Tim Benz: What's the Pittsburgh equivalent of Tom Brady leaving New England?

Pittsburgh Steelers fans — much like 30 other NFL fan bases — are enjoying a heaping teaspoon of schadenfreude at the expense of the New England Patriots right now.

After 19 years of dominance, the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era is over. Brady is going to play his remaining few years in another uniform.

That of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

If anyone follows @UniWatch everyone is using the wrong uniform template on @TomBrady

Here is what Sundays are going to look like for @Buccaneers

Let's go! pic.twitter.com/lUo0TZfj17

— Joe Haas (@J_HA23) March 18, 2020

Looks weird, right?

The image of Brady in something besides Patriots’ colors got me thinking: What Pittsburgh athlete would’ve caused this city the most pain if they left?

Patriots fans are going to have to watch their legendary quarterback of 19 years and six titles play somewhere else next year. What would’ve been the closest equivalent to that in Pittsburgh sports?

The one that hurt me was watching Dave Parker go to the Reds. “The Cobra” was a god to me as a kid.

Franco Harris went to Seattle. Marc-Andre Fleury joined the Vegas Golden Knights. Andrew McCutchen has already been with a few teams since leaving the Pirates. Barry Bonds famously went to the Giants. And Jaromir Jagr ended up wearing jerseys for almost every team in the NHL.

But there are a sacred few who played their whole careers here and never wore anything but Black and Gold.

Had they done so, it would’ve been a kick to the gut similar to what is being felt in the greater Boston area right now.

So I put a Twitter poll together asking people what they would’ve thought had certain Pittsburgh legends gone elsewhere to end their careers.

What would've been (would be) hardest to witness for Pittsburgh fans when it comes to seeing them play in a different uniform... as NE may have to deal with when it comes to Tom Brady.

— Tim Benz (@TimBenzPGH) March 17, 2020

A few things about the poll:

• Note that Twtter rounded up to give Lemieux a perfect 66%. That’s fitting.

• Upon further review, in looking for a “Super Steelers of the ‘70s” representative, I should’ve swapped out Terry Bradshaw for “Mean Joe” Greene. Bradshaw was polarizing enough during his early days here — and then in retirement — that he never had a shot at stealing more votes than he did.

• I considered Jerome Bettis. But since he started with the Rams, I didn’t go with him.

• Twitter gives you only four slots for a poll. If I got more, I would have included the likes of Bettis, Greene, Troy Polamalu, Roberto Clemente, Bill Mazeroski and Willie Stargell. I also would’ve put Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin into their own categories.

Anyway, here are some of the responses I got.

There are some little kids that won’t know better and vote for Crosby / Malkin. But there’s only one right answer here

— CD (@PensCD79) March 17, 2020

Look, I knew Lemieux would win. I was just curious to see by how much.

A combined one-third of the other nominees getting votes feels about right to me. But I expected those Steelers quarterbacks to perform better.

By the way, this is a question about emotion. Younger people saying Crosby and Malkin are not wrong.

They are just younger. So that’s their emotional frame of reference. Us older guys are more inclined to say Lemieux because we actually say his whole career.

Bradshaw/Ben shouldn’t even be considered.

This is between 1 of 2 people in the pantheon of Pittsburgh sports

Lemieux
or
Clemente

— Nick Westphal (@nick_westphal) March 17, 2020

I almost put Clemente on the list instead of Bradshaw or Ben Roethlisberger. But I just felt the tragic nature of how Clemente died in that plane crash after the 1972 season would have been an awkward thing to consider when discussing the thought of him playing with another team.

Maybe I’m overthinking that. But it just felt weird to do. So I left him off.

As far as Bradshaw and Roethlisberger go, they combined for six Super Bowl wins. They deserve consideration. Period.

Hardy Nickerson

— B. Free (@BFreeMan2010) March 17, 2020

Oooooh. Just missed the cut. Just missed. If not him, then Pedro Alvarez.

The funny thing about Lemieux is that he may have come closer than any of those guys to wearing another uniform at the end of his career. When the Penguins were in bankruptcy, he elected to use the credit he was owed on the team as a way to help become the owner.

Meanwhile other teams — such as the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens — were lined up to pay him huge dollars just to come back and play one or two years, thus making up what he had been previously owed by the bankrupt Penguins.

Fortunately, Mario took the first route. If he took the second option, he would have been wearing a different uniform — and maybe no one else would’ve put on a Penguins jersey ever again.

Which is probably a big part of the reason why he won this poll by as wide of a margin as he did.

How would you have voted? Comment below.