Santonio, Cedrick Wilson, Nate Washington (if he finds his hands), and Willie Reid who all seem like speedy, athletic deep threats similar to Swann and Stallworth. Of course it's impossible to say that any of these guys will ever hold a candle to the latter to Steeler greats, but if you sort of use your imagination and assume they find success this season and beyond, it's not too far from the realm of possibility.

And what of Willie Parker, Najeh Davenport, Carey Davis and Gary Russell? Well, of course there's no way to know if Davis and Russel will catch on, but assuming they do, we would have a combination of threats - inside, outside, short threat in the flat. Again, whether or not any of these guys (even more so in this case) could/will hold a candle to Franco Harris or Rocky Bleier is impossible to determine. But again using imagination it is not out of the question, though somewhat less reasonable than the wide receivers.

So what do you all think? Are these Steelers anywhere close to those Steelers in offensive approach? Do you think this approach will lead to similar success? Is Mike Tomlin anything like Chuck Noll? Are any of these players close to the caliber of the Steelers greats I mentioned? I'm curious to hear your take(s)...