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The Great QB Dilemma · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_04: Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast, and today we're gonna look back on the Steelers' other great quarterback dilemma.
0:26
SPEAKER_04: My name is Tim Hannon, and with me as always uh Steve Wart.
0:31
SPEAKER_04: So this offseason, the Sears obviously face uh a big dilemma.
0:36
SPEAKER_04: Ben Rothisberger, the quarterback who took them to three Super Bowls, he has retired, and now they have to replace him.
0:44
SPEAKER_04: And the talk ever since the season ended a few months ago, and the talk I'm sure for the rest of the offseason will center around that debate.
0:51
SPEAKER_04: And Steve, I don't know if you're like weary of it yet.
0:55
SPEAKER_04: I kind of am.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, it keeps like it's just like I don't know, like it's a very circular conversation.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: It's like they have like three or four, like Aaron Rodgers, Derek Carr, are they gonna draft um Kenny Pickett?
1:11
SPEAKER_02: And then like it circles back to Aaron Rodgers.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: And right now, as of this recording, we're debating Aaron Rodgers because I guess there was a rumor that Aaron Rodgers has that the Packers or Aaron Rodgers have narrowed down three teams with trade packages, and the Steelers were one of them.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: But then like the Packers said, no, no, that's all untrue.
1:34
SPEAKER_04: So exactly.
1:36
SPEAKER_04: So definitely this will dominate the offseason for sure.
1:40
SPEAKER_04: So given the hyper focus on this, I thought it would be a good time to dig into the one other time that the Steelers faced a scenario, which was in the 1996 offseason.
1:52
SPEAKER_04: And the background for that time was that the Steelers were potentially about to lose Neil O'Donnell, the quarterback who had taken them to the Super Bowl.
2:01
SPEAKER_04: And there was obviously some differences between uh the O'Donnell and Rosslisberger situations.
2:07
SPEAKER_04: One obvious difference was O'Donnell was a free agent.
2:10
SPEAKER_04: He didn't retire.
2:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh and he had also just taken the Steelers to the Super Bowl a few months earlier, uh, which was a little better probably than Ben's final season, which was not quite as successful.
2:23
SPEAKER_04: Uh O'Donnell, of course, lost that Super Bowl and was not anywhere near the impact player that Ben Rothesberger was in his time in Pittsburgh.
2:32
SPEAKER_04: But that all being said, you know, in the history of this team, there's only been three quarterbacks who've ever taken the Steelers to a Super Bowl.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: And O'Donnell, just like Rothesberger, is one of those guys.
2:44
SPEAKER_04: And his impending departure in 1996 leaves a gaping hole in the Steelers' plans to try to remain competitive in the AFC.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: Was Kent Graham the other quarterback, the third one?
2:55
SPEAKER_04: For the Steelers?
2:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:57
SPEAKER_04: No.
2:58
SPEAKER_04: No.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: Of course, kidding.
2:59
SPEAKER_04: We will talk about Kent Graham at one point.
3:00
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't really factor into this season, but um, you'll see why we talk about him later.
3:04
SPEAKER_04: It's has more to do with what college he went to.
3:08
SPEAKER_04: Uh back then in the mid-90s, the again, so many a lot of parallels between then and today.
3:15
SPEAKER_04: Because in the mid-90s, the Steelers had kind of owned the division for a few years, but you had these young quarterbacks like Steve McNair and Mark Brunel, guys who are kind of ready to step in and take that torch away from the Steelers, just like you you have today.
3:31
SPEAKER_04: I say it's really already happened today with Joe Burrow.
3:34
SPEAKER_04: And and so there's a lot of angst amongst the fan base here, right?
3:38
SPEAKER_04: What's going to happen?
3:39
SPEAKER_04: Are we gonna are we gonna go back to 1980s Suckville because we don't have a quarterback anymore?
3:46
SPEAKER_04: Suckville population, us.
3:52
SPEAKER_04: And and the it's funny too.
3:54
SPEAKER_04: The uh I think the other interesting parallel between 1996 and today is that the team, other than quarterback, had other huge holes it had to fill.
4:05
SPEAKER_04: So so today, when you talk about getting a quarterback and should you make a trade and should you make a draft pick, you know, one of the big counter-arguments is well, what about offensive line, inside linebacker, uh secondary, uh defensive line, if Stefan Tuett doesn't come back, right?
4:21
SPEAKER_04: There's all these other holes you have to fill.
4:24
SPEAKER_04: Well, in 1996, it was it was a similar situation where in addition to the quarterback potentially leaving, you had three other big holes.
4:33
SPEAKER_04: One was offensive line, sounds familiar, uh, because the Steelers had lost Leon Searcy, who I think, Steve, people probably forget maybe.
4:43
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he he was a really dominant tackle.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: He actually went to Jacksonville, if I remember correctly.
4:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
4:50
SPEAKER_04: I mean, that was a huge loss because he was I think he was Coward's first draft pick, and he was just a great player.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: They really didn't yeah, they really didn't replace him to Marvel Smith years later.
5:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
5:03
SPEAKER_04: Uh that was a huge loss.
5:05
SPEAKER_04: They also lost uh starting left guard Tom Newberry.
5:08
SPEAKER_04: Oh, not Tom Newberry, I mean well, uh just saying though, they they lost two of their five offensive starting offensive linemen.
5:16
SPEAKER_04: So it's a hole, definitely, that they have to fill.
5:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh the second hole was pass rusher.
5:21
SPEAKER_04: They lost Hall of Famer Kevin Green uh that offseason, so they they needed help on the pass rushing side of things.
5:29
SPEAKER_04: And then the third hole was much more unexpected.
5:31
SPEAKER_04: It was at the running back position.
5:33
SPEAKER_04: Uh those other guys, you know, Cersei and Newberry and Green, all left via free agency.
5:38
SPEAKER_04: They lost Bam Morris because he got busted with a truckload of marijuana and charged with a felony.
5:45
SPEAKER_04: And so the Steelers are forced to release their leading rusher from the 95 Super Bowl team, and now they have no starting running back.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Bam Bam was uh carrying a lot of grass and it wasn't uh wasn't turf for the uh for the stadium, unfortunately.
6:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh different time because if that were today, you know, it might not have been quite the well, it was a truckload.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean it was like it definitely wasn't like it's just an ounce for my glaucoma here.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: It would have been like enough to like for all the people in Allegheny County's glaucoma.
6:24
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's a good point.
6:26
SPEAKER_04: He probably still would have been in a lot of trouble even today.
6:29
SPEAKER_04: So so yeah, so it's not just quarterback, they have these other big holes.
6:33
SPEAKER_04: So given all that, I I wanted to lay out kind of the options at the start of that offseason.
6:39
SPEAKER_04: And I'm gonna lay out there's I I see, you know, trying to put myself in the 1996 mindframe, I I saw four options here, and I'm gonna lay out these options, Steve, and then we'll go back and we'll kind of dive deeper into each one.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: So, option number one is bring back your quarterback.
6:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh, obviously, that's not an option today with Ben having retired unless somebody wants to talk about it, which I don't think anyone really wants to do at this point.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: But that was an option in '96.
7:08
SPEAKER_04: They could have re-signed O'Donnell.
7:10
SPEAKER_04: Option two is go get someone else's quarterback, sign a free agent, make a trade.
7:15
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, Steve kind of referenced like Aaron Rodgers, and there's been talk about Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota and Russell Wilson, and pretty much every quarterback in the league is going to Pittsburgh according to some Adam Schefter report.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: And it's going to be a heck of the quarterback room.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how do these guys I mean when you got Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, you know, it's going to be unbelievable.
7:41
SPEAKER_04: The only thing, the only thing we have that hasn't been assigned a rumor to us yet is Brady coming out of retirement to play for us.
7:49
SPEAKER_04: I think that's coming, though.
7:50
SPEAKER_04: I bet that's coming between now and June.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: Maybe this podcast will start.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: I heard from my cousin in Boston who cuts deli meats for Tom Brady's kids.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: you know.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: It'd be avocado, yeah.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: It'll be an a his avocados.
8:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was gonna say Tom Brady's kids are not eating disgusting deli meat.
8:12
SPEAKER_04: They're they're eating much healthier than that.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: Avocado, yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: He's their avocado salesman.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, he heard that they're coming to Pittsburgh.
8:22
SPEAKER_04: Uh in 1996, uh there's also a list of free agent quarterbacks to be had, so we'll flesh out the options.
8:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh the third option would be to draft a quarterback.
8:34
SPEAKER_04: And and today you have you know, the kid from Liberty, you have Kenny Pickett and his tiny baby hands.
8:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and that was an option in '96 as well.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Just so I got a vision of that scene from Deadpool when he's his hand sealing.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: He has that little tiny baby.
8:51
SPEAKER_04: I love the overblown combine controversies.
8:54
SPEAKER_04: But and then option four is go with a quarterback already on the roster.
8:59
SPEAKER_04: And today that would be Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins.
9:03
SPEAKER_04: In 1996, the Steelers actually have three quarterbacks because they had kept four in '95.
9:08
SPEAKER_04: They have three quarterbacks on their roster: Jim Miller, Cordell Stewart, and Mike Tomzek.
9:13
SPEAKER_04: So those are the four options.
9:16
SPEAKER_04: Let's let's kind of take a deep dive into each one.
9:19
SPEAKER_04: So option one was re-signing Neil O'Donnell.
9:22
SPEAKER_04: And Steve, I just thought at the time and looking back on it 26 years later, it just really wasn't realistic.
9:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh, those were the early days of free agency where teams kind of treated free agency like baseball free agency, where if there was a big name, they just threw a ton of money at them.
9:40
SPEAKER_04: The New York Jets were one of those teams.
9:42
SPEAKER_04: They they offered O'Donnell$5 million per year, which was$1.25 million more per year than O'Donnell was being offered to stay in Pittsburgh.
9:51
SPEAKER_04: Now you might hear that number,$1.25 million, and think, really?
9:56
SPEAKER_04: That's it?
9:56
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers couldn't just offer them another million?
9:59
SPEAKER_04: Well, this is 1996 money.
10:02
SPEAKER_04: So for some context, what would they be like$4 million,$5 million today?
10:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
10:07
SPEAKER_04: So by the time we're done with this inflation, but we will not get into that issue.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Here's a fun fact.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: I I don't and this wasn't a on a political show.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: This is just on a retirement show they were advertising.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: They said 40% of all the money that has ever been printed in the history of the United States, which would only be since what the Federal Reserve Act of 1930, whatever, it has been printed in the last year and a half.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: 40%.
10:31
SPEAKER_04: So that's probably not good.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Oh, you know, I like the Weimark government.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: That was fun.
10:37
SPEAKER_04: Well, in 1996, the Jets were offering a big chunk of whatever was printed in the United States.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that was like in realistic terms, it was like 30% more, if I had to guess.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
10:48
SPEAKER_02: It was just for Neil O'Donnell, that was unrealistic.
10:52
SPEAKER_04: You know, well, and and here's some context.
10:55
SPEAKER_04: So he's getting five million a year.
10:57
SPEAKER_04: The league's highest paid player at that time was Emmett Smith, who was only making six million per year.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: And the salary cap at that time is$40 million per team.
11:07
SPEAKER_04: So if you're giving someone five, what's that?
11:09
SPEAKER_04: An eighth, an eighth of your salary cap is devoted to one player.
11:13
SPEAKER_04: I mean, the the cap's something like 200 million today.
11:16
SPEAKER_04: So again, if you think, oh, it's only a$1 million difference, well, that was a that was a huge ton of money.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm even I'm trying to wrap my head around who the top quarterbacks in 1996 were.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, Troy Aikman, obviously, right?
11:31
SPEAKER_04: Steve Young, Brett Farr.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, those guys could command that kind of money, but Neil O'Donnell, let's look realistically, he was pretty middle the pack.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, all this did was made him and his agent really rich and you know cost the cost the Jets a bunch of cap space.
11:51
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I I think I I think it's all about timing, right?
11:56
SPEAKER_04: You know, he was available, and maybe Steve Young or Brett Farr were already under contract.
12:01
SPEAKER_04: So sometimes it's just all about that timing of who's available when.
12:04
SPEAKER_04: You see that today with offensive linemen and and positions like that.
12:08
SPEAKER_04: You know, you might have a guy, if you look at the highest paid player, it might not be the guy that's the best, but it might be the guy that became a free agent last year.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: Like a Kirk Cousins.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:19
unknown: Yeah.
12:20
SPEAKER_04: So option number one was just not realistic, and it didn't happen.
12:23
SPEAKER_04: The Jets sign O'Donnell.
12:25
SPEAKER_04: How about option number two, signing somebody else?
12:28
SPEAKER_04: So, Steve, I'm gonna give you the list of who is available via free agency in '96, and you tell me if any of these guys strike your fancy.
12:37
SPEAKER_04: With with either maybe at the time or even with the benefit of looking back.
12:41
SPEAKER_04: So in addition to O'Donnell, probably the biggest uh free agent out there was the guy that O'Donnell beat in the AFC Championship game.
12:49
SPEAKER_04: It was Jim Harbaugh from the Colts.
12:51
SPEAKER_04: However, Indianapolis franchised him, put the franchise tag on him early on, so he was not available.
12:58
SPEAKER_04: But let me read the other guys that would have been available.
13:01
SPEAKER_04: So you have Randall Cunningham, Rodney Pete, Frank Reich, Rich Gannon, Steve Berline, Boomer Oson, who was expendable in New York because the Jets had signed O'Donnell, Sean Salisbury, Bobby Abair, Bernie Kozar, the Browns old quarterback.
13:18
SPEAKER_04: And then you had a handful of former Super Bowl winners and Mark Rippin, Jeff Ostettler, and Jim McMahon.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: I I can think I don't think Jim McMahon could start anymore because like he was pretty much a backup by that point.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: He's like body, it just like he could get you like three or four games, but I think asking anything else, I if I remember correctly, out of Jim McMahon was probably like a whole season was probably not gonna happen.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, Ha Stettler, career backup.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: Ripon had like one really good game, right?
13:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Bernie by 96.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: Bernie Kozar was still in the league then.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he had to be well over the hill.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: Bobby A Bear.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think of that Seinfeld.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: George Kitto, his pounces at A.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: Bear.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Was he even good?
14:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean I know he played for the Saints, but or it wasn't the Falcons.
14:17
SPEAKER_04: He played for both of them, I think.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe that's not a fair assessment of Bobby A.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: Bear, but he wasn't that great.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: Sean Salisbury, but okay, he was garbage.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, Sean Salisbury, you were not good.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: Boomers Isen retired, actually.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: I remember that from our last episode.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: That's why they signed a good old deal, video side with them.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh Steve Berline, really?
14:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, he had a Pro Bowl in '99.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: Steve Berlin.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: He was like another career backup.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: Frank Reich was done, right?
14:54
SPEAKER_02: 96.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: Reich's done.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Rodney Pete.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: Did Rodney Pete go like I don't remember Rodney Pete being all that great.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: He was another guy who was like, eh, he's okay, nothing special.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, there's not Randall Cunningham's really the only guy that ended up being any good, and that was because, like, you know, the Vikings had a really good offense that he got plugged into, and they uh ended up drafting some guy named Randy Moss.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: So I mean they had Chris Carter, and uh who was the guy on the other side that was good, but everybody always forgets about, including myself.
15:37
SPEAKER_04: Jake Reed.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Jake Reed, who was good.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: It was like a I think he was a pro bowler.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: And then he had Randy Moss, who nobody knew about but was really good.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: So like he just kind of got I don't think he's gonna have that kind of success with the Steelers.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: And they had Robert Smith, who was a good running back.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, he's not just gonna get plugged into the Steelers offense and probably have that kind of success.
15:58
SPEAKER_04: Well, and and the interesting thing about Cunningham was this is before he was in Minnesota.
16:02
SPEAKER_04: This is when he was uh had played for Philadelphia.
16:05
SPEAKER_04: And actually what ends up happening is not only do the Steelers not sign him, nobody signs him.
16:10
SPEAKER_04: And he retires from pro football because he can't find a team, and then he unretires a couple years later to play for the Vikings.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: That's probably a Dennis Green.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: Dennis Green probably talked to him.
16:22
SPEAKER_04: Probably, but but I mean nobody wanted him at the time he was washed up.
16:26
SPEAKER_04: Rich Gannon, you you skipped him.
16:27
SPEAKER_04: He he was he would have been he was obviously a future league MVP, but at the time, at the time he's backing up Steve Bono in Kansas City, so he was not He hadn't become Rich Gannon yet.
16:37
SPEAKER_04: Right, exactly.
16:39
SPEAKER_04: Um so I I think Steve, most of the guys, kind of to your point, most of the guys on that list were veterans who had been around a long time, who could maybe come in and win you some games, maybe the Steelers already had that guy on the roster.
16:52
SPEAKER_04: His name was Mike Tomzak.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: So seriously, yeah.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: At that point, Mike Tomzak's as good, if not better, than like 90.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Besides Randall Cunningham and maybe Jim Harbaugh, that's it that's the only two people I would think that are really better than Mike Tomzak at this point.
17:08
SPEAKER_04: Right.
17:09
SPEAKER_04: Totally agree.
17:10
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers end up not signing for or trading for a quarterback.
17:14
SPEAKER_04: Well, how about the draft?
17:17
SPEAKER_04: That's always an option.
17:18
SPEAKER_04: And we mentioned the huge holes.
17:20
SPEAKER_04: Interestingly enough, they're able to fill all those holes before they make their first-round draft pick.
17:26
SPEAKER_04: So on the offensive line, they they signed Will Wolford, who was not as good as Leon Searcy, but he was still a three-time pro bowler with the Colts, and he actually ends up having a very good stint in Pittsburgh.
17:36
SPEAKER_04: And then they also promoted Justin Straussick.
17:39
SPEAKER_04: Strauzick was kind of like the utility guy, and they made him a full-time starter.
17:43
SPEAKER_04: So to your point, Steve, they they didn't have anyone near the level of Leon Searcy for another 10 years, but um, you know, they plugged the holes pretty well.
17:53
SPEAKER_04: And then from a pass rusher perspective, they had these young players like Jason Gildin and Chad Brown, who they surmised could fill the hole left by Kevin Green, and I think they surmised correctly there.
18:05
SPEAKER_04: Uh and then at running back, they actually make a huge draft day trade with the St.
18:10
SPEAKER_04: Louis Rams to pick up a running back named Jerome Bettis.
18:15
SPEAKER_04: And the funny thing about that trade is the Steelers are criticized at the time.
18:20
SPEAKER_04: Uh a lot of people think, what in the world are they doing?
18:24
SPEAKER_04: Uh Bettis is a guy that's considered washed up.
18:27
SPEAKER_04: His best years were behind him.
18:29
SPEAKER_04: And everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people at the time thought the Rams won that trade because the Rams unload Bettis for a second-round pick, and they draft Lawrence Phillips with their first round pick.
18:41
SPEAKER_04: So they get the stud running back out of Nebraska, they get an extra second-round pick, and the Steelers get a broken down Jerome Bettis.
18:49
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we'll talk we'll talk later about how that worked out for both teams.
18:54
SPEAKER_04: So, but but the point being that, you know, they have these three big holes.
18:58
SPEAKER_04: They actually fill them all, and now they're free to draft a quarterback in the first round if they want to.
19:04
SPEAKER_04: But but there's still two problems with that.
19:06
SPEAKER_04: One is, you know, they with the Bettis trade, they only have one pick in the first two rounds.
19:11
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and it's at the end of the first round.
19:13
SPEAKER_04: So if you pick a quarterback there, that's that's all you're getting until round three.
19:17
SPEAKER_04: But but probably the bigger problem is, again, very similar to this year, it's not a deep draft for quarterback.
19:25
SPEAKER_04: Uh the in fact, Steve, there are only two quarterbacks taken in the first three rounds.
19:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh it's it's in the second round, the Rams select Tony Banks from Michigan State.
19:36
SPEAKER_04: And then in the third round, the Eagles select Bobby Hoing from Ohio State.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: Neither of those guys did anything.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: No.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: I always thought Tony Banks, like, he always kind of mystified me because I thought he had a really good arm, but I think he just kind of had like a long delivery, like, and then he just never I don't know.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: He just he didn't have a quick release, that's for sure.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And they just he had a strong arm, but I don't know, it just never worked out like with him.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: Bobby Hoing wasn't that good.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: He was mediocre on a good day.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
20:06
SPEAKER_04: Tony Banks does a great job at being the quarterback who was there before a team won the Super Bowl with somebody else.
20:14
SPEAKER_04: That's that's kind of his claim to fame.
20:16
SPEAKER_04: He did that a couple of times.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: He's uh who's that uh De Berg, Steve De Berg?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's Steve DeBerg, right?
20:22
SPEAKER_02: He's the 1990s Steve Berg.
20:25
SPEAKER_04: I um I went, I looked at that entire draft.
20:28
SPEAKER_04: Probably the best quarterback to come out that year was John Kittna from Central Washington, who wasn't even drafted.
20:35
SPEAKER_04: He was an undrafted free agent.
20:36
SPEAKER_04: And John Kidna was certainly not uh any anything great, but I mean he was a capable starter for Seattle and Cincinnati.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: That that is so weird how like drafts work like that sometimes.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Like there's just years like 1984 where it's like, oh my goodness, all these quarterbacks you know ended up being pretty good.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And then there are other years like this where it's like uh Yeah.
20:57
SPEAKER_04: When John Kitna is the best quarterback in the entire rookie class, that's not saying a whole lot for 1996.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember what year, but I see it posted on the internet.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: There's one where there's a I I know it's like 2015 or 2014, maybe, where there's just a draft, and you look at the names, you're like, oh my gosh, these people are horrible.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: So it's just you know, everybody's like, oh, the draft, oh the draft.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Not every draft class is created equal.
21:22
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
21:23
unknown: Yeah.
21:23
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers do not select Tony Banks or Bobby Hoing.
21:26
SPEAKER_04: They instead use their draft pick on a guy named Jermaine Stevens, who we just actually talked about in our last episode.
21:33
SPEAKER_04: He's an offensive tackle from a small school.
21:36
SPEAKER_04: The thinking here was okay, we we've kind of stabilized the offensive line.
21:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh, Will Wolford, you know, guys like that, but but it was an aging offensive line.
21:46
SPEAKER_04: And what they could do is they could take a year or two to groom Stevens.
21:49
SPEAKER_04: He was a he was supposed to be a project, but he could be the long term replacement for Cersei.
21:54
SPEAKER_04: And of course, again, we'll talk about later how that worked out.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers do actually.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: Draft a quarterback in the sixth round.
22:01
SPEAKER_04: They draft Spence Fisher from Duke.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that guy was great.
22:06
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
22:08
SPEAKER_04: He does not make the team.
22:09
SPEAKER_02: So he did not play basketball for Duke, huh?
22:12
SPEAKER_02: He played football.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: Right, which means he's pretty much that's going to be a problem for us.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:20
SPEAKER_04: So, yeah, the Steelers don't draft a quarter, well, they other than Spence Fisher, they really don't draft a quarterback high.
22:27
SPEAKER_04: So that leaves us with option four.
22:29
SPEAKER_04: Love the one you're with.
22:31
SPEAKER_04: And let's talk about the three guys that they had on the roster.
22:34
SPEAKER_04: So Jim Miller was a three-year starter at Michigan State, but he was never really projected as an NFL quarterback.
22:42
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers selected him in the sixth round of the 1994 draft.
22:47
SPEAKER_04: And he doesn't see a ton of action in his first two years, but he does get some experience playing for the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League.
22:54
SPEAKER_04: In those days, the World League was a league that NFL teams could designate players to go play in to get experience during the offseason.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that was not NFL Europe?
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I thought that was NFL Europe.
23:06
SPEAKER_04: Oh, it was NFL Europe.
23:08
SPEAKER_04: I I think I think they it was at one point it was called the World League, and the other point it was called NFL Europe.
23:13
SPEAKER_04: It's the same thing.
23:13
SPEAKER_04: You're right.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, they would send guys.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: It was for quarterbacks mainly, because they sent like Kurt Warner over there and Jim Miller.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what it was all for.
23:24
SPEAKER_04: Pretty much.
23:25
SPEAKER_04: You're right.
23:26
SPEAKER_04: And so the Steelers think that he does a pretty good job over there.
23:29
SPEAKER_04: They think he could be an NFL starter.
23:32
SPEAKER_04: And Jim Miller is kind of he's he's big, he can stand in the pocket, he's got a strong arm.
23:39
SPEAKER_04: He's very similar to Neil O'Donnell.
23:41
SPEAKER_04: There's a lot to like about him if you're the Steelers.
23:45
SPEAKER_04: The second guy they had was Cordell Stewart.
23:47
SPEAKER_04: Unlike Jim Miller, Stewart was drafted high.
23:51
SPEAKER_04: He did have a very high college pedigree.
23:55
SPEAKER_04: And uh his rookie season was was spectacular, but not because of playing quarterback.
24:01
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers used Cordell in the slash role very effectively.
24:04
SPEAKER_04: In fact, that that really helped propel them to the Super Bowl in 1995.
24:09
SPEAKER_04: But they drafted him to be a quarterback.
24:11
SPEAKER_04: He wanted to play quarterback.
24:13
SPEAKER_04: Was he ready to do that now?
24:16
SPEAKER_04: And then the third guy, uh, the guy we mentioned before, is Mike Tomzak.
24:20
SPEAKER_04: Uh, unlike the other two guys, he's got loads of experience.
24:22
SPEAKER_04: He's coming into his 12th NFL season.
24:25
SPEAKER_04: Tomzak had started out with the Chicago Bears backing up Jim McMahon on the Super Bowl shuffle team.
24:31
SPEAKER_04: And he eventually supplants McMahon as a starter.
24:34
SPEAKER_04: He starts 31 games for the Bears with kind of mixed results.
24:39
SPEAKER_04: Um I think the knock on Tomzak in Chicago is that he tends to throw a lot of interceptions.
24:45
SPEAKER_04: So he moves on to Cleveland and Green Bay and eventually finds his way to Pittsburgh to back up O'Donnell.
24:51
SPEAKER_04: And he has some real highlights in that role.
24:53
SPEAKER_04: Uh the 1994 season, O'Donnell gets hurt late in the season.
24:57
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers are battling Cleveland for the division title that year.
25:00
SPEAKER_04: And Tomzak leads them to two really huge late season wins over Miami and Oakland, who were two really good teams at the time.
25:08
SPEAKER_04: And that helps propel the Steelers to the number one seed in the playoffs that year.
25:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh he's he's proven to be a very capable backup, right?
25:17
SPEAKER_04: If the if the starters banged up for a few weeks, no worries because Mike Tomzak can keep the ship running.
25:22
SPEAKER_04: But can he really be a long-term starter?
25:26
SPEAKER_04: So those are your three guys.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I heard Mike Tomzak wasn't there to cause no trouble.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: He was just here to do the server show.
25:36
SPEAKER_04: He's in that video.
25:37
SPEAKER_04: You can find him.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Is he really?
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Backup quarterback.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: I think, yeah, I think you're right.
25:42
SPEAKER_04: Here's a fun fact about Tomzak.
25:44
SPEAKER_04: Like Dwayne Haskins, another guy that's buying for this job 26 years later, Tomzak played for Ohio State.
25:51
SPEAKER_04: And interesting stat about Ohio State is that they just have an atrocious record for NFL quarterbacks.
25:59
SPEAKER_04: So I'm going to read you the Ohio State quarterbacks that made it to the NFL in the last 40 years.
26:04
SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow.
26:04
SPEAKER_04: Followed by the number of games they won in the NFL.
26:08
SPEAKER_04: So here's the list.
26:09
SPEAKER_04: Arch Fliechner, who was like the fourth overall pick for the Colts, he he won zero NFL games.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: But did he win any bets on those games?
26:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:20
SPEAKER_04: Probably.
26:22
SPEAKER_04: Tomzak won 42 games, which is far and away the leader in this list.
26:28
SPEAKER_04: Tom Tupo won four games as a quarterback.
26:30
SPEAKER_04: He actually went on to be a pretty good punter uh in his career, but as a quarterback.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that Tom Tupo.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: I thought that name looked familiar.
26:38
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, he was drafted as a quarterback and he played quarterback at Ohio State, but he eventually converted into a punter when he realized that he was no good at quarterback.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: 12 touchdowns and 25 interceptions will do you there.
26:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's not good.
26:51
SPEAKER_04: The immortal Kent Graham won 17 games, and we know in Pittsburgh, we all know about Kent Graham.
26:57
SPEAKER_04: Bobby Hoing, the aforementioned Bobby Hoying, won three games.
27:01
SPEAKER_04: Joe Jermaine won zero games.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: I always thought Bobby Hoing was better than Joe Germain, and that's not current saying much.
27:08
SPEAKER_04: Well, I guess three games to zero, you know, that's three games or three games one are better than zero.
27:14
SPEAKER_04: Bobby Hoing also had a tie, so three kind of like three and a half games.
27:18
SPEAKER_04: One.
27:20
SPEAKER_04: Craig Krenzel, who I think was he the guy that won the national championship at Ohio State?
27:24
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe I'm looking at the okay, those stats look about right.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: See, I always thought the Bears were stupid for having him because the only reason you could ever possibly have Craig Krenzel on your team was that you're he was a by uh what was he was a biomedical major or something like a chemistry major.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: It's like unless you're running like a research lab on the side of your NFL team, there really is no reason to employ Craig Crenzel as a quarterback.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, besides like Cade McNown, who played for the the Bears are horrible.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Like literally, like his pet.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: But Craig Cranzel couldn't throw a football.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: I could throw a football as well as Craig Crenzel could.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: That was a joke.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: But I digress.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: So let's continue with the list.
28:11
SPEAKER_04: Troy Smith won four games.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: I thought he was good.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: I never understood why he didn't get more of a break.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: He played for the Ravens?
28:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he played for the Ravens.
28:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
28:21
SPEAKER_04: Uh local product Terrell Pryor won three games.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: Cardell Jones, zero games, Dwayne Haskins, three games, and Justin Fields, two games.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Now, to be fair, Justin Fields, you know, he's still Cardell Jones.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: Remember that guy was a joker.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: He was like, oh, I'm gonna come out of college early and yeah, do nothing.
28:42
SPEAKER_04: So so so yeah, I mean, Ohio State, not a good track record of NFL quarterbacks.
28:47
SPEAKER_04: Mike Tomzak, again, far and away, the guy that had the most success out of any Ohio State quarterback in the last several decades.
28:56
SPEAKER_04: Uh so just an interesting fact right there.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: Not even like Kent Graham is probably second, and then I guess Troy Smith.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, not a list you want to be on.
29:08
SPEAKER_04: Hopefully for Justin Fields, and hopefully for Dwayne Haskins, that turns out to be better, but we'll see.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Justin Fields, like, yeah, like you said, I don't think he's as bad.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: Like he's definitely probably talent-wise, I would say he's better than Tom Zach or Graham, but it just the Bears are really bad right now.
29:27
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers head into the summer with that three-way battle for quarterback, and they have a lot of time to figure it out.
29:34
SPEAKER_04: They even have an extra preseason game that year because they're playing one of those international games in Tokyo, but no one really sticks out.
29:42
SPEAKER_04: Um no one plays bad, but no one plays great.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: Um I I found uh uh some numbers from an old Postgazette article through the first four preseason games, and here's what the stats were.
29:55
SPEAKER_04: Miller was 23 of 44 for 206, Tomzak 19 of 31 for 244, Cordell 21 of 48 for 262.
30:05
SPEAKER_04: Uh Cordell's the only one that threw a touchdown pass, he threw two of them, but he Cordell also had two interceptions.
30:12
SPEAKER_04: So I mean everybody's kind of you know about the same there, completing, you know, around half their passes for you know not huge yardage.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I think we like I remember when we did the Cordell one, I talked about this a little bit.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I it nobody uh nobody distinguishes themselves.
30:38
SPEAKER_04: I I will say that Cordell at least had one highlight reel kind of play.
30:43
SPEAKER_04: Um they're playing the Eagles in Philadelphia, and he's in at the very end of the game.
30:48
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers are trailing by a touch by a touchdown, and he's got time for one final pass, and here's what that sounded like.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: We're really pleased to have him this year.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Don Garelli did a nice half-time beat with Dan Mooney.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: For this one, how far do you throw that ball?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: The 25.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: It's coming! It's coming! Johnny Five's gonna be fitted again! Come and finish him!
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Cornell can throw a Hail Mary.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Do you remember before the season?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay, did we did we hit Cower, who he named yet?
31:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
31:26
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's coming.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
31:27
SPEAKER_04: You want me to cover that next too?
31:29
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, hold that thought.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:31
SPEAKER_04: So so yeah, so what happens is finally Cower, you know, he's got to make a decision.
31:36
SPEAKER_04: So he comes out and he announces he's picked a starter, and it's Jim Miller.
31:41
SPEAKER_04: Jim Miller's gonna be the starter, Tomzek's gonna be the backup, and Stewart will quote, do his thing.
31:47
SPEAKER_04: And Cower angers a lot of people with that announcement.
31:50
SPEAKER_04: Tomzak accuses him of not basing it off of stats or anything relevant, just a gut feeling.
31:57
SPEAKER_04: And and that's that phrase really sticks.
31:59
SPEAKER_04: A lot of people remember uh that decision as Cowler going off of a gut feeling, but Cower never said that.
32:06
SPEAKER_04: It was Tomzak who said that.
32:08
SPEAKER_04: But even today, people be like, oh yeah, Coward picked Jim Miller because it was a gut feeling.
32:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh Stewart kind of mopes around, he says, quote, I guess I'm back to being slash again.
32:18
SPEAKER_04: He's not happy.
32:19
SPEAKER_04: And then the media is really upset because Cowler calls a press conference, makes that announcement, and then walks away, doesn't answer any follow-up questions.
32:29
SPEAKER_04: And he never really does explain himself.
32:32
SPEAKER_04: But Steve, here's my theory, and I want you to share your thoughts here.
32:36
SPEAKER_04: I think Cower was a Marty Schottenheimer disciple, and I think he wanted to pick the safest option.
32:43
SPEAKER_04: And Tom Zach turned the ball over a lot.
32:46
SPEAKER_04: Cordell was unpredictable.
32:48
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he could be throwing 80-yard Hail Mary's one minute and then like running after his first read on the next play.
32:56
SPEAKER_04: So I think he just determined that Miller was a guy who was safe and he could groom into being his next game manager.
33:03
SPEAKER_04: That's my theory.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: Um that's an interesting theory.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure like it's almost like he went off the radar.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't think anybody was predicting, except for Ron Cook.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: I remember Ron Cook, I mean, this is what I was gonna say earlier, before the season started, right?
33:22
SPEAKER_02: Before this game in Jacksonville, he said he wrote an article in the title of the article, It's Miller Time, and Ron Cook was all in on Jim Miller.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: So I maybe at that time in the NFL, like I think if it's nowadays, like with how much you can run and not get hit and not get fumble or get hurt, like Cordell probably is starting.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: They probably just start him.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: But back then, you know, you stood in the pocket, you took a hit, and you threw the ball, and that's that's definitely Jim Miller's game.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I guess I I don't know.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: It's almost like I don't know.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: I I don't know if he was looking for somebody he could groom and then Tom Zack just be the backup if that's that's what he wanted.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: That sounds like maybe Cowers, but I always thought I always thought there was something.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: I thought Cower just said something in a quote.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: I thought he did say it was a gut feeling.
34:19
SPEAKER_04: I never did I thought that too.
34:21
SPEAKER_04: Apparently that was Tom Zack said that, and it just kind of got attributed to Cower because Tom Zack said it.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: And I who cares if you know the media can be bad all he wants.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: I can understand Cower doesn't want to sit there and have to like justify his starting quarterback, it's his decision, and if you don't like it, too bad.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: Even if it was a gut feeling, that's you know because what no matter what Cower says, like he was gonna be wrong, you know.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: If he says, Oh, I picked Jim Miller because I like his haircut, like what you know, it's you know, it could have been any.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Didn't matter what he said, it was he was gonna get second guessed, and I don't blame him for just not wanting to hear it.
34:59
SPEAKER_04: So I I totally agree with you there, and and far be it from me to ever defend the sports media, but I I can kind of also see the angle of you know, again, we're going through it now, right?
35:11
SPEAKER_04: It is just every day.
35:12
SPEAKER_04: Who's gonna be the quarterback?
35:13
SPEAKER_04: Who's what are they gonna do?
35:14
SPEAKER_04: How are they gonna play this?
35:16
SPEAKER_04: And you had months and months of that, and now it finally comes down to a decision.
35:21
SPEAKER_04: I I think you just wanted more than the announcement.
35:23
SPEAKER_04: You wanted some rationale, some explanation, something to give the fans.
35:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh so I can I can see why people were kind of like, really, that's it.
35:33
SPEAKER_04: Uh to your point about Cordell, that's a that's a great point because Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, those guys didn't exist in 1996.
35:41
SPEAKER_04: In fact, those guys sometimes didn't even get drafted into the NFL.
35:45
SPEAKER_04: Remember like Charlie Ward and Major Harris, and you had college quarterbacks who didn't even get to the city.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: Kyler Murray would have never been drafted to the NFL.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: I think I'm at least a good five inches taller than him.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
35:58
SPEAKER_04: But like you said, you didn't have, I mean, Randall Cunningham was probably the only guy that that even fit close to that mold.
36:05
SPEAKER_04: And and so yeah, so Cordell being a quarterback, that would have been super unconventional, especially for a coach like Cower.
36:12
SPEAKER_04: So that's it, that's a great point about Cordell.
36:15
SPEAKER_04: And a great point too about maybe he just wanted to groom somebody.
36:19
SPEAKER_04: So that's how we go into the season.
36:21
SPEAKER_04: And the season opens, as Steve said, at Jacksonville.
36:25
SPEAKER_04: And I think one thing that we might forget now is that Cowers teams always stunk on opening day.
36:32
SPEAKER_04: I don't know what that was, but they had a lot of opening day duds where they would lose, not just lose, but they'd lose badly on opening day.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that did.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: I I think later, later in his coaching career, I remember that not happening as much.
36:47
SPEAKER_02: But definitely early on, that was definitely a theme for good old Bill Cower.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: One William Laird Cower.
36:57
SPEAKER_04: Well, that that opening day in 96 is no different.
37:00
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers look just completely lost in Jacksonville, especially on offense.
37:05
SPEAKER_04: They're only able to put up three field goals.
37:07
SPEAKER_04: Miller goes nine of 17 passing for a paltry 83 yards.
37:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh, he doesn't make any big mistakes, doesn't fumble or throw an interception, but he really can't generate any scoring chances either.
37:19
SPEAKER_04: His his best opportunity comes in the third quarter when it's still a close game, and the Steelers uh are down at the Jaguars' four-yard line.
37:28
SPEAKER_04: But Miller overthrows Andre Hastings, who was open in the end zone, and they have to settle for a field goal.
37:34
SPEAKER_04: And I wonder if he completed that pass, if the season would have gone a completely different direction.
37:39
SPEAKER_04: Uh meanwhile, on defense, uh linebacker Greg Lloyd, who was arguably the Steelers' best offensive player at the time, he tears a tendon in his knee and he's lost for the season.
37:49
SPEAKER_04: So it really couldn't have been a more disastrous start for the Steelers.
37:54
SPEAKER_04: And now Cower has to make a decision, right?
37:57
SPEAKER_04: Do you stick with Jim Miller or do you pivot?
38:00
SPEAKER_04: And he pivots and he decides, okay, now Mike Tomzak's a starter.
38:05
SPEAKER_04: Uh Steve, your thoughts on that at the time and and now I just thought they were all garbage.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: I remember all three of them looked horrible.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: And there was just I don't think that it didn't seem like they had anything on offense.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: And I guess we'll get on into that.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: What they end up being on offense that year.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: And it just this is 96, right?
38:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:29
SPEAKER_04: Do you think he should have given Miller more than one game?
38:32
SPEAKER_02: It would have been fair to, but could Miller have done what Tomzak did?
38:39
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if Jim Miller was quite ready for that.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I don't want to ruin the engine, but because you know it's kind of weird how like everything works out.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: Like the Steelers were in better shape at quarterback than they knew they were.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
38:59
SPEAKER_02: Just looking back, because I mean hindsight's always 20-20, but it it's just I wonder.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: I I yeah, let's continue on with it, because you'll see what happens, what really happens.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I and I I I will say that him switching to Tom Zach after one game shows that whenever he made that decision, he was not really set in stone about it.
39:23
SPEAKER_04: So maybe it was a good feeling.
39:24
SPEAKER_04: Right.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think I think too, like he finally said, okay, he he figured out what like the first four weeks of an NFL season, even well, they still played 16 games, you're really figuring out what you have.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: Like even back then when they played real preseason, but nowadays, especially because the preseason is the meaning, it's just extra games that mean nothing.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: Not even for the it barely means anything to the guys you cut or keep.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: But finding out like it used to be in preseason you found out what you had on your team so that when you started the season, but but it seems like the first month of the season, everybody's figuring out who's good, who's gonna be good, who's gonna be bad this year.
40:10
SPEAKER_04: So Coward makes that decision, and at first it's it's brilliant.
40:17
SPEAKER_04: It looks brilliant because the Steelers win seven out of their next eight games.
40:23
SPEAKER_04: And and you know, to be fair, uh what really helped the offense in those next eight games was that Jerome Bettis started to just catch on fire.
40:33
SPEAKER_04: Uh he has a hundred yards rushing in seven in all seven of those wins.
40:38
SPEAKER_04: And Tomzak, you know, he's playing the role of game manager, but he's no slouch either.
40:42
SPEAKER_04: Uh he's efficient enough where teams can't just stack eight guys in the box to stop Bettis.
40:47
SPEAKER_04: And he can sling the ball when needed.
40:49
SPEAKER_04: There's a game uh in week six at Kansas City where Tomzak throws for 338 yards.
40:54
SPEAKER_04: So he's not just handing off to Bettis.
40:56
SPEAKER_04: Uh and probably the biggest thing in those first uh eight games for Tomzak, he's not making mistakes.
41:04
SPEAKER_04: So here's some highlights from that first half of the season.
41:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh the Steelers beat the Bills for the fourth consecutive season.
41:11
SPEAKER_04: That was a big deal at the time.
41:12
SPEAKER_04: Buffalo in the 90s, you know, they made it to four straight Super Bowls.
41:16
SPEAKER_04: They were the dominant AFC team.
41:18
SPEAKER_04: And the Steelers beat them four years in a row, all at Three River Stadium, including that 96 season.
41:25
SPEAKER_04: Uh the Steelers, they they play, they also play the Rams at home and they crush them 42-6.
41:30
SPEAKER_04: That's a game that Bettis just really revels in because he wanted so badly to stick it to the Rams for thinking he was done, and he just he just destroys them.
41:39
SPEAKER_04: And probably the most memorable game from that first half of the season was a week five home game against the Houston Oilers.
41:47
SPEAKER_04: And and the Steelers Oilers' rivalry, it was always a really nasty rivalry, but at this point it had cooled off because the Oilers weren't that good anymore, and they were actually on their way out the door.
41:58
SPEAKER_04: They were moving to Tennessee at the end of that season.
42:00
SPEAKER_04: They were playing this like lame duck season in Houston.
42:04
SPEAKER_04: They nobody was coming to the games or anything because they were gone at the end of the year.
42:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh however, this game does bring back a lot of the old memories.
42:13
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and and in the second quarter, a huge fight breaks out.
42:17
SPEAKER_04: And what happens is that uh defensive back Marcus Robertson for Houston, he picks up a loose football and starts to run with it.
42:25
SPEAKER_04: And Tomzak gets in front of him to stop him, and the the referees blow the play dead.
42:31
SPEAKER_04: It's one of those things you see a million times, right?
42:33
SPEAKER_04: Like the ball's on the ground, you haven't really heard a whistle yet, somebody picks it up and starts to take off, but then the refs are like, no, no, no, plays dead, right?
42:42
SPEAKER_04: Again, happens a million times a game.
42:44
SPEAKER_04: Well, uh Robertson, because Tomzak kind of stood in front of him to stop him just in case the play wasn't over.
42:50
SPEAKER_04: Robertson throws a shoulder into Tomzak.
42:52
SPEAKER_04: And Tomzak was a guy that really didn't like take crap from people a lot.
42:58
SPEAKER_04: And he throws Robertson to the ground, and Robertson jumps up and starts dragging Tomzak around by the face mask.
43:05
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and he's promptly ejected from the game.
43:08
SPEAKER_04: And the Oilers were very angry about that after the game.
43:11
SPEAKER_04: Uh, they they thought that Tomzak started it, which he didn't, but the Oilers were never really interested in telling the truth.
43:18
SPEAKER_04: Uh I have some audio here of Roberts being escorted off the field.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: You've heard a lot of noise over the years in this team, and this is one of the great friends in football, but I've never heard this loud of booing of any money or any game.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: They better get some security around it.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, he needs to keep his helmet on.
43:45
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was I was at that game, Steve, and and he's right.
43:49
SPEAKER_04: It was people were screaming at him, and he had walked through the little tunnel, people were throwing stuff at him, so that was the comment about keeping his helmet on.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh was was Mitch line.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Ejected in this game too.
44:02
SPEAKER_02: I I want to say like the fact because I remember like you have notes of another guy getting kicked up, but I swear Mitch Lyons, because now he does like have you heard his commercials on the radio?
44:13
SPEAKER_02: He's another like guy, like, oh, I'm a like he's like a financial advisor now or something.
44:18
SPEAKER_04: Oh, really?
44:19
SPEAKER_02: I think it's Mitch Lyons.
44:21
SPEAKER_04: Well, he he may have.
44:22
SPEAKER_04: There were so that was that was not the only fight.
44:24
SPEAKER_04: Later in the game, and I don't know if Mitch Lyons was involved in this fracas or not, but later in the game, the Steelers are punting from their own end zone.
44:33
SPEAKER_04: And their punter at the time is a guy named Shane Edge.
44:37
SPEAKER_04: I remember this.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: I remember this.
44:39
SPEAKER_02: I think Mitch Lyons somehow was involved.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: But I know he's like made it's like you made a career out of getting kicked out of an Oilers game.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: I just every time I think of it, I hear that commercial.
44:49
SPEAKER_04: It's like here's what happens on that play where the Steelers are about to punt.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: Shane Edge was out of the end zone, takes a safety rather than risk a return to fighting.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: This is the This is unsportsmanlike and ridiculous.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: And as you put it out, the smart thing to do is keep your helmet out of it because the stuff went out of the stance.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: Shane Edge actually got two right crosses to the solar flex.
45:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Shane Edge punches the guy for Houston in the head twice, as you heard uh Beasley Reese, the announcer, say there.
45:31
SPEAKER_02: Was that the classic combo of Don Cricky and Beasley Reese?
45:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I love Beasley Reese.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: He grew up on Don Cricky and Beasley Reese.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: That's like, oh man, that's my early football fandom there.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:43
SPEAKER_04: I just love the Shane Edge got two right crosses to the solar plexus.
45:47
SPEAKER_04: So, yes, our punter, our punter is punching a guy in the head.
45:50
SPEAKER_04: I I always love the punching a guy with a helmet on.
45:53
SPEAKER_04: Always very effective.
45:55
SPEAKER_04: Uh Shane Edge is ejected.
45:57
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was just you know, fight scalore at that game.
46:01
SPEAKER_04: So that was kind of an appropriate way to end the Steelers Oilers uh all-time series, somewhere Jerry Glanville was smiling.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: Although I think uh Jeff Fisher was coaching by this point, wasn't he?
46:14
SPEAKER_04: Well, that's why I said somewhere Jerry Glenville was smiling.
46:18
SPEAKER_04: Wasn't there.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Wasn't coaching the Oilers, but even Bud Adams, who still owned the team at that time, had gotten sick of him, I guess.
46:26
SPEAKER_04: So so in November, the Steelers are 7-2, and they're on their way to a possible number one seed in the playoffs.
46:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean, this is this is great.
46:35
SPEAKER_04: Everything's working out perfectly.
46:38
SPEAKER_04: The defending AFC champions are right back on top of the AFC, but then things start to go south.
46:45
SPEAKER_04: And it really begins with a game in Cincinnati in week 11, where the Steelers make a bunch of mistakes in that game, and they trail the Bengals by a touchdown in the fourth quarter, and Tom Zach has a chance to bring him back, and he proceeds to throw interceptions on the Steelers' final three possessions.
47:03
SPEAKER_04: So literally they're down by one score, and he has three drives in the fourth quarter where he can tie the game, and he throws interceptions on all three of them.
47:11
SPEAKER_04: And the Steelers lose 34 to 24.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: That's very Tom Zack-like.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
47:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
47:18
SPEAKER_04: I mean, we said Tom Zack didn't make mistakes in the first half of the season.
47:22
SPEAKER_04: He starts to really unravel.
47:23
SPEAKER_04: He throws interceptions in each of the next three games, one of which is a loss in their first ever game at Baltimore against the Ravens.
47:31
SPEAKER_04: And that loss also now means that the Steelers are 0-4 on the road against the division that year, which is going to hurt them in the standings.
47:39
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers do recover with a win against San Diego at home in week 15.
47:44
SPEAKER_04: But even in that game, Tom Zach throws three interceptions, even though they win.
47:49
SPEAKER_04: Fortunately, the defense is able to bail them out because they hold the Chargers to just three points.
47:55
SPEAKER_04: And that game against San Diego, it's significant for two reasons.
47:58
SPEAKER_04: Because number one, it clinches the AFC Central.
48:01
SPEAKER_04: Even though they were, the Stewart were starting to freefall, the division was pretty weak, and they had enough wins that they could clinch the division.
48:08
SPEAKER_04: But the second significant thing about that game is Bettis rolls an ankle in that game, and it really ends up hampering him for the rest of the season.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: Was that game played in the snow?
48:19
SPEAKER_02: Like I remember it snowing, like not bad, but like snowflake.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: Because I remember Sean Salisbury sucking in the snow.
48:25
SPEAKER_04: Yes, you're right.
48:27
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
48:28
SPEAKER_04: I think you're right.
48:29
SPEAKER_04: It wasn't like heavy snow on the ground, but there was definitely snow.
48:32
SPEAKER_04: And you're right, it was Sean Salisbury who was the quarterback for the Chargers, and I think they scored three points in that game, the Chargers.
48:39
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, Sean Salisbury, as you you mentioned earlier, Steve, was not a very good quarterback.
48:44
SPEAKER_04: So uh even though Mike Tomzek threw three interceptions that game, it was still better than having signed Sean Salisbury.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: He certainly has a lot of attitude for a guy.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: I guess it works on radio, right?
48:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
48:59
SPEAKER_04: He's yeah.
49:01
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers clinched the division, and the next week they're playing at home again.
49:06
SPEAKER_04: They're hosting the San Francisco 49ers, who at that time were a really good team, needing a win to get one of the top two seeds in the AFC.
49:14
SPEAKER_04: And and back then, if you were one of the top two seeds, you got a bye week for the first round of the playoffs, which the Steelers really could have used, especially with Bettis being banged up and Tom Zek maybe needing a week or two to get his head straight.
49:29
SPEAKER_04: But instead, they get scorched by Jerry Rice and some rookie who at the time no one had ever heard of, named Terrell Owens.
49:36
SPEAKER_04: And we talked about the Steelers having holes to fill during the offseason.
49:40
SPEAKER_04: I think one hole they didn't anticipate was their secondary.
49:45
SPEAKER_04: In 95, the year they went to the Super Bowl, they pieced together this patchwork secondary after Rod Woodson tore his ACL in the season opener.
49:53
SPEAKER_04: And they did okay with that.
49:55
SPEAKER_04: But in 1996, you know, Woodson was back.
49:59
SPEAKER_04: And he was one of the greatest cornerbacks in NFL history.
50:02
SPEAKER_04: He's a Steeler all-time great.
50:03
SPEAKER_04: And I think they thought, okay, everything's A-OK again in the secondary.
50:08
SPEAKER_04: And it wasn't.
50:10
SPEAKER_04: Uh Woodson was a liability at that point at the cornerback position, and he just wasn't the same guy.
50:16
SPEAKER_04: He never would be the same guy at cornerback.
50:20
SPEAKER_04: So I think that really killed the Steelers.
50:22
SPEAKER_04: And I think if they would have had the foresight to see that, maybe they don't draft a project offensive lineman in the first round.
50:30
SPEAKER_04: You know, maybe they draft a defensive back.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: That probably would have been helpful.
50:34
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think Rod Woodson had figured out that.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: Like I remember he went, didn't he go he went to San Francisco after that?
50:40
SPEAKER_04: He he played one year in San Francisco.
50:42
SPEAKER_04: He was very bad there at corner two.
50:43
SPEAKER_04: And then and then in Baltimore, he wasn't good.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he wasn't good for like the first half of the season.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Then I think he finally the light bulb went off and he went to safety and he was like, oh my gosh, it's Rod Woodson again, who's really good again.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:57
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
50:58
SPEAKER_04: And and and to be fair, I mean, he didn't know that at the time.
51:01
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers didn't know that at the time.
51:02
SPEAKER_04: You know, he had come off of that injury, and everybody thought he was he was just going to go back to being Rod Woodson.
51:08
SPEAKER_04: So the secondary is not good.
51:10
SPEAKER_04: Uh Tomzak in that San Francisco game throws two more interceptions just for good measure, just in case you know the defense wasn't losing it single-handedly.
51:18
SPEAKER_04: Tom Zack's like, here, here's some turnovers.
51:21
SPEAKER_04: So after going into this late season free fall and losing that game against San Francisco, the Steelers are now locked in as the number three seed in the playoffs, which means they're not going to get that first-round bye that they could have really used.
51:35
SPEAKER_04: That does leave them with one final regular season game at Carolina, but it's meaningless because they're already locked into their playoff positioning.
51:43
SPEAKER_04: But I wanted to talk about that Carolina game because there are actually three interesting things that happen in that game.
51:49
SPEAKER_04: So, number one, Suraper, who is the Panthers mascot.
51:55
SPEAKER_04: I just watched this play like a couple weeks ago.
51:59
SPEAKER_04: He he interferes with the live play.
52:00
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers punt and the ball is rolling around.
52:03
SPEAKER_04: It's a live ball.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: This is a much if you can look up this on YouTube, it's hilarious.
52:07
SPEAKER_04: I'll put a link to it on our website.
52:09
SPEAKER_04: Because the ball rolling around.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: The ref yells at him.
52:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the ref start screaming at him.
52:14
SPEAKER_04: Sir Purr jumps on the ball.
52:17
SPEAKER_04: He actually covers up the ball in the field of play.
52:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's covering a punt.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: I guess yeah, because it because back then, I think it still is, right?
52:26
SPEAKER_02: The ball's live until somebody touches it.
52:29
SPEAKER_04: So it's no that no, today that would not have been a problem because back then.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because it's it's the college rule.
52:35
SPEAKER_02: Because in college, as soon as it crosses the plane to the goal line, it's over.
52:39
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
52:39
SPEAKER_02: But back then, like if an offensive player would have gone and scooped it up, they could have returned it for like a touchdown.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: And that happened.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: And the defensive player has to touch it to end the play.
52:51
SPEAKER_04: That happened like the year before this.
52:53
SPEAKER_04: The Rams and the Saints were playing, and the the Saints punted, and they just let the ball sit in the end zone.
52:58
SPEAKER_04: And the guy for the Rams picked it up and ran like 107 yards for a touchdown while everybody else was walking off the field.
53:04
SPEAKER_04: But they eventually changed that role.
53:06
SPEAKER_04: But yeah, back then, Surpur, that was a live ball.
53:09
SPEAKER_04: And it's it's a hilarious clip.
53:11
SPEAKER_04: Go watch it because it was around Christmas time, so Surpur's wearing like a Santa hat, and he's just this big cat, and he just jumps on the ball.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: It's and like he tried, he like apologized.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Like he he thought it was a dead ball because he's obviously a college football fan.
53:25
SPEAKER_02: I guarantee you he got confused.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: Because it was because in high school and college it was the other way.
53:31
SPEAKER_02: And like he's all apologetic.
53:33
SPEAKER_02: He is like his defense.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: He like you can't read his lips off because he's a big stupid head on, but he's like, you gotta tell his body language.
53:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, sorry.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, whoops.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: And like, and then I think the ref gets on the mic and says, Yeah, there's yeah, that's a sideline.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: I think that he gets a sideline warning out of it or something insane.
53:53
SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, so so Suraper messes up.
53:56
SPEAKER_04: Uh the other two things from this game, Cordell Stewart is in a quarterback, and he runs for an 80-yard touchdown, which at the time is the longest run from scrimmage by a quarterback in the history of the league.
54:07
SPEAKER_04: So that was significant.
54:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh the other one has to be that Terrell Pryor run against the Steelers.
54:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm sure.
54:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because that was 90 something that beat it.
54:17
SPEAKER_04: Uh the third significant thing about this meaningless Panthers game, it marks the only time in NFL history where the Carolina Panthers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers.
54:28
SPEAKER_04: Who knew?
54:29
SPEAKER_04: So fun some some some fun facts about a game that was otherwise meaningless.
54:34
SPEAKER_04: So now we head into the playoffs.
54:36
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers have lost four out of their final seven games.
54:38
SPEAKER_04: That's never how you want to head into the playoffs.
54:41
SPEAKER_04: And and you know, the playoffs kind of opened with the same question that the season opened with.
54:46
SPEAKER_04: Like, are we really set at the quarterback position?
54:48
SPEAKER_04: And I think at this point, I mean, the job, the job was Tom's axe, but man, he was really starting to falter, and he didn't have a healthy Jerome Bettis to carry him anymore.
54:59
SPEAKER_04: The first round opponent ends up being Jim Harbaugh and the Colts in a rematch of the previous year's AFC Championship game.
55:06
SPEAKER_04: And this time the Steelers go up 13-0 in the first half.
55:09
SPEAKER_04: They seem to have the game well into under control until Tom Zack throws a pick six, and the Colts shockingly have the lead by halftime.
55:19
SPEAKER_04: Fortunately, in the second half, the defense and the running game get going.
55:23
SPEAKER_04: Uh, Bettis, despite the ankle injury, still racks up 102 yards in this game.
55:27
SPEAKER_04: And John Whitman, if you remember John Whitman, he even adds 48 yards and a touchdown.
55:32
SPEAKER_04: So even John Whitman gets gets rolling.
55:34
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers were really able to run the ball in this one.
55:37
SPEAKER_02: One of the few Penn State players I liked.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, John Whitman was a good fullback.
55:42
SPEAKER_04: He was.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: Kind of like a Dan Kreider before Dan Kreider.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: Now it's like, what's a fullback?
55:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
55:49
SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
55:50
SPEAKER_04: So the Steelers eliminate the Colts again for the second straight year, but now because of that second half slump, they have to go to Foxboro for the divisional round to play the New England Patriots.
56:01
SPEAKER_04: And the conditions for that game are kind of nuts.
56:03
SPEAKER_04: There's a huge fog that settles in over the stadium right before kickoff.
56:07
SPEAKER_04: And if you watch the highlights of that game, you'll see that they had the TV camera at this weird kind of like on the sideline angle because they couldn't film from above because it was too foggy, you wouldn't be able to see the field.
56:19
SPEAKER_04: And that was interesting because that wasn't the first time Mike Tomzak had ever played a playoff game under those kinds of conditions.
56:26
SPEAKER_04: He was the quarterback for the Bears when they played that famous 1988 Fog Bowl game at Soldier Field against the Eagles.
56:33
SPEAKER_04: So it was interesting that Tomzak was the starter in both of those games.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: Can I interject for one minute about this?
56:40
SPEAKER_02: I've thought about this before because I've watched the Fog Bowl.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: If this happened nowadays, I guarantee you that game gets canceled.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: I guarantee you.
56:50
SPEAKER_02: There is no way whoever is televising this game is paying a billion dollars to not televise to televise a bunch of fog.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: I guarantee you the league comes up with some silly reason why the game, oh, we were afraid of player safety or something.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: Whoever is televising that and paying all that money is not going to televise a bunch of fog.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: I I guarantee you, if that ever and it's gonna happen again.
57:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean the odds are it's gonna happen.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: That game will get delayed, cancelled, played the next day, whatever.
57:26
SPEAKER_04: That that's a good point.
57:27
SPEAKER_04: I I so so the the the the the the 96 Steeler Patriots game, I don't think it was it was foggy, but it wasn't like you could see.
57:35
SPEAKER_04: You it would see the fog bowl, you can't see anything.
57:38
SPEAKER_04: You can't you're right.
57:39
SPEAKER_04: You go back and watch even on the sideline, yeah.
57:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, go back and watch that game.
57:42
SPEAKER_04: You the broadcast, you couldn't see anything.
57:44
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how they saw anything on the field.
57:46
SPEAKER_04: It was it was kind of ridiculous even then that they played that game.
57:50
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but they did.
57:53
SPEAKER_04: Um and and in in this game in '96, even though it's foggy, the Patriots they decide to come out throwing.
57:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh Drew Bledsoe is their quarterback.
58:01
SPEAKER_04: He hits Derry Glenn on a long bomb to the one-yard line on the first play of the game.
58:05
SPEAKER_04: And Glenn really beats Rod Woodson pretty badly on that play.
58:09
SPEAKER_04: The Patriots go up 14-0 early.
58:11
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers can't get anything going on the ground with Bettis.
58:14
SPEAKER_04: They even try like some Cordell Stewart option plays, and those get stuffed.
58:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh the Patriots defense is all over Tomzek whenever he does drop back to pass.
58:23
SPEAKER_04: And in the second quarter, Curtis Martin, the former pit star, he rips off a just a brilliant 78-yard touchdown run.
58:31
SPEAKER_04: And that's that's basically the end of the game right there in the second quarter.
58:34
SPEAKER_04: Uh, they, you know, they would have needed a guy like Ben Rothesperger to be able to bring them back from 21 zip.
58:40
SPEAKER_04: And Mike Tomzak just is not that guy.
58:43
SPEAKER_04: Uh Cower even benches Tomzak for a few possessions and tries Stewart as the quarterback, but Cordell goes 0 for 10 in in that game.
58:52
SPEAKER_04: So it's just a complete disaster.
58:55
SPEAKER_04: The Patriots.
58:56
SPEAKER_02: You just don't go into Foxborough and beat Pete Carroll and Drew Bledzo.
59:01
SPEAKER_04: Well, I was gonna say the Patriots end the steel rose season just like they will so many times again in the following two decades, uh, just without Belichick and Brady.
59:11
SPEAKER_04: So uh it actually wasn't Pete Carl Steve, it was it was still Parcells at that point.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was Parcell's?
59:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:16
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
59:17
SPEAKER_02: I thought that's right, because that's the year they made the Super Bowl.
59:19
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
59:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, it was Parcells.
59:22
SPEAKER_02: So it's not as funny with Parcells.
59:25
SPEAKER_04: No, no, no.
59:26
SPEAKER_04: But you know, blood so.
59:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh so that's the end of the season.
59:31
SPEAKER_04: It was it, I mean, on some fronts it was a good season.
59:33
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers won the division.
59:34
SPEAKER_04: Jerome Bettis kicks off a Hall of Fame career with the Steelers.
59:39
SPEAKER_04: But the the interesting thing about that season, Steve, is at the end of that season, they're in the same exact spot as they were the previous season.
59:46
SPEAKER_04: They were a team without any kind of real long-term solution at the quarterback position.
59:52
SPEAKER_04: So let's talk about the aftermath.
59:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: And what an aftermath it was.
59:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
59:57
SPEAKER_04: So Jim Miller, he leaves after the 96 season.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_04: He eventually finds success as the starter for the Chicago Bears.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_04: In 2001, he leads them to a 13-3 record.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_04: And many Bears fans are still bitter about what happened in the divisional playoffs that year.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_04: Uh, Philadelphia's Hugh Douglas injures Miller in the first quarter of that game, and that led to Chicago losing the game at home.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_04: And a lot of Bears fans thought that was a dirty hit.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_04: So that was kind of the end of Jim Miller's like one shining moment with Chicago.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_04: He eventually does win a Super Bowl ring as Tom Brady's backup in New England.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_04: And he says today that he's really not bitter about his time in Pittsburgh.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_04: He met his wife here, so he has fond memories of Pittsburgh.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_04: Cordell Stewart is named the Steelers starter for the 1997 season.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_04: And he leads the Steelers to two AFC championship games over the next six years as the on-again, off-again starter.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_04: Definitely a rocky and fascinating story, which would be worthy of its own podcast.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_04: And in fact, it was.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_04: We did a whole podcast episode on Cordell, so we'll link that on our website as well.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_04: And then Tom Zach, he goes back to being the backup.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_04: He does supplant Stewart in the final few games of a very lost 1999 season before retiring for good from pro football.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_04: Jerome Bettis, the guy whose good years were supposedly all behind them, he goes on to play 10 seasons for the Steelers, becomes one of their all-time greats, makes the Hall of Fame, wins the Super Bowl in his hometown in his final over NFL game.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_04: Meanwhile, Lawrence Phillips is a bust for the Rams.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_04: He ultimately winds up with a lengthy prison sentence for assault and sadly commits suicide while he's in jail.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_04: Just a sad story there for Lawrence Phillips.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_04: Domain Stevens is cut on the first day of training camp in 1999 after he shows up overweight and out of shape, unable to finish sprints that the other 79 players in camp were all able to complete.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_04: And Rod Woodson leaves in free agency, as we said, ultimately finds success at the safety position later in his career with Baltimore and Oakland.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh I was actually watching a special on Lawrence Phillips.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: They were doing I I didn't get to see the whole thing, but yeah, I he had a lot of trouble even in college.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: And uh who was it?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_02: Ray Lewis, I was watching an interview.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_02: Ray Lewis called him one of the best running backs he ever faced.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize Lawrence Phillips was that I I never really saw I don't remember him playing in Nebraska in college.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean I always thought Nebraska was always kind of overrated, those Tom Osborne teams, but I don't know.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: I guess he was good.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean I mean Ray Lewis thought he was.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean, so yeah, who knows what could have been for that guy, uh unfortunately, you know, but uh yeah, the Steelers definitely won that trade, that's for sure.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_04: So let's let's let's circle all the way back to today, right?
1:02:49
SPEAKER_04: What are some potential lessons learned from this?
1:02:52
SPEAKER_04: This is again this this is the only other time in Steeler history where they went through this.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_04: Super Bowl quarterback's gone, and now we have to make some decisions.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_04: So what are some lessons for today?
1:03:04
SPEAKER_04: I I I have three things here.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_04: One is maybe it's a good idea to make it a two-man race.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_04: You know, there's a lot of talk about bringing in a rookie or or again, trading for a veteran.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_04: Uh here's what Jim Miller said years later.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_04: He said, quote, three-way quarterback battles do not work.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_04: Bill Cower will even tell you that in hindsight.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_04: You're getting one-third of the reps, which are limited to begin with, in the offseason, and you need all of those no matter who is starting.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_04: So Jim Miller says that it really he thought it really hurt all three of them that it was a three-way battle instead of a two-way battle.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_04: So I thought that was interesting insight.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting that all three of them went on to like have successful career.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_02: Tom Zach got on the playoffs.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh Cordell had two or three very good seasons, and Jim Miller had that 2001 season, which he was really good too.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_02: So I yeah, I I I can't argue with I guess you can't argue with that.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_02: Like it makes sense if you think about it, especially when you have two young quarterbacks like Jim Miller and uh Cornell Stewart.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, I Tom Zack, I don't think uh reps really would have mattered so much.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_02: You know what you're getting with him, but with the two younger guys, so but may I mean the does Mason Rudolph really I mean Mason Rudolph could use some reps to you know get some you know chemistry with the wide receivers, but I don't know.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and if you sign like a like a Andy Dalton or Joe Flacco or somebody that like you're signing that guy to not have a chance to be the starter, he's just a guaranteed backup.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_04: Right, but Tomzak was a competitor for the starting job.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_04: So I just think that's interesting insight that you know from Miller that yeah, three guys is too many cooks in the kitchen.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they're probably gonna they probably this year they're probably are gonna sign like somebody better than Galton or Flacco.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_02: I guarantee I I'd be surprised if they didn't at least sign like a credible backup more than you know, like I could I I mean are the Raiders gonna give up on Mariota?
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, or allow I mean that would be a guy they could probably get.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, obviously they're not getting I I don't think they're getting Aaron Rodgers.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if they get Aaron Rodgers, that'll be unreal.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that would be weird.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: Unsteeler like, but yeah.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_04: That that would be that would probably be the most shocking thing that's that would have ever happened in still our history, to be honest.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_04: Because, like you said, that's just not the way the team operates.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to think who else is out there that well, there's Met Trubisky, his name's been throwing around.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_04: Jameis Winston.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh Winston's coming off a knee injury.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, again, everybody's got every we could go through the whole list.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_04: Everybody's got pros and cons.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_04: I I think that again, if you want to have Haskins and and Rudolph be your guys, and you bring in a third.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_04: Guy, it could cause problems, again to Miller's point.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_04: So interesting to see what they'll do there.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_04: I think the second lesson learned is don't reach in the draft, right?
1:06:11
SPEAKER_04: The Steelers that year were coming in 1996, they were coming off of a Super Bowl appearance.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_04: So they had a kind of a more open window than they do today, and they still didn't reach for a quarterback.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, the assumption this year is going to be that the pickett and and Malik Willis are both going to be gone by the time the Steelers pick.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_04: So do you really want to reach for the kid from Ole Miss or something like that?
1:06:36
SPEAKER_02: Is that the guy that got hurt in the bowl game?
1:06:38
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, if he's around in the second round, do you take a I possibly.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_04: But I but again, like they could have they could have gone after Tony Banks in 1996.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_04: They could have just said, hey, who's the best quarterback on the board?
1:06:54
SPEAKER_04: Right?
1:06:54
SPEAKER_04: And it's this guy.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: And they could have just said they don't Colbert doesn't like cut he always goes for the best player, not the best, you know, best player available.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: So right.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_04: So I think I think that was.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you compare an offensive lineman to a you know a cornerback or a wide receiver, but I guess they know what they're doing.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_02: That's why they get paid millions of dollars.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_04: And and they did the same thing in 96, even though they made a bad draft pick.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_02: They get paid millions of dollars to draft T Martin over Tom Brady.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_04: But in 96 they didn't force, like they didn't try to force a quarterback, and I think that'd be a good lesson for this year.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_04: Don't try to force a quarterback in the draft.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_04: The real question is whatever happened to that guy from Duke.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_04: Spence Fisher.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_04: He never played in the NFL.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_04: That's about all I could find on him.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_02: He's Spence Fisher's auto parts in Durham, North Carolina.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_04: Probably.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_04: So I those are two lessons.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_04: I think a third lesson, I think this one's really important.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_04: And Steve, you kind of alluded to it earlier, and maybe you can expand on it now.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_04: The quarterback problem doesn't necessarily have to be all solved in one season.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes you need to give it time to play out, and sometimes it ends up working out anyway, even though that's going to upset a lot of the fans.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_04: It's going to make people like, you know, have those short-term hot takes.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_04: Oh, what are the stewards doing?
1:08:22
SPEAKER_04: But it this was a case where they went into the 96 season, they didn't know what they were doing at quarterback.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_04: They went one way, they changed stream after week one, and by the end of the season, they didn't have a starting quarterback again.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_04: But you know what?
1:08:36
SPEAKER_04: It ended up working out because Cordell Stewart was their long-term guy, for better or worse.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_04: So it it didn't it didn't have to all get solved that one season.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_02: Especially in a weak quarterback draft class.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: So I yeah, that's I I think it ended up all the like I said, all those quarterbacks ended up being you know, decent starters and having you know success, I would say more than Tony Banks or Bobby Hoying ever had in the NFL.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean that's the lesson there is you know, I I still like Mason Rudolph.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_02: I know that's an unpopular opinion around here.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's ready, and I can't believe all this guy's been through.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_02: And I I'm not sure he can ever have any success in Pittsburgh.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_02: I think if he's ever gonna be successful, he's gonna have to go somewhere else because I just this like I almost feel like he's got like Brian Gracie syndrome in already and is you know, like it's never good to be the guy that follows the guy, and that's that's kind of like he Brian Gracie's problem was he wasn't John Elway.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what Mason Rudolph's problem is?
1:09:48
SPEAKER_02: He's not Ben Rothelsberger.
1:09:52
SPEAKER_04: I actually I actually agree with you, Steve.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_04: I I think Rudolph is gonna surprise people.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_04: I really do.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_04: Um it uh if you ever listen to Dejan Kovacevic has a really good daily shot uh podcast if you're interested in other good podcasts, and he does a daily shot of Steelers, and he's been banging the drum about Rudolph.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_04: You know, Rudolph never played in an offense that was designed for him at all.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_04: You know, the the offense was the Ben Rothesberger offense, which was is different than what Mason Rudolph's used to running.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_04: It didn't have a lot of downfield passing, which Rudolph is pretty good at.
1:10:29
SPEAKER_04: It didn't have a lot of under center stuff, didn't have a lot of you know, play action and things like that.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_04: It was Ben's offense, and he was always coming in as a backup, always getting the backup reps.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_04: And anytime he started, it was you know, he was giving the keys to someone else's car.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_04: So this year now it's going to be his offense geared around him, presumably.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_04: You know, unless unless they do get Aaron Rodgers.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand, and here's another thing, and this is maybe a little off top.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't understand the antipathy between Ben Rothesberger and him.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_02: I never I don't understand that.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_02: And I don't understand all the you know this negative opinions by like people like Ryan Clark and like oh this I'll you know it'll be letting down the Steelers fan.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what are you talking about?
1:11:14
SPEAKER_02: Like I don't understand that kind of reaction to like they're not starting like me.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_02: Like if I start like you know, like if you're starting somebody like really like this guy's a good quarterback.
1:11:26
SPEAKER_02: I I've seen him play.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_02: Have you seen it?
1:11:29
SPEAKER_02: He had a bad he didn't have the greatest game against Detroit, but I I don't know.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: I think you put him there with Harris, and if they can get the offensive line shaken out a little bit more, get that guy who was playing center away from center and get a real center this year.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_02: I I I really think and then let Matt Canada run his offense, not you know, have to cater to Ben.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: And I think it was pretty obvious that's what was going on, was they're just kind of trying to placate Ben.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_02: And so they are not gonna have to do that anymore.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna do that for Mason Rudolph per se.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, so hopefully things work out better.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, I I totally agree.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_04: And and and maybe we're wrong, Mason.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_04: Maybe Mason Rudolph stinks.
1:12:13
SPEAKER_04: And but you know what?
1:12:14
SPEAKER_04: You'll know after this year.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_04: If you give them he, I think they've had him for four years.
1:12:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is his make or break season.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I just give him a year and in the meantime fill all those other holes.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_04: Like you said, get the offensive linemen, get the fix the inside linebacker position.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_04: Go, go focus on all that stuff.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_04: Don't trade all your draft capital for a while.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_02: Get rid of Stephon.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, get rid of Stefan Toett.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_02: What is the point of having him on the team?
1:12:39
SPEAKER_02: It's time to either play football or not play football.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_02: I I don't I don't know.
1:12:46
SPEAKER_02: Stefan Tuitt is like one of the more I don't know.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_02: That's another position they need.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_02: They need to like that's probably almost more important than the quarterback or as comported.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_02: Because if you can't stop the run, you can't win.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_02: You just can't win.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_02: I've watched enough pit football and seen a lot of crappy run defense.
1:13:06
SPEAKER_02: If you you can have you can have Larry Fitzgerald and Darrell Revis and lose games because you can't stop the run.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_02: It's just yeah, it's yeah.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_04: But my if I if I if I could choose what I want to have happen, it would be that we would spend our salary cap dollars that we have this year for the first time ever in our draft capital and everything else on fixing the run defense, fixing the offensive line, the run offense, and and pass protection, right?
1:13:37
SPEAKER_04: Fix the holes.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_04: You have a you have a quarterback playing on the cheap.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_04: And if Mason, again, if Mason Ruder Mason Rudolph stinks, then you're a year further along with those other positions, and maybe you draft a quarterback next year.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_04: Again, that will not placate the fans.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_04: Everybody wants win now, fix everything now, and especially today.
1:13:57
SPEAKER_04: Like, especially we live in this, like you said with Ryan Clark, we live in this era of hot takes, and you know, that's not going to be popular.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_04: But again, if you look at that, if you look at that '96 team, they didn't fix it in one season.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_04: But it ended up working out for them in the in the in the eventual long term.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_04: Again, Cordell Stewart was not, he didn't win Super Bowls, but he steadied that position, he took them to two AFC title games.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_04: It it ended up working out.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_04: So uh, but it but at the end of the 96 season, everybody's like, oh my gosh, we're right back at square one.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_02: So we'll see.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_02: We'll see what happens.
1:14:34
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I just I mean, and I know the Steelers say, oh, we're competing for a Super Bowl every year, and okay, I mean, I guess you're gonna compete with a Super Bowl with Mason Rudolph at quarterback.
1:14:46
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you can win with him at core uh win a Super Bowl, but I think you can win with him.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, whether you can win in the playoffs or Super Bowl, I don't know.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't think he's really gotten a fair chance.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_02: I really don't, but yeah, I agree.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_04: But like you said, there's that will not be the last word on the subject.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_04: It'll it'll continue on for the next several months, especially after free agency and the draft.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna yeah, you're not gonna get probably your franchise quarterback this year, so probably not, but again, lots to still happen between now and and week one.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_04: So uh anyway, I thought, like I said, I thought it was a good time to sort of look back in time and and revisit uh a similar time with a lot of parallels.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_04: So hopefully you enjoyed that.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_04: Thanks everybody so much for listening.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_04: Uh you can check us out on the web or on Facebook or on Twitter.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_04: All of those links are in the show description.
1:15:43
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1:15:54
SPEAKER_04: Thanks everybody and we'll see you next time.