I actually like the Steelers organization, though this year has really irked me with Ward's pissy comments during spygate and Bettis'...quaint...recollections about who the better team was in the 2001 Championship Game.
I was brainwashed at an early age since I saw the Steelers help out Burt Reynolds in "Smokey and the Bandit II" and then watch some stuntman movies with him in "Hooper". What can I say? I was watching HBO before I was watching football.
By the 1990s, I was a big Patriots fan (started watching regularly during Rod Rust's season, so I've got my "street cred"). The Steelers started rising from the ashes at the same time the Pats did, so they were big rivals. However, I really liked Bill Cowher and I admired the way his organization would keep trading players away or lettign them go, and he would just coach up the next generation of all-pros. I watched in disgust with Steelers fans as Neil O'Donnell coughed up Super Bowl XXX and was happy to see Cowher finally win his a couple of years ago.
I've discovered that my respect for the Steelers organization only goes one way. Steelers fans hate us pretty good, and a lifelong Steeler fan fessed up to the ultimate reason a couple of years ago - the Pats are making a run to the top of the AFC pedestal where currently only the Steelers stand as the class of the conference. Couple that with the tough games we've played in the run, and the Steelers' fans have their blood boiling. Spygate has just allowed a lot of their fans to cross the thin line from gamesmanship to pathological hatred of the Patriots franchise. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're chanting "Patriots suck" at Penguins games.
Steelers fans are knowledgeable football fans, and I think I've seen a few level-headed ones around here. Unfortunately, given the circumstances, there are more goons out than normal fans. Even my buddy, the one I mentioned above, quotes from the Gospel According to Easterbrook at length these days. It's too bad.