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The Most Thankless Job in Pittsburgh · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: My name is Tim Hannon, and with me as always is uh Steve Wirt.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, we're going to delve into the history of the Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I can't wait to hear the offensive coordinator in 1933.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're going to be disappointed, Steve.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: No.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Because there was no offensive coordinator in 1933.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: John Blood McNally wasn't taking orders from his suit.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: And we'll get into that.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Actually, only 12 men have ever held the position of Steelers offensive coordinator.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's largely a thankless job in Pittsburgh.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Fans are you know pretty much in a perpetual state of wanting the offensive coordinator to be fired.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Um players have even come out publicly and attacked the offensive coordinator at times.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and Steve, here's a good question before we get into this.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Why why do you think that is?
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, to me, defensive coordinator has always escaped criticism a lot more so with the fans than the offensive coordinator.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you agree?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And if you if so, why?
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that seems like a loaded question.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't you know what the defense in general seems to escape criticism overall.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I would like I don't know.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: I think Tim Lewis took some heat and he was a defensive coordinator when they when they stunk like in 2000, what year was that 2001 or 2002?
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I think he took some heat.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but that was 20 years ago.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Like I I'm just saying, I mean, 20 years nobody said a word.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I just yeah, I think the defensive coordinator seems like they they don't get as much criticism.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: The offensive coordinator definitely is a target.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we'll talk, we'll kind of talk about that as we go through the Steelers offensive coordinators.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: One thing I want to make absolutely clear about this episode this is not a Matt Canada apologist episode.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: I um I Matt Can't because you love jet sweeps.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is it is Matt Canada is um a guy that a lot of people wanted fired.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I am in that camp.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's doing a good job.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know, the the Steelers disagree, so there that it is what it is.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, again, to be fair, again, offensive coordinator seems to get maybe a little more heat than it deserves, but this is not a me trying to make excuses for Matt Cannon episode, so hold hold your angry letters there.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: This m do you approve this message, Tim?
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm Tim Hannon and I approve this message.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Tim Hannon for offensive coordinator 2024.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't want that job.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I just I just told you it's thankless.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, so so let's get into it.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: And and to your point, Steve, about 1933, the Stewart actually don't have an offensive coordinator until the year 1983.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And do you know why?
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Can I guess who the first one is?
3:21
SPEAKER_01: No, I can I probably gotta be wrong.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Is it Tom Moore?
3:24
SPEAKER_00: It is Tom Moore.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: I knew it.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Wow, look at me.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: I have another guess, but I think I know who's who's another guy.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Here's a question for you.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Why did why did it take until 1983 for the Steelers to have an offensive coordinator?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, because Walt Keasley and Buddy Parker weren't having it.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, who who's gonna offensive coordinate for that drunk of a quarterback back in the 60s?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh what was his name?
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bobby Lane.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but Bobby Lane called his own plays.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Terry Bradshaw called his own plays.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: That's there you go.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: You hit it.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: So Bobby Lane probably called a better game like half-wit than half the coordinators in the league.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason why there was no offensive coordinator prior to the 80s, because quarterbacks called their own plays.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And at some point the NFL kind of shifted and it was decided, boy, we could probably get more uh out of the offenses if we had a coach calling those plays, and so offensive coordinator became a thing at that point.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And in 1983, uh, as Steve said, Tom Moore becomes the Steelers' first offensive coordinator.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: He's the OC from 1983 through 1989.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know who the next one is.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: I know who the next one is.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's hold off on that.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: And and you know what another thing is, I don't think in the NFL there there was league-wide there wasn't offensive coordinators.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm saying.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't a thing.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers definitely had Terry Bradshawk calling his own plays for a lot of years and all the quarterbacks before him.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: So Tom Moore comes in, first offensive coordinator, and as we've detailed in our Steelers of the 1980s episode, the Steelers were pretty bad during that decade.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: The NFL by this point had evolved into these more complex offenses.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: You had like the Dan Marinos and Joe Montana's and Warren Moons with these aerial games and all that kind of stuff.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers are still running their offense from the 1970s.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even implement the shotgun into their offense until the very late part of the decade.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: In 1989, the Steelers make the playoffs because, but it's not because of their offense.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Their offense ranks dead last in the league that year.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Steelers were shut out three times in 1989, which is hard to imagine.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: A team being shut out three times in the same season.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: That's that infamous shutout against Cleveland, isn't it?
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the opening game uh at home was 51-0.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: They were shot out by Houston in Chicago, I believe, also that season.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: I know the Chicago game was at home.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember if the Houston game was.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the joke from those days?
5:57
SPEAKER_01: I remember the joke.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: What was the joke?
5:59
SPEAKER_01: Was it wasn't Bubby the quarterback that year?
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: You hear Bubby Brester couldn't get in his house?
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know what the yes, I know what the punchline is.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you know why he couldn't get in his house?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because they painted an end zone in front of his house.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: Nah! And then there was like couldn't get out of bed, couldn't go to the bathroom.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, right.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Just paint paint in an end zone where you don't want the Seor's offensive player to go, and you have an easy punchline at the water core in 1989.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: So after that 89 season in which they were shut out three times, Tom Moore is relieved of his duties.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's funny because it's Oh, it definitely was Tom Moore because he never goes on to like coordinate a prolific offense for the rest of his career.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so yeah, you're you're right.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's an interesting scenario.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: It's very similar, Steve, to where we are right now because everybody wanted Tom Moore fired.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, all these jokes about you know, the Steelers couldn't couldn't do anything.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: But then the offense kind of starts to gel late in the season, and they're within one point of advancing to the AFC Championship game.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: They were in the divisional playoffs, they were beating Denver in Denver, and LA brought them back.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: They were almost in the AFC Championship game that year.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: So it was like, well, yeah, the offense stunk, but it they were getting better there at the end, and what do we do?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, in 1989, they decide to to fire the offensive coordinator anyway.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And as Steve alluded to, Tom Moore goes on to become the offensive coordinator for the Indianapolis Colts during the entire time that Peyton Manning is there, and he oversees Manning's not only his development.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: I think Tom Moore was still on the Tampa Bay staff last year, I think.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he is now, but definitely he had those years with the Colts where I mean Peyton Manning developed into one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: The Colts win the Super Bowl.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, you have got to be kidding me.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: He is an offensive consultant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2019 to present.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he he worked with Tom Brady later on.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Tom Moore definitely Good gravy.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Tom Moore definitely overcame the the Tom Moore is 84 years young.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: He was born before World War II.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, definitely overcame the reputation of you know having the lowest rated offense in the league.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: And and did you hear Tom Brady couldn't get into his house in Tampa?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: No.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, and this is this is you know, so this is a good example, Steve, of where offensive coordinators can really be put in a no-win situation by fans.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Because if he sucked in Pittsburgh with Mark Malone and Bubby Brister, then that was his fault for not developing an offense that they could win with.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: If he's great in Indianapolis with Peyton Manning, or if he's you know helping out Tom Brady, then big deal.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Anybody can win with those guys.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, but I I think more more or less proved that he was a pretty good coach.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And the truth probably lies somewhere more in the middle.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in the middle, and then also, you know, the the head coach still dictates what kind of uh offense they want to run, and I think Chuck Knoll, again, like I said, wanted to run the his offense from the 70s.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: So Well, it worked in 1973.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: It did.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Um so we're but we're gonna do a fun fact about each of these guys, and our fun fact about Tom Moore is he still holds the Steelers record for most seasons as offensive coordinator.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: He was the EOC for seven seasons.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: That's the longest.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: No one else has matched that tenure since.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: How long does Matt Canada have to go to match that?
9:37
SPEAKER_01: Like five.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Way too long.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: So, Steve, you mentioned you knew who the next guy is.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to tell folks?
9:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: He would be the creator of the uh whole football program at Robert Morris and has a stadium named after him.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: That would be one Joe Walton.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: It was Joe Walton.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: He's the he's the offensive coordinator from 1990 to 1991.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh Walton had been the former head coach of the New York Jets, and if you ask Jets fans, he's probably best known for the massive playoff collapse they had in Cleveland in 1986.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: But he's he was a pretty good coach.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: He got the Jets to the playoffs several times, which for the Jets in any era is a big deal.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh so when he comes in as offensive coordinator, it's seen as a step up.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, again, the Steelers had the last rated offense in the league whenever uh Tom Moore got fired.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: But Walton's system is very, very different than Tom Moore's.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: It's much more complex, and it gets off to quite the disastrous start.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: In 1990, the Steelers do not score a touchdown on offense until week five.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: They literally went the first four and a half games of the season without scoring an offensive touchdown.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: That's not good.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not good.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And one of the themes we'll see in the in this episode is kind of some tensions between the quarterback and the offensive coordinator.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And it starts here.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So Bubby Brister is the quarterback at this point, and he decides to go to the media and start sounding off about the coaching.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm reading here from an article in the paper from 1990, it says Bubby Brister saying he was, quote, about to become unglued, ripped Walton's short pass-oriented system after Steelers managed only 46 rushing yards and Sunday's loss to Cleveland.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Brister said, quote, we came so far and now we're so far back.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason why we shouldn't get the ball to Lewis Flips and Derek Hill and Mike Mullarkey and Tim Rowley and Merrill Hajj all the time.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: They're our five best players.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: I hear I hear another offensive coordinator in them in the mix there.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we were.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: I can name the next.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: I I boy, I think I'm gonna hit every offensive coordinator.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: I think I am because I know I know the next one.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: I'll know the next one.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: So just ask me for each one, because I'm pretty sure I know the next one.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I will do that.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I'll put you on the spot there.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you're right, Mike Mullarky, a name we're gonna hear later.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Um so Steve.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, he should be catching more passes, apparently, according to Bubby Brister.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
12:11
SPEAKER_01: Bubby Brister always wanted the Swedish bikini team to come for Christmas, too, so I don't know.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: So so so Steve, how do you think Technol uh reacted to Bubby saying all that in the media?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, was this the uh benching of Bubby and then the I don't mop up for nobody comment eventually?
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Did it lead to all of that?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: It not directly, uh, but Noel Noel decides to go to the media and rip Brewster back, and he does allude to replacing him with someone else.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh the headline in the Pittsburgh press is quote, Brewster told to shape up and shut up.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh and Bubby That's the headline.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: That's literally the headline.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Bubby does apologize, and things things do get better after that five-week stretch.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: They every actually averaged 21 points per game the rest of that season.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's not terrible.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't really get a whole lot better in year two.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And then when Chuck Noel retires after that 91 season, that's kind of the end of the Joe Walton era.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: And and Merrill Hajj, they asked Merrill Hajj about it later, and he said, quote, Joe Walton came in and it wasn't a good fit for the offense.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Tom Moore had us drilled, we were uh young offense, we were starting to come around, and then we had to start all over with Joe Walton.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So again, um, sort of similar to where we are now, right?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: You heard similar comments from Kenny Pickett and Audgy Harris last year about you know, starting over and we're finally starting to get this.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And Merrill Hodge says that that's the way they felt, and then the rug was pulled out from underneath them and and it didn't work out.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh so um Joe Walton, as Steve mentioned, goes on to become the head coach at Robert Morris University.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a school that didn't even have a football program before Joe Walton, and he's incredibly successful.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: He wins five consecutive NEC conference championships.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: He sends multiple players to the NFL, which for Robert Morris is didn't even have a football program, is pretty impressive.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And he coaches there for 20 years.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And as Steve said, the the football stadium there is even named after him.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: So Joe Walton definitely goes on to have um some success after the Steelers, but his time with the Steelers is not good.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Not good.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Fun fact about Walton, uh Joe Walton and his father, Frank Walton, both played college football at the University of Pittsburgh.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Did they also say like good night, Joe?
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Good night, Frank.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Bad Walton's reference.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Moving on.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So who's Steve?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Who's the next offensive coordinator?
14:45
SPEAKER_01: That would be Ron Ron Earhart.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: From 1992 to 1995.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: So in 1992, the Steelers need a new coach.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: They hire a guy named Bill Cower, and Bill Cower needs an offensive coordinator.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: So he hires this guy, Ron Earhart, and Earhart had been the offensive coordinator for the Giants for the previous decade.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: And those Giants teams, if you remember, were pretty successful.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh Bill Parcells was the head coach, and Parcell had Earhart coaching the offense and some guy named Bill Belichick coaching the defense.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And those teams were always very much like defense first, offense was kind of smash mouths, ball control, game manager quarterbacks.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Mark Bavaro.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Mark Bavaro, Joe Morris, you know, Phil Sims, Def Hostetler, uh those kinds of guys.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: And then that style had won New York two different Super Bowls.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: So uh when Parcells retired and Earhart was looking for a new job, this was seen at the time as kind of a steal for Pittsburgh, especially because that New York Giants style is exactly what Bill Cower wants to emulate with the Steelers.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Earhart's quoted philosophy was throw to score, run to win.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Fair enough.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: That seems seems smart, seems reasonable.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Yep, that was that was the way Ronnie.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Like you get a big lead, and then at the end of the game you run off the clock.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: It that seems like a smart strategy.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: And it and it goes pretty well too.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh behind Neil O'Donnell, Barry Foster, Eric Green, players like that.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers win a lot of games, uh, but that offense kind of gets stale pretty fast.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: And and I think the problem was if when the defense melts down, because the Steelers had a really good defense, but if it ever melts down like it did in the second half of the AFC championship game against San Diego.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: You can't score enough points.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: The offense and the offense just isn't dynamic enough to to bail them out.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Um Cower, I think, recognizes that, and he tries to fix this by hiring a guy.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Steve, I'm gonna I'm gonna spoil your guessing game here, but oh come on.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: I know I named Chan Gailey.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he hires a guy named Tian Gailey to be the wide receiver coach and to really have a lot of input into the offense, almost be like the assistant offensive coordinator.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And that actually works out really well because the offense opens up after that.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: They even start using uh Cordell Stewart in the slash role.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: That was when Cordell was a rookie, and it carries them all the way to the Super Bowl in 1995.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, unfortunately for Ron Earhart, he does not have a play in the playbook for when Larry Brown is 40 miles away covering grass.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: So the Steelers lose that Super Bowl.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh after Super Bowl 30, Earhart's contract is surprisingly not renewed.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: So he is out, and Chan Gailey is promoted to offensive coordinator.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Fun fact about Earhart, he's the only guy on this list who's a veteran.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: He served in the U.S.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: military in the 1950s.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: I think he passed away in 2012.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Been 10 years.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: He was he was an older gentleman at the time, so I'm not surprised.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: He's I'm surprised Tom Moore is still.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Never mind.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: So Cann Gailey is our next guy.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: He's the coordinator from 1996 to 1997.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And he leads some pretty good offenses, and he he oversees the development of a young Cordell Stewart.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And in 1997, the Sewers actually have one of the top offenses in the league and again make a deep playoff run.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Cann Gailey doesn't have a play in the playbook for not throwing the ball to the Denver Broncos in the end zone in the championship game multiple times.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: So the Steelers lose in the playoffs.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and really, I mean, I I talked about the fans kinda hating these guys and and certainly Tom Moore there was a And Joe Walton, there was a lot of hate.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: And uh Earhart kind of near the end.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: People were kind of getting tired of those offenses.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Can Gailey, Steve, I feel like I know he wasn't here very long.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: He never got, yeah, he never got much.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: He never got any heat.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: People were very happy with Ken Gailey.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he was a little too good because what happens with him is he gets scooped up by Jerry Jones and he's named as the fourth ever head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh that doesn't go well well.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: How long?
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he wasn't coach of the Cowboys very long, was he?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: No, it it doesn't go well because, you know, Dallas.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh he later becomes the head coach of Georgia Tech and then uh coaches, also coaches the Buffalo Bills.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: He was also Dave Wansted's offensive coordinator in Miami.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh he's now retired.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh there was there's a few people on the uh on the interwebs that were trying to, you know, whenever uh people wanted Matt Cannon a fire last season, was like, oh, what's Cang Gailey doing?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: But he is retired.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: So people even today still like Cann Gailey.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Our fun fact about Cann Gailey, uh, when he was the offensive coordinator, the Steelers would give him a parking pass to park in one of those private lots at Three River Stadium on game days.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: But he would always instead give that to his family, uh, and then he would park in the regular lots and walk through the tailgators to get to the stadium.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And he said people almost never recognized him.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: I could live with that.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine Matt Canada walking through the lot with his like double hat on that he likes to wear?
20:19
SPEAKER_01: That would be that would be uh risky.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: That that would be high risk behavior there, yes.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: All right, Steve, you want to guess the next offensive quarterback?
20:28
SPEAKER_01: I know who he is, I can see his face, but I can't remember his name.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: He's actually a coach.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: Did they get did he retire again?
20:35
SPEAKER_01: I know he came back to the Steelers.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh he's from Minnesota.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Ray, Ray Watson.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Sherman.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Sherman.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: Ray Sherman is a this is an unmitigated disaster.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: No, this guy just he's never been an offensive coordinator since.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean to steal it.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: I just yeah, he's not very good.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's the offensive coordinator from 1998 through 1998.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and so to Steve's point, if you thought Matt Canada was unpopular, uh Ray Sherman, boy, I mean, people just people ran Ray Sherman out of town, and probably deservingly so, because the Steelers offense really falls off a cliff that year.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh they scored literally half as many touchdowns in 1998, half as many touchdowns as they had in 1997, with pretty much the same offense.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: They they had lost Yancy Thigpen, he was their best receiver, so that's definitely hurt.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, half as many touchdowns, yikes.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Think pen was one of those weird players like every other year he was good.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, he he had a lot of things.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: He was always hurt.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was always hurt.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Except for he was awesome.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that was disappointing.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Remember, at this point, the Stewart had won four consecutive division titles coming into that 98 season.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: So for them to to to peter out on offense and then they finished seven and nine, that was very disappointing.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And really, uh as it typically is with these offense scores.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Coordinators, this was all about the quarterback.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh Cordell Stewart badly regresses in 1998.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: That was also the year that he cries on the sidelines in Tampa, and the fans start all these rumors about him.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: Steve talked about that extensively in our episode we did about Cordell Stewart.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Isn't the rumor that like they they let Cordell Stewart interview him for like interview offensive coordinators?
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's true or not, but I I've heard that rumor before.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I I remember that too.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's true or not.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't either.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh so so yeah, I mean, so so that bad offense was that Ray Sherman's fault?
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Was that Cordell Stewart's fault?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Was a little bit of both.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: It really obviously depends who you ask, because Cordell that year comes out and says some stuff about like, well, I can only execute the plays that are called, kind of this this little passive shot at the play calling.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'll say one thing about Bubby.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, Bubby wasn't subtle.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, with this whole like I'm about to come on glued and we need to throw the ball to this guy and this guy, and the offensive coordinator sucks.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Like Bubby was not subtle.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh you'll see later on with Cordell and Ben and guys like that.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: They're a little more subtle in there.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Criticism of the offensive coordinator.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Bubby did not know subtlety.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ray Sherman's agent says, quote, the quarterback has to look in the look at himself in the mirror.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Ray Sherman's agent attacks Cordell's.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And they hired him back.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: That's the best part is they hired him.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was like 20 years later, but Mike Tomzek, who is the backup quarterback, he criticizes Stewart's offseason work ethic, and he says Sherman's actually doing a pretty good job.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Didn't Sherman call a play that wasn't in the playbook?
23:39
SPEAKER_01: I heard and like I heard that too.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing was just a mess.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: And like Cower, at the end of the season, Cower started calling the offensive plays.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and regardless of what Ray Sherman's agent thinks, or Cordell or Mike Tomzak, I mean, uh the only person's opinion that really mattered was Cowers, and he decides, you know, this isn't working out.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: So Ray Sherman is let go after that one lone season.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh our fun fact about Ray Sherman, Steve already said it, he had a second scent with the Steelers as their wide receiver coach in 2019.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: So they actually hired him back two decades later.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: That was the year that uh their wide receiver coach, Darryl Drake, unexpectedly passed away.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: And actually, Ray Sherman's a pretty good wide receivers coach from what I've seen.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And he just some guy, he just, you know, some people are just good at something and not good at other things.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: It's the way it is.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, Ray Sherman definitely did not have a uh good experience as steel or offensive coordinator.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: How about the next guy?
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Steve, you want to guess who that is?
24:42
SPEAKER_01: See, now I was thinking about this coming up, but I have one of two ways.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Ah, man, I'm not sure.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Is it Kevin Gilbride or am I too early?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: It is Kevin Gilbright.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: It is Kevin Gilbride.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: I I it was between two people there, and I wasn't sure the timing of it.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Kevin Gilbride's the offensive coordinator from 1999 to 2000.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And and Wow, another guy that's only here two years.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Cordell ran a few people out of town, huh?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And and and so when Gilbride came in, the what Steelers fans knew about Kevin Gilbride was that he had been the offensive coordinator of those high-powered Houston Oilers teams of the early 90s.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And so when he was brought in, it was really specifically to work on the passing game.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And I I remember people thinking that's a good hire, right?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Because everybody remembers playing the Oilers and they were really hard to stop and they threw the ball over the field.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, that's why Gilbride was brought here because the Steelers really needed to make Cordell better, and they really needed to pass the ball better.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: They even used both of their number one draft picks during Gilbright's tenure on wide receivers, on Troy Edwards and Plexico Burris.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, one of those guys turned out.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: That's debatable.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: So so you're really, really big fan of Troy Edwards, huh?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I am.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: You're wrong about Troy Edwards.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: He was amazing.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: So glad we drafted him and forced that pick because we had to have a receiver.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh it doesn't go real well with Gilbride either.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: In his two seasons, two seasons as offensive coordinator, the Steelers go from Cordell to Mike Tomzak to Kent Graham, back to Cordell again.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Um Gilbride clashes a lot with Cordell Stewart.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh he thinks Stewart tries to rely too much on his athleticism instead of making reads and throwing timing patterns.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Cordell thinks Gilbride's not letting him be himself.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember that, Steve.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of like, let Cordell just beat Cordell instead of trying to make him into a dropback quarterback.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: I I remember like a quote from Cordell, and this is when I kind of had a feeling that Cordell was kind of being coming done as a quarterback.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: He was like, Oh, I don't understand how the wide receivers could be the eyes of the offense.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's like you don't know what you're doing, then because Warren Moon could figure that out.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, Captain Cody Carlson could figure that out figure that out.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, about ten other people figured that out.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: And it's just yeah, I I had a feeling Cordell just wasn't gonna I don't know.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: That's why I started to get concerned about Cordell, because I remember that quote.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's like you could like, well, Ray Sherman maybe doesn't know what he's doing.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's pretty good with Changley, but then Kevin Gilbride, and you're gonna say Kevin Gilbride has success after this too.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking Kevin Gilbride wasn't the problem.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's a fair argument.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he's he's he's abrasive, though.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: He's a jerk.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he he there's no doubt.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: He's um he's like a Terrier, he's a Michelle Terrier.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly he's good, but he's only gonna be good for like a short amount of time.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: Another offensive coordinator the Steelers will have later is kind of the same kind of category.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we'll definitely talk about him.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I know exactly who you're talking about.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Your listeners probably can guess that too.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Gil Bright's fired after that 2000 season.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Bill Cower says at the time.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, I guess wasn't comfortable with the direction we were heading in the passing game.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: We were 29th in the league in passing when he got here, and we were 29th in the league this season.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh Cower also said this, and I think this is this is interesting.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, we ran the ball before Kevin got here, we ran the ball when Kevin was here, and we'll run it after Kevin leaves, but we need to develop a passing game.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a really interesting arc here with Bill Cower's offensive coordinators, because he starts out with, you know, smash mouth 1980s New York Giants football, right?
28:49
SPEAKER_00: But I think after he sees what's possible with Cann Gailey and having a dynamic passing game and getting to the Super Bowl, I think, you know, he he keeps trying to get that back.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but with Ray Sherman and Kevin Gilbride, it it doesn't work.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: But I think he does succeed with his next hire.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: But before we get to the next hire, let's talk about, let's do a fun fact for Kevin Gilbride.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh Gilbride, this is I didn't know this until uh I did some research.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: He was actually a candidate for the Steelers head coaching job when Noel retired.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: That's right, yeah.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that would have been different, huh?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: That would have been very different.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: And according according to Gilbride, and this is his side of the story, many people on the Steelers actually wanted to hire Gilbride, but Dan Rooney was against it.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm gonna take the advice of a guy with uh six Super Bowls in his back pocket.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Although, are you do you have the other fun fact about Kevin Gilbride?
29:46
SPEAKER_01: He did win two Super Bowls with Eli.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't have that, but you yes, it's worth mentioning that like to your point, is is it, you know, it it's just interesting how guys, you know, if guys go on to succeed elsewhere, is it because they they learned something, you know, they they maybe needed to learn some things in their career and then they got better later, or is it because they had bad personnel that they couldn't have worked with no matter what, right?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Um so maybe a little bit of both.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh Gilbride said also that Dan Rooney told him uh whenever he didn't get the STR job, Dan Rooney told him to quote, get out of Houston.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: And that was before he got punched in the face by Buddy Ryan, so maybe Rooney was on to something.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to take a brief pause here in the middle of the show and say that if you like what you're hearing, we would humbly ask you to just take a few seconds and pause the episode and leave us a rating on whatever podcast service you listen to.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: The option to do that's usually right there in the podcast itself.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's it's a great way for us to grow the audience, and it only takes a moment, so we would just so appreciate you doing that.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And as always, we're so thankful for your continued support of this show.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: So the next offensive coordinator, Steve.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: That's a bunch of Mullarkey too.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: It's Mike Mullarkey from 2001 to 2015.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: I think we should be throwing the ball to him more.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Bubby thought so.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh after turning through several coordinators uh to work with the quarterback, the Steelers finally seemed to find the right fit with Mike Mullarkey.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: In 2001, the Steelers go 13-3, and Cordell Stewart is actually an MVP candidate.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh and there's a cover story, Sports Illustrated does a cover story about Cordell Stewart that season.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: And in that story, he talks about how he had multiple offensive coordinators at both Colorado and at Pittsburgh, and he says, I'm finally in a comfort zone.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: He says, quote, Mike treats us like adults, it's fun.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm like a little kid in a park.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: So Cordell's having fun.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: There's a coach who he feels like respects him.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, Gilbride was abrasive.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Mullarkey at this point is pretty not too far removed from his playing days, pretty young.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh so there's obviously something in there that that uh Malarkey finds where he can motivate Cordell maybe better than these other guys could.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh unfortunately, Mike Mullarkey doesn't have a play in his playbook that prevents a field goal from being blocked and a punt being returned from a touchdown in the championship game.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: So the Steelers lose that.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Or Cordell throwing like interceptions to wide open defensive backs to England Patriots.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: That didn't help either.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then in 2002, Cordell has a very rocky start to that season, and he's replaced by Journeyman Tommy Maddox, and that really takes the offense to even newer heights.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: They they set Maddox sets team records for passing.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and then in the playoffs, the defense does indeed melt down against Cleveland, but this time the Stewart have an offense that's able to bail them out with a with a comeback.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: So kind of interesting.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Was this the offense Cower was striving for all those years?
32:59
SPEAKER_00: It kind of seems that way, but unfortunately for Cower, uh the next season doesn't go well, and then Mallarkey's hired away to be the head coach of the Buffalo Bills.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: So Mike Mullarkey, very short tenure, a lot of success, finally turns Cordell Stewart around only to see Cordell Stewart lose his job.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then Mike Mallarkey leaves for Buffalo.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't go real well for Mallarkey in Buffalo, mainly because of what happens at the end of the 2004 season.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: The Bills are hosting the Steelers.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And all they need to do is win the game, and they're in the playoffs, and the Steelers have nothing to play for, so the Steelers have all their backups in, but the Steelers still win the game and win it pretty convincingly.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Tim, you you d do you want to name some of the backups they're playing?
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so the the at the time this is seen as just what a total in Buffalo this is scene, what a total disaster.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers have these no-name guys in.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: How could you lose to Willie Parker and James Harrison?
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Harrison, yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like who are these guys?
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: So in retrospect, looking back on it years later, it doesn't look so bad, but at the time, and I think, I mean, also, Steve, I think who was it was Brian St.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Pierre the quarterback?
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Pierre was the quarterback, yeah.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: So that one still looks bad 20 years later.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: But but yeah, it's it's that really does him in in Buffalo.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: He ends up getting fired the following year.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: He has two other head coaching stints in Jacksonville and Tennessee, but doesn't have a whole bunch of success in those places either, and Mike Mullarkey's now retired.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot that's hard to believe all these guys are retired.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Like I noticed that the other day, like a lot of the I guess we're getting old, huh?
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Either we're getting old, or to our point, this is such a thankless job in Pittsburgh that guys just don't want to do it in general anymore.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh our fun fact about Mike Malarkey is that he and Tony Dungy are the only uh former Steelers players to become coordinators for Pittsburgh.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Dungey uh was the defensive coordinator in the 1980s.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Yep, fun fact indeed.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: So the next offensive coordinator, Steve.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Ken Wisenhunt.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Is Ken Wisenhunt from 2004 to 2006.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: So Mullarkey, Mullarkey leaves for the Buffalo job, and the Steelers promote their tight end coach, a guy named Ken Wisenhunt.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's a pretty interesting tenure for Wizenhunt because when he comes in, he thinks he's taking over this offense that's being led by Tommy Maddox, right?
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and that he's gonna have time to slowly develop number one draft pick, Ben Rothesberger.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: But as we all know, that plan changes very abruptly.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben's forced into action early, and he and Wizenhunt make pretty good on it.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers go 15-1, and then the following year, the Steelers win Super Bowl 40.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: And in that game, Ken Wizenhunt calls what you could maybe argue as the greatest offensive coordinator call in Steelberg history, and it's this play here.
36:03
SPEAKER_04: And they put it to the left and now here's the hand up on the reverse.
36:06
SPEAKER_04: to Antoine Randall L.
36:07
SPEAKER_04: He's going to throw it down the field.
36:08
SPEAKER_04: There's a man open.
36:09
SPEAKER_03: Touchdown, Pittsburgh.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: Hines Ward.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: The Steelers score from 43 up on a gadget play that they worked on in practice on Friday.
36:19
SPEAKER_03: Pitch left.
36:20
SPEAKER_03: Parker hands off to Randall L coming around on the reverse to his right.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: The former quarterback from Indiana gets a touchdown pass to Hines Ward.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: That's a great call.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: It was a great call.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Especially after they had ran the ball with Willie Parker.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: So I mean they're they're kind of like and it was like the backup safety for Seattle, so Seattle was like definitely and that's funny because remember they ran that play early in the season and Cleveland fell for it.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: They ran the exact same play in Cleveland, and Seattle had two weeks of game film to prepare for that game, and they were completely fooled by it.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: So part of that's on Seattle, but it's it was the perfect call, it's a perfect time, it wins the Steelers their fifth Super Bowl.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Ken Wizenhunt has a really good stint as Steelhorse offensive coordinator.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: And when Bill Cower retires after the 2006 season, a lot of fans assume this guy is definitely going to be the next head coach.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: But as Steve detailed in our recent episode on Super Bowl 43, that doesn't happen.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Wizenhunt goes to become the head coach of Arizona.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think he had a pretty good run in Arizona, too, I mean, quite honestly.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Agreed.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he took the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl, and literally no other coach, no other person on the planet can say that they've done that.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: And almost besides, you know, a Ben Heroics almost won it.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, he he coaches the Cardinals.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers hire uh Minnesota defensive coordinator Mike Tomlin and then Tomlin ends up beating Wisenhunt in the Super Bowl thanks to the aforementioned Ben Heroics.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Our fun fact about Ken Wisenhunt, he has a degree in civil civil engineering and actually worked in a nuclear power plant at one point.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Pretty smart guy, Ken Wizenhunt.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: He he's he's uh he I think he works for Penn State.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: He is now yeah, he's now employed by State College.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to bring him back, I don't know.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: It seems like he's kind of probably done too.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like that's a cushy job.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: So so kind of with Malarke and Wisenhunt, kind of a couple of guys in a row there where the offense is pretty good, people are pretty happy, you don't have this fire the offensive coordinator every two seconds.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: That changes with the next tire, Steve.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh let me see.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Bruce Arians?
38:40
SPEAKER_00: It's Bruce Arians, who's the offensive coordinator from 2007 to 2011.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: Only four years.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: I I thought his reign was that was shorter than that.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: It's five, five seasons, but yes.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: So uh the Steelers Wiz and Hunt leaves for that Arizona job, and for the third consecutive time, they promote from within.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: They make wide receiver coach Bruce Arians, the new offensive coordinator.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And as we said, this one's a little more of a mixed bag because in five seasons as offensive coordinator under Bruce Arians, the Steelers make it to the Super Bowl twice.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: So that's obviously very good, and they win one of those Super Bowls.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh but the Arians offense was built around long developing plays and and sort of evolves into Ben Rothesberger just running around and improvising a ton.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, that worked really well at times, right?
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And and again, won them a Super Bowl.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of fans didn't like it, though.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh Arians says he got booed at the Super Bowl parade, and people were screaming, get a fullback at him.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh of course, now of course, it's it's worth pointing out that years later when Arians wins the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay, no one remembers that they were screaming, get a fullback and booing him.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: It's it's instead, oh, why did the Skewers ever run that guy out of town?
39:59
SPEAKER_00: And the Stewart are so wrong and all that.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: So you know, but people of course have selective memories.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh it it it once again, just like these previous offensive coordinators, all comes down to the quarterback position.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Ben was getting sacked a ton.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh they didn't have a good offensive line, but it was also largely due to that style of offense that we just described.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think the 2011 season is really where things hit the fan because they were battling Is that where they went through like three quarterbacks and one game?
40:29
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, they they were they they were battling uh Baltimore for the division all year.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: And and they're playing late in the season, they're playing a game against Cleveland, and Ben gets hurt.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And the next week, I they they had a chance to overtake Baltimore in the division with a Monday night game in San Francisco, but Ben was hurt and they lost that game, and they had to go into the playoffs as a wild card.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: So it's like Ben gets hurt yet again, and then they lose their opening playoff game at Denver, which of course everybody remembers as the the game where Tim Tebow throws an 80-yard touchdown pass to win the game in overtime.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: But what people typically don't remember about that game is that the very end of regulation, the Steelers were almost in field goal range, basically a few yards away from attempting the game-winning field goal, but they kept moving backwards because of the aforementioned long developing plays.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Like they literally, they had first down at like the 40.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: If they would have ran the ball up the middle or thrown a screen pass or just done anything, I mean there's no guarantee that Sean Suissom or whoever the kicker was would have made that kick, but they should have at least attempted a field goal, and because of the offense they ran, they like they couldn't move forward.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's when the Steelers probably decided that this isn't gonna work.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Ben Rothesberger isn't gonna have a very long career if this keeps if he keeps playing like this.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of that season, Arians quote unquote retires, and I'm doing air quotes there because what actually happened is they didn't renew his contract, and the fact that he had retired was news to Bruce Arians.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: That was not handled very well.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then, of course, Arians goes on to become the the interim coach for the Colts and then the head coach for the the Cardinals and the Buccaneers.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: And he's won a Super Bowl since.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: And had heck with the Cardinals.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: Now he got all his quarterbacks killed in Arizona, too, but they made the playoffs.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: They made it to the uh NFC Championship game in 2015, yeah.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: But he always like I remember like at one point, wasn't he playing draw play Drew because he ran out of quarterbacks?
42:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: So he does have a habit of getting his quarterbacks killed.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: But he's a he's a good coach, though.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: He he is a good coach.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: It's just I wish he would protect his quarterbacks a little bit better.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's really I mean, I think that's the sole reason why the Steelers moved on.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't because he had bad results or because they wouldn't win, because they had they had a good offense with Bruce Arians, but it was because of that style.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: So I remember even this with the Steelers.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I remember they went through Byron Leftwich, like Dennis Dixon.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Like they went through so many people one year.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: It was like, oh my goodness.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: It's just like everybody kept getting hurt.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: Our our fun fact about BA, when he played at Virginia Tech, his roommate was a guy named James Barber, who's the father of Tiki and Ronde Barber.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: And it was the first time the Virginia Tech football team had a white player room with a black player, which was kind of controversial at that time.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: And Arians said that that experience really opened up his eyes to racial inequality, and he's been an advocate for that ever since.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Huh.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good for him.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: So our next guy, Steve.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, here we go.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: Warm it up.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh Todd Haley.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Todd Haley, 2012 through 2017.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: So the Steelers say hey, we need an offensive coordinator who's going to revamp this off.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Offense so that Ben isn't running for his life and doing improv all the time.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: And the man they chose for that job is former Kansas City head coach Todd Haley.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: This is actually the first time they went outside of the organization to hire an offensive coordinator since since Gilbride back in 99.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Haley's job is to turn Ben Rothelsberger into a more traditional dropback quarterback.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: And guess who isn't real happy about that, Steve?
44:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh one Ben Rothelsberger, I'm thinking.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Ben Ben really loved Bruce Arians, and the guy replacing him also didn't have the best uh reputation amongst NFL players.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: And and Haley, uh, you know, Haley could be abrasive.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh he was not certainly not a players coach by any means.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: And right off the bat, even before Haley coaches one game, it's it's like an icy relationship with those two.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh there was that Ben says some stuff in the media, which doesn't help.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: And then there's all these stories about uh uh, you know, did did did they call each other?
45:05
SPEAKER_00: Remember that whole controversy, Steve?
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, have they talked to each other yet?
45:08
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't remember.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: I remember like Todd Haley like not paying the check or something, and there was like a whole bunch of craziness like that.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Like there started to be off.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: I think that's later.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: There starts to be uh weird off weird off-the-field stuff.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Like it's like, oh, my wife was supposed to pay the check or something odd.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: I I mean Todd Haley, it just it just starts off poorly.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben, Ben says that um uh he's giving me an interview where he talks about how Haley's the only person that ever made Kurt Warner cuss.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, so so that was Haley's reputation.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that really never I don't know, Steve.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like that never really seems to get better.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Um Haley Haley is with the Steelers for six seasons, and I feel like there was always an underlying animosity.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, he almost second longest.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Second longest.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he almost matched Tom Moore there, but not quite.
46:02
unknown: Yeah.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh it uh it it so it gets off to a rocky start, and then the first two seasons aren't great either because uh the Steelers had down seasons, and that that probably wasn't really Haley as much as it was like all those guys from the Super Bowl years got old.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Farriers and the Heath Millers and the and the uh Tori Palomalo's and all those guys.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Um the fans quickly turn on Todd Haley.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: He definitely becomes public enemy number one very quickly.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Even Snoop Dogg goes online to learn about Todd Haley.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you lost Snoop.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: If you lost Snoop, right, you you I mean, really, you might as well just resign right there.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh but after that, the offense actually takes off, and statistically at least, they put up some of the most eye-popping numbers in team history.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben does become the more traditional quarterback that the Skiers wanted him to be.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: And the Skiors win a lot of games.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben sets a bunch of team passing records.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh so mission accomplished, right?
47:02
SPEAKER_01: They never won a Super Bowl.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: They they never and they and they typically lost um fairly not early in the playoffs, but they never went well deep.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: Underachieving.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: But I see once again, I wouldn't blame Todd Haley for that.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: That was that I'm sorry, that was Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh I uh character counts, and those guys didn't have it.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: They were a character, they didn't have character.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I think I think you're right.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: There's many reasons that it's not just the the coaching in those playoff games.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: And and you're right, there's guys that that can win and guys that can lose.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: We were talking off camera about Patrick Mahomes in in Kansas City, and you know, the the the both Super Bowls that Patrick Mahomes won wasn't like he played lights out those entire games, but he went whenever he had to make big plays, he did.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: And you need guys like that if you're gonna win championships, and the Steelers where you didn't have that in the Todd Haley era.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't stop the fans from blaming him, though, and still really hate Todd Haley.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: And the Steelers brings it on himself a little bit too.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Like definitely Todd Haley couldn't have parked in the uh tailgating lots in Waterbreu and made it out alive.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Definitely not.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers, the Steelers uh also blame Haley because uh they let him go after the 2017 season.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Mike Tomlin says uh it was just quote the appropriate time to move on.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: I agree with Tomlin on that one because that guy definitely has a shelf life.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna mention that later, Steve.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you had said that in a previous episode about Haley just kind of has a shelf life.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: You want to elaborate more on what you mean by that?
48:47
SPEAKER_01: He's like Michelle Terry, and like I said, it it just there's just some coaches that like the yelling and screaming works for a while, and then it kind of like I think players start to tune it out.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: Like you'll get people's attention for a little while, and sometimes you need that to get people's attention.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: Even Kurt Werner said that that you know, when they were messing up or something, Todd Haley was that guy that would call them out on it and kind of you know point it out and motivate them.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: And it can be effective, but I think there's a a limit, there's a shelf life.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: That's what I mean.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: It just there's an expiration date on that kind of coaching.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that makes sense, and I think that's probably what happened to him.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: I I I wonder too how much of it was influenced by Ben.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you remember that 2017 season is the one where Ben kind of hinted at retirement.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, he he did they lost a game in like October to Jacksonville and he was like, maybe I just can't play anymore.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, was was the firing of Todd Haley done to make Ben happy, especially when the next offensive coordinator was Ben's quarterback coach.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: I I I don't know that we'll ever really know the full story there, obviously.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, but Haley at least has the distinction of being fired after a playoff loss in which the offense scores 43 points.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, that's once again who uh who's the defensive coordinator at the end.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter because we don't blame the defensive coordinator ever.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: So giving up 45 points to Blake Bortles.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: But that was Todd Haley's fault.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: So our fun fact about Todd Haley uh is that Haley actually grew up in Pittsburgh as his father, Dick Haley, was the Stewards personnel director in the same.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I was hoping that you were gonna talk about his degree from Miami where he played on the golf team.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: He played on the golf.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: No, I wish no.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: I my fun fact is not as exciting as yours.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Yet he's not a golf golf pro.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: Go figure.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: So, Steve, who's who's our next offensive?
50:49
SPEAKER_01: That would be Uncle Randy.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Randy Fechner from 2018 to 2020.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: He's quite honest, like it's pretty the most nondescript.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Now he could walk through the the parking lot with a name tag and a Steelers outfit, and no one would know who he is.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that summarizes it so well, Steve.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I feel like in 20 years, no one is ever gonna remember that Randy Fingner was an offensive coordinator for the Steelers.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about him briefly, at least.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: As we said, he was the quarterback coach.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, he'd actually been on the staff since Tomlin's first year.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: So he was on the staff.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: He was kind of like the linebackers coach who was there forever, too.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: Um guy that just retired.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't remember his name.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: It's like the same kind of guy.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: And he was very well liked by Tomlin.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: He's very well liked by the players, uh, but he doesn't have anywhere near the same results as his predecessor.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: To be fair to Rainey Feigner, there were a couple of factors that were certainly outside of his control.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: One was Le'Veon Bell holding out.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: One was Le'Veon Bell's holdout, uh, Antonio Brown going like level five crazy.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then, you know, also Ben getting injured for the entire 2019 season and Rainey Figner having to coordinate Doc Hodge's a defunct CFL quarterback.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, actually, maybe you should get more credit for that 2019 season than he, you know.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh Tomlin always gets a lot of credit, but you know what?
52:20
SPEAKER_01: When you have those two guys playing quarterback, I mean although Rudolph wasn't terrible.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: If you're out there, Mason, I hope I hope you go somewhere and have success.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: I I I really do.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: I would really like to see that guy have some success somewhere.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, one guy that that didn't have success was Randy Fichner.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: After three seasons, the offense really, I mean, it it it I think it's fair to say it regressed way more than it improved.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think Ben's arm after that injury just was never quite the same.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
52:50
unknown: Yeah.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: So our fun fact about Randy Fiechner was that his father, Ross, was a defensive back for the Cleveland Browns the last time they won a championship like 800 years ago.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: Wow, 1963.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Cool, cool.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: He played for Paul Brown.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: Randy Feigner can say, like, wow, my dad actually won a championship in Cleveland.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And wasn't LeBron James.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: So that brings us to Captain Jet Sweep himself.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: Matt Canada's the offensive coordinator from 2021 to present.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, Matt Matt Canada, uh, Steve and I did an episode a while back on the 2016 Pitt football team.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about Matt Canada in that episode because that pit offense, which was led by Matt Canada, averaged 40 points per game.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: And I I'll be honest, Steve, I was excited when the Steelers hired him.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Nathan, if you could do that with Nathan Peterman, you would think with Ben Rothelsberger you could do better.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
53:54
SPEAKER_01: I think Ben at that point in his career, he got I think Matt Canada got the same treatment that Mason Rudolph got.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: Where it's like, uh, shut up, sit down, shut up.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: I I say what goes here.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: I I really believe that, but maybe I'm wrong.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, because the offensive hasn't approved much since Ben retired.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's been hard to watch.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: I I mean it's an offense that never throws the ball downfield.
54:18
SPEAKER_00: It's an offense that doesn't score a lot of points.
54:20
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's ever open.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's so weird.
54:23
SPEAKER_01: Like I've like you watch like San Francisco or Kansas City, or you know it's just like you can't tell me San Francisco is like I mean, your wide receivers are good.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: Iuk's good, but is he that much better than Deontay Johnson?
54:36
SPEAKER_01: Deontay Johnson is never like open by more than like a fingertip, you know?
54:42
SPEAKER_01: It's like every ball has to be perfectly thrown or it's not going to be caught.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: And even then it might not look Johnson about it.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that and that's the thing.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: When you watch some of these other teams, like the ones you mentioned, you know, and and I've mentioned Mahomes in the Super Bowl and all that.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they just have these dynamic, innovative offenses, and it seems like we're light years away from the case.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Kansas City has Todd Kelsey, and that's Did I say his name wrong?
55:06
SPEAKER_01: No.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: Travis Kelsey.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: Travis Kelsey, yeah.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: He's his name to Todd.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: T.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: Kelsey.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: No, they they probably that's fair.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: They they may have better players, but it just the just some of the calls that they have and and some of the things they do.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: It just I don't know.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I guess if you want to say that.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: You would think Friar Booth could at least be similar to that.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying he's gonna be Travis Kelsey, but I don't know.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: I I guess if you want to say anything positive, it's that the running game finally got going at the end of uh Canada's second year.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, I their offensive line's just been horrible.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and the offensive line started to come together a little more.
55:41
SPEAKER_00: I you could say you could also say that his hands were tied by having an old immobile Ben in his first year and then having to work with a rookie quarterback in his second year.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, so like I said at the beginning of the episode, Steve, I didn't I was in the camp of fire Matt Canada.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: I did not want Matt Canada back.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: I I I I think you, you know, I think he's proven who he is and what his ceiling is, but I think to be fair, that'll really be proven in year three because you won't have a quarterback, you'll have an offensive line that's that's actually decent starting off the year, you have all these guys that were gelling, you have a decent running game.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what's he gonna be able to do at that point?
56:21
SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna be really telling at that point.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: I have I've pretty much made my prediction, but I'm I'm really hoping wrong.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to be listening to this a year from now and being like, God, I was so wrong about Matt Canada.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: I would love that, but I don't think it's gonna happen.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: He didn't, I don't know, maybe it just doesn't work at the NFL level, but there is times it has worked.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: I I remember that game against Carolina last year where I think it was Adam Archelletta literally said, Oh, the the Steelers, they scored a late touchdown, late touchdown.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, the the linebackers hesitated, and that's the whole point of that offense.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: But once again, there's a difference between getting like you know, whoever plays linebacker for Carolina to hesitate, and whoever plays linebacker, Patrick Queen, and that other guy is really good for Baltimore, you know.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Roquan Smith, yeah.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, those guys are just so fast, even if they do hesitate, they might be able to make up the difference.
57:19
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if maybe that's the problem with the scheme, is it's just because it's all like it's basically the option run game, is basically what it is.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: It's based on you're gonna establish the run up the middle, and if you can get teams to overcommit to that or sell out, you know, then you can hit them with that's when the jet sweeps get really effective because you're trying to clog up the middle to stop the run, and now you know you're either gonna hesitate to stop that run up the middle, or you're gonna let a guy go around the end for a lot of yards.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: So we'll see.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: I I I mean, I really hope it works.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it'd be nice to see the streams in the playoffs.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it did it did get a little better at the end, but it was more Kenny Pickett made some plays at the end of the game against some teams that weren't exactly playoff teams.
58:10
SPEAKER_01: But like you said, maybe the offensive line gets better and maybe that helps things.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I hope so.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: I for especially for Kenny Pickett's sake, but also because obviously we're rooting for the Steelers.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: I I hope I hope it works out, but um yeah, we'll see.
58:27
SPEAKER_00: So our fun fact about Matt Canada is that he was cut from a travel football team when he was in elementary school, and he says that's really what lit the fire uh for his career.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: And if the if that sounds like a kind of a boring fun fact, well, Matt Canada's kind of a boring offensive coordinator, so there you go.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do?
58:48
SPEAKER_00: So that's the history of the offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh some guys it worked out pretty well, some guys it didn't, and a lot of uh hatred from the fans and even from some of the quarterbacks.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh so not an easy job, to be fair to to Matt Cannon and everybody else.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: Not an easy job, certainly, especially in this town.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh Steve, any final thoughts?
59:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I don't know.
59:14
SPEAKER_01: I let's let's hope they uh get it right this year because it's it would be nice to see them have some success.
59:20
SPEAKER_01: But you said you can blame the offensive coordinator all you want, but you know, if you got Duck Hodges, what more what else can you do, right?
59:28
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: All right, folks, thanks so much for listening.
59:32
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59:37
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59:42
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