The Steelers Are 56–26 on Monday Night Across Six Decades

The Pittsburgh Steelers are 56–26 in Monday games since Monday Night Football began in 1970 — a .683 winning percentage, the best among the 14 franchises with 60 or more Monday appearances. The record includes a 32–6 mark at home, a 10-game Monday win streak from 2014 to 2020, and a winning record in five of six decades.

Who Has the Best Monday Night Football Record? The Steelers, By the Numbers

Among the 14 franchises with at least 60 Monday appearances since 1970, the Steelers' .683 winning percentage stands alone. Seattle has a better rate (.711, at 32–13) but has played only 45 Monday games — barely half of Pittsburgh's 82. Restrict the leaderboard to the teams the league actually keeps sending out on Monday night, and nobody touches the Steelers.

Team	Monday games since 1970	Record	Win %
Pittsburgh	82	56–26	.683
San Francisco	87	55–32	.632
Dallas	90	51–39	.567
Raiders	81	45–35–1	.562
Philadelphia	75	42–33	.560
Green Bay	74	38–35–1	.520
Miami	91	45–46	.495
Minnesota	71	34–37	.479
Denver	80	35–44–1	.444
Chicago	79	35–44	.443
Rams	70	31–39	.443
Washington	79	32–47	.405
N.Y. Jets	62	23–39	.371
N.Y. Giants	78	27–50–1	.353

Minimum 60 Monday games; ties counted as half a win. Franchise totals include relocations (Oilers to Titans, Raiders across three cities, and so on).

The gap between the top and bottom of that table is the real story of the Monday night ledger. Pittsburgh and the Giants have played nearly the same number of Monday games — 82 and 78 — and the Giants have lost twice as many.

The Steelers' Monday Night Record by Decade, 1970–2025

Pittsburgh has posted a winning Monday record in every decade except one.

Decade	Record	Games
1970s	10–5	15
1980s	4–8	12
1990s	14–5	19
2000s	10–4	14
2010s	11–2	13
2020s (through 2025)	7–2	9

The Steelers' first Monday game came in MNF's debut season: November 2, 1970, a 21–10 home win over Cincinnati. The Super Bowl dynasty years produced the biggest single blowout in the team's Monday history — 42–7 over Denver on October 22, 1979 — and the worst loss came even earlier, 38–16 at Kansas City in 1971, a margin no Monday opponent has matched since.

Then came the one dry spell. After a 4–8 run through the mid-1980s, the NFL removed Pittsburgh from the Monday schedule entirely: zero Monday games in 1987, 1988, and 1989, the only multi-year absence in franchise history. (The only other Monday-less seasons since 1970 are 1972, 2000, and 2004.) When the Steelers returned in 1990, they opened the Cowher-era stretch that has never really ended: 14–5 in the 1990s, and a combined 28–8 from 2000 through 2025.

The Steelers Have a 32–6 Home Record on Monday Night Football

Pittsburgh is 32–6 at home on Monday night and 24–20 on the road. That .842 home winning percentage — across Three Rivers, Heinz Field, and Acrisure — means a Monday night in Pittsburgh has been close to an automatic win for over half a century. Six home losses in 56 seasons: the Oilers in 1978, the Raiders in 1980, the Bengals in 1985, the Broncos in 1986, and just two since — the Giants in 1991, and a pandemic-displaced Monday afternoon loss to Washington in 2020 that barely counts as a night game at all.

The Steelers' 10-Game Monday Night Win Streak (2014–2020) — and the Streak Still Running

From October 20, 2014 to September 14, 2020, the Steelers won 10 consecutive Monday games — the longest Monday streak in franchise history, spanning seven seasons and eight different opponents, including a 34–6 Christmas Day rout of Houston in 2017. Two losses in December 2020 ended it; since then Pittsburgh has won six straight Mondays (November 2021 through a 28–15 win over Miami on December 15, 2025), meaning the franchise has won 16 of its last 18 Monday games and is 18–4 on Mondays since 2010.

Three other streaks of exactly six wins appear in the ledger: 1992–94, 2007–10, and the active one. There is no comparable losing streak anywhere in the 82 games.

Steelers vs. Bengals: The NFL's Most Frequent Monday Night Matchup for Pittsburgh

The Bengals are Pittsburgh's most frequent Monday opponent by a wide margin: 12 meetings since 1970, with the Steelers winning eight. Tennessee's franchise and Miami are next at seven each. The one blemish in the opponent table belongs to Jacksonville — the Steelers are 0–3 against the Jaguars on Monday night, the only opponent they've faced three or more times without a win, including the 21–3 loss in the 1998 finale.

What Counts as a Monday Night Game in This Data

This article counts every Monday game since MNF launched in 1970 — 918 league-wide. That includes a handful of daytime Monday games: Pittsburgh's ledger has two since 2002, the 2017 Christmas afternoon win in Houston and the 2020 Washington reschedule. Filter to true night games in the modern era and the record only sharpens: since 2002, the Steelers are 26–7 in Monday night windows, still the best MNF record in football over that span.

Monday night assignments aren't random. The league hands its showcase windows to the teams that deliver — and 56 wins in 82 tries is why Pittsburgh keeps getting the call, decade after decade. The MockSlate builder models exactly this: primetime slots are a scarce, earned resource, and when you build your own mock schedule, you're making the same bet the league makes every May about who belongs under the lights.

---

Game data: nflverse (2002–2025) and FiveThirtyEight's historical NFL games file (1970–2001). All records computed from the full 918-game Monday ledger; records include relocated-franchise history.

MockSlate is an independent fan tool and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the National Football League or any NFL team. Team names are used for identification purposes only.