franco79.png
Getty Images

"The road to the Super Bowl goes through Pittsburgh."

Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips' iconic quote is once again applicable to a Houston team trying to reach the Super Bowl. If the Houston Texans are going to make a Super Bowl run this year, it'll have to start with a win over a team that is synonymous with Houston's playoff past. 

While Monday will mark their first playoff game against each other, this won't be the first time a team from Houston has faced Pittsburgh in the postseason. The Steelers faced the Oilers in the postseason three times between 1978 and 1989, including consecutive years with a Super Bowl berth at stake. Unlike their extremely intense rivalry with the Raiders, the Steelers' rivalry with Houston was one of respect. 

"They were hard to beat," former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw once said of the Oilers. "They were as much like the Steelers as the Raiders were. A real tough, physical football team. But they also represented everything about football that I liked." 

"Our players and their players got along really, really well," Phillips said. "Other than when the game was going on." 

Under Phillips, the Oilers became one of the NFL's best teams during the '70s. The issue, though, was that they played in an era that also included some of the greatest teams in NFL history. They shared a division with the greatest team of that, the Steelers, who won a record four Super Bowls over a six-year span. 

2026 NFL playoff schedule and bracket: Dates, times, and TV for every round from wild card to Super Bowl
John Breech
2026 NFL playoff schedule and bracket: Dates, times, and TV for every round from wild card to Super Bowl

The Oilers and Steelers were the AFC's best two teams as the '70s came to a close. In 1978, the two teams split their two regular-season games before meeting for a third time in the AFC Championship game. And while both of their regular-season games were close, that wasn't the case on what was a cold and wet Pittsburgh afternoon. 

Pittsburgh's "Steel Curtain" defense focused on stopping Houston's sensational rookie running back Earl Campbell, who had run for three touchdowns during the Oilers' regular-season win over Pittsburgh. The Steelers' defense was much better on this day, holding Campbell to 62 yards on 22 carries. Campbell also fumbled three times. 

Of Pittsburgh's 34 points, 27 were set up by Houston turnovers. The Steelers scored a touchdown on their opening drive, then capitalized on Houston's nine turnovers. Pittsburgh also turned the ball over five times, but the Steelers' defense, which featured five future Hall of Famers, didn't let it be a factor. The Steelers won, 34-5, en route to defeating the Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII to become the first team to win three Super Bowl titles. 

Prior to the game, Phillips promised that the team would return to the Astrodome to greet their fans, whose "Luv Ya Blue" rallying cry was synonymous with the late '70s Oilers. Not only was the airport packed with Oilers fans upon their arrival, but roughly 50,000 fans also filled the Astrodome to congratulate their team on a memorable season. 

"I'll never forget as long as I live," quarterback Dan Pastorini said years later. 

A year later, the Oilers again found themselves playing for an AFC championship in Pittsburgh. This time, though, the Oilers were more than a game against a Steelers team that was already a dynasty. 

Trailing 17-10 late in the first quarter, the Oilers appeared to tie the score on a touchdown pass from Pastorini to receiver Mike Renfro. The official, however, determined that Renfro did not get both feet in bounds despite TV replays clearly showing that he had. Because instant replay didn't exist at the time, the fact that millions of viewers clearly saw a touchdown didn't matter. 

Renfro tried to make his case to the official, but it was to no avail.

"That kind of killed our momentum and ended the game," Pastorini said. 

Pittsburgh responded with a field goal of its own before ending the game with a short touchdown run by Franco Harris that was set up by an Oilers fumble. The Steelers prevailed, 27-13, and two weeks later, capped off their dynasty with a 31-19 win over the Rams in Super Bowl XIV. 

Despite the loss, the Oilers returned home to an even larger Astrodome crowd of roughly 70,000. The experience convinced Oilers future Hall of Fame defensive end Elvin Bethea to continue playing after initially contemplating retirement following the loss to Pittsburgh. The scene inspired Phillips to make a memorable prediction for the 1980 season. 

"One year ago, we knocked on the door," he told the crowd. "This year, we beat on the door. Next year, we're going to kick the son of a b---- in."

Unfortunately for Phillips, that was as close as the Oilers would get to the Super Bowl. The following season, Houston was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the eventual champion Raiders. Phillips was fired after the loss, and the Oilers would miss the playoffs for the next six seasons. 

By the time they were back in the playoffs, the Oilers were being led by Jerry Glanville, who, like Phillips, possessed a larger-than-life persona. Glanville's teams carried themselves differently, however, especially as it related to the Steelers. 

"The Jerry Glanville-coached Houston Oilers in the latter part of the 1980s took on a whole new meaning compared to the bums of the Bum Phillips era," former Steelers guard Craig Wolfley wrote in his recently released book. "Cheap shots, including vicious blindside hits meant to inflict injury, were as normal as Glanville leaving game tickets for Elvis." 

The way Glanville's teams played drew the ire of Chuck Noll, the Steelers' usually even-keeled Hall of Fame coach. It led to a contentious confrontation between the two following an especially nasty game during the 1987 season. 

Two years after that confrontation, Noll capped off one of his most impressive coaching performances (the Steelers made the playoffs after losing their first two games by a combined score of 92-10) by upsetting Glanville's Oilers in the first round of the playoffs. After falling behind late in the fourth quarter, the Steelers forced overtime on a short touchdown run by Merril Hoge. They then won the game in overtime on Gary Anderson's 50-yard field goal. 

A forced turnover by future Hall of Fame defensive back Rod Woodson set up Anderson's game-winning kick. 

While the Oilers haven't played an NFL game since 1998 (they were rebranded to the Titans in 1999, two years after moving from Houston to Nashville), Houston's playoff rivalry with Pittsburgh will nonetheless be renewed on Monday night. As was the case nearly 50 years ago, Houston's road to the Super Bowl will once again go through Pittsburgh and a team hoping to add to its rich history of postseason success.