Football Footnotes: If Acrisure Stadium is truly haunted, who is doing the haunting?

As discussed Wednesday here at TribLive, Acrisure Stadium was ranked as the 10th most haunted stadium in the NFL.

The rankings — as published by Pickwise.com — are apparently based on variables such as:

• Distance to closest cemetery

• Ghost stories about the stadium

• The stadium’s age

• Length of time since last Super Bowl win

• Number of haunted locations per 1,000 square miles in the state

Well, for a stadium that has housed four AFC Championship games, three AFC Championship teams, two Super Bowl winners and has seen just one losing season since it opened in 2001, you wouldn’t think that there would be a lot of horror stories hovering over the big building on the North Shore.

Now, the ballpark across the parking lot? That’s a different story.

In this Friday’s “Football Footnotes,” I decided to go into full “Scooby Doo” mode, hop in The Mystery Machine and bust a few ghosts of the North Side from yesteryear in an effort to answer this question:

If Acrisure Stadium is so haunted, who is doing the haunting?

Brady, Gronk and Belichick

Based on how often the Steelers lost Rob Gronkowski in coverage over the years, he must have been a ghost.

Because the Steelers defense frequently treated him like he was invisible.

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick were part of two of the most terrifying defeats in Acrisure Stadium’s history when they won the 2001-02 and 2004-05 AFC Championship Games here back when the building was still named Heinz Field.

2004 AFC title game @ Pittsburgh:
Tom Brady hits Deion Branch for a 60 yard score on New England’s first play from scrimmage. Absolutely filthy throw from Brady in tight space for the score. pic.twitter.com/537HqOBETt

— Ryan Spagnoli (@Ryan_Spags) August 14, 2019

The spirit of Drew Bledsoe had a hand in one of those too.

Some people still report seeing a faceless, formless, sleeveless hoodie floating up and down the walkways of the stadium during playoff time every year.

Supernatural activity is especially thick in the areas of the stadium where the Steelers’ coaches were illegally filmed by New England as part of Spygate.

BOOOOOOvallll!

The Jacksonville Jaguars have slimed the Steelers with playoff ectoplasm over the years on the home turf of the Black and Gold.

David Garrard and the Jags possessed the officials to miss a blatant holding call on a fourth-down QB run that set up a game-winning field goal to eliminate the Steelers from the 2007 playoffs at home.

A decade later, current Steeler Jalen Ramsey was one of the demons from North Florida that overran Heinz Field in the 2017 AFC Divisional Round as the Jaguars outgunned the Steelers, 45-42.

YANNICK NSACKOUE WITH ANOTHER STRIP SACK!

TELVIN SMITH PICKS IT UP AND RUMBLES IN FOR A TOUCHDOWN! #Jaguars 28-7 #Steelers

???? : @LaurieFitzptrck pic.twitter.com/7vfP52mikY

— Big Cat Country (@BigCatCountry) January 14, 2018

Ever since that defeat, the Steelers have been relegated to playoff purgatory.

That special teams coach from the Cleveland Browns

What was his name again? The guy who beat Mike Tomlin and the Steelers during the 2020 covid playoff game.

Mike Priefer! That was it. He was the guy in charge while Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski was stuck at home with a positive test.

The Browns won 48-37 in front of a spookily empty building in the middle of a pandemic and sent the Steelers across the River Styx and into the playoff underworld in embarrassing fashion as an 11-0 start ended in an ignominious 1-5 collapse.

Al Riveron

Nope. No struggle remembering that guy’s name.

He and his goblins in New York were responsible for overturning the on-field call of a touchdown on Jesse James’ reception against the Patriots in 2017.

The video is an explanation from @NFL SVP of Officiating Al Riveron on the reversal at the end of the #NEvsPIT game. pic.twitter.com/hm5EeoZTER

— NFL Football Operations (@NFLFootballOps) December 18, 2017

No exorcism of that stadium would be complete without seeing Riveron’s head spin around while spitting out pea soup.

The power of replay compels you! The power of replay compels you!

Joe Flacco

The way Flacco continues to rise from the great beyond and torture the Steelers, it’s no wonder Tomlin painted him as his own personal Beelzebub as recently as last week.

JOESEPH VINCENT FLACCO.

PITvsCIN on Prime Video
Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/CnVzQCxMLO

— NFL (@NFL) October 17, 2025

But Flacco didn’t just frighten the Steelers in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Baltimore. He conjured images of fear at Acrisure Stadium/Heinz Field, too, vanquishing the Steelers’ playoff dreams in 2014 — to say nothing of memorable road wins here in 2010, ‘11, ‘12, ‘15, and ‘18.

In fact, here’s what I expect it’ll look like when the undead Flacco comes to Pittsburgh in a few weeks.

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