Super Bowl XIV — 1979 Season

Result

Super Bowl MVP

Terry Bradshaw, QB, Pittsburgh Steelers

Starting lineups

Starting offense

Starting defense

Note: The Rams' offensive line was listed by the source in left-to-right order without individual position tags; the LT/LG/C/RG/RT mapping used here follows that era's well-corroborated known Rams starting assignments (France-Hill-Saul-Harrah-Slater) but is not independently position-tagged in the single source used. A halfback-option touchdown pass by Lawrence McCutcheon (1/1, 24 yards) is documented separately in this site's game-context narrative rather than in the passing table above.

Box score

Passing

Rushing

Receiving

Game context

Super Bowl XIV made the Pittsburgh Steelers the first franchise to win four Super Bowls, as they held off the underdog Los Angeles Rams 31-19 at the Rose Bowl in a game far tighter than the final score suggests. The lead changed hands a Super Bowl-record seven times -- a mark that still stands -- as the Rams, who had finished the regular season just 9-7 and were heavy underdogs against Pittsburgh's dynasty, gave the Steelers their toughest test of the postseason. Los Angeles actually led 13-10 at halftime and 19-17 entering the fourth quarter, riding a physical running game and opportunistic defense that repeatedly frustrated Pittsburgh's high-powered offense. The Rams' Wendell Tyler led all rushers with 60 yards, and quarterback Vince Ferragamo, in just his second career start, completed 15 of 25 passes for 212 yards and kept Los Angeles competitive throughout. But Pittsburgh's championship experience showed in the fourth quarter, when the Steelers scored 14 unanswered points to seal the win, capped by a 73-yard touchdown strike from Terry Bradshaw to John Stallworth that broke the game open, followed by a Franco Harris touchdown run set up by a 44-yard Bradshaw completion. Bradshaw was named Super Bowl MVP for the second consecutive year -- joining Bart Starr as the only quarterbacks to that point to win the award in back-to-back Super Bowls -- despite throwing three interceptions; he completed 14 of 21 passes for 309 yards and two touchdowns, with his clutch fourth-quarter throws proving decisive when the Steelers needed them most. Lynn Swann added five catches for 79 yards and a touchdown before exiting with an injury, while John Stallworth stepped into the spotlight with three catches for 121 yards (a 40.3-yard average) and the game's biggest touchdown. Franco Harris finished with two rushing touchdowns and 66 additional receiving yards, giving Pittsburgh balance on both the ground and through the air even as Los Angeles kept the game close deep into the fourth quarter. The victory completed an extraordinary run for the city of Pittsburgh, marking the third major professional championship the city had celebrated within a short span (alongside the Pirates' 1979 World Series title), and it cemented the Steelers' 1970s dynasty -- built on the same nucleus of Hall of Famers (Bradshaw, Harris, Swann, Stallworth, Mel Blount, Jack Lambert, Joe Greene, Jack Ham, among others) across all four championships -- as arguably the greatest single-decade run in NFL history to that point. The Rams, despite the loss, had exceeded expectations simply by reaching the game as a below-.500 division winner from a relatively weak NFC West, and Ferragamo's performance briefly established him as one of the league's rising young quarterbacks. For Pittsburgh, however, Super Bowl XIV proved to be the last title of the Bradshaw-Noll era, as age and roster turnover would prevent the Steelers from returning to the Super Bowl again for more than two decades.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Super Bowl XIV
• Pro-Football-Reference: Super Bowl Game Summaries