Here is a very simple fact. Since the National Football League and the American Football League merged in 1966, no franchise has been more stable or more successful than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Only the Cowboys and 49ers can match Pittsburgh’s five Super Bowl championships; no team has developed anywhere near as many Hall of Fame players; and the organization has had only four head coaches since the merger — Bill Austin, Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin, with Noll and Cowher coaching the team from 1969 through 2006. Among clubs competing since 1966, the Broncos, Dolphins and Cowboys are tied for second-least coaching turnover, each having employed seven head coaches. During the tenures of Noll and Cowher, Miami had five, and Dallas and Denver six.

It should surprise no one, then, that the Steelers have also had only one owner and one boss since 1967. Dan Rooney, the oldest of Art Rooney Sr.’s five sons, has been the boss, and he and his brothers have been the principal owners, with each owning 16 percent of the team. The other 20 percent is owned by the McGinley family, whose patriarch Barney was a friend and confidant of Rooney Sr.

That is just one of the reasons that the recent revelations of the struggles going on within the Rooney family, and for majority control of the Steelers, trouble me — and should trouble not just Steelers fans but all NFL fans — so deeply.

Along with the McCaskey/Halas family, the Maras and the Bidwills, the Rooneys are all that’s left of the pioneering families that founded and nurtured the NFL in the ’20s and ’30s and are still represented in the game today. And of those groups it was Art Rooney Sr. who most often had the adjective “beloved” attached to his name. The man couldn’t build a winner to save his soul, but as a patron saint, he was exactly what the game needed.

The old man’s failures as an NFL executive prompted him to put oldest son Dan in charge at the time of the merger, and the rest, as they say, is history. But history is about yesterday, whereas today’s world of big-time sports — in particular, the NFL — is about what have you done for me lately.

There is an NFL rule, targeted mainly at avoiding corporate ownership, that requires the principal owner of a club to own at least 30 percent of the team. Dan Rooney, along with his brothers Art Jr., Timothy, Patrick and John, each owns 16 percent. Another NFL rule prohibits any NFL ownership group from being connected to gambling in any way, and the Rooney family fortune comes from the horse racing industry, including several successful tracks the younger brothers continue to operate, which now also include slot machines and video poker. The Rooneys have been protected from these rules until now, having been grandfathered in, but the addition of the non-horse-related gambling activities has made the other owners uncomfortable.

But that is not the main reason for the Rooneys’ troubles. All five brothers are now in their 70s, and each of their 16 percent interests in the Steelers is valued at approximately $160 million. They have 30 living children among them and dozens more grandchildren. Should one or more of the Rooney brothers die, the inheritance tax on their interest in the team could be as high as 45 percent, a tab their heirs will be hard-pressed to meet. While Dan Rooney wants very much to retain majority control of the team and acquire at least the additional 14 percent he needs to do so under today’s league rules, it’s time for the other brothers to get out. While Rooney and his son, Art II, work feverishly to find an answer that meets everyone’s requirements, the putt just keeps getting longer and trickier because the club is not allowed to carry more than $150 million in debt due to another league rule, and that’s hardly enough cash to satisfy all four of his brothers’ needs.

And now, to the part of this saga that disturbs me the most, other than the fact that Dan Rooney is one of the kindest, most respectful and brilliant NFL executives I’ve ever met and I absolutely hate the fact he may not be able to keep control of the Steelers in the end. As the National Football League approaches by far the greatest challenge it has faced in its long and storied history — the need to put a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place prior to allowing 2010 to become an “uncapped season” — there is no single NFL owner more accomplished or respected on league issues, and in particular on labor issues, on either side of the table than Dan Rooney.

While it is unlikely that any new owner would be foolish enough to force Dan Rooney out (multibillionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, who is rumored to be the favorite to acquire the team, has already said he’d want Rooney to continue to run it), when you’re not the boss anymore, the simple truth is you no longer swing the weight you once did. In many respects Dan Rooney is our last link to the “sacrifice for the greater good” mentality that he, Halas, Paul Brown, Lamar Hunt, the Maras, Pete Rozelle and others used to make the NFL what it is today.

Keep an eye on this story, folks, because not only do Steelers fans desperately hope Dan Rooney will maintain ownership of their favorite club, the rest of us NFL fans need him even more.