‘Burgh’s Best to Wear It, No. 85: Calvin Sweeney caught Terry Bradshaw’s last TD pass

The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best 100 players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.

No. 85: Calvin Sweeney

One of the best games of Calvin Sweeney’s career with the Pittsburgh Steelers has a not-too-pleasant place in franchise history.

Sweeney’s career endured for eight seasons of mostly unremarkable receiver production.

Sweeney’s place in Steelers lore is he caught the final touchdown pass of Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw’s career. It was one of seven touchdown catches Sweeney managed in 102 career NFL games but one of two on Dec. 10, 1983.

Bradshaw would play into the 2nd quarter, completing this 10-yard TD strike to Calvin Sweeney.

This put the Steelers up on the Jets 14-0. pic.twitter.com/3D7q8W9Ytl

— Jesse Horne (@Jesse_Horne) December 10, 2019

The second came from Cliff Stoudt and put the finishing touches on a 34-7 victory against the New York Jets that clinched a playoff berth.

Bradshaw completed 5 of 8 passes for two touchdowns to give the Steelers a 14-0 lead in that game before leaving in the second quarter because of pain in his right elbow. The same injury prevented Bradshaw from playing to that point in the season.

That 1983 season was a career-best one for Sweeney, a 1979 fourth-round pick out of USC.

He started all 16 games in 1983, posting personal highs of 39 catches, 577 receiving yards and five touchdowns.

Sweeney ended his almost decadelong career with 113 receptions for 1,175 yards and seven touchdowns, or about the equivalent of Antonio Brown’s peak single-season numbers with the Steelers three decades later.

But Sweeney is the best to wear No. 85 in Pittsburgh sports history, as judged by the Tribune-Review sports staff. With all due respect to Sweeney’s long career and status as part of the Super Bowl XIII team (he did not appear in a game that season, though), No. 85 hasn’t been affixed to many memorable athletes in town. Nobody wore it for the Pirates. The lone Penguin to wear it was Petr Klima, a talented but enigmatic Czech who lasted only nine games with the team during fall 1996.

Sweeney’s best competition came from former Pitt linebacker Tom Perko.

He played under the late Johnny Majors from 1973-75 and was taken in the fourth round of the 1976 NFL Draft. He spent one season with the Green Bay Packers. Perko died as the result of an auto accident in Beaver County in 1980 at age 25.

Check out the entire ‘Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.