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The 9/11 Steelers Season · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_07: Hi everybody.
0:00
SPEAKER_07: Welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_07: My name is Tim Hannon and I'm joined by my Winsom co-host.
0:09
SPEAKER_09: Steve Ward?
0:10
SPEAKER_09: Winsom.
0:11
SPEAKER_09: What does Winsom mean?
0:13
SPEAKER_09: $20 college word.
0:15
SPEAKER_07: It's a perfectly cromulate word, Steve.
0:17
SPEAKER_09: Cromulate.
0:18
SPEAKER_09: Well, I feel like we should be proactive about this.
0:38
SPEAKER_07: So we're we're coming up on the twenty-fifth anniversary of nine eleven and and there'll be lots of retrospectives.
0:45
SPEAKER_07: So I thought this would be a good time to look back on a very memorable two thousand one steel season that intersected with that event.
0:53
SPEAKER_07: And we'll we'll kick this off by starting with some background on that season.
0:57
SPEAKER_07: So heading into 2001, not much expected of the Steelers.
1:01
SPEAKER_07: After having all those playoff teams, even a trip to the Super Bowl in the 90s, Bill Cower's teams had fallen on some tougher times.
1:09
SPEAKER_07: They had missed the playoffs three years in a row.
1:12
SPEAKER_07: A big part of that, as we detailed in our Tom Donahoe episode, was that they had lost a bunch of players via free agency, and the guys they had drafted or signed to replace them largely did not work out.
1:24
SPEAKER_07: The front office issues reached critical mass in 2000 when Donahoe and Cower both tell Dan Rooney, either he goes or I go, and Dan Rooney chooses to stick with Cower.
1:35
SPEAKER_07: The other issue that the Steelers are dealing with is one that would be familiar to Steelers fans today.
1:41
SPEAKER_07: It's the lack of a franchise quarterback.
1:44
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers thought they had that in Cordell Stewart.
1:46
SPEAKER_07: Cordell had been anointed as the starter in 1997 and carried the team all the way to the AFC Championship game, but after that things had gone way downhill, both on the field and with the fans.
1:58
SPEAKER_07: Steve detailed a lot of that in the episode he did about Cordell.
2:01
SPEAKER_07: By 2000, the Steelers had benched Stewart and had made the dubious decision to replace him with Kent Graham, who is hot, steamy garbage.
2:11
SPEAKER_09: My favorite highlight is Kent Graham getting sacked on third, or was second or third down, they couldn't have enough time to kick the field goal in Cleveland.
2:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was that was talking about great moments in NFL history.
2:24
SPEAKER_09: One shining moment.
2:29
SPEAKER_07: Uh so as as bad as all of that sounds, there was some reason for optimism.
2:33
SPEAKER_07: The Stewart's had a surprisingly strong finish to that 2000 season.
2:38
SPEAKER_07: They actually win nine of their final 13 games.
2:41
SPEAKER_07: And while that's not quite enough to qualify them for the postseason, it shows that maybe they're actually starting to rebuild.
2:47
SPEAKER_07: Also, Cordell comes back as the starter during that run, and he actually looks somewhat capable.
2:54
SPEAKER_07: Nevertheless, Vegas has the 2001 Steelers win total at seven and a half.
3:01
SPEAKER_09: I take the over Tim.
3:04
SPEAKER_07: You would have won some money.
3:06
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
3:08
SPEAKER_09: They they hit that over big time.
3:10
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
3:10
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
3:11
SPEAKER_09: I wonder if he would have bet the like to win the AFC champion or to make it to the AFC championship game.
3:17
SPEAKER_09: I wonder how much that would have paid out at the time.
3:20
SPEAKER_07: Probably pretty decently.
3:21
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
3:22
SPEAKER_09: Not even make the Super Bowl, just the AFC Championship game.
3:25
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean seven seven and a half isn't like super long shot.
3:28
SPEAKER_07: It's kind of middle of the road.
3:30
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
3:30
SPEAKER_07: You know, just missing the playoffs.
3:32
SPEAKER_07: Basically, like the exact same team they had been the last three years.
3:35
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, the season before.
3:37
SPEAKER_09: Well, it just it just like I I thought like at the end of that season, like you said, they really had turned their like you saw something more than you had at other instead of a late season collapse like they had the last two seasons.
3:49
SPEAKER_09: That season they had a late season surge, but it was just kind of too little, too late.
3:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's true.
3:55
SPEAKER_07: And and Peter King, the Sports Illustrated writer, I remember he he used to always say when he was making predictions for the following season, he'd always say, Look who look at who finished strong the previous year.
4:06
SPEAKER_09: That is a yeah, that's always a key.
4:09
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
4:11
SPEAKER_07: So that's the background of where the Steelers are as a ball club heading into 2001.
4:15
SPEAKER_07: Let's talk about what's new for the 2001 season.
4:19
SPEAKER_07: First of all, the Steelers have a new offensive coordinator.
4:22
SPEAKER_07: Steve, you remember who that was?
4:23
SPEAKER_09: Mike Mullarkey.
4:25
SPEAKER_09: It's a bunch of malarkey.
4:26
SPEAKER_09: It's a bunch of malarkey, Tim.
4:28
SPEAKER_07: It is a bunch of Mullarkey.
4:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
4:30
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
4:30
SPEAKER_07: Mike Mullarkey.
4:31
SPEAKER_07: To this day, he and Tony Dungey are the only two Steelers coordinators who also played for the Steelers.
4:37
SPEAKER_07: Millarkey was a tight end in those latter Chuck Knoll years.
4:41
SPEAKER_07: That's right.
4:42
SPEAKER_09: But did they bring did was Gilbride gone by this point?
4:46
SPEAKER_09: They remember they had Kevin Gilbride floating around.
4:48
SPEAKER_09: So so I guess he replaced Kevin Gilbride, huh?
4:52
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, so so what happened was so so Millarkey had been hired in 96 to be their tight end coach.
4:58
SPEAKER_07: And he wants to be promoted to offensive coordinator, but first he's passed over for Ray Sherman.
5:06
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, that was terrible.
5:07
SPEAKER_07: And then he's passed over for Kevin Gilbright.
5:10
SPEAKER_09: Which it wasn't a complete.
5:12
SPEAKER_09: I mean, Kevin Gilbright was kind of an established name.
5:15
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
5:16
SPEAKER_07: I mean, it didn't work out super great with Kevin Gilbright here.
5:19
SPEAKER_07: Um, but I mean it was better than Ray Sherman.
5:23
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I mean, Kevin Gilbright did fine in New York.
5:26
SPEAKER_09: He went to New York and did fine with Eli, so right.
5:29
unknown: Yeah.
5:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, just maybe it just wasn't a good fit with Cordell.
5:32
SPEAKER_07: Who knows?
5:33
SPEAKER_07: I mean, either way, it was nice to see Malarkey finally get his chance uh, you know, after being passed over twice.
5:39
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers also hire a quarterback coach for the first time since 1973.
5:44
SPEAKER_07: It's a guy named Tom Clements.
5:46
SPEAKER_07: And and all this is done in an effort to continue that Cordell resurgence from the previous year.
5:52
SPEAKER_07: I think the Steelers probably realize they're only going to go as far as their quarterback can take them.
5:57
SPEAKER_07: And Steve, one thing you talked about in that Cordell episode that I don't think gets brought up enough.
6:03
SPEAKER_07: This at this point, going into the 2001 season, this will be Cordell's seventh season with the Steelers, and this will be his fifth offensive coordinator.
6:12
SPEAKER_07: So, you know, you can say all you want about how Cordell flamed out and all of that, but I I don't know many NFL quarterbacks that are going to succeed when you have that much turnover, right?
6:22
SPEAKER_09: Uh it didn't help.
6:23
SPEAKER_09: I he didn't seem to ever progress.
6:26
SPEAKER_09: And like under Gilbright, I remember Gilbride saying that like, you know, he didn't understand, like, like they have like those routes where the wide receiver can like go in or out or pick a different route, and Cordell for some reason couldn't pick up on that.
6:41
SPEAKER_09: So I I I always thought like Cordell's two problems were he he would overthrow receivers.
6:47
SPEAKER_09: He had a strong arm, but he would overthrow, and he had trouble reading the defenses, and that that kind of and both of those it's kind of well not ironic, but kind of like telling that that's really what comes back to haunt him at the end of the season.
7:03
SPEAKER_09: Not the bit of foreshadowing there.
7:05
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, that's actually a really good point.
7:08
SPEAKER_09: Both of those things really come back to bite the Steelers in the butt.
7:12
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's a good point.
7:15
SPEAKER_07: Um, in the draft that year, the Steelers pick up some pretty good defensive pieces.
7:19
SPEAKER_07: In the first round, they select a nose tackle from Texas by the name of Casey Hampton.
7:24
SPEAKER_07: And in the second round, they take a linebacker from Georgia named Kendra Bell.
7:29
SPEAKER_07: That's a pretty good first two rounds.
7:31
SPEAKER_09: Casey Hampton's one of the more underrated Steelers, like outside of the Steeler organization.
7:38
SPEAKER_09: Like it doesn't seem like everybody talks about Ted Washington and Keith Trailer or like some of the other nose tackle guys.
7:46
SPEAKER_09: It just seems like Casey Hampton gets forgotten about.
7:49
SPEAKER_09: And Kendro Bell, I remember he made like a really big play in the preseason, and it was kind of like one of those wow, like really caught your attention kind of plays.
7:58
SPEAKER_09: But Kendro Bell kind of ended up having a little bit of a weakness, too.
8:04
SPEAKER_09: So but nobody knew about it yet.
8:07
SPEAKER_07: So oh yeah, and he and you're right, like in the preseason, he was he was like red hot.
8:12
SPEAKER_07: It was like, well, look at this guy.
8:13
SPEAKER_09: He was really good at stopping the run.
8:15
SPEAKER_09: Like when they got these two guys, and then I don't know when Aaron Smith came, like they they just nobody could run on the Steelers.
8:23
SPEAKER_09: You couldn't run on that defense.
8:26
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, very true.
8:27
SPEAKER_07: So those are their first two round picks uh that year.
8:32
SPEAKER_07: Um the Steelers do not have a third-round pick for reasons we'll get into later.
8:37
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers also signed running back Jerome Bettis to a new contract.
8:41
SPEAKER_07: Bettis was a free agent after the 2000 season.
8:44
SPEAKER_09: Was this the year he faked an injury?
8:47
SPEAKER_07: Uh, good question.
8:49
SPEAKER_07: I don't think so.
8:50
SPEAKER_07: I think that might have been the year after, but don't quote me on that.
8:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:54
SPEAKER_07: But yeah, he was actually a free agent.
8:56
SPEAKER_07: He could have signed anywhere.
8:57
SPEAKER_07: And there was there was some talk that he might go somewhere else, but everyone, I think, kind of expected him to re-sign, and he does.
9:03
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers also waive a couple of stalwarts from those 90s teams.
9:08
SPEAKER_07: Center Dermani Dawson and linebacker and friend of the show, Levon Kirkland.
9:13
SPEAKER_07: Both guys are all-time greats, but unfortunately they're way past their prime in 2001.
9:18
SPEAKER_07: Dawson actually retires.
9:20
SPEAKER_07: Kirkland hangs on for another two seasons with Seattle and Philly.
9:24
SPEAKER_07: But both of those guys are gone.
9:25
SPEAKER_07: They're replaced by Jeff Hardings and Earl Holmes.
9:29
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, it was Earl Holmes, another guy really good at stopping the run, the hit man.
9:34
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and Hardings ends up ends up being a really good center.
9:37
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, he'd be really solid.
9:39
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
9:40
SPEAKER_07: When they signed him, I think he had been in Detroit, right?
9:43
SPEAKER_07: And that's where Colbert came from.
9:44
SPEAKER_07: I think that's where they got him.
9:45
SPEAKER_09: So, yeah, and yeah, something like that.
9:49
SPEAKER_09: And I had he had been a I think he'd been a center the whole time.
9:52
SPEAKER_07: No, no.
9:53
SPEAKER_07: Had he been a guard?
9:54
SPEAKER_07: He had been a guard.
9:55
SPEAKER_07: That's what everybody's like, wait.
9:56
SPEAKER_07: That's right.
9:56
SPEAKER_07: That's right.
9:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's what everybody was kind of like up in arms about, but he ends up being really good.
10:04
SPEAKER_07: So those are the highlights of the offseason, but I also want to talk about four stories from the off-season that year that you may not remember.
10:13
SPEAKER_07: So, story number one, Steve, did you remember that the Steelers seriously entertained bringing back wide receiver Yancy Thigpen in 2001?
10:25
SPEAKER_09: I don't remember that.
10:27
SPEAKER_09: I mean, it was an odd numbered year, so Yancy might have been okay.
10:35
SPEAKER_08: That's true.
10:36
SPEAKER_08: That's so true.
10:38
SPEAKER_09: 97, 99.
10:40
SPEAKER_09: I think he was good in 99 with the 95, too.
10:42
SPEAKER_07: The Super Bowl was good that year, too.
10:44
SPEAKER_07: You're right.
10:45
SPEAKER_07: It was always the odd number of years, and the even number of years he was hurt.
10:48
SPEAKER_09: Well, but his feet, he said that in interviews.
10:51
SPEAKER_09: He said if he would have had he would have had a much better career if his feet, his feet were really bad.
10:55
SPEAKER_09: He had just I don't know what was wrong with his ankles or something, but he just had a lot of injuries with his feet.
11:01
SPEAKER_09: And I would say that's a pretty important thing to have when you're a wide receiver.
11:06
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
11:07
SPEAKER_07: So so after that 97 season that Steve talked about, he he actually left Pittsburgh, signs this huge free agent deal with the Titans.
11:14
SPEAKER_07: Tennessee cuts them that offseason in a salary dump.
11:17
SPEAKER_07: And the Steelers actually do need help at wide receiver.
11:20
SPEAKER_07: Thig Pen is brought in for a visit and a physical in May, and he talks about how he thinks he can help the younger guys, how he has a lot of familiarity with Stewart.
11:30
SPEAKER_07: It kind of feels like maybe a potential good fit, but it never happens.
11:34
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers instead re-sign Will Blackwell.
11:37
SPEAKER_07: Oof.
11:38
SPEAKER_09: He was okay.
11:41
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, to me, like 40% healthy Yancy Thigben was way better than Will Blackwell.
11:48
SPEAKER_07: I I I'm guessing, Steve, that he failed the physical.
11:50
SPEAKER_07: He eventually retires.
11:51
SPEAKER_07: Think Ben never does play with another team.
11:53
SPEAKER_07: So I'm I'm guessing he probably failed the physical.
11:56
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, his feet were probably like like I said, he he had a lot of injury problems.
12:00
SPEAKER_09: If he doesn't have injuries, who knows?
12:02
SPEAKER_09: Maybe I like is one of those guys you really talk about being a really great wide receiver.
12:06
SPEAKER_09: Because when he was healthy, he was really good.
12:08
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and imagine if he would have been on this 2001 team, that would have been interesting.
12:12
SPEAKER_09: That would have been nice.
12:13
SPEAKER_09: That would have been nice to have.
12:14
SPEAKER_09: Nice problem to have.
12:15
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
12:16
SPEAKER_07: So so another event you may not remember from that offseason, there's some controversy surrounding Cordell.
12:22
SPEAKER_07: Well, that's not surprising.
12:24
SPEAKER_07: Uh, and it's all over some national reporting that may or may not be factual.
12:29
SPEAKER_07: So Stuart fails to show up for the optional spring drills.
12:34
SPEAKER_07: And again, those drills are optional, but he doesn't show up.
12:38
SPEAKER_09: Was he in a dark retreat, like someone else some other quarterback we know and love?
12:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he was yeah, he was in South America in a cave.
12:49
SPEAKER_07: Uh ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports that Cordell's unhappy with the Steelers and potentially even wants to.
12:56
SPEAKER_09: Would that be the late Chris Mortensen?
12:58
SPEAKER_09: Is he still a little bit?
12:58
SPEAKER_09: Chris Mortensen.
12:59
SPEAKER_09: No.
13:00
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, he it was very sad.
13:01
SPEAKER_09: He had can't see it.
13:02
SPEAKER_07: It was uh Mortensen also reports that former Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw has inflamed the situation by telling Cordell that the fans will never allow him to succeed in Pittsburgh.
13:14
SPEAKER_09: That sounds like a Terry thing to say.
13:17
SPEAKER_07: It does.
13:18
SPEAKER_07: A few months later, Mike Florio, who at the time is with ESPN.
13:22
SPEAKER_07: Steve, did you remember that Florio was an ESPN guy?
13:25
SPEAKER_09: I didn't know I did not.
13:27
SPEAKER_09: I thought he like just kind of weasel his way into and weaseled is a good word for Mike Florio.
13:34
SPEAKER_09: I I you know what, maybe that's what makes him an effective reporter.
13:37
SPEAKER_09: Like you really shouldn't like a reporter, like especially a guy that's supposed to be giving scoops.
13:42
SPEAKER_09: So he's an effective at his job.
13:44
SPEAKER_09: I mean, you know.
13:46
SPEAKER_09: He's a lawyer and he's like a West Virginia and Minnesota Vikings fan, so it makes it tough to like him.
13:52
SPEAKER_09: But it's kind of like I have the same feeling I have about Tim Benz.
13:55
SPEAKER_09: Like, you might not like it, but he's probably right more than he's wrong.
13:58
SPEAKER_09: You know, he's definitely weasely, he just has a weasley face.
14:02
SPEAKER_09: Sorry.
14:03
SPEAKER_09: I don't mean to like disparage him just for the way he looks, but but he's not a bad reporter.
14:09
SPEAKER_09: He he's not.
14:10
SPEAKER_07: No, I I I think you summed it up well.
14:12
SPEAKER_07: I I read Florio a fair amount, and I I agree he's weasely, but I also think his reporting is usually pretty good.
14:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
14:20
SPEAKER_07: Um anyway, in 2001, Florio reports that the Steelers defensive players think that Cordell has, quote, a big time attitude, and that they want him to be benched again.
14:33
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
14:34
SPEAKER_09: But that was still like that team was still a mess.
14:37
SPEAKER_09: Like, wasn't that the team that Holmes and Hunt Richard Huntley got in the fight in the locker room?
14:43
SPEAKER_09: So that team still had like some people with attitude problems.
14:47
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, they they did.
14:49
SPEAKER_07: I mean, uh Stewart comes out and the Stewards do, they all you know deny this.
14:55
SPEAKER_07: Cower actually really goes off on the Florio story.
14:59
SPEAKER_07: He says it's nonsense how reporters can just hide behind names and anonymous sources, because the Florio story it was anonymous sources.
15:06
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I agree with Cower on that one.
15:09
SPEAKER_07: Uh Cower also goes off on the local media for propagating the story.
15:13
SPEAKER_07: He says, quote, when you people give credence to something like that, it makes me sick.
15:19
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
15:20
SPEAKER_09: Well, I didn't mean to have a tierce conversation.
15:23
SPEAKER_09: Did he say you could never say the word tears?
15:26
SPEAKER_09: He said tears.
15:27
SPEAKER_09: That's right.
15:29
SPEAKER_07: Uh third forgotten story.
15:31
SPEAKER_07: Al Davis is busy suing the NFL yet again.
15:35
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
15:35
SPEAKER_09: What other is known as Tuesday?
15:39
SPEAKER_09: Exactly.
15:41
SPEAKER_09: It's is it a day that ends in Y, Tim?
15:46
SPEAKER_07: If so, Al Davis is suing.
15:48
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
15:49
SPEAKER_07: This time it's a$1.2 billion lawsuit claiming the NFL forced the Raiders to move back to Oakland in 1995.
15:58
SPEAKER_07: Those poor Raiders, Steve.
16:00
SPEAKER_07: Won't the NFL just leave them alone?
16:02
SPEAKER_09: Somebody leave Al Davis alone.
16:06
SPEAKER_08: Poor Davis.
16:08
SPEAKER_09: I you know, as much as I love, I just love the Raiders because they're I I know I shouldn't, but they're pure unadulterated evil.
16:15
SPEAKER_09: And you have to respect that.
16:17
SPEAKER_09: You have to respect the pure unadulterated evil.
16:21
SPEAKER_09: No patriots.
16:22
SPEAKER_09: Oh, we're pretending we're the good guy.
16:23
SPEAKER_09: No, you know who they are.
16:25
SPEAKER_09: They're evil, they're gonna do stupid things, they're gonna do ridiculous things.
16:29
SPEAKER_09: Just you know it, you love it.
16:32
SPEAKER_09: You know, whatever.
16:33
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it it's it's kind of like the the the heel in a wrestling match.
16:37
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you need a villain, you need a good villain.
16:39
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it sucks that they're not competitive.
16:42
SPEAKER_09: They need to be competitive again because we need like a better villain than the freaking Chiefs.
16:46
SPEAKER_09: Or like the Chiefs are like good guys.
16:49
SPEAKER_09: It's like hard to really hate the Chiefs besides they're really successful.
16:52
SPEAKER_07: Agreed.
16:53
SPEAKER_07: So Al Davis loses that lawsuit, and then things turn nasty.
16:58
SPEAKER_07: Dan Rooney calls Davis, quote, a lying creep for his testimony during the trial.
17:06
SPEAKER_09: Oh gosh.
17:08
SPEAKER_07: Davis fires back saying that Rooney is, quote, a punk who cheated flagrantly on the salary cap.
17:17
SPEAKER_07: So, oh, that's that's kind of specific.
17:19
SPEAKER_07: So, what's Al Davis talking about here?
17:21
SPEAKER_07: Well, the Steelers had been fine and docked a third-round pick in 2001 in the 2001 draft.
17:28
SPEAKER_09: Oh, was that when he did that favor for that that one guy for Will Wolford?
17:32
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
17:33
SPEAKER_07: So, so if you listen to our Acts of Kindness episode, you'll you know that the reason for that was uh Rooney had paid Will Wolford a$500,000 bonus that he had verbally promised him, but it got inadvertently left out of the contract.
17:51
SPEAKER_07: And Rooney could have just been like, hey, sorry, your agent should have made sure it was in there.
17:56
SPEAKER_07: But he not only paid the bonus, he actually self-reported all of that to the NFL, knowing that he was going to take a hit doing so.
18:04
SPEAKER_07: So Dave is calling him a punku cheated is probably the biggest bunch of BS ever peddled by Al Davis, and that's saying a lot.
18:11
SPEAKER_09: I would say pot calling kettle, you know.
18:14
SPEAKER_09: Hello, pot.
18:15
SPEAKER_09: Hello, kettle.
18:17
SPEAKER_07: We'll we'll have we'll have some of that pot caught out calling the kettle black later in the episode, too.
18:22
SPEAKER_07: Uh final forgotten story.
18:25
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers that summer signed quarterback Tommy Maddox, who had been the MVP of the XFL that year.
18:31
SPEAKER_07: Well, and I know what you're saying, Steve.
18:33
SPEAKER_07: But Tim, we remember that.
18:34
SPEAKER_07: That's not a forgotten story.
18:36
SPEAKER_07: Maddox became a great story.
18:37
SPEAKER_07: We even did an entire podcast episode about him.
18:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:41
SPEAKER_07: Okay, that is true, and that's not the forgotten part.
18:44
SPEAKER_07: The part you may not remember, and this is a good trivia question that I'll ask you, Steve.
18:49
SPEAKER_07: Who was the quarterback that the Steelers cut to make room to sign Tommy Maddox?
18:57
SPEAKER_09: There's a lot of there's a lot of possibilities.
19:00
SPEAKER_09: I don't know.
19:00
SPEAKER_09: T Martin?
19:02
SPEAKER_09: No.
19:02
SPEAKER_07: So T Martin's a good guess.
19:04
SPEAKER_07: T.
19:04
SPEAKER_07: Martin had been drafted in the fifth round the year before, but they weren't ready to give up on him.
19:09
SPEAKER_09: Do you know who we picked him over?
19:10
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, Brady.
19:12
SPEAKER_07: Another guy we'll talk about later.
19:14
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
19:15
SPEAKER_07: Um, yeah, they so they wanted, they were still invested in T Martin.
19:19
SPEAKER_07: He actually is the ends up being the the third stringer that year.
19:22
SPEAKER_07: Kent Graham's actually still there in training camp because they haven't mercy.
19:27
SPEAKER_09: Well, he's not a young quarterback.
19:29
SPEAKER_09: Uh, I don't know.
19:30
SPEAKER_09: Uh who else is left?
19:31
SPEAKER_09: Uh I don't know.
19:32
SPEAKER_09: Jim Miller's gone.
19:34
SPEAKER_09: I I don't know.
19:35
SPEAKER_09: I don't know.
19:36
SPEAKER_09: You got me.
19:37
SPEAKER_07: It's John Terman.
19:39
SPEAKER_09: Uh, John Terman.
19:41
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
19:42
SPEAKER_09: He never had a chance.
19:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the Steelers had signed him as an undrafted free agent out of pit.
19:47
SPEAKER_07: And they were gonna give him a chance to compete in training camp.
19:51
SPEAKER_07: But according to Postgazette reporter Jerry Dulak, the Steelers quote took one look at Terman in minicamp and determined he could never make the roster.
19:59
SPEAKER_09: Wow, that bad, huh?
20:01
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
20:01
SPEAKER_07: So they go with touchdown Tommy instead.
20:04
SPEAKER_09: And it works out for him.
20:05
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
20:06
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it really does.
20:07
SPEAKER_07: But I I did not remember that John Terman was on the Steelers.
20:10
SPEAKER_09: I yeah, I didn't remember.
20:12
SPEAKER_07: Or was anywhere in the NFL for that matter.
20:14
SPEAKER_09: I remember he had a few like tryouts, but he was he just he was inconsistent, was his biggest problem.
20:20
SPEAKER_07: He had a great deep ball.
20:22
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
20:22
SPEAKER_07: That was about it.
20:24
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
20:24
SPEAKER_07: Um another inter so those are our four forgotten stories from the offseason.
20:30
SPEAKER_07: Another interesting aspect of that season is that the Steelers are moving into a brand new stadium called Hines Field.
20:38
SPEAKER_09: What is this Hines Field of which you speak?
20:40
SPEAKER_09: Does it still exist, Tim?
20:42
SPEAKER_07: Uh it does.
20:43
SPEAKER_07: They call it something different now.
20:45
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
20:46
SPEAKER_07: Uh Three River Stadium had been demolished in February of that year, and now the Steelers were set to move into a football-only stadium.
20:53
SPEAKER_09: Which woke me up out of a sound sleep.
20:56
SPEAKER_07: Did it really?
20:57
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
20:58
SPEAKER_07: Nice.
20:59
SPEAKER_07: Nice.
21:00
SPEAKER_07: Uh Steve, do you remember like what was your first and your first impression of Heinz Field?
21:06
SPEAKER_09: Um, it was nice.
21:08
SPEAKER_09: It was nice.
21:08
SPEAKER_09: Good football.
21:09
SPEAKER_09: It was like kind of generic, but nice.
21:12
SPEAKER_09: Nice.
21:12
SPEAKER_09: Better than Three River Stadium, way better sightlines.
21:15
SPEAKER_09: Better place to watch football overall.
21:18
SPEAKER_09: I still liked Pit Stadium better.
21:20
SPEAKER_09: I thought the sightlines at Pit Stadium were a little better, but it was definitely like Three River Stadium was kind of like the old worst of both worlds.
21:28
SPEAKER_09: Like it wasn't a great place to watch football or baseball.
21:31
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
21:32
SPEAKER_07: Agreed.
21:33
SPEAKER_07: And then like where we sat in Three River Stadium, left field separated.
21:36
SPEAKER_09: Well, you had to stand up to see the end zone where they there you didn't.
21:41
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
21:42
SPEAKER_09: Yes, exactly.
21:43
SPEAKER_09: And i I mean, now we didn't I didn't know about like all the fuel goal and turf troubles that were gonna happen.
21:50
SPEAKER_09: But yeah, my first impression was like, Oh, yeah, I I didn't have to, you know.
21:54
SPEAKER_09: We just had to play enough games there to see like what the character of the field was yet.
22:00
SPEAKER_09: Gotta remember the jumbotron was a lot smaller back then, too.
22:03
SPEAKER_09: And they had that end was an open like courtyard.
22:07
SPEAKER_08: So correct.
22:08
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
22:09
SPEAKER_09: So that that would the stadium was way different than it is now.
22:13
SPEAKER_09: And those two changes besides the turf getting fixed, I think, are are probab those were the three biggest problems in that field was that opened end making it really windy, and then the turf was a disaster.
22:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I agreed.
22:31
SPEAKER_07: But but I but I agree with you too.
22:33
SPEAKER_07: My first impression is like, man, this is this is nice compared to Three River Stadium for watching football.
22:39
SPEAKER_07: I think my other um first impression, Steve, was how open it was.
22:44
SPEAKER_07: Three rivers, three rivers had these very like tight corridors.
22:48
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
22:48
SPEAKER_07: And at the new stadium, everything was like wide open, and that included the men's rooms.
22:53
SPEAKER_07: So so a brief history of peeing at Steel River Games.
22:57
SPEAKER_07: Three River Stadium bathrooms were small and the lines were always long, which is bad during a football game because you don't want to miss anything.
23:05
SPEAKER_07: Combine that with the fact that a lot of fans were typically at the very least, you know, kind of buzzed.
23:13
SPEAKER_07: Inebriated.
23:14
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
23:15
SPEAKER_07: And the result of that is that men used to use the sinks as urinals.
23:20
SPEAKER_07: And two decades ago into scalar games at Three Rivers, I never once washed my hands.
23:25
SPEAKER_09: Can't see why.
23:26
SPEAKER_09: Well, they went to Troths.
23:27
SPEAKER_09: Do they still have the Trot?
23:28
SPEAKER_09: I think they got rid of the Troths.
23:30
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, so so at Heinz, at Heinz Field, the restrooms were well, first of all, the restrooms were huge compared to Three Rivers.
23:37
SPEAKER_09: Well, the big, there were and there were more of them.
23:39
SPEAKER_09: There was like smaller ones, and then there was big ones that were really big.
23:44
unknown: Yeah.
23:44
SPEAKER_07: And there were more stalls.
23:45
SPEAKER_07: Like that was the other thing at Three Rivers.
23:47
SPEAKER_07: God forbid you had to do number two because then you had to gamble that you weren't going to sit it, be sitting in a pole of someone else's urine.
23:53
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
23:54
unknown: Yeah.
23:54
SPEAKER_07: In Heinz Field, everything was open.
23:56
SPEAKER_07: And yeah, they had profs, which honestly at the time I thought that was a great idea because I thought it would move the line faster.
24:03
SPEAKER_07: But I think in practice they really weren't so great.
24:06
SPEAKER_09: Well, because nobody everybody nobody wants to like stand right, you know, shoulder to shoulder, I guess.
24:11
SPEAKER_09: But you do that at a urinal.
24:12
SPEAKER_09: I guess it's more pride.
24:14
SPEAKER_07: But but a urinal, there's a defined if there's six urinals, then six people stand there.
24:19
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, like like at a at a trough, it's like, well, as many as you can fit, depending on the size of the people.
24:25
SPEAKER_07: And and going back to the fact that people are both drunk and in a hurry, there was a lot of times where those troughs were packed with a lot more people than they were ever meant to accommodate.
24:35
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
24:39
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
24:39
SPEAKER_09: Well, my favorite move was people would throw like pictures of Joe Paterno in the trough at Pit Games.
24:45
SPEAKER_09: Nice.
24:46
SPEAKER_09: Classy.
24:47
SPEAKER_09: Which is yeah, which was a classy move on on Pitts fans' part.
24:51
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
24:56
SPEAKER_07: Um by standard urinals, but that doesn't happen until 2024.
25:00
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it it it was a long I I I really don't I don't go to Heinz Field games regularly, so it took me a while to notice.
25:08
SPEAKER_07: Good improvement.
25:11
SPEAKER_07: So the season finally kicks off in Jacksonville, and it's a big dud for the Steelers.
25:17
SPEAKER_07: They play really poorly.
25:18
SPEAKER_07: It's pouring down rain in Florida.
25:20
SPEAKER_07: The Jaguars win 21-3.
25:22
SPEAKER_09: And they were supposed to open the next week against Cincinnati.
25:26
SPEAKER_07: Against Cleveland, actually.
25:28
SPEAKER_09: Oh, was it Cleveland?
25:29
SPEAKER_09: Why didn't I think it was today?
25:31
SPEAKER_09: Because the first game ends up being Cincinnati.
25:33
SPEAKER_09: That's right.
25:34
SPEAKER_09: We're supposed to open up Cleveland, yes.
25:36
SPEAKER_07: And that was because we had opened Cleveland's.
25:38
SPEAKER_07: Cleveland had opened their stadium with us two years earlier, so it was going to be a reciprocal thing.
25:42
unknown: Yeah.
25:43
SPEAKER_07: Um, that Jacksonville game that they lost, not a great way to start the year, but it was week one.
25:48
SPEAKER_07: Nothing really to panic about.
25:50
SPEAKER_07: Uh those coward teams traditionally started slowly.
25:53
SPEAKER_09: And I don't think people fought much, like you said, going into the season, people like, well, we're probably not going to be that good anyway.
25:58
SPEAKER_07: Right.
25:59
SPEAKER_07: Right.
26:00
SPEAKER_07: So that Jacksonville game takes place on September 9th.
26:04
SPEAKER_07: Two days later, uh obviously devastating day in American history.
26:09
SPEAKER_07: Terrorists fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
26:12
SPEAKER_07: A fourth attack is foiled by passengers here in Pennsylvania, but everybody on board is killed.
26:18
SPEAKER_07: I I I don't know, Steve.
26:20
SPEAKER_07: I don't know that we can really say much about that event that hasn't already been said or won't be said as we approach the 25th anniversary.
26:27
SPEAKER_09: Do you want to I mean we could do personal mem memory?
26:30
SPEAKER_09: That's what I was going to say.
26:31
SPEAKER_09: Are we going to go that way?
26:32
SPEAKER_09: I mean I mean, this is kind of like the JFK or Pearl Harbor.
26:38
SPEAKER_09: Like, where were you when this happened?
26:40
SPEAKER_07: It's like you said, like the JFK Pearl Harbor, that that's the most significant historical event of our lifetime.
26:46
SPEAKER_07: So, yeah, what's your personal memory of that day?
26:49
SPEAKER_09: So I was driving to work and I was on Route 50, and I was out in between either the Bridgeville, yeah, I was in between the Bridgeville exit and Cuddy, that's where I worked, and I had actually heard, I was listening to a talk radio guy, and he said, Hey, a plane just hit the World Trade Center, maybe a tragic accident, we don't know.
27:16
SPEAKER_09: And I was thinking, well, that's odd.
27:18
SPEAKER_09: And I thought, well, I wonder where I can get more coverage of this.
27:21
SPEAKER_09: And I thought, back then, Howard Stern was on 1059.
27:26
SPEAKER_09: So I flipped over and I thought Howard Stern broadcast from New York.
27:30
SPEAKER_09: And that, if you're going to get live radio coverage, so I flipped over to Howard Stern.
27:36
SPEAKER_09: And as I like it literally, it took me like five to ten minutes to drive up that road and get to my workplace.
27:43
SPEAKER_09: And as I was pulling in, I remember somebody called in to Howard Stern and said, The second plane is hit the tower.
27:51
SPEAKER_09: It they totally caught, I remember the guy said he kamikaze it.
27:54
SPEAKER_09: It said that we're under attack.
27:56
SPEAKER_09: Somebody had called into Howard Stern and said that.
27:59
SPEAKER_09: So and I just remember that was just a crazy day.
28:02
SPEAKER_09: I remember like, like, and like nobody remembers this, but do you remember all the crazy rumors?
28:07
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
28:08
SPEAKER_09: Like because the internet went down.
28:10
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
28:10
SPEAKER_09: Like the internet went down because everybody was trying to figure out stuff.
28:13
SPEAKER_09: And then like they said, oh, the uh I I remember that and I worked with this lady, there was always like that one at work that would just like say like stupid stuff that you'd be like, okay, yeah, whatever.
28:24
SPEAKER_09: I don't believe you.
28:25
SPEAKER_09: So she comes in, oh, there's a plane full of dynamite in in Cleveland.
28:30
SPEAKER_09: Oh, there's a bomb at the State Department, a car bomb, blah, blah.
28:34
SPEAKER_09: Like there was all these crazy rumors.
28:36
SPEAKER_09: And then all of a sudden, oh, they're evacuating the buildings downtown.
28:39
SPEAKER_09: I'm like, yeah, because somebody's gonna want to attack Pittsburgh.
28:42
SPEAKER_09: And then she runs in, a plane crashed in Shanksville.
28:45
SPEAKER_09: And I'm like, okay, yeah, right.
28:46
SPEAKER_09: Sure, sure it did.
28:48
SPEAKER_09: And uh here, you know, it that's what you're up against, and you don't really you know, you realize one of those things actually did happen, right?
28:56
SPEAKER_09: But you didn't know how to separate the you know, the good, what was true from what was false.
29:02
SPEAKER_09: And I could only imagine being in a leadership position trying to figure that out.
29:06
SPEAKER_09: You know, they talk about the fog of war.
29:09
SPEAKER_09: That's that's that's it right there.
29:10
SPEAKER_09: You're like, is there a bob at the State Department?
29:13
SPEAKER_09: Is there like, you know, what do we do?
29:15
SPEAKER_09: And then you know, it ended up there really wasn't a plane full of dynamite in Cleveland, but the plane that that that flight 93 did fly past Pittsburgh, but they weren't, you know.
29:27
SPEAKER_09: I I remember stupid stuff like like them evacuating like the elementary school my kids were at.
29:34
SPEAKER_09: Like, okay, the terrorists are going to fly their plane, somehow find the elementary school and then fly their plane into it.
29:41
SPEAKER_09: Yes, that's going to happen.
29:44
SPEAKER_09: Let's have a little bit of you know common sense here, people.
29:48
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I think it was just that that nobody really knew what to do.
29:52
SPEAKER_09: Everybody was panicking and it was it got got stupid.
29:55
SPEAKER_09: Like I said that at the time of the day, like, well, I mean, I I personally I think the safest place for them to be was in a school building.
30:02
SPEAKER_09: Just chill out there until you know till we get done with work or whatever.
30:08
SPEAKER_07: I I forgot about the rumors.
30:09
SPEAKER_07: I I think I still have emails of some of us going back and forth that day.
30:14
SPEAKER_07: And I remember somebody there there was a rumor at one point that like the US steel tower got hit in Pittsburgh and stuff like that.
30:22
SPEAKER_09: I remember I distinctly remember the car bomb at the state building.
30:26
SPEAKER_09: I remember the um Cleveland the Cleveland thing.
30:30
SPEAKER_09: And then I remember later when I got home, they were like, Oh, there's a bomb threat at the Empire State Building, and Fox News was going nuts, and I was like, what is this?
30:38
SPEAKER_09: So I turned over to CBS and Dan Rather, who just called me and said, Oh, we have some you know bomb threats, but it's not you know really credible.
30:46
SPEAKER_09: And I thought, well, that shows you who's full of crap and who isn't.
30:50
SPEAKER_09: And that's funny because like at that moment, like who was trustworthy and who wasn't, and then like literally a year before you know, he's making up stories about President Bush.
31:01
SPEAKER_09: So yeah.
31:02
SPEAKER_09: I it just goes to show you like how you can really flush your reputation down the train in a hurry.
31:09
SPEAKER_07: That's a good point.
31:11
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
31:13
SPEAKER_07: So so yeah, for me that day, I was I was at work in my office on the north side, and we didn't have a TV, and like you said, the internet was down.
31:21
SPEAKER_07: So I went over to this dinky little bar and watched the news coverage.
31:26
SPEAKER_07: I saw the towers both fall.
31:28
SPEAKER_07: And then to your point about like not really knowing exactly what was going on, they started reporting that a forced plane had crashed, but at the time all they kept saying was that it was like near Pittsburgh.
31:40
SPEAKER_07: And my wife and I were long distance dating at the time.
31:44
SPEAKER_07: She was in Chicago, um, living in Chicago, and I I knew she'd be terrified hearing that.
31:49
SPEAKER_07: So I raced back to my office, which is on the 12th floor of 2 Allegheny Center.
31:54
SPEAKER_07: And like to your point, they weren't gonna attack, you know, that you you didn't think they were gonna attack, certainly to Allegheny Center in Pittsburgh, but I still wasn't thrilled about like going up an elevator to the 12th floor of a building at that point.
32:05
SPEAKER_07: But I wanted to call her, and at the time I didn't have a cell phone.
32:09
SPEAKER_09: Wow, you didn't even have a cell phone?
32:11
SPEAKER_09: Well, I mean, think about so in 2001.
32:13
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, did we in 2001?
32:15
SPEAKER_09: I think I did, but I was like one of the early people with a cell phone, wasn't I?
32:19
SPEAKER_07: I I was gonna say cell phones were definitely a thing in 2001, for sure.
32:23
SPEAKER_07: But it was like not everyone carried one like they do now.
32:26
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
32:26
SPEAKER_07: You know what I mean?
32:27
SPEAKER_09: Like you couldn't go on the internet.
32:29
SPEAKER_09: I don't think there were text messages yet.
32:31
SPEAKER_07: No, no, it was just to call people.
32:32
SPEAKER_07: So like some people are like, oh, I want to be able to call people whenever some people are like, I don't really want to incur that cost.
32:38
SPEAKER_09: I had a pagers.
32:39
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
32:40
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
32:41
SPEAKER_07: But when I got back to my office, all the phone lines were dead.
32:45
SPEAKER_09: Oh my gosh.
32:46
SPEAKER_09: Wow, what a nightmare.
32:48
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I picked up my phone.
32:49
SPEAKER_07: There was a phone on my desk.
32:50
SPEAKER_07: I picked it up and there was no DAO and there was nothing.
32:52
SPEAKER_09: What the heck is that?
32:53
SPEAKER_09: Like, boy, things really got w weird.
32:56
SPEAKER_09: Like, people forget how like wild that was.
32:59
SPEAKER_09: I was just thinking of that the other day.
33:00
SPEAKER_09: Like, I remember they shut down like all the um the late night TV shows, like didn't come back for like what, a week or two?
33:07
SPEAKER_09: Because a lot of them are filmed in New York.
33:09
SPEAKER_09: Even like Leno.
33:10
SPEAKER_09: I think Leno, I I forget who came from.
33:12
SPEAKER_09: I think Leno might have came back earlier because he was in LA.
33:16
SPEAKER_09: But yeah, that was that was crazy.
33:19
SPEAKER_09: It just to live through something like that was just interesting.
33:23
SPEAKER_09: And then you know, of course, we'll get in the NFL debating whether or not to play games.
33:28
SPEAKER_09: That would have been the 11th.
33:29
SPEAKER_09: So that would have been what five days, six days.
33:31
SPEAKER_09: It was a Tuesday, yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
33:33
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
33:34
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, it it it caused havoc.
33:36
SPEAKER_07: I mean, I you know, I mentioned my my girlfriend eventually wife was living in Chicago.
33:42
SPEAKER_07: I was supposed to fly out there to see her like two days later, and all the flights were grounded.
33:47
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's not gonna happen, Tim.
33:49
SPEAKER_07: Right.
33:50
SPEAKER_07: It's it's I think it's also, Steve, it's such a defining event because it literally changed all of our lives.
33:55
SPEAKER_07: I can't think of any other event in our lifetime where you can talk about how so many things were one way before the event.
34:01
SPEAKER_09: Remember they they totally changed the entrance to the airport.
34:04
SPEAKER_09: Remember that?
34:05
SPEAKER_09: Uh-huh.
34:05
SPEAKER_09: And like those days that the airport was closed, they're like, okay, you gotta come in this way, you have to go through safety.
34:10
SPEAKER_09: I remember I was married two weeks after this.
34:14
SPEAKER_09: And uh one of my groupsmen was in the Marines, and we were afraid they wouldn't be able to make it.
34:21
SPEAKER_09: Because like as soon as that happened, you know, the base of went like on lockdown, and you know, it's like, yeah, we gotta be uh Yeah, yeah, everything was different because the airport you could just go and you could go meet people at the gate, remember that?
34:35
SPEAKER_07: Or if you guys want to go shop, go hang out, yeah.
34:38
SPEAKER_09: Or play, I remember go playing video games there, like arcade video games.
34:41
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you can't do that anymore.
34:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and and and that's what I'm saying.
34:46
SPEAKER_07: I I can't think of any other event.
34:47
SPEAKER_07: I I kind of thought COVID would be like that, but it really hasn't been a whole lot.
34:53
SPEAKER_09: It was all fake, dude.
34:54
SPEAKER_07: Nice.
34:55
SPEAKER_07: That's the sound of a bunch of people unsubscribing from our podcast.
34:59
SPEAKER_07: Steve is joking, everybody.
35:00
SPEAKER_07: It's a joke.
35:02
SPEAKER_07: Um but but but like yeah, it's one of those things where yeah, before like and and that really applies to sports too.
35:10
SPEAKER_07: Like, think about what it was like to enter a sporting event pre-9-11.
35:13
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you never you never had to get searched hardly.
35:16
SPEAKER_09: I don't remember ever getting searched before.
35:18
SPEAKER_07: No, I mean I I think we've talked about on the show before.
35:21
SPEAKER_07: I I my mom used to make us like these hot big furnaces of soup to bring like cold steeler games.
35:28
SPEAKER_07: You couldn't you couldn't think of doing something like that post-9-11.
35:34
SPEAKER_09: I think a lot of it was just an excuse to it's like, oh, we don't want you bringing outside food.
35:39
SPEAKER_09: It's safety.
35:40
SPEAKER_07: So oh yeah, yeah.
35:42
SPEAKER_07: Like you can't bring a bottle of water in, buy our seven dollar bottle of water instead.
35:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
35:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, what a nice convenient thing for the sports teams.
35:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:50
SPEAKER_07: So so Steve kind of alluded this to this earlier.
35:53
SPEAKER_07: Sports kind of comes to a halt.
35:55
SPEAKER_07: Um, I actually had tickets, Steve.
35:57
SPEAKER_07: I think I still have them to the pirate game on September 12th.
36:01
SPEAKER_09: Well, that didn't happen.
36:03
SPEAKER_07: And then we were and then we were gonna go to the inaugural game at Hines Field that weekend, which, as you said, was um gonna be a Sunday night game against Cleveland.
36:11
SPEAKER_09: I can't remember if Pitt was playing.
36:13
SPEAKER_07: I I can't that would have been canceled.
36:15
SPEAKER_07: Everything was canceled.
36:17
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
36:17
SPEAKER_07: And and I think, you know, the the the debate, like you said, I I think that always came back to Pete Rosell.
36:24
SPEAKER_09: Well, in the JFK, yeah, because he had the games the week.
36:28
SPEAKER_09: When was JFK?
36:29
SPEAKER_09: Was that uh I think it was closer, wasn't it?
36:32
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I think it was a Friday, actually.
36:34
SPEAKER_07: Don't quote me on that.
36:35
SPEAKER_09: It was closer, it's like he had less time to make a decision.
36:38
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
36:39
SPEAKER_09: And they decided.
36:40
SPEAKER_09: And then there was in World War II, FDR said, hey, play base, because they said, Oh, we'll just shut down baseball.
36:46
SPEAKER_09: He said, No, play baseball.
36:48
SPEAKER_09: The people that are working, you know, here to support the war effort need something to, you know, have something else to do besides just think about the war all the time.
36:56
SPEAKER_09: So there there was precedent the other way too, of going forward.
37:02
SPEAKER_09: Sure.
37:03
SPEAKER_09: But I mean, Washington was in was a disaster.
37:07
SPEAKER_09: I don't know how you in New York, I don't know how you have a game in Washington in New York that Sunday.
37:14
SPEAKER_09: That was a mess.
37:15
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I I get it.
37:16
SPEAKER_07: I I mean it it I I definitely get it.
37:19
SPEAKER_07: So the the goofy thing for the Steelers is that they have a bye week in week three.
37:26
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
37:27
SPEAKER_09: So they ended up getting like a double bye.
37:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and this is remember, this is back when the NFL, like that that little tiny stretch between when the Browns and Texans came in, the NFL has an uneven number of teams.
37:38
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and the bye weeks were weird.
37:41
SPEAKER_09: Didn't people get like bye weeks at the beginning and the end of the season?
37:44
SPEAKER_09: You had to.
37:45
SPEAKER_09: Like, because I remember some teams would be like, our week, our week one bye, we don't play, and then like, oh, we have we're gonna play all 15 in a row or whatever.
37:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because if you have an uneven number of teams, that yeah, every week somebody, including week one and week 17, somebody has to be on by.
38:02
SPEAKER_07: So it actually ends up being 21 days between the Steelers' first game and their second game.
38:10
SPEAKER_07: But when they do come back, they look pretty sharp.
38:12
SPEAKER_07: They reel off three straight wins, but it comes at the expense of some really bad teams.
38:17
SPEAKER_07: The first real test of the season comes week six at Tampa Bay.
38:23
SPEAKER_07: The Buccaneers are coached by the aforementioned Tony Dengey and their perennial Super Bowl contenders.
38:28
SPEAKER_07: They feature four Hall of Famers on defense.
38:31
SPEAKER_07: Derek Brooks, Warren Sapp, John Lynch, and Ronde Barber.
38:34
SPEAKER_07: But the Steelers really come to play.
38:36
SPEAKER_07: The defense totally shuts down Tampa.
38:38
SPEAKER_07: They sat quarterback Brad Johnson 10 times.
38:42
SPEAKER_07: And then Jerome Bettis has one of his greatest games ever.
38:44
SPEAKER_07: He throws a touchdown pass, and then he outruns the uh Tampa Bay defense for a 46-yard touchdown.
38:52
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and he's like running over people and stuff.
38:54
SPEAKER_09: This was like just a great game by Jerome Bettis.
38:57
SPEAKER_09: Was this the paper champions?
38:58
SPEAKER_09: Was this Lee Flower?
38:59
SPEAKER_09: Or was that I think that already this is the paper champions?
39:02
SPEAKER_07: Oh, this is, yeah.
39:03
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, this after the game, Lee Flowers famously calls the Bucks paper champions.
39:07
SPEAKER_09: Which they were for one more season.
39:10
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that didn't that didn't age super well.
39:13
SPEAKER_07: But at the time it was a good it was some good, good uh audio.
39:17
SPEAKER_07: Speaking of great audio, uh, here's Myron Cope after that long 46-yard betis touchdown run.
39:24
SPEAKER_07: This is this is pretty good to listen to.
39:27
SPEAKER_10: I tell you what, he was being chased by Donnie Abraham, a cornerback, but the bus says, hey, hey, this bus is in high gear.
39:35
SPEAKER_10: You say the bus can't get into high D gear.
39:38
SPEAKER_10: The bus was like going downhill all the way, right?
39:41
SPEAKER_02: Coming down Federal Street.
39:42
SPEAKER_10: Out of control.
39:43
SPEAKER_10: Down the Green Street thing where they got the turn off on sand for the heavy trucks that lose their bright.
39:48
SPEAKER_10: That's what's the bus.
39:49
SPEAKER_10: The Tension Steelers fans, since the Steelers did score on a subway the next drive of the game, subway six in Honey Mustard Load is$1.99 all day.
40:00
SPEAKER_10: They're on me, except you gotta pay a buck ninety nine from Raymond James.
40:10
SPEAKER_09: That's pretty pretty awesome.
40:14
SPEAKER_07: I just love Myron, like the anarchy there.
40:16
SPEAKER_07: Like just doesn't Myron didn't Myron didn't do periods at the end of a sentence.
40:23
SPEAKER_09: It's a dollar ninety-nine, Tim.
40:25
SPEAKER_09: And he's going to the runaway suck truck sandpile on the uh on the parkway there.
40:30
SPEAKER_07: Parkway west, yeah.
40:31
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
40:34
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you gotta love Myron.
40:36
SPEAKER_09: Um man.
40:37
SPEAKER_09: And Tunch.
40:38
SPEAKER_09: Tunch was there too.
40:39
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, uh, Bill Hillgrove.
40:41
SPEAKER_09: Yep.
40:42
SPEAKER_07: Uh I so I would say after this game, I think this is when people are really like, hey, maybe we have something here.
40:48
SPEAKER_07: You know, like you said, Steve, like first game when they get killed, it's like, well, they're probably not gonna be that good anyway.
40:54
SPEAKER_07: But then after they, I think after they beat Tampa, it's like, oh boy, maybe maybe this is a good team.
41:00
SPEAKER_07: The offense is really starting to thrive under Mike Mullarkey.
41:03
SPEAKER_07: Uh, yes, Bettis is key to their success, but the offense is not a one-trick pony.
41:08
SPEAKER_07: The following week, when the Titans make it their goal to stop Bettis, Plex Goburris lights them up for 151 yards receiving.
41:16
SPEAKER_07: That that was a real breakout game, though, for Plex.
41:19
SPEAKER_07: Um, I think at that point he was kind of seen as a potential first-round bust.
41:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
41:25
SPEAKER_07: So now the Steelers are 5-1, and they have a huge home game against the Baltimore Ravens.
41:33
SPEAKER_07: So let's give some background here.
41:35
SPEAKER_07: The Ravens, of course, were formed back in 1996 from the ashes of the old Browns.
41:40
SPEAKER_07: And for the first four seasons of their existence, they're really just kind of another team in the AFC Central Division.
41:46
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers don't really have much of a rivalry with them.
41:49
SPEAKER_07: That all starts to change in 2000.
41:52
SPEAKER_07: There were two somewhat contentious games between the Steelers and Ravens that year, and of course, that's also the season where Baltimore wins the Super Bowl with a historically good and also very brash defense.
42:04
SPEAKER_07: In 2001, Baltimore's looking to repeat, so this is a huge game.
42:09
SPEAKER_07: Even Art Modell will be in attendance, Steve.
42:12
SPEAKER_07: His first time coming to a game in Pittsburgh in years.
42:18
SPEAKER_09: Wonder why he stopped going.
42:19
SPEAKER_09: I I I still like we had to.
42:21
SPEAKER_07: I have an answer to that.
42:22
SPEAKER_09: We had a clip show, remember that where he had like the sad look on his face at the stadium.
42:27
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because he kept losing every year.
42:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, no, I actually have an answer.
42:31
SPEAKER_07: The reason he quit so when he moved the team to Baltimore, he quit coming to games in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, or Cleveland because he was afraid.
42:41
SPEAKER_07: Uh well, well, I think he was afraid that somebody would like try to physically attack him or something.
42:47
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
42:48
SPEAKER_07: So um, but he had promised Dan Rooney that he would be there for the for the inaugural Ravens game in Hinesfield, so he he does come.
42:58
SPEAKER_07: There's a little bit of back and forth talk before this game.
43:02
SPEAKER_07: Ray Lewis, the Baltimore linebacker, he talks about how they're not gonna allow Fettis to get 100 yards against them.
43:09
SPEAKER_07: The Ravens at that point had not allowed a hundred-yard rusher for 44 games.
43:13
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers mostly brush that off.
43:16
SPEAKER_07: They're kind of like, hey, you know, Ray Lewis has a Super Bowl ring and we don't, so if we want to do something this year, we're gonna have to dethrone them.
43:23
SPEAKER_07: The game itself goes the way that most Steel or Ravens games went in that era.
43:29
SPEAKER_07: It's a low scoring, mostly defensive affair.
43:32
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers defense plays great.
43:34
SPEAKER_07: Steve, here's a good trivia question for you.
43:36
SPEAKER_07: Do you remember who the starting quarterback is for this Ravens Steelers game?
43:42
SPEAKER_07: And I'll give you a hint.
43:43
SPEAKER_07: It's not Trent Dilfer because the Ravens had dumped him after they won the Super Bowl, and it's not Elvis Gerback, the guy they signed to replace Dilfer because he was injured.
43:52
SPEAKER_09: Bowler?
43:52
SPEAKER_09: Mark Bowler?
43:53
SPEAKER_07: Kyle Bowler.
43:54
SPEAKER_07: They that was two drafted him two years later.
43:57
SPEAKER_07: He was still in college.
43:58
SPEAKER_09: Oh, jeez.
44:00
SPEAKER_09: Tony Banks?
44:01
SPEAKER_09: No.
44:01
SPEAKER_07: That's a good guess.
44:02
SPEAKER_07: He's with the Redskins at this point.
44:05
SPEAKER_09: Going through Ravens quarterbacks in a hurry here.
44:08
SPEAKER_09: Jim Harbaugh?
44:09
SPEAKER_09: No, he's he's dead.
44:10
SPEAKER_09: He's retired.
44:11
SPEAKER_09: Uh I don't know.
44:12
SPEAKER_09: I don't know.
44:12
SPEAKER_09: That's a good question.
44:13
SPEAKER_07: It's 38-year-old Randall Cunningham.
44:17
SPEAKER_09: Oh, wow.
44:18
SPEAKER_09: Wow, I forgot about that.
44:21
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
44:22
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
44:22
SPEAKER_09: So they cleaned out their quarterback room after the after the Super Bowl win, basically.
44:27
SPEAKER_09: Because Tony Banks and Trent Dilfer were their quarterbacks.
44:31
SPEAKER_07: That's yes, absolutely.
44:33
SPEAKER_07: And they replaced him with Gerbach and Cunningham.
44:36
SPEAKER_09: Not that like, you know, Tony Banks was all that special.
44:41
SPEAKER_07: I mean I I still think this is this is not a popular opinion, but I still think it was a mistake to get rid of Dilfer.
44:47
SPEAKER_07: I like I get he wasn't Joe Montana, but there's something to be said for chemistry and consistency.
44:52
SPEAKER_07: And Elvis Gerbach was not a popular guy with his teammates.
44:55
SPEAKER_07: Brandon Stokely later, he he talked about how Gerbach wasn't a locker room guy and players didn't really like him.
45:02
SPEAKER_07: And I I don't know.
45:04
SPEAKER_07: I I just think you know, you had that really good defense.
45:07
SPEAKER_07: You you had success with Dilfer.
45:10
SPEAKER_07: I don't know.
45:11
SPEAKER_07: I I would have stuck with him, but who knows?
45:14
SPEAKER_07: Who knows if that would have changed anything?
45:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, granted, he's th 38 years old at this point, so he's he's very much at the end of his career.
45:25
SPEAKER_07: But sure.
45:26
SPEAKER_09: The last good season he had was 98.
45:28
SPEAKER_09: What's that?
45:29
SPEAKER_09: Four years, three years, yeah.
45:31
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
45:32
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
45:33
SPEAKER_07: So so the Steelers defense is playing really well.
45:36
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers offense is not scoring touchdowns, but good news, they're moving the ball and they're getting into field goal range.
45:43
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
45:44
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers kicker that year is a guy named Chris Brown.
45:48
SPEAKER_07: He had been a seventh-round draft twice, not the singer 29.
45:52
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
45:52
SPEAKER_07: Not the singer.
45:53
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
45:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
45:54
SPEAKER_07: And he had proved to be a very reliable kicker for them.
45:58
SPEAKER_07: I think at the time he was a guy you thought would be around for years, much like Gary Anderson or Jeffrey or Chris Boswell.
46:06
SPEAKER_09: Much like Gary Anderson, he liked kicking on turf.
46:09
SPEAKER_07: He was very good on turf.
46:11
SPEAKER_07: Well, well, and honestly, even here in 2001 so far, heading into this Baltimore game, Steve, he's 11 of 13 on field goal attempts, which is pretty good.
46:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
46:21
SPEAKER_07: But this is only the third home game of the season.
46:24
SPEAKER_07: And what no one realizes at the time.
46:26
SPEAKER_09: The weather has changed too.
46:28
SPEAKER_09: This is like November now, isn't it?
46:30
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
46:30
SPEAKER_09: Well, and and there's a lot of difference between quickening September and kicking in November in Hinesfield.
46:36
SPEAKER_07: And and I don't think anybody realized how much of a nightmare, like you just mentioned, or like you talked about earlier, with the open end of the stadium, which doesn't exist anymore, but at the time, they have this open end, the south end of the stadium is wide open facing the river.
46:50
SPEAKER_07: And then the turf, like you said, is is I mean, substandard.
46:56
SPEAKER_07: It's a nice way to put it.
46:57
SPEAKER_09: Substandard.
47:00
SPEAKER_09: God-awful.
47:02
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
47:03
SPEAKER_07: So so I don't think anybody realizes that, but Heinz Field is not going to be an easy.
47:07
SPEAKER_07: And it gets worse.
47:08
SPEAKER_09: The problem with the turf is it gets worse as the season goes on.
47:11
SPEAKER_09: As things get colder, grass doesn't grow, and as Pitt and the Steelers and the high school teams all play on it, it just gets worse as the season goes on.
47:21
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and this is really the first time.
47:23
SPEAKER_07: there there was a there was a pit game against Syracuse a couple of weeks earlier where um Pitt misses a bunch of field goals.
47:30
SPEAKER_07: But I mean, college kickers, especially back then, super inconsistent.
47:33
SPEAKER_07: So I don't think anybody's really saying anything at this point.
47:37
SPEAKER_07: Well, in this game, Chris Brown proceeds to miss from 41 yards, then from 33 yards, then from 48 yards, the latter two of those wide right.
47:48
SPEAKER_07: But hey, even after all of that, the Steelers drive all the way down to the Baltimore 17 yard line in the closing seconds of regulation.
47:56
SPEAKER_07: A field goal here sends the game into overtime, and Chris Brown misses again wide right.
48:03
SPEAKER_09: Four misses in a game.
48:04
SPEAKER_09: That was I I think the field guard because 17 yards is not that far.
48:10
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the 17-yard line.
48:11
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's a chip shot.
48:12
SPEAKER_07: 34-yard field goal.
48:13
SPEAKER_07: That's a chip shot.
48:14
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
48:14
SPEAKER_07: I mean, that's less than a current extra point.
48:17
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
48:18
SPEAKER_07: So it it and like you said, four miss field goals.
48:21
SPEAKER_07: I I think to this day it's one of the most maddening losses ever because they outplayed the Ravens.
48:26
SPEAKER_07: Bettis doesn't have 100 yards, but he has 90, which against that defense is pretty good.
48:32
SPEAKER_07: Uh and they just give the game away on missed kicks.
48:35
SPEAKER_07: And this also starts a very troubling trend for this club.
48:39
SPEAKER_07: It's scary bad special teams play, and yes, it will come back to haunt them.
48:45
SPEAKER_07: The next week the Steelers travel to Cleveland, and if at the time you as a Steeler fan were upset about last week's loss to the Ravens, Browns fans were very much like, hey, hold my beer.
48:58
SPEAKER_07: Cleveland suffered what I would argue is the worst regular season collapse in NFL history the week before at Soldier Field in Chicago.
49:05
SPEAKER_07: The Browns were beating the Bears 21-7 with 28 seconds left in the game, and they lost.
49:11
SPEAKER_08: How did they lose that?
49:13
SPEAKER_08: Let me wait, hang on.
49:14
SPEAKER_07: I just want to repeat that for a fact.
49:15
SPEAKER_07: Cleveland had a 21-7 lead with under 30 seconds left in the game, and they did not win.
49:23
SPEAKER_09: That's hard to believe.
49:25
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I'll spare you the details of how that happened.
49:27
SPEAKER_07: But needless to say, only in Cleveland could something like that happen.
49:32
SPEAKER_07: Once again, the Steel Wars offense cannot get into the end zone.
49:37
SPEAKER_07: But now, maybe because this game is in Cleveland instead of Pittsburgh, Chris Brown is making field goals.
49:41
SPEAKER_07: He actually kicks four field goals.
49:44
SPEAKER_07: The offense isn't scoring a lot of points, but if you're causing a lot of controversy, take a listen to what happens in the second quarter in this game in Cleveland.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: He missed the second half of last week's game with muscle crap.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: Either holding it out and hope it's not a three.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: There's the block right there on Earl Little.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: He just dropped right there.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: The block is made by Heinz Ward.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: I can only hope for the best in this game that they're holding the helmet of Earl Little.
50:20
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, he was concussed.
50:22
SPEAKER_09: That's pretty obvious.
50:23
SPEAKER_09: He got knocked out.
50:26
SPEAKER_09: And Heinz Ward was like, the ball was caught like 10 yards away, and Heinz Ward decided to block him, and when he did, he hit him right in the head.
50:33
SPEAKER_09: And that kind of Earl Little was maybe not, he was probably watching the ball to go make the tackle.
50:40
SPEAKER_09: Which again, it was like 10 yards away.
50:43
SPEAKER_09: That's definitely a play that would get you fined if not suspended these days.
50:48
SPEAKER_08: It absolutely would be.
50:49
SPEAKER_09: It's probably better they got that.
50:51
SPEAKER_09: I mean I I if the guy was like running down the sidelines, I could see it, but like yeah, you probably don't want to be just randomly hitting people there.
51:01
SPEAKER_07: And and that, yeah, that Heinz word hit on her a little.
51:04
SPEAKER_07: It's it's bad.
51:05
SPEAKER_07: They have to get a stretcher for him and strap him down.
51:07
SPEAKER_09: We can see he's concussed.
51:08
SPEAKER_09: Like he had the they call it fencing where his arms are just like, you know, held out straight.
51:13
SPEAKER_07: Well, and and at the time they're worried that he might have a spinal injury.
51:17
SPEAKER_07: And unfortunately, he ends up being okay, but the Browns are pissed.
51:21
SPEAKER_07: And they're not so much upset that Heinz word hit someone because at the time that was a legal hit.
51:29
SPEAKER_09: Oh, it was legal, yeah.
51:30
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
51:30
SPEAKER_07: And and they and the Browns even say that.
51:32
SPEAKER_07: They're like, it's it's you know, it was a it was a clean legal hit.
51:35
SPEAKER_07: But what they take exception to is the fact that Ward kind of stands over Little's unconscious body and flexes his muscles a little and gloats.
51:44
SPEAKER_07: And Little says that was cowardly.
51:46
SPEAKER_07: He says, quote, I could have passed away, I could have been paralyzed, you don't have to go out there and act like a jerk.
51:51
SPEAKER_07: Linebacker Jameer Miller says there's no reason to rub it in.
51:54
SPEAKER_07: Brown's cornerback Corey Fuller actually confronts Ward on the field and gets called for a 15-yard penalty.
52:00
SPEAKER_07: He then gets into it with Bill Cower, who reportedly tells Ford to quote, shut the F up.
52:08
SPEAKER_09: Gotta love the Browns are back, baby.
52:12
SPEAKER_07: For his part, Heinz Ward says, quote, two plays before that, Little said he was gonna kill me.
52:17
SPEAKER_07: If you're gonna sit there and talk trash and say you're gonna murder me, then I'm gonna end up doing this to you.
52:23
SPEAKER_09: Well, touche.
52:26
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, Heinz Ward never wanted to back down.
52:28
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
52:29
SPEAKER_07: As for the actual game, it's tied 12 to 12 in the final seconds.
52:34
SPEAKER_09: Wow, what a barn burner, Tim.
52:36
SPEAKER_07: It's a barn burner.
52:38
SPEAKER_07: And for the second straight week, Chris Brown has a chance to kick a last second field goal.
52:43
SPEAKER_07: And this time, Steve, he misses wide left.
52:48
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
52:49
SPEAKER_09: That sucks.
52:51
SPEAKER_07: But this story has a happy ending.
52:53
SPEAKER_07: Brown redeems himself by drawing the game winner in overtime.
52:56
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers prevail 15-12 with all of their points coming off of the foot of Chris Brown.
53:02
SPEAKER_09: But he could have won it in the regular.
53:05
SPEAKER_07: He could have, but hey, you know, all's well then ends well.
53:09
SPEAKER_07: Here's Brown talking to reporters after the game.
53:13
SPEAKER_06: You know, right before overtime, I said, you guys just get the ball down there.
53:17
SPEAKER_06: Give me another chance.
53:18
SPEAKER_06: And he told me he said we're going to give you another chance.
53:21
SPEAKER_06: I'd like to get to the point where you're not having press conferences after gold.
53:26
SPEAKER_06: I'd like it if I never talked to one of you guys ever again, personally.
53:32
SPEAKER_09: Is that John Staggerwald?
53:33
SPEAKER_09: I think that was John Stager World.
53:34
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that was Staggerwald.
53:35
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
53:36
SPEAKER_07: I recognize his voice.
53:38
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
53:40
SPEAKER_09: I like to never talk to you guys ever again.
53:42
SPEAKER_09: Well.
53:43
SPEAKER_07: So after that, the Stewart's win their next four games as well.
53:46
SPEAKER_07: They're now 10-2, which is the second best.
53:49
SPEAKER_07: No, I'm sorry, which is the best record in the AFC.
53:52
SPEAKER_07: They're being talked about as legitimate Super Bowl contenders.
53:55
SPEAKER_07: Cordell Stewart makes the cover of Sports Illustrated, which, and I know I say this a lot, but it really was a big deal at the time to be on the cover of that magazine.
54:05
SPEAKER_07: He's being talked about as an MVP candidate.
54:08
SPEAKER_07: He gives a ton of credit to Mike Mullarkey for rejuvenating his career.
54:12
SPEAKER_07: Stuart Bettis and Heinz Ward all make the Pro Bowl.
54:16
SPEAKER_07: On defense, Jason Gildin is having a career year.
54:18
SPEAKER_07: He has 12 sacks and he's named All Pro.
54:21
SPEAKER_07: Kendro Bell is named the Defensive Rookie of the Year.
54:25
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers have a top five defense.
54:27
SPEAKER_07: It's a rock solid team, except on special teams.
54:32
SPEAKER_07: There's a game against Jacksonville, where the Jaguars only points come on a special teams touchdown.
54:38
SPEAKER_07: There's a game against Cincinnati where the Bengals get a touchdown on a botched field goal hold by Josh Miller.
54:44
SPEAKER_07: There's a game against the Jets where Chris Brown misses two field goals and an extra point.
54:49
SPEAKER_07: Steve, this is not a good trend.
54:51
SPEAKER_07: No.
54:52
SPEAKER_07: No.
54:54
SPEAKER_07: Meanwhile, here's an interesting little story from that season that people were talking about a lot at the time, but folks probably will not remember today.
55:01
SPEAKER_07: So as the Steelers are pushing towards the number one seed in the AFC, the presumed number one seed in the NFC is the St.
55:09
SPEAKER_07: Louis Rams.
55:11
SPEAKER_07: They have this high-powered offense led by head coach Mike Marts, nicknamed the greatest show on turf, and they're just destroying defenses with it all season.
55:19
SPEAKER_07: In December, the Rams are playing the 49ers, and they're faced with a fourth and short early in the game.
55:26
SPEAKER_07: And here's what happens.
55:29
SPEAKER_11: You see that one out.
55:31
SPEAKER_11: Kurt Warner started to walk away like he was gonna take a timeout, and they snapped the ball directly.
55:37
SPEAKER_11: And Michael Pop made a pretty good catch.
55:40
SPEAKER_11: What an actor Kurt Warner is.
55:44
SPEAKER_09: I remember that trick play.
55:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, pretty, pretty innovative play, right?
55:48
SPEAKER_07: Kurt Warner, the Rams quarterback, he fakes like he's going to just walk away and call timeout, but they direct snap the ball to the running back, which totally catches the defense flat footed.
55:56
SPEAKER_07: And you heard like Madman Summerall there.
55:58
SPEAKER_07: They're just so impressed.
55:59
SPEAKER_07: That play is shown on all the highlight reels that evening.
56:02
SPEAKER_07: What a great play creation by offensive genius Mike Martz, right, Steve?
56:08
SPEAKER_09: Do you remember the aftermath of this?
56:10
SPEAKER_09: Like the NFL, like people were crying that the NFL should make a rule that you weren't allowed to do that.
56:16
SPEAKER_07: I don't remember that.
56:17
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I remember that.
56:18
SPEAKER_09: They're like, oh, you shouldn't be able to have a trick play or fake like you're gonna stack.
56:22
SPEAKER_09: It's like, okay, so you're gonna get rid of like play action and hard counts and the defense isn't gonna be allowed to blitz.
56:29
SPEAKER_09: Like, like what what what what are you talking about?
56:31
SPEAKER_09: I just remember people like having like a big like fit over it.
56:34
SPEAKER_09: It was pre like internet, like not pre-internet, because I do remember reading like page two on ESPN at the time, but like it was pre like Twitter.
56:43
SPEAKER_09: Circle Major, yeah, yeah.
56:46
SPEAKER_09: Stuff where people were like, oh, they're cheating.
56:48
SPEAKER_09: It's like, oh god.
56:50
SPEAKER_07: But but so you remember that that play was like a big deal, everybody was talking about it, right?
56:54
SPEAKER_07: Yes, yes, I remember that play.
56:56
SPEAKER_07: So so one week before the Rams Niners game, the Steelers are playing the Minnesota Vikings at Heinz Field when this happens.
57:03
SPEAKER_07: And again, this is one week before the Rams 49ers game.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: First down with a direct snap right here.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: Tennis inside the twenty yard line.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: So Cordell Stewart going down the line and a direct snap to Tennis.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: I think I think that's that's called a bunch of malarky remember this.
57:25
SPEAKER_11: And it's working.
57:27
SPEAKER_07: So the Steelers, you know, they they run the same, they run that play, and then the Rams run the same play a week later.
57:33
SPEAKER_07: And when the Rams run that play, people remember that.
57:36
SPEAKER_07: Steelers fans definitely remembered that.
57:38
SPEAKER_07: And even the national media takes notice.
57:40
SPEAKER_07: I I dug up the NFL primetime episode from that week, and Chris Berman's like, oh, those tricky Rams.
57:46
SPEAKER_07: And Tom Jackson butts right in, and he's like, Yeah, they obviously got this from the Steelers, who did the same thing last week.
57:53
SPEAKER_07: And not only did the Steelers do it the week before, but in fact, the Steelers had run this play with Bobby Lane and Dick Hoke in the 1960s.
58:01
SPEAKER_09: Well, they stole it from Buddy Parker.
58:04
SPEAKER_07: And that's actually how it finds its way into the 2001 playbook because Dick Hoke is one of the assistants on that 2001 team.
58:11
SPEAKER_07: Now, does that mean that they had some kind of patent on that play?
58:14
SPEAKER_07: I mean, no, teams run copycat plays of other teams all the time, but it was just an interesting little thing that happened here.
58:20
SPEAKER_07: And I think at this point, a lot of people were thinking that Rams versus Steelers was going to be that year's Super Bowl matchup, and this kind of gets a lot of attention at the time.
58:29
SPEAKER_09: It would have been hello, Super Bowl win for the Rams.
58:32
SPEAKER_09: I'm convinced of that.
58:34
SPEAKER_09: That would have been a bad matchup for this Steelers to age well we'll we'll never know, unfortunately.
58:40
SPEAKER_07: Uh but yeah, but that was the big thing, like the Rams Star play, kind of a thing.
58:45
SPEAKER_07: And and and again, like you said, it got a bunch of attention, and what a genius Mike Marts is.
58:50
SPEAKER_07: But Mike Mallargy had run the exact same play the week before.
58:54
SPEAKER_07: Anyway, the season ultimately comes down to the same thing that almost every Steeler season in the 21st century comes down to.
59:00
SPEAKER_07: It's a late season showdown with the Baltimore Ravens.
59:04
SPEAKER_07: It's a Sunday night game at Baltimore.
59:06
SPEAKER_07: It's a rematch of the game in Pittsburgh where Chris Brown missed all the field goals, and now things start getting a little more contentious.
59:13
SPEAKER_07: Ravens defensive tackle and former pit star, Tony Siragusa, is asked about the large number of Steelers fans expected to travel to Baltimore.
59:22
SPEAKER_09: I remember this quote, yeah.
59:23
SPEAKER_07: And he says, quote, my suggestion is if you see someone with black and gold on, follow them into the bathroom and take care of business yourself, because there's no cameras in the bathroom.
59:34
SPEAKER_09: Well, he's he's a smart guy.
59:35
SPEAKER_09: He went to pit, Tim.
59:36
SPEAKER_09: He knows what he's he knows for the cameras.
59:40
SPEAKER_09: The late Tony Saragusa, unfortunately.
59:43
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
59:44
SPEAKER_07: And and like that was a little tongue-in-cheek, but given that NFL stadiums aren't exactly bastions of civility to begin with, I think it's a little reckless.
59:53
SPEAKER_09: Well, it's not like it's Philadelphia with their own court and jail cell.
59:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
59:59
SPEAKER_07: Uh the fun doesn't stop with Goose, though.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_07: Jerome Bettis, not one for controversy, he makes a seemingly innocent remark complimenting Bengal's linebacker Takeo Spikes.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_07: Bettis essentially says that Takeo Spikes is as good as Ray Lewis, but doesn't get the credit he deserves because he plays for a terrible team.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_07: That of course sets off a firestorm with Lewis, who fires back with quotes about being disrespected and says, quote, tell Jerome to come see me on Sunday.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_09: Whatever it takes to get you motivated, Ray.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_09: Whatever pretty much.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_09: Whatever it takes to get your motor going, buddy.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_09: If that's what it takes, good for you.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_07: Uh Raven's tight end Shannon Sharp, who could never keep his mouth shut for more than four consecutive seconds at a time, he also chimes in saying that Thettis's comments were akin to comparing, dude, where's my car to Titanic?
1:00:51
SPEAKER_09: Well, both those movies are pretty terrible.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_07: More people unsubscribing from the podcast.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_07: You're ripping Titanic.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_09: Ripping Titanic.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_07: Uh Ray Lewis also says that he wouldn't trade anyone on his defense for any players on the Steelers, to which Steelers linebacker Joey Porter replies, quote, that's good because we wouldn't take none of their guys, neither.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_07: If you ever wondered where the Stewart Ravens rivalry truly started, it was right around here.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_09: I remember I remember that Tony Saragusa comment more than anything.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_09: That caused quite a stuff at the time, yeah.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_09: That was a big talk radio fall.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_09: Once again, like talk radio is kind of like in place of social media.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_09: Good point.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you're right.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_07: That's that's where everybody kind of uh blew up stuff like that was talk radio.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_09: That and copes cabana after the game.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:01:48
unknown: Yeah.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_07: So when we finally do play football, fans retreated to yet another defensive battle.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_07: There's more bad special teams plays.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers give up a bunch of kick-return yardage.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_07: Chris Brown misses a tip shot field goal.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_07: Cordell puts up a ton of passing yards, but touchdowns still come at a premium against the Baltimore defense.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_07: And the fourth quarter, the Steelers are clinging to a 13-7 lead, and the Ravens have them pinned back at their own 10-yard line, and it's third and long.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_07: If the Ravens can hold the Steelers on this play, then Pittsburgh's going to have to punt from its own end zone, which, you know, given the special teams' disasters, could have resulted in about 20 different bad outcomes.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_07: And even if they do get the punt off, the Ravens are going to have excellent field position with a chance to take the lead late in the game.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_07: So what happens on third and long from the Steelers 10-yard line?
1:02:38
SPEAKER_07: It's the play of the year.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_02: Big, big third down.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_02: This is what you really need to complete a third down pass.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_02: Shotgun for Cordell, two sidebarks.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_02: Back is Cordell to his goal line, throws it down the middle of the field.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_02: He's gone! He's at the 35-30.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: 25-20.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_02: Look at Bobby Shaw.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: Goes 90 yards for the steeler touchdown.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: He beat Woodson.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_02: He beat Stark.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_02: And he beat the Balamar Ravens big time.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_09: Was Woodson still playing corner?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_09: I think he'd moved the safety.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_09: He was a safety.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_09: He had moved the safety by then.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_09: That was a nice throw by Cordone.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_09: He threaded the needle there.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_09: Nice.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_07: It was a perfect throw.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_09: Yancy Thigpen couldn't have made that play.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_07: Well, and that's something that the Steelers didn't have for a lot of years.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_07: Really, the most of the coward years.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_07: Down the middle of the field.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, longer pass down the middle of the field.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_07: And that was so clutch, too.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_07: Again, they're backed up at their own 10-yard line.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_07: It's third and long.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_07: You heard like Tunch at the beginning of that clip, like you have to make a play here.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_07: Like, that's a big moment in the game, a big moment in the season.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_07: And that's it.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_07: That's ball game.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers win the final ever AFC Central Division title.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_07: The NFL dissolves that division the next year and moves the Steelers and Ravens into the new AFC North.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_07: Near the end of the game, ESPN cameras catch a priceless shot.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_07: Ray Lewis crying on the Baltimore sidelines.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_07: Maybe he's upset that the Steelers got the best of them.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_07: Maybe he's, you know, feeling remorse for all those people he reportedly stabbed.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_07: Either way, I can't tell you how satisfying it was to watch that.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers end the regular season as the AFC's number one seed.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_07: What a story.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_07: This was a team who had not made the playoffs for three years.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_07: They were picked to win seven games.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_07: Here they are in a year where so much is happening, both on and off the field, primed for a Super Bowl run.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_07: Their opponent in the divisional playoffs, guess who, Steve?
1:04:36
SPEAKER_07: It's the Ravens.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_07: Ravens.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_09: Yay, Ravens! Because of course you got a they had a first round bye.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_07: Right.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_07: Yep.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_07: And the Ravens won their wildcard game.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_07: And so now it's going to be Steelers, Ravens, and the Division.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_09: I forget if the Ravens played in their wildcard.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_07: Was it the it was the Dolphins?
1:04:55
SPEAKER_09: Oh wow, that's an automatic win back then.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_07: I mean, this is so they they played each other twice.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_07: Baltimore won one, Pittsburgh won one, and now this is for all the marbles because obviously the losers This is a big game.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_07: I remember this game.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_09: Well well.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean it's it's for all it's whoever loses goes home.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_07: So and whoever wins goes to the AOC championship game, so it's huge.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_07: Once again, we have controversy for this game, but this time it's not with the players.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_07: Thomas E.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_07: Dewberry is a politician from Maryland, and not just any politician, Steve, he's the speaker pro tem of the Maryland House of Delegates.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_09: Wow, that the nickel will get you a coke.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_09: Come on, man.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_09: Who cares about this dude?
1:05:43
SPEAKER_09: No offense.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_09: No offense to state Senator Congressman Dewberry, state Congressman Dewberry.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_07: Steve, Steve, he's the speaker pro tem of the Maryland House of Delegates.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_07: Please don't insult him with just a typical state rap.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_09: I know.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_09: I know really.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_07: So Mr.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_07: Dewberry drives up to Pittsburgh to see this game with his 16-year-old son.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_07: And after the game, Dewberry writes a letter that he sends to Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_07: He also sends copies of the letter to the Rooneys, NFL Commissioner Paul Taglibu, and to a bunch of newspaper editors.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_07: And Steve, this letter is really something.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_07: In fact, I was going to read an excerpt from it, but I really can't do it justice by reading it myself, so I had an AI-generated voice do it for me.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_07: Take a listen.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_05: No experience in the world could have ever prepared my son and I for the horrific treatment we received from an overwhelming number of football fans in your city.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_05: Shortly after disembarking from our car, the so-called fans began harassing, embarrassing, abusing, and intimidating us.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_05: They used disgusting and vile language that would have made even the most hardened tailor blush.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_05: Thomas E.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_05: Dewberry.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_09: I like the moonlights and auto.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_09: That was a good choice by you, Tim.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_07: Yes, I've almost been Beethoven.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_09: Poor Mr.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_09: Dewberry.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_09: His sensitive ears have been offended.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_09: Sir, you've offended my auto, sir.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_07: So so so okay.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_07: Lem let me say this first of all.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_07: I I really don't condone this type of stuff.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_07: I've been going to games for a long time.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_07: In fact, this coming season will be my 40th season attending Steel World Games.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_07: And the vast majority of opposing fans who attend Steel World Games, with the notable exception of Dallas Cowboy fans, they don't want to trash talk.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_07: They don't want to get into a fight.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_09: They're just there to root for their team.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_07: They're just there to root for their team.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_09: And you can't get mad if they do, like if they convert a big play or something.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_09: As long as they're not doing that stupid Eagles chant.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_09: I mean that in Michigan.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_09: Like outside of like Penn State or Notre Dame, I could never stand Michigan State fans because I thought they were annoying, but it was just random thoughts.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and and you know, just because you got liquored up for five hours in the parking lot doesn't mean you have to ambush somebody wearing a Denver Broncos sweatshirt.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_07: Right?
1:08:14
SPEAKER_07: Like, just be nice to people.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_07: It does not that hard.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_07: Now, okay.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_07: That being said, I also can't believe that anyone would be shocked coming to a playoff game of a heated rival and not expecting to at least get some level of flack from the fans.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_09: It wasn't like they threw anything at him.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_09: I mean, it could have been a lot worse.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_07: The fact that he was that taken aback and he had to write letters to everybody and CC a bunch of newspaper editors, like that just wreaks a little bit of performative outrage to me.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_07: Uh also just a just a little bit hypocritical given that Tony Saragusa literally Baltimore fans to pull Pittsburgh bands into the bathrooms and physically assault them.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_07: And he's, you know, he's upset that you know.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_07: So anyway.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_07: And and he was with his son.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_07: So I mean, I like I said, I was pretty good.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_09: Like he hasn't ever heard those words before.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_07: Well, that's a good point.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_07: He wasn't like five.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, it was just like, come on, dude.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_09: So yeah, the football game, not the Met Gala here.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_09: Right.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_07: Right.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, I just I thought that was a a funny story.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_07: Worth uh I forgot about that.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_09: Now I remember that when you read that, I was like, oh yeah, this idiot.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_07: Uh yeah, so that's the plight of Thomas E.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_09: I wonder whatever happened to Thomas E.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_09: Dewberry.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_07: He passed away a couple years ago.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_09: Oh, that's a shame.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he continued he continued to serve.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_07: I look I did look him up.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_07: He continued to serve in various Maryland government positions or something.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_07: I think he was a judge too.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_07: Wow.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_07: So um meanwhile, while uh Jerome Bettis, Jerome Bettis has actually been out for a while nursing a sore groin.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_07: Here he is talking to David Letterman about that.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_04: I'm a little banged up, but uh a lot better had a groin injury.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've ever had a groin injury.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_04: Well, sure I have.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_04: What kind of guy do you think I am?
1:10:08
SPEAKER_04: I got an injured groin right now for good sake.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_04: Well, doing what I do, I can't have an injured groin.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_04: You probably can can do this with an injured groin.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_01: I've actually injured it here.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_07: So, yeah, Bettis banged up, but hey, no worries.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_07: Bettis had lots of time to heal.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers, as Steve mentioned, had a playoff bi-week, so Jerome's gonna be set to play in this game, right, Steve?
1:10:38
SPEAKER_09: Well, let's let's hope the shot goes okay.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because he's gonna take a pregame pain-killing shot.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_07: It's actually a painkilling shot he actually didn't even have to take, but he was like, well, if it helps, you know, that'll be a good thing.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_07: Well, it doesn't help, in fact.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_07: He has a really bad reaction to it, and it's it's such a bad reaction, he can't play.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I think his whole leg went numb or something like that.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_09: So but it wasn't it wasn't like terrible because the one's like, oh my god, we had Jerome's whole way.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_09: Like the last couple games they had Amos Airway and they were doing well.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it it it it's you're right.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_07: They they were used to not having Bettis, but I think they they kind of wanted him back for you know the biggest game of the season against the Ravens.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_07: And and like it would be different if you knew he wasn't gonna play all week, but they practiced, he was gonna play, he was suited up, and then like literally like last second, they Zaraway has to start a running back.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_07: So this seems destined to be another hard-fought, low-scoring affair, but it kind of ends up being anticlimactic.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers defense just destroys Elvis Gerback, who throws three interceptions in what will be his final ever NFL game.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_09: Wow, I didn't know that was his final game.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_09: This is one of my favorite Steeler games of all time.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_09: Come on, you gotta show the clip.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_07: You you you don't have the clip of Johnny.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_07: Oh, your horses.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_07: We're getting into that.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_09: I just want to see it, Tim.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_07: Zaraway rushes for two scores, and then Plex Go Burst burns the Ravens defense for a long touchdown.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_07: That play is especially satisfying for Plex because Shannon Sharp had derisively been calling him Plexiglass, which is kind of a stupid insult given the fact that Plexiglass is actually really strong.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_09: I mean, take it literally, I guess.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_07: Isn't the whole point of Plexiglass that it's stronger than regular glass, doesn't shatter?
1:12:34
SPEAKER_07: I don't know.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_07: What do I know?
1:12:35
SPEAKER_07: Shannon Sharp's a genius, obviously.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_07: Burr says, quote, I think everyone got so sick and tired of them doing all the talking, they can swagger themselves back to Baltimore.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers win 27-10, and arguably the most memorable moment of that game is not a touchdown or an interception, but rather this play.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_11: Freddy Lewis here.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_11: He's got his sights set on Famous Amos.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_11: Unfortunately, he is steamed by Dan Kreider to fullback.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_09: How about that block?
1:13:07
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry, I went back one too many fullbacks.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_09: It was Dan Kreider, not John Whitman.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_09: I uh my apologies to Dan Kreider from New Hampshire.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_09: New Hampshire, yep.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and that that's just one of my favorite plays of all time.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_09: And I wish Paul McGuire would have had to call that play.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_09: I wish Paul Maguire would have sit there and call that.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_09: Look at Ray Lewis laying on the ground, getting knocked over by an undrafted free agent.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_07: Uh Paul McGuire would have just left the booth to like go into one of those nice open Heinzfield bathrooms to weep in the corner.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_07: Uh for their part, the Ravens are conciliatory in defeat.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_07: Head coach Brian Billet calls the Steelers an outstanding team with great fans.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_07: Hall of Famer Jonathan Odgins says that he can't see anyone beating the Steelers.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_09: I remember that.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, even Ray Lewis said that they're gonna win the Super Bowl.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_09: I remember that.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and he said, and he credits the Steelers with playing, quote, a hell of a ball game.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_07: So, I mean, fair fair credit to the Ravens.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_07: They're actually very complimentary of the Steelers after they lose.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_07: One final footnote for this game.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers defense, like we said, plays great.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_07: They don't allow a touchdown all day.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_07: The only touchdown scored by the Ravens in this game happens on Special Teams.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_07: Special teams.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_07: Jermaine Lewis has an NFL playoff record long 88-yard punt return.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_07: Oh well, you know, fortunately, no harm, no foul.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers can always overcome their bad special teams, right, Steve?
1:14:35
SPEAKER_09: Right.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_09: Right.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_09: Now like like special teams were really bad this year, but I I I don't know.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_09: Maybe they just it wasn't all maybe their fault, although they I don't know, they really crapped a bit the next game.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_09: Which were the Steelers were the number one seed, right?
1:14:56
SPEAKER_09: Correct.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers were the number one seed.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_09: So they would have had to play because I always thought they were gonna play the Raiders the week after, and that that was gonna be this iconic game against two old school franchises, but yeah.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_09: So But the there's another there there is a dynasty being born somewhere else that weekend, if I'm gonna do that.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_07: So yeah.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_07: Yep, let's get so let's get into that.
1:15:20
SPEAKER_07: So so the Stewart are going to be hosting the AFC Championship game, as Steve said, in the number one seed.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_07: A lot had happened in this 2001 NFL season, but there's one thing we haven't talked about yet, and it's pretty important.
1:15:32
SPEAKER_07: The NFL is over a hundred years old, and during that time, literally millions of individual plays have been run.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_07: The single most significant play, in my opinion, in NFL history that occurs in a game between the Jets and the Patriots on September 23rd, 2001.
1:15:54
SPEAKER_00: Big play for the Patriots.
1:15:57
SPEAKER_00: Blitzo gonna run it.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_11: Needs 10 yards.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_11: Whoa does he hit?
1:16:04
SPEAKER_11: Oh my god.
1:16:05
SPEAKER_11: And the ball, they're gonna actually looks like they're gonna rule out a fumble.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_11: And and oh, look at Drew.
1:16:12
SPEAKER_05: This is a little bit more critical than the first down to the Patriots hope.
1:16:17
SPEAKER_09: Who was the Mo Lewis?
1:16:20
SPEAKER_09: That's it.
1:16:20
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:16:21
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_07: That that that play literally alters the course of the next 20 years of NFL history.
1:16:31
SPEAKER_07: And that's not hyperbole.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_07: I mean, that's fact, right?
1:16:34
SPEAKER_09: Well, maybe a little hyperbole, too.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_09: I mean I I it's stuff that I mean, that's Wally Pip right there.
1:16:42
SPEAKER_07: It it well, it is.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_07: And and you know, Drew Bledsoe is new is a franchise quarterback for New England.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_07: He's not just another guy.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_09: No, he's not like Wally Pip was good, but he wasn't.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_09: I mean, maybe Drew Bledsoe is pretty good too.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_09: I mean he played in the Super Bowl.
1:16:56
SPEAKER_07: He he took them to a Super Bowl, he had been to Pro Bowls.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_07: He here's something you might not realize.
1:17:02
SPEAKER_07: He's still in his 20s when that play happens.
1:17:05
SPEAKER_09: So he's not that old.
1:17:07
SPEAKER_07: He's in his 20s.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_07: He could have been their starter for another eight to ten years easily.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_07: So, yeah, yeah, three-time Pro Bowler at that point.
1:17:16
SPEAKER_07: So there was there were absolutely no plans to ever put Drew Bleizer on the bench.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_07: But he gets hurt and they're forced to insert a backup quarterback named Tom Brady, and then the rest, as you know, is history.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_07: The Patriots make a magical run, they survive the Tuck roll game against the Raiders.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_07: That's where Steve mentioned that everybody thought we were going to play the Raiders, and then that that fumble happens.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_07: And you know that should have been the game, really.
1:17:42
SPEAKER_07: It it was the game, the Raiders are coming to Pittsburgh, and then they reverse it.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_07: That you could also argue that that maybe that's one of the more significant plays in NFL history, too, because I don't know.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_09: That kick by Vinateri, 50-yard field goal in a blizzard, is pretty darn impressive.
1:17:56
SPEAKER_07: It it is, and no one ever mentions that.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_09: That's a 50, that's not a 20, 30 yard, that's a 50 yard field goal.
1:18:04
SPEAKER_09: Like Belichick even said that's one of the best kick he's ever seen.
1:18:07
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_07: Well, and and Steve, you said it a hundred times and it's worth repeating.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_07: Okay, you could say the Raiders got hosed on that play or whatever.
1:18:16
SPEAKER_07: They could they nobody said, okay, because it because they reversed the play, now you have to stop playing defense.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:18:22
SPEAKER_09: And that game went into overtime, too.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_09: Right.
1:18:25
SPEAKER_07: Or they could have just stopped them on four downs on the next couple of plays, right?
1:18:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:18:29
SPEAKER_07: Like so, yeah, either way though, the the Patriots win.
1:18:34
SPEAKER_07: And like it's it, you just they're man, it would be an interesting what if.
1:18:37
SPEAKER_07: What if Drew Bledsoe never gets hurt?
1:18:39
SPEAKER_07: What if the what if the Tuck roll play is roll to fumble?
1:18:43
SPEAKER_07: You know, what what changes?
1:18:45
SPEAKER_07: Because I don't know that Tom Brady ever gets in if Drew Bledsoe never gets hurt.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_07: Because the the Patriots had a really good defense that year.
1:18:54
SPEAKER_07: They had a good team.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_07: They were 0-1 when that play happened, just like the Stewart were.
1:18:58
SPEAKER_09: But they ended up being what, 11, 11 and 5?
1:19:01
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and even when Brady first came in, they were 3-4 at one point, and then they railed off a bunch of wins.
1:19:08
SPEAKER_07: So they weren't lighting it up until really the second half of the season.
1:19:11
SPEAKER_07: They could have easily done that under Bledsoe.
1:19:14
SPEAKER_07: And like I said, Bledsoe is their quarterback for the next maybe decade.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_07: And Tom Brady, uh, who knows, right?
1:19:21
SPEAKER_07: Sits the bench for years.
1:19:23
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:19:24
SPEAKER_07: Like I said, to me, it's the most significant play in NFL history.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_07: Anyway, the Steelers are going to play the Patriots.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_07: They've been here before, being heavily favored at home in an AFC championship game, only to blow it.
1:19:36
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers say that's not going to happen again.
1:19:38
SPEAKER_07: Lee Flowers says that the Patriots are a really good team.
1:19:41
SPEAKER_07: They're not going to overlook them.
1:19:43
SPEAKER_07: Hines Ward says the Steelers don't want to repeat of what had happened in 1994 when the Chargers upset the Steelers at home in the AFC title game.
1:19:51
SPEAKER_07: The first half of the championship game is a defensive battle.
1:19:55
SPEAKER_07: The Patriots, of course, had Bill Belichick as their head coach.
1:19:58
SPEAKER_07: They had a stifling defense.
1:20:00
SPEAKER_07: And even though the Steelers were able to beat those really good Tampa and Baltimore defenses, they really can't do much against New England, especially on the ground.
1:20:09
SPEAKER_07: The big play of the first half comes on.
1:20:13
SPEAKER_07: You guessed it.
1:20:15
SPEAKER_07: Special teams.
1:20:17
SPEAKER_07: Josh Miller booms a really nice 64-yard punt, but Steelers wide receiver Troy Edwards gets called for running out of bounds and coming back in.
1:20:27
SPEAKER_07: So the Steelers have to punt again, and this time Troy Brown returns it for a New England touchdown.
1:20:32
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, those second re-kicks, I've the more I've watched football, like I didn't realize it like that.
1:20:36
SPEAKER_09: And the more if you have to re-kick a punt, you you just kick it out of bounds.
1:20:40
SPEAKER_09: I don't even care if it's a 30-yard punt at that point.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_09: You're just better off kicking it out of bounds because yeah, it the return always like kills you in that situation.
1:20:51
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it always seems like you're right, that's a good point.
1:20:53
SPEAKER_07: It always seems like, oh, that was a di that penalty ended up being a difference of 40 yards or whatever.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and you're almost better like just kicking the ball.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_09: Like even if you kick it like 30 or 40 yards, like you just better, like, at least you didn't give up a kick return.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_07: Right, right.
1:21:09
SPEAKER_07: Also in the first half, Brady gets injured, but Drew Bledsoe comes in and throws a touchdown pass.
1:21:14
SPEAKER_07: So New England's up 14 to 3 at halftime.
1:21:17
SPEAKER_07: Steve, I was at this game, and there was definitely a sense of dread at that point.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_07: They had uh they had poor Cheryl Crow performing at halftime and nobody was into it because we were all biting our nails.
1:21:27
SPEAKER_09: Every day is a winding road, Tim.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_09: That day it was a winding road to another to another playoff loss.
1:21:34
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:21:34
SPEAKER_09: Like I I remember like their interviews and like with Charlie Weiss, and they said they were gonna throw the ball 60 times.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_09: They weren't even gonna bother running the ball.
1:21:43
SPEAKER_09: But that was the plan with when Brady was healthy.
1:21:47
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:21:47
SPEAKER_09: And then when when he got hurt, which was on a Lee Flowers tackle, they they were like, well, we better switch it up and go conservative.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, and they had and they had a lead.
1:21:59
SPEAKER_07: They had a pretty good lead in halftime.
1:22:01
SPEAKER_07: But but you know, this is a good Stewer team.
1:22:04
SPEAKER_07: Maybe they could come back.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_07: On the first possession of the second half, Cordell fumbles, and Steve's favorite player, Teddy Brewski, recovers.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_07: But the Stewart's defense holds, and then finally the offense gets moving.
1:22:16
SPEAKER_07: They put together a nice long drive.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_07: They get all the way into the New England red zone.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_07: They can't get the ball into the end zone, but they're set up for a chip shot field goal, which would make it a one-score game.
1:22:27
SPEAKER_07: I'd make it 14 to 6, right?
1:22:29
SPEAKER_07: Then you're you're within one score.
1:22:31
SPEAKER_07: And what I always remember about what happens next is that the guy who sat next to us at Three Rivers and Heinz Field for like 20 years, he leaned over to me and he said, I'm not gonna watch because the kicking had been such a bleep show all year.
1:22:45
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:22:45
SPEAKER_07: So he was standing with his back to the field, and then when he heard everybody kind of gasp, he still didn't turn around.
1:22:52
SPEAKER_07: Instead, he was like, he asked me, he's like, What's happening?
1:22:55
SPEAKER_07: And in real time, I'm narrating New England blocked the kick, Corey Brown kick picked it up, he later rolled to another guy.
1:23:01
SPEAKER_07: That guy's running all the way down the field for a touchdown.
1:23:06
SPEAKER_07: 25 years later, I cannot believe that the Steelers gave up two special teams touchdowns in an AFC championship game.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_07: And that really accounted for most of New England's points.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_09: Well, once Brady got hurt, yeah.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_09: And don't forget, like later in the game, like Bledsoe almost gives it away on like like uh Joey Porter talks about that in one of the Americas games.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_09: Like how he threw a pass like right to Joey Porter.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_07: That would have been like a pick six.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:23:37
SPEAKER_09: Like it would have been another Keevan Henry situation.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_07: So well the Steelers defense, the the only thing that the Steelers defense gave up was that Bledsoe touchdown that was like right before halftime, and then they gave up a they gave up a field goal in the fourth quarter, which is the result of uh something we'll talk about here in a minute.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_07: Uh, but the defense actually plays pretty well.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_07: Now, like you said, was that Bledsoe coming in?
1:24:00
SPEAKER_07: Was that the Patriots kind of like holding back because they had a 21-3 lead?
1:24:05
SPEAKER_07: Uh but but either way, the it really wasn't the defense.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_07: The defense plays pretty well, and and the steelers being down 21-3, this is where an MVP caliber quarterback, which Cordell Stewart was that year, can really cement his legacy.
1:24:19
SPEAKER_07: And to his credit, Stewart leads a pair of touchdown drives to get the Steelers back in the game.
1:24:24
SPEAKER_07: It's actually, and I didn't remember this, it's 21 to 17 going into the fourth quarter.
1:24:30
SPEAKER_09: Yes, yes.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_07: Which is very winnable for Pittsburgh.
1:24:34
SPEAKER_07: You're only down four going into the fourth quarter.
1:24:36
SPEAKER_07: Like, I know it's weird how you got there, but imagine if it just would have been a normal back and forth game.
1:24:40
SPEAKER_07: Being down four is not a big deal.
1:24:43
SPEAKER_07: But in the fourth quarter, Cordell Stewart throws two interceptions, and that's game, and that's the that's curtains for the 2001 season.
1:24:52
SPEAKER_09: And like I've said many times about that game, that was the game that I was out on Cordell Stewart.
1:24:58
SPEAKER_09: I just knew they weren't going anywhere with him because he just like that's your opportunity, like you said, to drive the field to make another like he just needed one touchdown drive, and guys were open.
1:25:09
SPEAKER_09: It wasn't like he was getting a ton of pressure, guys were wide open and he just overthrew them.
1:25:14
SPEAKER_09: And two, like he couldn't read the defense, he couldn't like throw balls down the middle of the field, and that that was kind of like the defense Belichick had designed was he was double teaming Burris and playing man on Heinz Ward.
1:25:27
SPEAKER_09: Heinz Ward still had a good game, but if you could get like some plays over the middle of the field to Bobby Shaw or whatever, like you know, maybe you know, you have some success, but he just for whatever reason, Cordell, that was kind of Cordell's last hurrah, quite honestly.
1:25:43
SPEAKER_09: It really was.
1:25:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we'll talk about that more in the aftermath.
1:25:46
SPEAKER_07: But but but you're right, Stephen.
1:25:47
SPEAKER_07: And I think you said it in the Cordell episode, like his legacy is always going to be he was a good quarterback, not a great quarterback.
1:25:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:25:55
SPEAKER_07: And and I don't like he didn't lose that game.
1:25:58
SPEAKER_07: He really didn't, but when he had a chance to bring him back, he just couldn't do it.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, like if you have Ben Rothelsberger, he at least throws a touchdown somewhere along the way there.
1:26:08
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
1:26:08
SPEAKER_07: Maybe New England comes back and scores more points and still wins, but I think, yeah, Ben doesn't throw Ben doesn't go scoreless in the fourth quarter with two interceptions.
1:26:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_07: So a season with so much excitement and promise evaporates in the wake of horrific special teams play.
1:26:25
SPEAKER_07: The Achilles heel all season comes back to bite them at the worst possible time.
1:26:29
SPEAKER_07: Special teams coach Jay Hayes is promptly fired.
1:26:33
SPEAKER_07: Lee Flowers, though, says, Don't blame the coach.
1:26:36
SPEAKER_07: He rips the special team's players.
1:26:38
SPEAKER_07: Flowers says, quote, we have people on special teams who don't have the desire.
1:26:43
SPEAKER_07: You're getting paid three times more than the average 9-5 corporate guy just to get out there and tackle the guy with the ball.
1:26:49
SPEAKER_07: At some point, players need to stop being babies and blaming stuff on the coaches.
1:26:53
SPEAKER_09: Troy Edwards.
1:26:54
SPEAKER_09: That has to be directed at Troy Edwards.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_09: There's only one person on special teams that that guy always like uh I don't know.
1:27:05
SPEAKER_09: Whatever.
1:27:06
SPEAKER_07: I mean, if there was other people to be fair to Troy Edwards, I mean the the blocked field goal, that was another, I believe that was another like problem with the hold, if I remember correctly, which had happened, you know, um earlier in the season as well.
1:27:20
SPEAKER_07: Just how how many touchdowns can you give on special three touchdowns on special teams in the playoffs in two playoff games alone?
1:27:27
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, that's terrible.
1:27:28
SPEAKER_07: They wouldn't have beaten the Rams.
1:27:29
SPEAKER_09: I don't think they would have beat the Rams.
1:27:31
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean that again, we'll never know.
1:27:36
SPEAKER_07: The Patriots, so let's talk about the aftermath.
1:27:38
SPEAKER_07: The Patriots beat the Rams in Super Bowl thirty six.
1:27:40
SPEAKER_09: They go on to have a dynasty.
1:27:43
SPEAKER_09: But they now the next year they kind of like we kind of thought, well, they were kind of done because it was the next year they lost to um did they or no, they didn't even make the playoffs, did they?
1:27:54
SPEAKER_09: In two thousand 'cause the next year yours are the Rams.
1:27:57
SPEAKER_09: Uh the the Patriots, I don't think, do they?
1:27:59
SPEAKER_09: Oh yeah.
1:28:00
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the Patriots, I'm sorry, yeah, the Patriots do not make the playoffs in 2002.
1:28:03
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:28:04
SPEAKER_07: But then they win two Super Bowls the next two years.
1:28:07
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, I you're right.
1:28:09
SPEAKER_07: I thought it was like a one-hit wonder kind of thing, but they proved us all wrong.
1:28:12
SPEAKER_07: So good for the uh Cordell Stewart never again really reaches the level of success he had in 2001.
1:28:20
SPEAKER_07: He loses his job to Tommy Maddox the next season.
1:28:23
SPEAKER_07: We kind of just talked about Cordell's legacy.
1:28:25
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers defense really goes downhill after that.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_07: Uh there's a game late in the season.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_07: The Bengals decide you're just going to throw a bunch because the Steelers have this great run defense.
1:28:35
SPEAKER_07: And that really Dick LeBeau is actually the coach of the Bengals at that point.
1:28:39
SPEAKER_07: And that really like unlocks this like secret code of how to beat the Steelers defense.
1:28:45
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:28:45
SPEAKER_07: And that's how all the teams play them in 2002, is they just throw a bunch and the Stewart's really can't stop it, right?
1:28:53
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:28:54
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_09: Well, it was the Lee Flowers Kendro Bell really, they were really good against the run the past, maybe not so much.
1:29:01
SPEAKER_07: That's that's exactly right.
1:29:02
SPEAKER_07: And you think Steve it all goes back to that Cincinnati game?
1:29:06
SPEAKER_09: I think so.
1:29:06
SPEAKER_09: Because I remember being so frustrated watching that Cincinnati game.
1:29:09
SPEAKER_09: That was another game where the field, because that was in Cincinnati, whatever, whatever that's Paul Brown Stadium back then.
1:29:16
SPEAKER_09: It's still the same stadium, but like they had regular turf, like you know, natural grass, and it was terrible because that was like late December.
1:29:24
SPEAKER_09: And I remember like it wasn't like there was a missed field goal in that one, but it wasn't anybody's fault because it just the the turf was so bad people were falling all over the place.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, yeah.
1:29:36
SPEAKER_07: And and and so the defense, that great defense they had in 2001 becomes a liability in 2002.
1:29:42
SPEAKER_07: By 2003, just two years later, the Steelers are right back to being where they were in the late 90s, a six and ten team trying to rebuild.
1:29:51
SPEAKER_09: I wonder if they ever will, Tim.
1:29:55
SPEAKER_09: It's weird how quickly it went from like, oh my god, they're mediocre to bad, to my god, this is one of the greatest Steeler teams of all time.
1:30:03
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
1:30:04
SPEAKER_07: So so like Steve said, the story has a happy ending.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_07: In 2004, the Steelers draft a young quarterback named Ben Rothesberger, and in 2005, he and a stable of other young players played Pittsburgh to the elusive one for the thumb.
1:30:17
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, Heath Miller.
1:30:18
SPEAKER_09: They finally had a tight end, you know, get a good safety.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, well, it yeah, they need they they rebuilt the defense too with guys like Polamalu and Chris Hope and Ike Taylor, right?
1:30:31
SPEAKER_07: Um they rebuilt the linebacking, you know, Kendro Bell, that's another guy that never had the success he had in 2001.
1:30:37
SPEAKER_07: He, like you said, Steve kind of got exposed as a as a coverage guy, but also had a lot of injuries.
1:30:43
SPEAKER_09: Yes, yeah.
1:30:44
SPEAKER_07: You know, but they replaced him with um James Farrier as a free agent.
1:30:48
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, which is a huge, yeah.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_07: That that was that was one thing I didn't mention um in this up in the when I was talking about the regular season.
1:30:55
SPEAKER_07: The Steelers uh beat the Jets in a game and I want to say in December.
1:30:59
SPEAKER_07: And James Farrier's like all over the field for the Jets.
1:31:03
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:31:04
SPEAKER_07: And I just wonder I always wondered if that game was like when when Kevin Colbert and Belt Cower are like, who is this guy?
1:31:09
SPEAKER_07: Oh, he's gonna be a free agent?
1:31:10
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we might want to take a look at him, and he ends up being a great signing.
1:31:14
SPEAKER_07: Uh so so yeah, that's that's the story of the 2001 Steelers season.
1:31:20
SPEAKER_07: Steve, any final thoughts?
1:31:22
SPEAKER_09: Um boo Patriots.
1:31:25
SPEAKER_09: I don't know.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_09: I still still my favorite highlight is uh Dan Krater leveling Ray Lewis.
1:31:30
SPEAKER_09: That's still one of my all-time favorite Steeler moments.
1:31:33
SPEAKER_07: So well, and that's that that's it was so satisfying that year to to eliminate the Ravens because that's that's when you really started hating the Baltimore Ravens.
1:31:42
SPEAKER_07: Like, I think a lot of people hated them the year before when they won the Super Bowl, but then it like got very personal.
1:31:46
SPEAKER_09: Because they were such trash talkers, and like the Patriots were just the Patriots, they're so blah, like they're evil, but they're quietly evil.
1:31:53
SPEAKER_09: So yeah.
1:31:56
SPEAKER_09: I think I much prefer the like the loud talking evil because it's more fun to yeah.
1:32:00
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yeah, for sure.
1:32:02
SPEAKER_07: For sure.
1:32:02
SPEAKER_07: And that was yeah, it was just to beat them, and then you really thought playing the Patriots who were kind of like an upstart team.
1:32:10
SPEAKER_09: I remember people saying, Who's Tom Brady?
1:32:12
SPEAKER_09: I remember that it's like, oh, they went 11 and 5 with Tom Brady, and he's okay, he's nothing special, like people were, but he really wasn't by that point in his career.
1:32:20
SPEAKER_09: He really hadn't there was no reason to think anything besides he would like, you know, maybe he's just a backup or you know, like look how many other guys like Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, like there were so many guys like that that had won Super Bowls at that point in that era of the NFL.
1:32:36
SPEAKER_09: That why would you think that he was going to be any better or different or worse than any of Trent Dilfer's or Brad Johnson's?
1:32:44
SPEAKER_07: Well, and and if you want to do another, like going back to the what if, Steve.
1:32:48
SPEAKER_07: We talked about the tuck roll.
1:32:50
SPEAKER_07: If that stands and that's a fumble and the Raiders win.
1:32:53
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, what happens to Brady?
1:32:54
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
1:32:55
SPEAKER_07: Because because at that point, Brady's a guy who played very, you know, very commendable in Drew Bledsoe's absence, but then he loses the very first playoff game at home.
1:33:06
SPEAKER_07: That that, you know, because that was that was their first playoff game.
1:33:10
SPEAKER_09: In a way he would have been kind of directly responsible too, yeah.
1:33:13
SPEAKER_07: Right.
1:33:14
SPEAKER_07: So so now Bledsoe's healthy for the 2002 season.
1:33:17
SPEAKER_07: Do they just Bledsoe's back as a starter now?
1:33:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:33:20
SPEAKER_07: I mean, that that literally could have happened if that Tuckwall play goes the other way.
1:33:25
SPEAKER_07: So yeah, it's just like I said, the the the the significance of the story of Brady that season, um, like I said, altered the course of the next 20 years of of the NFL.
1:33:35
SPEAKER_07: Uh and for the Steelers, yeah, just a sad way to end the season.
1:33:39
SPEAKER_09: Well, the real villain of the story is Mo Lewis.
1:33:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, Mo Lewis ruined everything.
1:33:46
SPEAKER_07: He really did.
1:33:48
SPEAKER_09: It's our next uh podcast uh episode how Mo Rewis blew in football.
1:33:53
SPEAKER_07: And could you imagine a Steelers Raiders championship game in the 2000s after all the 70s with Chucky?
1:33:58
SPEAKER_09: Chucky is the head coach still.
1:34:00
SPEAKER_09: Yes, yeah.
1:34:01
SPEAKER_07: That's right.
1:34:02
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that would have that would have been something.
1:34:04
SPEAKER_07: But yeah, unfortunately never happens.
1:34:07
SPEAKER_09: Well, three Hall of Fame coaches like in that little era there, you know what I mean?
1:34:13
SPEAKER_09: Like with Cower, Belichick, and well, I don't know Gruden because he like kind of said like he's suing the NFL, so he might not ever make the NFL Hall of Fame, but he probably should.
1:34:24
SPEAKER_07: Pretty good coach, at least at the very least.
1:34:28
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:34:30
SPEAKER_07: But yeah, that's the story of the 2001 season.
1:34:32
SPEAKER_07: A lot, a lot, very memorable, and of course intersected with you know some memorable events as well.
1:34:38
SPEAKER_07: Thank you everybody so much for listening.
1:34:41
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1:34:46
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1:34:53
SPEAKER_07: Thank you again, and we'll catch you next time.