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The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American Football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . They are currently members of the Northern Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The team has appeared in six Super Bowl s and is, with the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys , one of three teams to have won five of them, and has appeared in thirteen Conference Championship Games , winning six. They are the only team in NFL playoff history to win a Super Bowl after being seeded sixth in the playoffs, winning three consecutive games on the road followed by a Super Bowl victory in Detroit on February 5 , 2006 . Originally named the Pittsburgh Pirates the team, along with the Philadelphia Eagles and the now-defunct Cincinnati Reds football team, joined the NFL as 1933 Expansion Team s, after Art Rooney, Sr. paid a $2,500 fee. The team was renamed the Steelers in 1941 after the city's prominent steel industry to reflect the " Blue-collar Worker " ethic of the many Pittsburgh fans. FRANCHISE HISTORY The Pittsburgh NFL team first took to the field on September 20 , 1933 , losing 23-2 to the New York Giants . Through the 1930s the Pirates never finished higher than second place in their division, or with a record better than .500 (1936). Pittsburgh did make history in 1938 by signing Byron White , a future justice on the U.S. Supreme Court to what was at the time the biggest contract in NFL history, but he only played one year with the Pirates before signing with the Detroit Lions . In 1941, the team was renamed the Steelers after the city's prominence as a steel-making center. But the team maintained a long history of futility for the next three decades. During World War II , the Steelers experienced player shortages. They twice merged with other NFL franchises in order to field a team. During the 1943 season, they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles" and were known as the " Steagles ". This team went 5-4-1. In 1944 they merged with the Chicago Cardinals and were known as "Card-Pitt" and derisively known as the "Car-Pitts" or "Carpets", as they finished the season winless. The Steelers made the playoffs for the first time in 1947, tying for first place in the division at 8-4 with the Philadelphia Eagles . This forced a tie-breaking playoff game at Forbes Field , which the Steelers lost 21-0. That would be Pittsburgh's last playoff game for 25 years. Their luck changed with the hiring of coach Chuck Noll . Noll's most remarkable talent was in his draft selections, taking Hall of Famers "Mean" Joe Greene in 1969, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount in 1970, Jack Ham in 1971, Franco Harris in 1972, and finally, in 1974, the best draft in Steelers history, pulled the incredible feat of selecting four Hall of Famers in one draft year, Mike Webster , Lynn Swann , John Stallworth and Jack Lambert . This group of players formed the base of one of the greatest teams in NFL history, making the playoffs 8 seasons in a row and winning 4 Super Bowl s. The Steelers suffered a rash of injuries in the 1980 season and missed the playoffs with a 9-7 record. 1981 was no better, with an 8-8 showing. The team was then hit with the retirements of all their key players from the Super Bowl years. Mean Joe Greene retired after the 1981 season, Lynn Swann and Jack Ham after 1982, Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount after 1983, and Jack Lambert after 1984. In 1992 Chuck Noll retired and was succeeded by Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Bill Cowher , a native of the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton . Cowher led the Steelers to the playoffs in each of his first six seasons as coach, a feat that had only previously been accomplished by legendary coach Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns . Overall, Cowher has taken his team to the playoffs in 10 out of his 14 seasons, including appearances in Super Bowl XXX in 1996 and the franchise's record-tying fifth Super Bowl win in Super Bowl XL in 2006 over the National Football Conference champion Seattle Seahawks . With their Super Bowl XL victory, the Steelers became the third team to win five Super Bowls. The 2006 Steelers were the first sixth-seeded playoff team to win the Super Bowl since the NFL expanded to a 12-team postseason tournament in 1990. LOGO AND UNIFORMS The Steelers have used black and gold as its colors since the club's inception (excluding the 1943 season when they merged with the Philadelphia Eagles and formed the " Steagles "; the team's colors were green and white). Originally, the team wore solid gold helmets and black jerseys. Unlike most other cities, the colors are currently also used by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, making it the official team colors of every professional sports team in the city. The Steelers logo was then introduced in 1962, and is based on the " Steelmark ", originally designed for U.S. Steel , by Cleveland , Ohio based Republic Steel , and now owned by AISI . It consists of the word "Steelers" surrounded by three Astroid s ( Hypocycloid s of four Cusp s). The original meanings behind the astroids were, "Steel lightens your work, brightens your leisure and widens your world" and later the colors came to represent the ingredients of steel, the yellow representing coal; the orange, ore; and the blue, steel scrap. {Link without Title} While the "Steelmark" logo only contains the word "Steel", the Steelers were given special permission to add "-ers". The Steelers are the only NFL team that puts their logo on only one side of the helmet (the right side). At first, it was a test to see how the logo appeared on their gold helmets, but its popularity led the team to leave it that way permanently. (It's also been rumored the team's longtime equipment-manager, Jack Hart, wasn't happy with slapping the logo on so many helmets and refused to do both sides). {Link without Title} {Link without Title} A year after introducing the logo, they switched to black helmets to make it stand out more. The Steelers started to use their current uniform design in the late 1960s. The design consists of gold pants and either black jerseys or white jerseys. The helmet is solid black with a gold central stripe and small white uniform numbers on the forehead. In 1997 the team switched to rounded numbers instead of the traditional block numbers, and a Steelers logo patch was added to the left side of the jersey. FRANCHISE TRADITIONS The "Terrible Towel" is a Gimmick created by Myron Cope , a Broadcaster , for the Steelers. Needing a way to excite the fans during a 1975 playoff game against the Baltimore Colts , Cope urged fans to take yellow dish Towel s to the game and wave them throughout. SEASON-BY-SEASON RECORDS
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