A Sunday victory would rank among Steelers’ greatest wins

Steelers are walking into “the lion’s den,” as Ben Roethlisberger put it.

They are going to a place where Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots are 16-3 in the playoffs, including 4-1 in conference title games. Where strange things happen. And the Steelers are doing so on a short week, against a 15-2 team that has played one fewer playoff game. Two weeks ago, the Patriots were sipping tea while the Steelers were bashing skulls in near-zero wind chills.

• Redemption. No franchise has humiliated the Steelers like the Patriots.

Start with New England twice waltzing into Heinz Field and winning AFC titles, once as a 10-point underdog and once by a 41-27 count.

Then throw in a slew of regular-season beat downs, notably the Anthony Smith guarantee game and a 55-31 bludgeoning three years ago in which the Patriots put up more points and yards (610) than any Steelers team had allowed and maybe ever will.

After the Smith game, Belichick stooped to mocking an opposing player, when he said of Smith: “We’ve played against a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you. The safety play at that position was pretty inviting.”

Tom Brady, meanwhile, has not just dominated the Steelers. He has emasculated them. Just against Mike Tomlin-coached teams, Brady is 5-1 with 19 touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 71 percent completion rate.

To lose to him yet again, with everything at stake, might be too much to bear for a fan base that positively despises all things Patriots.

• History. You can’t look at this game and not consider the historical implications.

Should the Patriots prevail and then win the Super Bowl, Belichick and Brady would become the first coach-quarterback combo to win five Super Bowls. Belichick would surpass Chuck Noll with his fifth Super Bowl title. Brady would pass Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. The Patriots would climb to within one of the Steelers’ record six Super Bowl wins and would stake a claim to being the NFL’s Team of the Decade for a second decade in a row.

So this is about preserving franchise pride, as well.

It’s all of the above and more, and to be quite frank, there are only two Steelers’ non-Super Bowl wins I’d put over this one — as long as they go on to win it all. Because with one exception (The Immaculate Reception), it’s difficult to look back on any win as a franchise-changer if the team does not finish the job.

From one man’s perspective, the greatest non-Super Bowl wins in Steelers history:

5. Steelers 21, Colts 18, 2005 divisional round. Signature win of the Cowher era. The Peyton Manningled Colts were 13-0 at one point, had crushed the Steelers and were playing indoors at home as 8.5-point favorites.

4. Steelers 34, Oilers 5, 1978 AFC championship. An all-time smashing performance against Earl Campbell & Co.

3. Steelers 23, Ravens 14, 2008 AFC championship. If you’ve witnessed a more violent championship game, please tell.

2. Steelers 13, Raiders 7, 1972 divisional round. I debated whether to put this here, because the Steelers did not make it to the Super Bowl that year or the next. However, it was a long-suffering organization’s first playoff win, and because of that, those involved will tell you it had an amazing cathartic effect, kind of like that Pirates-Reds wild-card game times a thousand. It meant the Steelers had finally arrived.

1. Steelers 24, Raiders 13, 1974 AFC Championship. This Raiders team was a few plays from being 15-0 and had shut out the Steelers in the regular season. It had eliminated the Steelers from the playoffs a year earlier, 33-14, and was regarded as the beast of the AFC, having just knocked off the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Dolphins.

In other words, this was a crossroads game in Steelers history, more so than the Immaculate Reception game. The lead-up even prompted Chuck Noll to deliver a rare motivational speech (unfortunately, none of his players recorded it on Facebook Live). Turned out that after the Raiders beat the Dolphins, coach John Madden said something like, “That’s what happens when the two best teams in football get together.”

Noll gathered his players the next day and, according Joe Greene in the recent Noll documentary on NFL Network, said: “The people out in Oakland say the best two teams played yesterday. I want you guys to know that the best team in pro football is sitting right here in this room.”

Greene remembered rising from his chair like a cartoon superhero.

“That was the first time in my six years Chuck said anything that resembled a locker-room speech,” he said.

“That game, in my view, was won that day. They didn’t have a chance.”

The Steelers beat the living snot out of the Raiders. It was the greatest non-Super Bowl win in team history.

A victory Sunday would not match it, or the Immaculate Reception game.

But it would be pretty darned close.