Steelers often left sleepless after playing Seahawks in Seattle

The last time the Pittsburgh Steelers won a game in Seattle, they did so with a quarterback who was making his ninth career start in his seventh year in the organization.

So maybe history will be on the Steelers’ side Sunday when they turn to Mason Rudolph to keep their playoff hopes alive in his 12th career start in six seasons with the franchise.

Nothing else has worked in the Steelers’ favor since 1983 when Cliff Stoudt presided over an offense that jumped to a 24-point lead before holding on for a 27-21 victory at the Kingdome.

That game, in which Franco Harris rushed for 132 yards and scored a touchdown, represented the only victory for the Steelers when they have ventured to the Pacific Northwest. Not that they go there often.

The Steelers are 1-7 in eight career trips to Seattle and have lost five in a row over the past 40 years.

That included a couple of more defeats at the since-demolished Kingdome, one setback when the Seahawks opened the 1994 season at Husky Stadium and two more losses at what is now known at Lumen Field, which opened in 2002.

Cameron Heyward and Chris Boswell are the only holdovers from the 2015 season, the last time the Steelers traveled to Seattle. They were on the wrong end of a 39-30 decision that featured the two teams combining for eight touchdowns and 974 yards, including 816 passing.

Others can attest to the difficulty of playing at Lumen Field with its notorious 12th Man fan base. The Seahawks twice have set the Guinness World Record for loudest crowd noise at a sporting event.

“I have played in Seattle a few times now, and I love it,” said center Mason Cole, who spent his career in the NFC until signing with the Steelers in 2022. “It’s a hostile environment, maybe the best in the NFL. It’s good. It’s really tough but a really good place to play because they are good fans up there.

“There’s no better place to win a game, either.”

Not that any Steelers player in the past four decades would know that feeling. Yet, Lumen Field and its boisterous crowd atmosphere has earned a reputation that is known in the Steelers locker room.

Wide receiver Allen Robinson is in his 10th NFL season. This visit to Seattle will be his first.

“As a competitor, you look forward to that,” Robinson said. “Expectation is it’s going to be loud, but for us it will heighten our focus throughout the course of the weekend.”

The circumstances facing the Steelers, who at 8-7 are staying alive in the playoff hunt, are like what they encountered in 1993 when they also made a trip to Seattle during the holidays. They were 8-6 that season but were upset by the 5-9 Seahawks, 16-6, at the Kingdome.

Backup running back Jon Vaughn rushed for 131 yards against the NFL’s best run defense, and the Steelers were beaten by Rick Mirer, who threw the only touchdown pass of the game. Undaunted, the Steelers did secure a wild-card spot in the final week of the season although they needed help to get in.

The Steelers returned to Seattle the following season — the Seahawks were in the AFC in those days, so road trips in consecutive seasons weren’t uncommon — and lost 30-13 at Husky Stadium. The Kingdome was closed for repairs after four ceiling tiles fell 180 feet over the summer.

The change of venue didn’t matter.

Neil O’Donnell threw four interceptions, including three in the fourth quarter, and the Steelers lost despite putting up 452 yards of offense.

The Steelers didn’t return until 2003 when the Seahawks were in their second season at then-Seahawks Stadium, which was built where the Kingdome once stood. The 23-16 loss was the Steelers fifth in a row that season, dropping them to 2-6 on their way to the franchise’s last season marred by a losing record.

Coach Bill Cowher echoed words after that loss that might sound familiar to what Mike Tomlin has uttered this year.

“It just seems like right now we are not putting together a game where we are in sync,” he said. “We are not complementing one another. That seems to be what is missing.”

Hines Ward was even more succinct: “We play good sometimes, and sometimes we play bad.”

Ward fared better when the two teams met in Super Bowl XL when he was named game MVP. But that was on neutral ground in Detroit. Ward was gone by the time the Steelers returned to Seattle in 2015.

Ben Roethlisberger passed for 456 yards and a touchdown in the 39-30 loss in 2003, but he finished the game in concussion protocol. Markus Wheaton had a career game with nine catches for 201 yards.

The Steelers gave up an 80-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter to ensure the nine-point loss, which included a failed fake field-goal attempt in the first half. Landry Jones pretended to be the holder, lined up in the shotgun and tried a pass to tackle Alejandro Villanueva that was intercepted.

Jones’ gaffe, though, wasn’t the most infamous by a Steelers backup quarterback during a trip to Seattle. That honor goes to Stoudt, and it came two years before he led the Steelers to their only victory in the Emerald City.

In November 1981, after a 24-21 loss, the Steelers were stuck in Seattle overnight. Stoudt didn’t play in the game and, figuring he had nothing to lose, headed out to a bar. Stoudt tried his luck with a mechanical punching bag but mistimed his shot. Stoudt’s fist grazed the bag and struck a pole, breaking a bone in his forearm.

When Terry Bradshaw got hurt later in the season, Stoudt was unavailable, leaving the final two starts to third-stringer Mark Malone.

As the last quarterback off the Steelers bench this year, Rudolph can relate.