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Steelers of the 1980's · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, welcome to Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm Tim Hannon.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Steve Wart.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is the podcast where each episode we deep dive into a different moment or era in Pittsburgh Sports lore.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, we're going to talk about the 1980s and specifically the 1980s Steelers.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: And this was an era that was kind of interesting.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of excited about this because I was born in the late 70s, and so this was kind of the era I grew up as a fan in.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I have some fond memories.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: However, it wasn't a very fun era in terms of actually winning football games.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: It was the the Steelers are a team that since 1972, and this is a pretty remarkable statistic, there's only been seven losing seasons for the Steelers since 1972.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: But four of those seven losing seasons came between the years 1985 and 1991.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And so this was not a good era for the Steelers, but it was an interesting one and a colorful one.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll talk about it today.
1:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 1980s.
1:25
SPEAKER_03: We got what?
1:26
SPEAKER_03: The Smurfs, Parachute Pants, He-Man, and um some pretty bad Steeler teams.
1:31
SPEAKER_03: This is a little bit before my time.
1:33
SPEAKER_03: I really didn't start watching the Steelers to the Calors, so I had to do some research on this one, but it was interesting to delve in and find out a lot of facts about the team and how it was run and the decline from the 70s into the 80s.
1:44
SPEAKER_03: I think it uh is in enlightening.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: It is.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: It is.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll kind of talk about that near the end, sort of the the reasons why things went south.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: But but if we're gonna start, if we're gonna talk about the 1980s, let's start right at the beginning of the decade.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Specifically January of 1980.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's when the Steelers wrap up the 1979 season by defeating the Rams in Super Bowl 14.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: It's their fourth title in six years.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: It cements their legacy as arguably the greatest team of all time.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So now we're headed into the 1980s.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: People are talking about one for the thumb.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And um in 1980 and in 1981, the Steelers are mediocre.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: They post two 500 or better seasons, but they missed the playoffs both of those seasons.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh things are starting to decline a little bit.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: A few guys are retiring, uh, but there's still a lot of key players there from the 70s.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: And in 1982 and 83 and 84, those three seasons, the Steelers make the playoffs all three years.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: They win the division two of those years.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then in 1984 specifically, they have a pretty good season.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Um they're they're the only team that beat San Francisco that season.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: San Francisco went uh 18-1 and won the Super Bowl, but their only loss came at home against the Steelers.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: And then the Steelers made the playoffs and pulled a massive upset in Denver against the 13-3 Broncos.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers were 9-7, and the Broncos were 13-3.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it was a it was a really great game.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: It was one of those great Steeler games that not a lot of people remember because of the era.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: But it was it was tied in the final minutes of the game, and the Broncos had the ball, and you thought John Elby was going to lead one of these famous last second drives.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: And Eric Williams, who is a defensive back, who again no one would ever remember for the Steelers, it intercepts Elway, uh, runs it back to the two-yard line, sets up the game-winning touchdown.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers uh go to play in Miami for the AFC Championship, where they they lose pretty heavily to the Dolphins.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and a Dolphins quarterback that we'll talk about later.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Harvey the toast Clayton, yes, was the cornerback.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: I forgot about that.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: That was Harvey Clayton did not.
4:03
SPEAKER_03: He couldn't handle the the uh other the Marx brothers, I guess, Duper and Duper and Clayton.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Duper and the other Mark Clayton, there were two two Claytons in that game.
4:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:12
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
4:13
SPEAKER_03: That was Dan Marino in his prime for sure.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: It was.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: It was.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: So so disappointing, right?
4:18
SPEAKER_00: They lost in the championship game.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they they, you know, here here we are, it's it's it's halfway into the decade almost.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers are still competitive, and and they were one game away from the Super Bowl.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: And and so so now, sort of heading into the second half of the decade, uh at this point, a lot of the guys from the 70s had retired.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers had 10 Hall of Fame players in the 70s, five on offense, five on defense.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Seven of those guys were retired.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Joe Green.
4:48
SPEAKER_03: Is it 11 now?
4:49
SPEAKER_00: No, it's 10 with Donnie Schell.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it is with Donnie Shaw.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: So so Green, Lambert, Blunt, Bradshaw, Harris, and Swan had all retired.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Stalworth, Webster, and Donnie Schell were still there.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, of course, they were up there in years at that point.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, Chuck Noel was still the head coach.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And um so you had some of those guys falling away, but they had stuck in some younger guys that they thought maybe were gonna fill some of those holes.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Um they had a running back named Frank Pollard, who a lot of people thought was was going to be uh the next Franco Harris.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: He was kind of a powerback, and he was very instrumental in that 1984 championship run.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: They had a young receiver named Lewis Lips who was really, really talented as both a receiver and a kick returner.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: He's a guy that I just always wondered if he would have played ten years later, twenty years later, or even ten years earlier, he might have been in the Steeler record books.
5:41
SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell, would you say he was the best player of the 80s for the Steelers?
5:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean, outside of Rod Woodson, I mean.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: I I'd say he was the most talented.
5:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean I mean wonder if Rod Woodson came in up for couple of times.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Rod Woodson came in a couple years later and and um was pretty good too.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: I I the the hard thing for Lips was that he played on an offense that was just so bad, and we'll sort of talk about that later.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: So I think when you're a receiver, uh, you know, at the time we're recording this, um we're in between the the 2019 and 2020 seasons, and and the 2019 was a year where we had Duck Hodges and and Mason Rudolph, and you kind of saw the receivers can only do so much when you don't have good quarterbacks thrown to them, and I think Lips was probably a victim of that.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh so so you had some some good players on offense.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: He had a decent offensive line, Tunt Jokin was a Pro Bowl tackle, Gary Anderson was the kicker.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, you could argue that he was the league's best kicker at the time and maybe one of the best all time.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Um and then on defense, you know, you didn't quite have the steel curtain anymore, but but the Steelers had tried to adjust.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: They in 1982 they switched to a 3-4 defense.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: They were one of the first teams to do that because they had a lot of good linebackers.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And their linebacking corps consisted of three guys who made the Pro Bowl Mike Merriweather, Robin Cole, and David Little.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And then the other guy was Brian Hinkle, who was a very solid player, ended up starting 116 games over the course of his career for the Steelers.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: So guys had retired, but you know, they they were sort of plugging some holes and you sort of had some false hope.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Um the quarterback at this time was a guy named Mark Malone.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And Mark Malone was a first-round pick in 1980.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the few times the Steelers used their first round pick on a quarterback.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I believe Bradshaw and Rothesberger are the only other times in the last 50 years where they used their first round pick on a quarterback.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And he was an athletic quarterback.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: They actually used him as a receiver.
7:39
SPEAKER_03: He had yeah, one of the longest, longest uh receiving touchdowns for the long time.
7:44
SPEAKER_03: He was the answer to the trivia question was he had the what was the longest receiving touchdown in Steeler history.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: I think and did Bradcott throw him that pass.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: And then I think the one that got broke Juju Smith Schuster broke that like a year or two ago.
7:58
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_03: And they had Woodley, too.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: Didn't they have Woodley early?
8:03
SPEAKER_03: They had David Woodley.
8:04
SPEAKER_03: Because I remember Oaken and uh who's his buddy, Craig uh Wolfley.
8:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're on when they had their radio show, we're talking about the uh that the one year they lost to Miami and they were like that was the consolation prize where they got David Woodley from Miami.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: They had some other quarterbacks in there.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: I think Cliff Stalin started a started a theory.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: Well he'll come into play with the Merino talks later.
8:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: But but but when the Dolphins drafted Marino, um the year the year before that, they had made the Super Bowl with David Woodley.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so that was another guy that you thought, oh, well, he was a Super Bowl quarterback, and and he didn't pan out either.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: But but Mark Malone, no one was ever really able to wrestle that job from him until later in the decade.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh and he wasn't he wasn't very good, and we'll sort of talk about that later.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: So so so now we're heading into that 85 season, and this is where things really start to go south and stay south for the better part of eight seasons.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so so let's just run through these seasons.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: 1985, they finished seven and nine, they don't make the playoffs.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: 1986, 6-10, don't make the playoffs.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: 1987, they actually finished eight and seven.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh the reason it was eight and seven is because that that was the year that there was a strike.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: They had to cancel a game, and then they played three games with so-called scab players because the players were holding out, so the owner said, we'll just bring in other guys to play.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers had a pretty good scab team.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Steve Bono, who later became the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, was the Steelers scab quarterback, and he won two of those three scab games.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: So eight and seven, but but maybe not probably wouldn't have been eight and seven without uh without that strike, and they still didn't make the playoffs.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: So it it it it looked better record-wise, but they still didn't make the playoffs.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1988 is where things really bottom out.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Steve, you talked about answers to trivia questions.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: That'll be an answer to a trivia question because it'll be one of those last time since questions.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: They finished five and eleven that year and they have not finished worse or even equal to that since then.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: So anytime the Stewart's are having a bad season, they'll say this is the worst record since 1988.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and the thing that really stunk about that season was that they actually started the season two and ten.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then they they got hot and won a few games at the end of the season to finish five and eleven, which was horrible timing because it it ruined their draft position.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: It pushed them down to the seventh overall pick the next year.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And in the 1989 draft, four out of the top five picks were future Hall of Fame.
10:40
SPEAKER_03: Was that the Jimmy Johnson draft where he traded Herschel Walker for uh let's see, uh Troy Aikman, uh Irvin, Emmanuel?
10:52
SPEAKER_00: So that 89 draft, it was Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, and Derek Thomas were four of the first five picks.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers were securely in that top five until they decided, oh, let's win a bunch of games at the end of the season that don't mean anything.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: So it was just sort of icing on the cake.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: They were bad, and then they won they won games to to go.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: To finish in the middle of the pack.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh 89, uh 89 was a fluke miracle year.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll we'll hold that one for later.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh that was the one year that they did make the playoffs during this span.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And then in 1990 and 91, they missed the playoffs most of those years.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And after the 91 season, Chuck Knowell finally calls it quits.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh and here's a fun trivia question.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Chuck Noel's last NFL victory came against which NFL head coach?
11:40
SPEAKER_03: Well, I only know because I know see the notes, it's Bill Belichick.
11:43
SPEAKER_03: Who was he coaching for Cleveland?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: It was when Belichick was coaching Cleveland.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So Chuck Knowle and Bill Belichick are actually linked.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: His last victory came against Bill Belichick.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a fun fact.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: So so some some specific kind of lowlights during that era.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I I tried to sort of pick out a list, and this is certainly not a comprehensive list, but I just tried to pick out some of the more uh, shall I say, miserable uh statistics and moments.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a game in 1985 where the Steelers were playing at San Diego and their their once vaunted defense allowed eight touchdowns and a game at San Diego.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Eight touchdowns.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: In 1986, uh they lost to the Browns at Three River Stadium.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: And why that was significant is because up until that point, Three River Stadium opened in 1970, and up until that point, 1986, the Browns had never won at Three River Stadium, and it was such a source of pride.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: And and even the 1985 season where we were pretty bad, uh, we beat them uh in a very close game on a last second Gary Anderson field goal at Three Rivers to keep that streak alive.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And I remember as a kid that was such a big deal because I I hated Cleveland and and I just I loved that we had that streak going, and it really hurt when we finally lost to them at Three Rivers in 1986, and then kind of kept losing to them the the next couple years after that.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Um there was also a game in 1986 where we lost to Kansas City, and in in that game um the Chiefs scored all 24 of their points on special teams.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So not only did we have a bad offense and a bad defense, but we had a bad special teams.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
13:21
SPEAKER_03: That's pretty impressive.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Very impressive.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: Like the block punts and kick return.
13:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean kick returns.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: I I believe I believe one was a block punt, I believe one was a kick return.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: I think one might have been a um a block field goal.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, pretty um pretty amazing to lose when your defense gives up zero points and you lose by 24 to whatever.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1987, uh like we said, that was a strike season.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Mark Malone that year completed a paltry 46% of his passes.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that was that was it for his Steelers career.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: He was replaced the the next season by one Walter Andrew Brister III, better known to Steelers fans as Bubby the Bubster.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And the Bubster.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And the Bubster did not fare a whole lot better than Mark Malone.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: Well, in Bubby's defense, he did end up winning a couple Super Bowls as a backup.
14:13
SPEAKER_03: And he was like a competent NFL backup.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: He was a competent NFL backup, not so good as the Steelers starter.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1988, we talked about that that terrible year.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers punter that year was a guy named Harry Newsom.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And he set an NFL record that still stands today, and I don't think will ever be broken, with six block blocked punts.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: Is is that three-step.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
14:39
SPEAKER_03: There's probably a reason for that.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: So there's there's debate.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: So some people said Harry took too long to punt the ball.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Um other people said it was it was uh an outcome of Noel not caring about special teams.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Supposedly Noel didn't even practice, have the special teams practice until Saturday before the game.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Um regardless, six block punts.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: It's rare that you see one block punt in a season today, but six block punts, uh I don't think that record will ever be broken, especially now with today's special teams are so specialized.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, back then you still had the starters playing on special teams, so I don't think you'll ever see that broken.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: So kudos to Harry Newsom, he'll he'll live forever for that dubious record.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh 1989, the Steelers opened the season with a 51 to nothing loss at home against Cleveland.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: It's still the worst loss in terms of point differential in franchise history.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Even going back to the the 40s and 50s.
15:36
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
15:37
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
15:37
SPEAKER_03: That's impressive.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: They've never been blown out as badly as they were blown out that day.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Steve, I was there.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: Was it Bernie?
15:43
SPEAKER_03: Was it Bernie?
15:43
SPEAKER_03: Is it Bernie Kosar?
15:44
SPEAKER_00: It was Bernie Kosar against Bubby Brister.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And and I was I was at that game, and it's it's just as painful as it sounds.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, and and the Steel Wars weren't had not been very good the season before.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: So you're not.
15:58
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't shocking.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: But but it's opening day.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I think I think when you're going to opening day, you there's always hope, right?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Even if your team stinks, it's like, well, it's the first game of the season.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Let's see what they look like.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're playing at home and we're playing Cleveland, who we all hate, and they just came in and destroyed us.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think my dad and I left in the third quarter because it was already 45-0 or whatever at that point.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: So that was that was pretty ugly.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Um 1990, they fired their offensive coordinator.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Their offensive coordinator in the 80s was Tom Moore.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And if you recognize that name, it's because he went on to become the offensive coordinator in the 2000s with the Indianapolis Colts under Tony Dungey, who was the Steelers' defensive coordinator in the 80s, and uh went on to lead some of those great Peyton Manning Colts offenses of the 2000s.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: But in 1990, the Steelers said, we don't need this loser, and they hired uh Joe Walton, who had been the coach of the Jets uh as their offensive coordinator, and the offense went from and and in in their defense, I mean, th they had a bad offense.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like Tom Moore was doing Peyton Manning-esque things with the 80s offense, but when they hired Joe Walton, it went from like terrible to historically bad.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Um in 1990, the Steelers did not score an offensive touchdown until October 7th.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: I believe that was week five.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And I remember that was like when all the jokes about like how do you keep the Steelers out of your house?
17:22
SPEAKER_03: I remember that joke, yes.
17:23
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
17:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that's where it originated, but I remember whoever was the quarterback would be like, oh, how do you he couldn't go home last night?
17:30
SPEAKER_03: Why?
17:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, because somebody painted the end zone in front of his house.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: It's like yeah.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't we?
17:35
SPEAKER_03: Although Joe Walton did have success at Robert Morris when they when they started their football program.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: He had success with the Jets, too.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean when they hired him, it it was like, oh, this guy, you know, he he was a good, he was supposed to be a good offensive mind.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, he went to Robert Morris and built because they didn't even have a football book.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: No, he built them from scratch and they won, I think they won playoff games under him.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: So Joe Walton's legacy is certainly not defined by that one season.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: However, it was pretty bad.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Um also that year, the Steelers played a game in San Francisco.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh Barry Foster was returning kicks at that point.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: He makes the all-time blooper real.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: I remember seeing this in the highlights.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: By watching a kickoff the steel over his head and might be a free kick there, Barry.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: Barry wasn't the exactly a student of the game.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: He treated it like a punt.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: He just let it bounce, and he's standing there, and the 49ers ran and picked it up and ran into the end zone.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And they they showed that for years and will probably still show it for years as one of the all-time bloopers.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Um But that that year was interesting, 1990, because the Steelers actually put together a decent uh record, and they actually had a chance to win the division in the final week of the season.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: They were playing at Houston, and if they won, they won the division, and if they lost, they missed out on the playoffs yet again.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh so playing at Houston at that point, Houston was really good.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: We'll sort of talk about them later.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Um Jerry Glanville?
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh it wasn't Glanville, it was Jack Pardy at that point.
19:01
SPEAKER_03: Oh, it was oh, the old Washington Redskin guy.
19:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay, okay.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Um but they had that really dynamic offense.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So so it was gonna be a hard game.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Playing at the Astrodome was not easy.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Not easy.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: However, the Steelers got very lucky because the week before, Warren Moon, the Hall of Fame quarterback for the Oilers, had gotten injured and he could not start this game.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: So now the Steelers get to play this very critical end of the season game against the Oilers backup quarterback, a guy named Cody Carlson, nicknamed the commander, Commander Cody Carlson.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: And the Steelers promptly get routed in Houston by Commander Cody and miss out on the playoffs.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And so that one was painful because just losing to the Oilers in general always stunk, but losing to their backup quarterback to knock us out of the playoffs hurt even more.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And then 1991 is another miserable season.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And the the one thing I remember most about that season was Thanksgiving Day.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: So when I was a kid, I I don't know about you, Steve, but like Thanksgiving Day was like my favorite holiday.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Loved Thanksgiving Day.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: And that year, 1991, Pitt was gonna play Penn State.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: I believe that game was like at noon.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: And then the four o'clock NFL game was Steelers at Cowboys.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So you had like these two great driver.
20:15
SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and that was the first time I think in my lifetime that the Steelers played on Thanksgiving Day.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Pitt's playing Penn State earlier in the day.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm just so excited about this is just gonna be a whole day long of football and turkey and fun.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And then Pitt lost to Penn State and the Steelers lost to Dallas, and I don't think either game was close.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
20:35
SPEAKER_03: Pitt was garbage back then.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep, and so and so was so were the Steelers.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: And so um and then after that again, Noel retired, uh, and that was sort of the end of that era of of misery.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, that's not a comprehensive list, but that's just some of the lowlights of uh of that of that time span.
20:56
SPEAKER_03: Well, let's uh switch gears, maybe the highlights that would be uh encouraging.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: Let's finish on a high note here.
21:02
SPEAKER_03: What what what good happened in all that uh sorrow and not very good football?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so like I said, it was it was a it was an era that I still kind of kind of remember fondly at times.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: And certainly the the big highlight was the aforementioned 89 season.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: So so we talked about how that game that season started with the 51-0 loss to Cleveland at home.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: The second week they went out to Cincinnati and lost 42 to 10.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: So the first two weeks they lost 92 to 10.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh and you just thought this is gonna be we're I just thought I remember thinking we're going 0-16.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, how can we win a game this year when we got 92 points hung up on us in the first two weeks?
21:41
SPEAKER_00: But somehow, some way they turn things around and they scrape nine wins together.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Um the offense is still putrid.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: It's Merrill Hodge to the left.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: It's Merrill Hodge to the left, maybe Merrill Hodge to the right.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And and they finished ranked dead last in the NFL.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: So they have the worst ranked.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: offense in the league, but they still scraped together nine wins.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: They actually, the offense that year got shut out three different times.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: If you can just imagine that how bad they were, three different times they got shut out.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Houston, Chicago, and I and that first game against Cleveland were all shut out.
22:16
SPEAKER_03: Who was on defense for that team?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: So this that was, I think, the saving grace.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned Rod Woodson.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: He was a key player in that defense.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: You had some other guys that were younger that were gonna beat.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Was Greg Lloyd?
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Greg Lloyd was on that team.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Carnell Lake was a rookie that year.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: You still had like David Little, Brian Hinkle.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: So you had some seeds in there of future success.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: You did.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: You did.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's what kept things close.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: They they head into the final day of the season, which is on Christmas Eve, and they're playing at Tampa Bay, and they have to win, and then they have to have like eight different things happen.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Like they have to you you know how those last game of the seasons they always do like the playoff scenario.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: And so it was like, okay, the Steelers have to win, but then the Colts have to beat the Raiders, and the this has to do, you know, whatever the other teams were.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And amazingly, they all happen.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And I and that was so exciting.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: That was uh that was on Christmas Eve, and I just remember like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get to see the Steelers in a playoff game.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is so exciting.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh and the playoff game, so the Steelers were a wild card, and they're going they had to go to Houston to play at the Astrodome.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: We just talked about how hard it was to win at the Astrodome.
23:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, that was a big rivalry, too.
23:29
SPEAKER_03: I mean, and like there were fights and everything, and uh that was the um didn't Noel was that that year or the year before?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: It was eighty-seven.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Noel went up to Glanville after the game and like yelled at him.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Like because I guess Houston was taking so many cheap shots.
23:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, and you figure this is the guy that lived through like the Cleveland games where like Turkey Jones was dropping people on his head on their head and he you know, he must have been really mad.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:51
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what Houston was doing, but Chuck Knoll didn't like it.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean Houston Houston was a very, very dirty team under Glanville.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: Was Dolman on those Houston teams?
24:02
SPEAKER_03: Or that might have been later, Chris Dolman from Pitt.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he was I think he was later.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I they just they played dirty.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: That's what I remember about those teams.
24:10
SPEAKER_03: Great Jerry Glanville story.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: I was uh watching uh interview with uh Eric Dickerson, the great running back, and I guess he played with Glanville and Atlanta.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: And he he he said they were talking about coaches and he was talking about the guy at USC played for who's like I forget the guy's name, but he was a great coach.
24:25
SPEAKER_03: He's like, Oh, this guy's a great coach, and he's like, But I played for other people, and I was just like wondering how they got the job or why they got the job, or you know, and and like they were like, Well, who was it?
24:34
SPEAKER_03: And he wouldn't say at first, and he was like under his breath, Glenville.
24:38
SPEAKER_03: So Jerry Glenville is not well respected.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's why he hasn't had a head coaching job since the late 80s.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was he was unpopular with everybody, um, and he was definitely unpopular with Steeler fans.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: So that was a that was a game that, you know, again, the Steelers really wanted Steeler fans really wanted to win going to Houston.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And they had beaten us at three rivers late in the season.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I I I don't remember when in the season it was, but there was snow on the ground because there was a key play where the receiver looked like he stepped out of bounds, but you couldn't see the difference between the sidelines and the field because of snow.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that was a key play that ended up helping them win the game.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that was the reason that game ended up being at Houston instead of at Pittsburgh.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And so the Steelers go down to Houston and keep it close.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: The game goes into overtime, and in overtime, Rod Woodson uh hits Lorenzo White, their running back.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: He fumbles, Woodson picks up the fumble, so he makes him fumble and recovers the fumble at like the Houston 40.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: The offense comes on the field, does nothing.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: So now Gary Anderson trots out, he has to kick a 51-yard field goal, and he nails it right down the middle.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers pull off this massive upset.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: They the camera cuts to Bubby's mom in the in the crowd, he's jumping up and down.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh and then I think it was the next day or or maybe a couple days later, uh Houston fired Glanville, which just made it all that much better.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we got Gary Glanville fired, and it was it was just a great, great moment, and and maybe the greatest moment of that era.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Um it was New Year's Eve, uh, 1989, that game.
26:18
SPEAKER_03: But Bubby was always great for a quote too.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: Like I remember like they were interviewing once in a locker room, like they did like he'd always do like Channel 4, one of them would do like, you know, what the Steelers want for Christmas, and it'd be like, Oh, I won a Super Bowl, world peace, you know, you know, whatever, dogs to live forever.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: Bubby wanted the Swedish bikini team to come visit.
26:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that sounds that was a that was the bubster for you there.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: Sounds very Bubby.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and when and and this season when they were actually winning, that was like entertaining and fun.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And everybody, oh, that's just Bubby being Bubby.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I think.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: I think when he started to stink, it was like, uh so yeah, they beat Houston and then they go to the they go to Denver for the divisional playoffs, and they almost pull another upset.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: They were actually up 10-0 in that game.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh Denver comes back, Elway um leads a last-minute drive to take the lead, but they they were up 24-23.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: They were only up by one point, and the Steelers still had a chance, and so everybody's thinking, okay, if we can just get in field goal range, Gary Anderson nailed a 51-yarder last week.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: This is Mile High Stadium.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: He could probably kick one from 60, and uh it just didn't materialize.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Denver had the number one defense in the league that year.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: They were very clutch, they stepped up and and they made Brister fumble, and that was the end of the game.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: There was one play on that drive, though, um, where Brister uh threw a pass.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: It was it was like a 15-yard pass to a receiver that, again, no one would ever remember, named Mark Stock.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And Mark Stock dropped it, and that would have not necessarily put him in field goal range, but it would have kept that drive going.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: But whatever, it wasn't meant to be.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Um had they won that game, they would have played at Cleveland for the AFC championship.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: That was the drive.
27:59
SPEAKER_03: Was that the drive year or the fumble year?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: No, that was the drive was 86, fumble was 87.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they just beat Cleveland straight up.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: 89 was just we lost to the championship game without a tragedy happening.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for Cleveland fans, that was their best.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Denver got blown out in the Super Bowl as usual.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: As usual, right.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: It was a very easy.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: Is that the 55 to 10?
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: It was.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 55 to 10.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: It was it was that was a very familiar script back then.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Denver beats Cleveland, Denver loses whoever the NFC team is in the Super Bowl.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Steelers almost almost interrupted that script, but again, it wasn't meant to be.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: So that was definitely the highlight of that era.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing that a lot of people forget about that era was that the AFC Central was a very colorful division at that point.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: So there were four teams.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: It was Cleveland, Houston, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And and the four coaches were were so for the Browns it was Marty Schottenheimer, who was a very big personality and and of course isn't is sort of best remembered for having a lot of great teams and always choking in big games.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh Sam Weich was a coach of the Bengals.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: That was another guy.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Um just crazy.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they called him wicky wacky.
29:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, recently.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: He did, he just passed away, yeah.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: Um he he he was kind of like the precursor to Belichick where he'd find ways to bend the rolls.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh the the NFL would have to make new roles because of stuff he did.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: One of the things he used to do was he used to bring eleven or he used to bring 12 guys into the huddle, into the offensive huddle.
29:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And then when they broke huddle, he'd run one guy off the field.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So, like, for example, he'd he'd bring three receivers into the huddle on a running play and then run one of the receivers off the field, and so the defense would line up thinking it's a pass because there were three receivers.
29:41
SPEAKER_03: But it would be around.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And so the NFL made a role where you're not allowed to do that anymore.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Um he one of my favorite Sam Weiss clips is uh there was a game at Riverfront Stadium where his fans were throwing snowballs at the I think it was the Seattle Seahawks.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: And this was literally in the middle of the game.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Like not before, not at halftime.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: This he in the middle of the game, he picks up a microphone.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where he got a live.
30:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, somebody gave him a microphone.
30:06
SPEAKER_03: That's the best part.
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And he just gets on the microphone, he screams at his fans at Riverfront Stadium, and he says, You're not in Cleveland, you're in Cincinnati.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: Like ac act like grown-ups.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was uh that was Sam Weich.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: That that was on the internet too.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: Like that made the round.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: You're act you're we're not in Cleveland.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: I like I like Sam Weich.
30:26
SPEAKER_03: I I know he's uh he's he's one of our but he was always a fun guy to listen to and uh stuff.
30:31
SPEAKER_03: I he was very like you said, he I think he was a um player for um Paul Brown.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think he actually played with Paul Brown.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:40
SPEAKER_03: Which gosh, we're getting old.
30:41
SPEAKER_03: Paul Brown, and then uh he was a coordinator under um uh the Bill Walsh.
30:46
SPEAKER_03: Bill Walsh, yeah, in San Francisco.
30:47
SPEAKER_03: So he kinda had that uh you know, and he came anderson, so they kinda had that uh you know dink and dunk West Coast offense.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very successful.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: They they were within 30 seconds.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: He almost won Cincinnati a Super Bowl.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: Well it had some defensive coordinator that you know maybe should have blitzed a little more or something.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Was that Dick LeBeau?
31:05
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it was.
31:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
31:06
SPEAKER_03: Well their problem was Tim Crumwright got hurt.
31:08
SPEAKER_03: Or if you watch that game, that Super Bowl.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like and he was their best defensive player.
31:14
SPEAKER_03: Once Tim Crumwrig got hurt, that kind of like limited their ability to blitz.
31:18
SPEAKER_03: But this isn't the Cincinnati Bengals podcast.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can we can talk about the 80s Bengals on another podcast.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And then of course, Houston, the coach was Gary Glanville, who who we just talked about, you know, and just a a dirty team.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: We talked about how Knoll threatened him at midfield.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh so it wasn't just Chuck Noel that hated Glanville.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: The whole division hated Glanville.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Sam Weich, uh there was an infamous mo game where Cincinnati was beating the the Oilers 45 to nothing, and Sam Well Sam Weich attempted an onside kick.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
31:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the spite, the spike kick, yeah.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean just uh I mean onside kicking when you're up 45-0, just to stick it to Glanville harder.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: This this is all stuff where I feel like the age that we're in now, like the social media.
32:05
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god, can you imagine people would like be fainting, you know, like the clutching of pearls that would go, you know what I mean?
32:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh my, my stars, you know, like who cares?
32:16
SPEAKER_03: Get over it.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And and so you had these you had these big personalities, and then you had Noel, who was the old school, kind of even-keyed uh guy who who, you know, against these big personalities.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: I just I always thought that would make a good like 30 for 30, like the 1980s AFC Central Division.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: It would be it would be interesting.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: You wouldn't, yeah.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: There, like you said, there are a lot of characters in that division.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: There was there was.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that was that was sort of a fond memory.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: There there were a lot of players too.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: We already talked about some of the good players uh that that were that were played during that time, uh, that were never really soup big huge stars or big huge steeler heroes because they played in that that era.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Um but but there were some good players, and we had we had wide receivers with fun names like Ouija Thompson and Lou Lips.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not booing, folks.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: They're lewing, as the announcers always reminded us.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then we also kind of referenced how you know there were some young players that were picked during that time that they really did set a base for when Cower took over in '92.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh you had Rod Woodson was the first-round pick in 87, uh, Greg Lloyd, Carnell Lake, uh, Dermani Dawson was a future Hall of Famer who was the second-round pick.
33:30
SPEAKER_03: So there's two Hall of Famers on that list.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: There's two Hall of Famers, yeah, drafted in the late 80s.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: So again, not an era where you thought we'd be drafting Hall of Famers if you look back on it, but we did.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh and then there were even a bunch of role players that that became important to those coward teams.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Eric Green, uh Barry Foster, uh, even Neil O'Donnell, who, you know, certainly has a mixed legacy in Pittsburgh, but had some success as well.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Um so, so yeah, so you like you said, Steve, good to good to remember that there were some good times along with the bad times.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Um for me personally, uh, you know, like I said, I that was my childhood.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Um I I started going to games in 1987.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Um my dad had season tickets, had had season tickets since the stadium opened.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And uh I always enjoyed that experience.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Didn't really get to see them win a lot.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Um but one thing I resented was how we were just still living in the 70s, even into the late 80s, and honestly, even into the 2000s, I thought, um, until we finally won that that fifth Super Bowl.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And and one of the things I I you know I remember really clearly was when when the Steelers scored a touchdown at Three River Stadium in that era, they would play the Steelers polka song.
34:43
SPEAKER_03: I remember that.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: So so Merrill Hodge would run into the end zone and they'd be like, Franco, Franco.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: So they never changed the names?
34:49
SPEAKER_00: No.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: It's like those guys have been retired for seven years.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: What are you what are you playing that song for?
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: But it was just everything was about the 70s.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: And I for me, I'm like, oh, I w I don't remember the 70s.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: I was two years old.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: And and so I just always kind of resented that.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: I remember it I remember Mad Magazine actually making fun of that back when gosh, they're like, look how old I am.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: Like I there used to be Mad Magazine, and like they were they would like do movie spoofs and they were spoofing Groundhog Day.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: And they had like Steeler fans talking about it, and like and they made that joke.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, they ever talk about the seventies because they've won since then.
35:20
SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh how many times you hear that?
35:22
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, just to go, you know, they just definitely the fans uh were definitely stuck in the 70s.
35:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that was the I mean I don't blame them.
35:29
SPEAKER_03: You know, you waited thirty years for the Steelers to ever do anything, and here they become one of the greatest teams of all time.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Well hey, hang on to it forever, I guess.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean it's gonna be like that with the Patriots fans, and why not?
35:41
SPEAKER_03: You know?
35:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna take that away from somebody.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: True, true.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And and and I think the other thing that that maybe um we we didn't consider is that wasn't a great time for Pittsburgh in general.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: Well the mills all closed in the early eighties.
35:56
SPEAKER_03: Because I remember my neighbor worked in the mill like when I was a little kid, because his he had dogs and the one dog would howl all day was at the mill, and then like in the mid eighties he didn't work in a mill no more, like all like the homestead mill closed.
36:08
SPEAKER_03: And I mean it I was I was young, but I remember that happening.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: And I remember my dad lost his job a couple times.
36:13
SPEAKER_03: He worked in a hospital.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: I mean, they were closing hospitals.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: So I mean it was pretty Pittsburgh was pretty rough, especially in the early 80s, and really didn't come out of it until the nineties.
36:23
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like economically.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: So so and and now you didn't have the Steelers, the great Steelers to sort of be that be that source of pride.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And really all the sports teams back then were bad.
36:34
SPEAKER_03: Well there really wasn't, yeah, in the eight in the eighties there really wasn't much of anybody that was any good.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: Right.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: I mean even yeah, even Pitt stink stunk.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: College teams, pro teams, uh everybody was bad.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: And so I guess you really can't fault people for hanging on to the 70s at that point.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Um You know, uh the I remember watching games on TV, and of course, again, the opening of the game, the Steel Curtain legacy lives on, you know, they they just always reference the 70s.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: And and those were the those were the years where uh because we were one of the bad teams, we always got like the C-list announcers.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And those were always the color analysts were always the guys that played for for the played against the Steelers in the 70s.
37:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: I remember Collinsworth was a lot.
37:19
SPEAKER_03: Well, that wouldn't that would have been too early for him.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: He would have still been playing, but like like Bob Trumpy played for the Bengals and and uh you know, guys like that.
37:27
SPEAKER_03: And and I remember I I just remember Fouts like when he first started.
37:32
SPEAKER_03: Like if I like was like that.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: And he doesn't seem as bad now.
37:36
SPEAKER_03: Maybe I've gotten older, I don't notice it as much, but it seems like Fouts maybe has mellowed on that a little bit.
37:41
SPEAKER_03: Because Fouts was always pretty bad, like it seemed like he was pretty anti-Steeler.
37:44
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's what everybody believed was these guys played against the Steelers and so they hate the Steelers.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And maybe they did.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but also if they were saying negative things about the Steelers.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: It's because they were bad, yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: It's also because they were bad.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And so I know in my house it it would only be a matter of time before the TV volume got switched off and Myron got turned on on the radio.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: My brother and I used to always hate that because it didn't quite sync up.
38:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my parents were big on that too.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: That was more in the 90s when years, you know.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Because and you can't do that today because now it's not even not even close.
38:20
SPEAKER_03: You'd think somebody would make an app.
38:21
SPEAKER_03: There's a million-dollar idea.
38:23
SPEAKER_03: There is an app to sync up your audio with your video.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: But I but I hated that because Jack Fleming and Myron Cope were the radio announcers.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: Jack Fleming.
38:31
SPEAKER_03: Jack Fleming was now I only like I said, I didn't listen to Jack back then, but I remember there was a game, they lost to Kansas City with Joe Montana and uh Marcus Allen, and they kicked like a late field goal to win it.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: And I was in the car listening to the radio because my mom and my sister wanted to go shopping, and then you know, I was like, you know, I was along for the ride because you know I wasn't staying home.
38:56
SPEAKER_03: So so like I just remember listening to Jack Fleming, and like he was always like, he's like where Bill Hillgrove is now.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: Like every play is like five minutes late, you know?
39:08
SPEAKER_03: Like, because I just remember that field goal, like he's like, okay, they're setting up, I think it was Morton Anderson or I I think it I can't remember who the kicker was, but he's like, he's setting up for a 50-yard field goal, and then there's that pause, and it's in Kansas City here.
39:23
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, well, I guess I know what happened, and then like Jack Fubbing like 30 seconds later.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: And it's good.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: It's a next one and so yeah, that that was a it was a it was we always got the bad announcers.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: And and the and the guy that the guy that I remember also during that era, who we got a lot, was Joe Namath.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And and Joe Namith.
39:47
SPEAKER_03: Namath the games?
39:48
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that wow.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: He he was yeah, he was an announcer back then and not a very good announcer.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: He the thing I remember, whenever Joe Namath used to call Steeler Games, he would say, uh, number 87 with the touchdown, 72 through a nice block.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: And it's like you don't you don't know their names, do you?
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Joe.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: No idea I guarantee you I don't know their names.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: And and again, one of those things that have been.
40:14
SPEAKER_03: But you can't say he's a steeler hater because he's from Western Pennsylvania.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: No, he he wasn't anybody here.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: He didn't really know who he was talking about or where he was, probably half the time.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: But but he, you know uh He certainly likes Susie Culver.
40:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Years later it came out he had a pretty, pretty heavy drinking problem.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Um however, you know, that was one of those things, again, that if that happened today, it'd be you'd have that screen captured or whatever and put on Twitter.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: But back then nobody was even watching these games outside of Pittsburgh.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: So just miserable to watch games, miserable to go to games.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: And and for me, the the real low point, uh, there was a Monday night football game in 1991.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: We were playing the Giants.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: The Giants were at that point the the defending Super Bowl champions, and it's Monday night football, so you were really excited because we never played on Monday Night Football, and it's at the River Stadium, and and the Giants go up 20 to nothing before halftime.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: So right away it's a it's a blowout.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: And in 1991, we talked about teams being all bad through the 80s.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, in 1991, the Pirates were good, yeah.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: The Penguins had won the Stanley Cup, and the Pirates, earlier that day, had won game five of the NLCS at Atlanta to go up 3-2 in that series.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh that was a that was a great game.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: That was, if you remember, there's uh the game where David Justice missed third base and they took away a run from Atlanta, and that was the difference in the game.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And so everybody's on this high because the Pirates had just beaten Atlanta.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: The Penguins were the defending the St.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Lee Cup champions.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: Going to watch the Steelers and the Giants just go up 20 to nothing.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the whole stadium very sarcastically started chanting, Let's go Bucks.
41:50
SPEAKER_03: And that's that's yeah, that's unprecedented.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: It's unprecedented.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was the only time in my life I can remember the Steelers truly being the number three team in town.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And that never happened before that, and I don't think it ever happened since then.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: But that was the only time I can remember the Steelers really being the number three team in town.
42:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's definitely a low point for that organization.
42:12
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's considering all the Super Bowls and normally consistently good success.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: It was definitely a low point.
42:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Um so let's get into okay, we we know they stunk.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: We talked about how they stunk and and and all the detail around that.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: But but why?
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Like what happened, right?
42:33
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
42:34
SPEAKER_00: Because you went from this amazing organization that had built this this great uh uh historically amazing team in the 70s to one of the worst you know, just one of the the consistently worst teams in the league.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: So So what happened between the 70s and the 80s to cause this downside?
42:53
SPEAKER_03: And and Steve, I know Yeah, I did I did some research on this and um a guy who gets some credit, I think locally, but I don't think he gets a lot nationally, and I'm sure people that are casual fans probably don't know his name.
43:04
SPEAKER_03: He's a gentleman named Bill Nunn.
43:06
SPEAKER_03: And he was he worked at a uh the Pittsburgh Courier, he was actually a reporter, but he had many connections in the um there were traditionally historic black colleges, African American players.
43:16
SPEAKER_03: And back in the 70s, late 60s, early 70s, the AFL was still merging, and the AFO would take more of those players, but the NFL never did, and major colleges never did either.
43:26
SPEAKER_03: So they weren't exposed or you didn't have the connections or the access that they have today.
43:33
SPEAKER_03: So back in the 70s, the Steelers hired Bill Nunn because Dan Rooney, you know, isn't dumb or a racist, you know.
43:41
SPEAKER_03: So he hires this guy and he goes out and he starts scouting all these small schools with these great players on it, and the Steelers basically get this great pipeline of like we said, Ernie Holmes, Glenn Edwards, Donnie Shell, Elsie Greenwood, Mel Blunt.
43:56
SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's the that's a great team there.
43:59
SPEAKER_03: And I think as the seventies went on, you know, not just there was a lot of social change too, whereas that, you know, the old like Bear Bryant retired in the 80s.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: I not to be rude, but Alabama did not have an African American player when Bear Bryant was coach, okay?
44:16
SPEAKER_03: They might have, but you know, let's face it, he wasn't going out recruiting, you know.
44:21
SPEAKER_03: And I think once he kind of left in I don't know Paterno wasn't like that, but you know, that some of that old guard left, the major colleges started to pick up on that.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: And that that probably hurt some of their pipeline and Bill Nunn lost some of the exclusive access that he had to those players in the previous years.
44:40
SPEAKER_03: And like I said, and also the bigger colleges started to recruit more of these players and that definitely I think it it's tough when an organization when you go from not having access to success and you look at oh here's the formula but now the rules have kind of changed and society's changed and it's tough to kind of switch to a different philosophy like Jerry Rice played a what?
45:02
SPEAKER_03: Mississippi Valley State and now the 49ers have them.
45:04
SPEAKER_03: Whereas if Jerry Rice would have win the 70, he'd have been a stealer.
45:08
SPEAKER_03: He'd have been a stealer.
45:09
SPEAKER_03: But now the other NFL teams have kind of caught on to that and now they're recruiting these small colleges and even those small historical colleges are losing those players to the bigger schools even.
45:20
SPEAKER_03: So there was kind of a lot going on there with the recruiting and the drafting and that's the main way the Steelers would build their build their team in the 70s and that's what they wanted to do again in the 80s was build it through the draft.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: And the draft had changed and how you find players in the draft had changed.
45:36
SPEAKER_03: Plus some there were some other mistakes they made too we can go through that too.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Well and and so the keyword so yeah so they lose the edge of having like the Joe Green went to what North Texas state or whatever.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah they lose that edge because now like you said everybody's caught up to them.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: They're not even the quarterback who didn't work out um uh Gillum Gillum was from a small yeah but he was really good too he just you know had some other office he was their starting quarterback the the first year that they won the Super Bowl he was the opening day starter.
46:06
SPEAKER_03: So yeah they had a lot of good and an alternative universe maybe somewhere he has four Super Bowls and Terry Bradshaw is singing country music somewhere.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know very true.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Very true.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: So yeah I mean like you said just emblematic of all the the great talent that they had come through.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: And and you you you said the key word there the draft.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: You know this is still the era where there is no free agency in football.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: They had plan B free agency but basically once once you know the only way you could really build a team was through the draft.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: And and I don't know if that's real different today.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean if you look at the the Steelers teams of the 2000s where they won the two Super Bowls a lot of those guys were homegrown but you're also able to fill holes with free agents you know and and certainly the Steelers have done that other teams have done that.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't it's not like baseball where you can sign a bunch of free agents and necessarily win, but you can certainly fill gaps.
46:54
SPEAKER_03: And and back in the 80s you had to you had to fill those gaps in the draft and the Steelers Yeah swing and a miss in the draft would cost you for more than just one season sometimes.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus Well and and so so let's talk about the swings and misses let's just run through I'm going to run through some of the first round picks.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Certainly the first round a draft does not make but even today the first round pick is you know is really the the most important one obviously and it's where you really most of the time can find your your big time contributors.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: So we already talked about Malone was the first round pick in 1980.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: 1981 Keith Gary was the first round pick 17th overall he was defensive end he he didn't even play for the Steelers uh for his first two years he went and played in Canada and then when he did play for the Steelers his his only sort of memorable quote unquote memorable moment was he literally ripped the face mask off of Kenny Anderson the quarterback for the Bengals in a really violent play that almost uh paralyzed Kenny Anderson.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: He lost feeling in his legs for a while.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: And so that's Keith Gary's contribution to pro football.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh eighty two, the twelfth overall pick.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: They draft Walter Abercrombury, a running back.
48:09
SPEAKER_00: Um He wasn't very good.
48:12
SPEAKER_03: I think he was the was he the one that was hurt or was that yeah he had some he had some bad luck.
48:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah he got hurt his senior year I think I yeah and they they said he was okay but he was never great.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: So another example of maybe some draft missing you know well a guy came in with an injury but you picked him 12th overall anyway.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: 1983 a lot of Steel R fans will remember 1983 specifically because that was the year of the quarterback and the Steelers had the 21st overall pick and Pitt slash Central Catholic quarterback Dan Marino was still on the board.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers went with Gabe Rivera.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about Marino a little bit later.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: Gabe Rivera was a defensive tackle and Knowle wanted to build the deep he wanted Joe Green again.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: He built a whole defense around Joe Green who was a defensive tackle and I think Knowle thought that Rivera was going to be that guy for the new era.
49:09
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know if he if he wouldn't have gone I mean what had he got in a car accident and never played a down of football he he he played for he well that was middle midway through the season.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: He actually played the first I don't know how many games six or seven games but he actually was pretty good for so he had already had something like six sacks.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean he he had a good start to his career uh and he was just a rookie so um at first it looked like boy this guy's gonna pay off they called him Senior Sack he went to I think New Mexico and they called him Senior Sack.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: And yeah very tragically he had too much to drink and he got behind the wheel of a car and and was paralyzed and never played again.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: So that may have worked out but unfortunately it didn't.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: 1985 they drafted another defensive tackle Daryl Sims.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: He never did anything.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: 1986 they had the ninth overall pick and they drafted John Reinstra who was a guard out of Temple.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: This guy was like your just prototypical he was he was a collegiate champion power lifter.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: So he was just this mammoth guy with muscles and you just thought man what what a you for an offensive lineman you just he just looked like a specimen and he was horrible.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Never never amounted to anything as an offensive lineman also had a apparently had a crippling anxiety disorder that really messed up his career.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: It's another one where you wonder, you know, 20 years later would they you know with sort of the the attention of mental health that we have to have caught it yeah.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: Or would they have would they have you know because back then anxiety they might have just said hey suck it up you're a football player be a man would they have been able to treat something like that would he have had a different career regardless uh he did not have a good career for the Steelers.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: 1988 their first round pick was a guy named Aaron Jones who has a defensive end.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: Between 89 and 92 Aaron Jones started a grand total of 10 games and then was released so that tells you everything you need to know about his Steeler career.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: 1989 was particularly painful.
51:12
SPEAKER_00: So in 1989 because they had that terrible 88 season like I said they they they played themselves out of the top five but they still had the seventh overall pick and they drafted a running back out of Georgia named Tim Raleigh.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: And Tim Rowley's nickname in the NFL was whoops worley because he couldn't hang on to the ball.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: He lost 16 fumbles over his three seasons with the Steelers and then in 1992 he was suspended for the entire season due to a failed drug test.
51:40
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that the one that Merrill Hodge told that story about uh yeah it was Worley and him I guess in the backfield in the Bubster at quarterback and I guess Worley's in the huddle and he like Bubby has to tell him to play like three or four times.
51:57
SPEAKER_03: And so finally they line up and Worley still doesn't know the play.
52:02
SPEAKER_03: And he's like what's it on?
52:03
SPEAKER_03: What's it on?
52:04
SPEAKER_03: And like he literally like to the whole like defense and everything Bubber turns around and goes it's on too wow a professional Tim Worley was definitely a professional there.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Seventh overall pick in a draft that produced four Hall of Famers in the top five and they drafted Tim Worley that that hurts.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: To this day that hurts and then the other thing about that year, so so not only did they have the seventh overall pick, but they had the 24th overall pick.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: One of the rare times ever that the Steelers had two first round picks.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: This is because Mike Merriweather who was uh again one of their only good players at the time decided he wanted more money again this was before the era of free agency uh and he said I want more money the Steelers said no and he said fine I'm not gonna play so he actually sat out the entire 88 season and then the Steelers finally gave in and they traded him traded him to Minnesota.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: Steve you mentioned the Herschel Walker thing this was the era where Minnesota decided we're gonna we're gonna go all in we're gonna win now we're gonna trade all of our draft picks um most of them to Dallas but you they had one left over for the Steelers for Mike Merriweather did not work out so well for Minnesota also didn't work out so well for the Steelers because with that pick they drafted a tackle Tom Ricketts uh who wasn't very good and and the thing that hurt about that not only was you know we basically created Mike Merriweather for an offensive lineman that stunk, Tom Ricketts went to Pitt.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: And I remember every year going back to Dan Marino, you know, because I I loved Pitt and I just I always wanted them to draft Pitt players and they never drafted Pitt Mitsu for the terrible ones yeah yeah yeah yeah so now they yeah so so now they draft Tom Ricketts he stinks and I'm like dumb they're never going to draft a pit player again.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: So that was that that really hurt having two first round picks and they were both monumental busts.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: And then 1991 maybe maybe the first draft pick in the history of the franchise linebacker 15th overall Huey Richardson.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: Huey Richardson lasted one season in the NFL and that was it.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Bill Cower and Tom Donahoe, their first training camp they told the story they kind of looked at each other and they said are we allowed to cut the first round pick because he's not good at all and and you know they decided yeah I I think we're allowed to do that and they they cut Huey it was a first round pick the year before and they cut him the second training camp that's how bad Huey Richardson was and they drafted him 15th overall.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: That was Knowles' last draft pick fittingly so so the first round was just horrific.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: And when you can't draft back then again there was no other way to to build your team back up.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: And and and those were all first round busts uh just a smattering of second round picks just so that just so that you don't think that you know that it was just the first round that was bad.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: Just some some names for some second round picks during that era.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: Bob Kors, Anthony Washington, John Meyer was an offensive lineman who never actually played even one game for them.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: It was a second round pick.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: Wayne Caper is a wide receiver who again no one would ever remember.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: Chris Kolodisky see I can't even pronounce this guy's name he was a tight end I remember Dalton Hall I say yeah Dalton Hall was in there.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah uh he he was not a very he was defensive back.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: I remember he had a really good rookie season.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: I think he got like the Steelers I think they gave that rookie of the year award I think he got that and you thought oh this guy's pretty good and then not so much.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: Mark Benning, Kenny Davidson was a defensive tackle that stunk.
55:41
SPEAKER_03: Jeff Graham was a wide receiver who Jeff Graham actually had a Pro Bowl year with the Jets.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: Not with the Steelers.
55:48
SPEAKER_03: You know what Jeff Graham?
55:49
SPEAKER_03: I really didn't like him at all when he played for the Steelers I just remember against Houston and I think this is when we had Tomzack and like they were playing Buddy Ryan and he had that stupid 46 defense and all you had to do was beat it deep.
56:01
SPEAKER_03: And Jeff Graham's wide open and he drops everything.
56:05
SPEAKER_03: Jeff Graham it was ugly.
56:07
SPEAKER_03: And then like that was the game too Tomzack got beat up because like the one one of the Houston players beat up Mike Tomzack after one of the passes that Jeff Graham dropped.
56:17
SPEAKER_00: Jeff Graham had arguably the worst season that I've ever seen a player have that was that that buddy Ryan here that was a few years after this that was 93.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: But he dropped when when Jeff Graham here when Jeff Graham got released by the Steelers mercifully KDK News ran a retrospective just interspersing together like dozens of clips where Jeff Graham dropped passes.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: So that was Jeff Graham's career with the Steelers.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: So I won't go into third or fourth or fifth round picks but but needless to say those weren't very good either.
56:52
SPEAKER_00: So the draft was just a mess.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: And uh you know I Steve you had mentioned something about uh Dick Haley and Art Rooney Jr.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: had a strategy that they thought they could take another draft.
57:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah they thought that if they could replace three solid players every year in the draft that they could stay competitive and on top and it obviously didn't work out because I think they just like for a lot of reasons they lost their pipeline and their exclusivity over you know the certain players that they were getting and so now everybody's getting those players in the copycat league and then they failed to adjust.
57:26
SPEAKER_03: And plus you know you're drafting you know you look at these I mean there are a few high top ten picks but how many really are there?
57:32
SPEAKER_03: They're drafting you know fifteen to thirty every year.
57:36
SPEAKER_03: I mean you're not gonna get the best thing and um I mean did you want to get into yeah we'll get into the the Dan Marino thing.
57:44
SPEAKER_03: What happened was um Dan Marino was eligible in that eighty eighty three draft and um Dan Rooney who stated in his book he got in a plan to trade.
57:54
SPEAKER_03: They were going to trade Woodley I think to the Dolphins for the Dolphins pick because they thought the Dolphins were going to take Marino.
58:02
SPEAKER_03: And so they would have been able to still get Gabe Rivera I think and they would have got Dan Marino.
58:08
SPEAKER_03: Well the person who came up with this idea is a gentleman named John Clayton from you know mom my segment you know that that guy.
58:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:16
SPEAKER_03: So I can't I can't see why um Chuck Knowle and uh Art Rooney Jr.
58:21
SPEAKER_03: maybe didn't take him seriously so when Dan came in the room you know and Dan's like the boss at this time like Chuck Knowle and his brother are basically like laugh him off after he took like they took it seriously for a bit and then we're like oh yeah John Clayton yeah whatever we're not doing that.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: He was a writer for the press Pittsburgh press I think at the time Yeah well obviously he had work for USB.
58:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah and I mean honestly you know and I'm not well I'm not a big Chuck Knowle fan and maybe that's my father.
58:50
SPEAKER_03: My father never liked Chuck Knowle.
58:52
SPEAKER_03: I think Chuck Knowle's a very good coach and he I understand his personality.
58:57
SPEAKER_03: He's one of those he's like a Belichick.
58:59
SPEAKER_03: Like he's just gonna he's all about winning and you know get on with your life's work after you're done with football.
59:05
SPEAKER_03: And there is there is a wisdom in that because most people's football careers only last three or four years.
59:12
SPEAKER_03: It's very rare that a person has a 10, 15 year even as a coach.
59:17
SPEAKER_03: So I mean there is a wisdom in that and maybe you know you don't like to hear that truth but it was always goes back to the Franco who when Franco left you know it's just you know you didn't have to say that you know I mean you know you just say well we wish Franco the best we're just you know we're moved in a different direction or you say Franco who I mean you know okay okay the dude did win you four Super Bowls you know maybe owe him a little bit more respect to that.
59:43
SPEAKER_03: But that's Chuck Noel for you and you know what Chuck your uh hubris got the better of you there because uh guess what Don Shula has the all-time wins record and you don't because you laughed because you didn't take John Clayton's advice.
59:55
SPEAKER_03: So good for you buddy congratulations on that one.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: Noel was not warm and fuzzy and and the the Dan Marino thing uh you know the the the one thing that the only thing that you can sort of see from the Steelers' perspective is when that draft happened Terry Bradshaw was still the st the the starting quarterback he had actually led them to the playoffs like two months earlier.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: And and so you know it was kind of kind of like where we are now with Rothsberger.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like how how many more seasons is this guy going to play?
1:00:28
SPEAKER_00: Because he could play like three or four more years and you're not going to draft a first round quarterback or he might be kind of done and we need a first round quarterback.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: And and so at the time Bradshaw only played one more game.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: He played one game in 83 and that was it.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: His career was actually over but people didn't know it at that time and he had had offseason elbow surgery in in Shreveport, Louisiana, which was a a big huge thing that the Steelers were upset about because he didn't tell them he just did it.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus Yeah I think I think he did it secretly and I think he was he knew Chuck Wakham.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean you know if knowing Chuck Knowle the way you know you know I mean I don't play I I kind of don't I mean it isn't right what Terry Bradshaw does but I can understand why he would do it in secret.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_03: It's like I'm not going to let that guy know that I'm hurt.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus possibly or or but I mean they could have had the Steelers they would have sent him to some you know I I no offense to whoever the surgeons are in Threveport Louisiana but probably they would have sent him to some very renowned sports surgeon that more reputable is more reputable.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: And and Bradshaw even when he had that surgery kicked into the hospital under assumed name and here's another fun fact that the the assumed name that he's kicked into the hospital under when he had that that elbow surgery?
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: Tom Brady Well Tom Brady wasn't born yet I don't think he was born when he was a kid he was thinking it's like I'm going to name it after this kid in California who I don't know.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus That that was a very just weird coincidence that that was the name he kicked in under.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: Anyway so so yeah so so regardless of the reasons they they don't draft Merino they have bad quarterbacks they never really got um a workhorse running back either I mean that was if you talk about the 70s right it was stout defense we talked about all the busts that they drafted on defense it was it was it was a run first attack and and with a you know with a good with a at least decent quarterback and and I think they tried to make like Walter Abercrombie and Frank Pollard be the Rocky and Franco and that never really worked out.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: And then and then the rest of the decade was just them sort of cycling through running back after running back.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: I remember when they signed a guy named Ernest Jackson um I think that was in 87 he he had been a thousand yard rusher um with the Chargers and then with the Eagles but Buddy Ryan who was coaching the Eagles at the time cut him and and the Buddy Ryan quote was he can't run he can't block and he can't catch.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: Trade him for a six pack it doesn't even have to be cold.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_00: So Buddy Ryan but the Steelers picked him up and he actually made the Pro Bowl for the Steelers his first season and I remember we were all excited we're like oh they gave up on that guy too quick and then Ernest Jackson wasn't very good after that.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_00: Probably Merrill Hodge we mentioned Meryl Hodge He was a big game.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_03: He he he wasn't like you know a superstar but it seemed like whenever the playoff game would start he always would have a big game in the playoffs.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_00: That 89 run that we talked about that doesn't happen without Merrill Hodge so that was probably their their best running back during that time.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_03: And and there was there was turmoil in the front office too Dan had to fire his brother.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_03: Alright and that that takes you know that's I'm sure that's not easy, you know and uh Dan really didn't talk about his book I only picked it up from uh Art Jr's book and about you know they I guess they had an argument the year before and then the next year Dan called him in and said you're done.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_03: You're done and um but that ended up working out because they signed a guy named um Tom Donahoe and I think they promoted Modrak who built the Eagles you know to all their success before he left.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_03: But he was with the Steelers back then and like we said you could see some seeds as those two guys started to mold the draft and Knoll started to kind of fade away that there was you know that they were starting to turn the corner there.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah they definitely planted some seeds.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: You know they were also up against really tough competition.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: We talked about the AFC Central having colorful characters that also had really good teams.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_00: Cleveland had made it to three AFC championship games Cincinnati was the AFC representative in the 88 Super Bowl and then Houston was in the playoffs every single year usually usually choking but they were in the playoffs every single year with that run and shoot offense which was very hard to stop.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: So you know playing in that division was really hard during that time.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_00: And then not drafting well having that turmoil in the front office not having a quarterback everything just kind of caught up and Chuck Knowle was just you know he went from sort of this this godlike figure to maybe it's time for Chuck Knowle to to go on with his life's work as as Chuck Knowle used to say.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: Very predictable play caller I mean it was like run run past punt almost every series um the the the the one thing about the offense specifically he refused to use the shotgun.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean you talk talk about a staple of offenses today some teams line up only in the shotgun.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_00: He never used the shotgun until the very late part of the decade.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_00: Their big trick play was a reverse that they used to run to Dwight Stone that was that was that was as far as they would go in terms of trick trick plays um and and so Knoll just the game had really passed them by Sports Illustrated had this famous cover uh during that time it had Knoll and Tom Landry on the cover and the big big bold letters were under fire because both of those guys were now leading teams that were bad and it sort of seemed like the rest of the league had passed them.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think that was true for for both of those guys.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: Certainly true for Chuck Knoll.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a shame to see two old coaches that had a lot of success go out like that, but that's a that's what happened.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_03: I especially Land Landry even had probably a rougher fall than than Knoll.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_03: I mean I Noel never I mean Well Landry was forced out.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_00: At least Knowle got to retire.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: Who knows, of course, what was happening behind the scenes, but as far as any of us know, Noel was allowed to retire.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_03: Well they changed ownership too.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_00: That was when Jerry Jones came.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I mean th those old school coaches, you mentioned Shola, I mean to his credit, he he adapted uh whatever that meant for that era.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't winning Super Bowls anymore, but he they still fielded a competitive team.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus Well he hung on to like yeah like you said he passed the ball with Duper and Clayton and they never really had a great defense.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_03: I think that was the downfall of the Dolphins was they they had Merino but they never built around them.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_03: And Denver learned their lesson in the nineties was they built around Elway with a running game and a pretty good defense.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_00: And so you had these coaches like Bill Walsh.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean y those guys were the new NFL minds.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: And Chuck Knoll was old school and Chuck Knoll was just and and again Chuck Knoll his legacy is pretty cemented here.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_03: I mean he was I still think he has an influence on the game today.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean you you look at look at the people that are out there that came from him.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean Tomlin you could draw a line from Tomlin to Knowle.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_03: I mean Tomlin's probably more like Knowle than Cow or well some of his assistants had pretty good success.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_00: John Fox was one of his assistants and Dungey took two teams to the Super Bowl Tony Dungey so you know again great coach but I think maybe just hung on a little too long.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_00: Had that one good season in 89.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_00: I think he was actually the coach of the year that year.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_00: And so um I don't think he could relate to the player.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_03: Not that he ever was that kind of coach but I don't think and he didn't want to deal with free agency I remember that too.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_03: He just didn't want to you know have some player that's making you know millions of dollars and he felt like he had to play him now.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_03: And that was I I think I think yeah Chuck Knowle wasn't gonna deal with that.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_03: Like could you imagine Chuck Knowle coaching like some of the like Odell Beckham or you know the I mean good gravy that wouldn't it wouldn't work out.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_00: It would have been difficult.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_00: And and that happens with coaches.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean that the you that happened with Paul Brown in Cleveland.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just different eras different times different you know and and you're right that was the era where guys were going to be making millions of dollars guys were going to get to pick where they played it wasn't just draft a guy and he plays for you forever and you can cut him anytime you want.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: It was a different time.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_00: So so yeah so that's kind of the end of that era like it like we said kind of kind of some fun things but mostly a lot of losing uh and and it's it's just it's really the only time in the last half century where the Steelers were really bad.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_00: I I know I know people flip out today over eight and eight but eight and eight's really not not bad.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's not consistent.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: The Steelers at this in this era were consistently a bad team and that's that's the only time in the last 50 years where they've been one of those consistently bad teams.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: Bill Cower was hired in 1992.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_00: Of course things turn around at that point.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_03: Well and Dan you know for this era Dan Rooney learned his lesson from the Dan Marino debacle when 2003 happened and they had a chance to draft a quarterback he said that he said I directed the conversation we're drafting a quarterback.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_03: We're not because Cow wanted to draft uh Sean Andrews the offensive lineman and said no we're drafting a quarterback so you know there there was some you know life experiences that you know fast forward you know you probably could thank the three new Super Bowls that we have from that 84 draft.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_03: And you know him not being maybe you know polished enough as an executive to be able to massage Noel and his brother and now when they came up with Rothsburg or well whoever they were to draft you know they were draft one of the three rivers Rothelsburger remaining they probably would have won at least one Super Bowl I figure if they no matter who they would have drafted there.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_03: But I mean it it really it did pay off.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_03: There are some lessons that were learned and interesting interesting how history goes like that.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and and maybe you're right maybe they can tie some of that later success to lessons learned during that era.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_00: And hiring Cower too I mean Cower was just the polar opposite of Noel.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder I wonder if Cower had retired in say like 86, you know certainly they Cower was not his star wasn't bright enough at that point, but would they have hired like a a player's coach?
1:10:39
SPEAKER_00: Like would they have gone total opposite or would they have would they have promoted a John Fox or an assistant?
1:10:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_00: They sort of would have kept the same mindset and would that have worked out as well as it did under Cower?
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah I mean geez back then too they didn't hire Tony Dungy which is odd yeah a lot of people thought Dungey was going to be the guy whenever uh whenever North Trevor Dungy like 15 more years to get a job.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean that was a lot it was the late nineties until I think it was ninety six or ninety seven that Tampa Bay hired Tampa Bay finally got sick of losing.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so yeah but but regardless it worked out pretty well with Cower um and I think the one thing we can look back on this era is you know one where maybe we can be a little more grateful for the success that the Steelers have had as Steelware fans because like I said we tend to flip out over you know eight and eight or nine and seven missing the playoffs and and uh you know it it wasn't not as bad and and has never been as bad uh up until this point at least as it was during that uh that 1980s era.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_00: Steve any other final thoughts before we close out no thank goodness so be thankful for what you have you never know amen well folks thanks for listening uh we really appreciate it you can check us out on Twitter and Instagram as Pittsburgh Sports Memories and please catch us next time please subscribe and please leave us a review uh wherever you catch your podcast thank you for the same