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REWIND: The Three Steelers Coaches · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to another uh episode of Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast, the uh podcast where we uh delve back in time into different sports topics.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh today we've kind of uh gone uh I don't know, a little different uh tact, I guess.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we're gonna compare the three coaches the Steelers have had since 1969.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: So um if you're a big like Walt Kiesling or Luby D'EMilio or who's the guy who cut everybody?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Was that Buddy Parker?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Buddy Parker, yeah.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, if you're any of the I'm sorry, they're just not gonna be in this conversation.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think I I have Buddy Parker just for comparison, these three guys to him, but yeah, no, nobody else really.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, sorry, those guys didn't have any success at all.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: So we're just gonna compare obviously Chuck Knoll, Bill Cower, and Mike Tomlin.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure me and Tim will have some uh lively discussion.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: As usual, I'm joined by my co-host Tim Hannon.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm disappointed that you did not include Johnny Blood McNally in the conversation either.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Was he the guy that didn't show up for the game?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: No, he he uh he was the one that snuck out of his hotel room.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: They had to put him on the like fourth floor, and maybe it was he the one that went to the uh the Rose Bowl instead of the game in like West Virginia.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like, whoops.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, you know, the Steelers are playing right now, and he was like, Oh.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, good good for Johnny Blood.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: But uh uh, we're gonna talk about coaches that actually know when their team is playing and actually show up and coach them.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: So that would include obviously the the three of the last 30 years.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I guess we'll start.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just kinda uh how lay it out is um we'll give some uh background on uh each of the coaches and kind of some uh their accomplishments, which you know it's pretty impressive for most of them, quite honestly.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: So um and after that at the end we'll compare all three to each other and then probably do some historical comparison too.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: So fun times.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Are you ready, Tim?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Are you ready to delve in here?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: Giddy up Woo! Um, so um the first up is obviously uh one Chuck Knoll.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um Chuck Knoll was uh from Cleveland.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: He's actually born and I do believe he he played high school football in Cleveland.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: He played for Paul Brown and he won an NFL championship as an assistant coach.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was also an assistant coach under Don Shula with the Baltimore Coats, Colts, and he coached in Super Bowl III for for the Colts in that uh up famous upset loss to Joe Namath and the Jets.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: So um maybe you know, it's kind of weird that like you know he got hired after probably one of the more bigger, embarrassing upsets of uh you know NFL history, but Dan Rooney, I I uh in his wisdom looked past that.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was hired in 1969 after meeting with uh the chief Art Rooney Sr.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: and Dan Rooney at the Roosevelt Hotel.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: If you know the Roosevelt Hotel, I can't believe like people actually had like classy meetings down there.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: I always thought that place was kind of sleazy, but guess it's a good place to hire a football coach back in 1969.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um get into uh Coach Knowles, uh Chuck Knowles' uh coaching style or his personality.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um I would say he was not a player's coach.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um just on a personal thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: He liked classical music and uh he actually liked it so much he actually conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony one time, believe it or not.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was a conservative game caller, and uh overall he was very I think he was very philosophical and intelligent, but um he was a very uh very astute football coach, especially at uh in his prime years in the uh 70s and with the draft.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Any uh any reactions to any any disagreements with any of that, Tim, so far?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's that's about right.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I do remember him um conducting the symphony.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: I I remember they, you know, that was that was kind of one of his passions, and and I think that was like a real thrill for him to be able to do that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: It fit his personality too, you know, conducting the symphony.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: More so than I just like being on stage with like the Rolling Stones or something, right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just fit his personality.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and like there's just weird little stories like about that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: I remember Rocky Blair saying one time, like he walked past like his room and like I guess at St.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Vincent's before training camp and like picked up a ukulele and tuned it and like played a song and then like gave him it back.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Oh, okay, see ya, see ya practice, Rock.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's like so Chuck Dole was kind of like I don't know, he just like a little walked to his own beat there a little bit, little little quirky.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, also we'll include some media and fan reaction.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I had a lot of I could not find much.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: I guess in 1969, because there was no internet, and like I mean, I I couldn't find any letters to the editor.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: I guess I or if anyone even would have cared to write a letter to the editor about the Steelers hiring a football coach, because like I guess this kind of goes back to like historical perspective.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: 1969 is how long is it?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's 50 some years almost now, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: Or yeah, it's so the I guess the culture was so much different.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like now, you know, somebody's just not gonna jump on the internet and go click click click click, you know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: You actually had to sit down and write a letter to the editor, and you know, hopefully somebody had written and they would publish it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: So and I guess what you would have your two options would have been the Pittsburgh Post Gazette or the Pittsburgh Press.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: So I I I don't I don't know.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh just not a lot of like it was hard to gauge fan reaction to this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: But um I did find some like quotes, but they're mainly for like they're more after the fact, but some of these you might have heard before.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um the first one is by Andy Russell.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: He he uh shared this uh I guess uh quote by Chuck Knowle when Chuck Knowle first took over.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Look, I've been watching the game film since I took the job, and I can tell you guys that the reasons you've been losing is not because of your attitude or your psyche or any of that stuff.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: The problem is you're just not good enough.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you know you can't run fast enough, you can't jump high enough, you're not quick enough.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Your techniques are just abysmal, and I'm probably going to have to get rid of most of you, and we're going to move on.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, five of us made it from that room to our first Super Bowl following the 74 season, and that was Andy Russell.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I think his first year, what, he went one in one in thirteen, I do believe.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's pretty hardcore telling all the guys I'm gonna probably cut most of you.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I mean, he wasn't there to win friends, or you know, like you said, he certainly wasn't a players coach, and he wasn't there to he was there to win and turn the franchise around.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: That was a miserable franchise.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And to your point about reaction, I I would imagine that A, like you said, there wasn't huge interest like there would be today, because the Steelers were, you know, they had a following, but they weren't the Steelers that they became.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then two, I would just imagine that the reaction was probably like, oh, okay, another coach.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like it's not gonna change anything.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, especially they just they just hired that other guy two years ago from the Packers.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I like you said, I mean, how many coaches was that you know in the in the first from 1933 to 1969?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what they probably went through like 20 some coaches, conserv I mean, I'm being conservative there, so he's building the you can tell like from this quote, his idea from the beginning was to build a franchise, and he realized he basically had to start from the ground up, you know.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: So um, another person that reacted, and he he shows up a couple times throughout this, he's gonna show up in this podcast, and he's good for a quote, and he'll definitely stir some conversation here.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it would be uh one Terry Bradshaw.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: So um the first 10 to 15 years after my retirement, I was pissed.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to lie to you, Bradshaw said.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_03: He is no longer with us on his earth, and there are so many wonderful things that Chuck did for me, but he did not know how to handle me.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: That was Terry Bradshaw and his relationship with Chuck Knowle.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, for some reason, Terry Bradshaw really never got along with Chuck Knowle.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I was thinking about this earlier, like, I don't know what Terry Bradshaw expected out of that relationship, but we'll kind of contrast that to um here's what Tony Dungey said about him.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it kind of like gives a nice contrast to Terry Bradshaw's feeling about Chuck Knowle.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: The first meeting we ever had, I was a rookie and I had my notebook out.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: They had won two Super Bowls already, so I'm expecting Chuck to tell us what we need to do to make the team.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Instead, he says, Gentlemen, welcome to the NFL.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: You are now being paid to play football, is your profession.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I can tell you it is not your life.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: You can't let it be.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: Part of my job is helping you to find your life's work.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that is the kind of thing that stuck with me about Chuck.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that was so I don't know, maybe Coach Noel as he went kind of evolved, you know, because it's so that's so different than what Andy Russell said, you know.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: But I guess that's the difference for when he got there, there wasn't a culture of winning, and nothing had been established.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: To be now there are two Super Bowls in and won all these games and you know, kind of established it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: So it's definitely, you know, he kind of obviously he obviously adjusted his kind of um management of the uh team at that point, I would I would say.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll start with the negatives about Chuck Knowle.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um the 1 in 13 rookie season that I mentioned, uh the whole decade of the 1980s.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it wasn't good for Miami Vice and uh, you know, Eddie Murphy, but uh Chuck Knoll not so much.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh drafting Gabe Rivera over Dan Marino.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I put the Franco Who comment.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: That was kind of uncalled for.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I always thought that was, you know, you could have just said, I wish Franco the best in Seattle.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: We just, you know, it was time for us to move on.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we're gonna move on with Walter Abba Crombie.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure he's gonna make the Hall of Fame next, you know, they're whoever the running back was at the time.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh his relationship with Terry Bradshaw, but I I don't know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't know, like I said, I don't know what Terry Bradshaw wanted out of that relationship.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: And um another thing was uh Noel could never find a another Terry Bradshaw.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: He could never really replace Terry Bradshaw, but I mean, I'm sure you know Bill Belichick's gonna find out how easy it is to replace Tom Brady here in the next couple years.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: So um also what happened is the uh as it got into the 90s, the eight late 80s and 90s, he uh he wasn't able to relate to the newer generation of players.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like I picked Tim Worley or Eric Green, you know, he didn't seem to be able to relate to those guys anymore.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't want to be he liked to build through the draft, so he didn't want to adapt to free agency.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: And um and he did lose three AFC championship games, so now on to the positives.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Knoll's win total ranks him eighth all time behind coaches like Tom Landry, Andy Reid, Marty Schottheimer, and Bill Belichick, Curly Landenbow.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he's just ahead of Dan Reeves by three wins, and it's hard to believe that like Marty Schottenheimer has more wins than Chuck Knoll.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean that's kind of boggled my mind.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um he built the Steelers through the draft, drafting mainly from uh the small uh African-American players from those small colleges that nobody was looking into.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um Chuck Knowle did never lost the Super Bowl.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: What every Super Bowl, if you got there with Chuck Knowle, you're winning it.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um the 1974 draft is probably like one of the greatest achievements of all time.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: Him and the um, it wasn't Dan, it was Dan's brother.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: They they absolutely hit it out of the park.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: There's three Hall of Famers in one draft, is just I don't know if that'll ever happen again.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um he also he adjusted to the passing rule, the passing rule changes in 1978.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think we went over that in uh one of our other podcasts where Don Shula tried to kind of you know stick it to him, but um Tony Tenji was that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: He also famously yelled at Jerry Glanville after a game.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: So uh there's a link to that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, we we have that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Let me play that.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_04: Listen, guys coming over the jumper people have got a little determination.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_04: Just know that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: I'm serious.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, Chuck, yeah, Chuck Knoll just could be uh he could stand up for his team when he needed to, especially with good old Jerry Glanville causing trouble.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: But that's that's just like you know, legendary right there.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: He also he got sued by Al Davis over the criminal element comment, and I think that's just a positive because that's just great.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um he uh won uh four Super Bowls, seven AFC Championship games, uh seven AFC Central titles in the 1970s, and he wasn't coach of the year until 1989, so I'm not sure why he wasn't, but uh that's kind of what happened.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um he has 209 wins, 156 losses, and a one tie.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: Don Shula's the all-time leader with 328.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: He was elected, of course, in the Pro Hotball Hall of Fame in 1993.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And he's definitely before my time.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: I never really watched him coach or any, so I don't have any like everything I know about him is second hand or stuff I've read.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean, and Tim, you were pretty young.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you saw him coach, but I mean, you know, you were kind of young when it was all going down.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I think what I remember is you know, he was this legendary coach, and by the time I was a Steeler fan in the mid to late 80s, he was this guy that was super conservative.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: He was, you know, if you looked around the league at that time, you had offenses like the one in Miami with Dan Marino throwing for 5,000 yards, you had the the Denver offense with Elway, you had the Buffalo offense, the the uh the no-huddle offense, you had to run and shoot in a couple places.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you had a lot of dynamic kind of um offenses at the in that era, and the Steelers were just old school, you know, halfback, fullback, run the ball almost every time on first and second down.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Chugnall's big trick play was they would used to run a reverse, and it was like I I know it was Dwight Stone in the late 80s, and the in the earlier part of the decade it might have been like Calvin Sweeney or Ouija Thompson or one of those guys, but that was their big trick play, it was a reverse.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like you hand off to the running back, running back hands off to the receiver who's going coming for an end around, and that was it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like they didn't do anything, it just wasn't an innovative offense, and it was boring to watch, and they lost a lot of games.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of what I remember about Chuck.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, you know, the the whole decade before he had great success, but it just felt like he if he would have retired in like 1983 or something, I I think you know he would have just had a lot more uh of a legendary status for you know just total success his whole career.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: He might have just stayed around a few years too long.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: Fair enough.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um he had a lot of assistant coaches go on.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: I meant to I meant to mention that uh go on to become head coaches, including Tony Dungey, John Fox, and Joe Walton.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: Joe Walton didn't have much success here, but he did create the Robert Morris football college team.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: So but we're kind of set Chuck Noel aside there, and now we'll move on to Bill Cower's kind of credentials.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: And uh Bill Cower is from Pittsburgh.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: Car, par.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he grew up in Crafton.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: He went to uh NC State, he played for Philadelphia in Cleveland on special teams, and he actually coached for Marty Schartenheimer in Kansas City and Cleveland.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um then when uh Chuck Noel retired in that would have been 91, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, 91.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: He he was hired over Dave Wonstatt.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: They were actually interviewing him and Dave Weinstatt, and I think there was a couple other people, but I think those are the two lead kind of guys.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um Bill Cower has a uh 161 and 99 and one tie overall record.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, that's that game against Atlanta.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: I know the tie.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: I can remember that game.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he has one Super Bowl win, that was Super Bowl 40.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: He has two wins and four losses in the AFC Championship game.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he was only the second coach behind Paul Brown to take his team to the playoffs in the first six years of coaching.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: His uh coaching style, he was a he was definitely a players coach.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: He was very like dramatic on the sideline, like you know, getting people fired up, like yelling and screaming and you know, just stomping around.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he liked trick plays.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like you were Tim was just talking about trick plays and how Chuck Knoll did not like trick plays.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Bill Cower loves trick plays, and he liked it so much he ran one in the Super Bowl 40 that actually locked it up on the uh wide receiver pass.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: He put Cordell Stewart in that slash role.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I would say this that something he probably had in common, and maybe this is unfair of me.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: He was conservative in the second uh second half of games, and uh also I always felt he favored his veteran players, especially later in his career, like the whole Joey Porter over James Harrison when like I thought Harrison was a little better the last year or two, but Joey Porter wasn't bad.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: I just thought Harrison was just better, and they just didn't.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm not a coach, so um moving on to the media and fan reaction.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um Bill Cower, like once again, there isn't like a lot of like letters of the editor or anything.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: Although the Steelers were pretty, you know, famous, and but once again, 1991, there wasn't an internet.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe somebody made some comments on the prodigy message board or something, you know, on dial up, but I couldn't access those.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: So uh uh Coward right from the get, but I did see his um press conference, he uh sets the goal to win a Super Bowl that year.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: He said, We're gonna win the Super Bowl.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: Our goal is to win the Super Bowl every year, and our goal is to put a fifth trophy in the case outside the hall.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh fans seem to really respond to that.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: They really like that uh kind of gusto, I guess.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but then later, as things went on, uh the fans kind of turned on Cower when he didn't win a Super Bowl in those early years, and of course that turned all the ridiculous rumors that were spread about him, and Bill Cower, like you know, filling up his gas tank at night after losses and just all kinds of stuff like that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um on to the negative uh about Bill Cower, he had a poor playoff record, especially in the AFC championship game.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they really probably should have beat San Diego in '94.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_03: And losing to that that Patriots team after Brady got hurt.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if Brady would have been healthy, I think I wouldn't fault them as much for that 2001 game.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: But like to Bledsoe, really, they should have they should have won that championship game.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think they beat the Rams or the 49ers in those Super Bowls, but they should have at least gotten there.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: He did lose Super Bowl 30 because Neil O'Donnell just decided to throw to you know Larry Brown, or you know, for whatever reason.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um I said I thought he was too conservative sometimes.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um he took he took the criticism too personally.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: You have to kind of have a really thick skin to be an NFL head coach, to be anybody in public anymore, because it's just it's tough.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: People are really mean.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he could get tierse with the media, as uh Bill would say.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Bill terse.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: He would say that's a terse.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think the it's pronounced terse, but um he did finally, you know, he got it when he got his Super Bowl win.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: He couldn't follow it up with another successful season.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: It was almost like I think it almost was like a lifetime achievement award.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: It was like, okay, I did it, I'm I'm done.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: And he had trouble trouble drafting and developing quarterbacks.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: The only really had Ben Rothelsberger, and only he only Drafted Ben because Dan Rudy made him.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: He wanted to draft Sean Anders, the offensive lineman.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: So on to the positive.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: I always love this one.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: He shoved a picture in the pocket of an official when the Steelers got called for 12 men on the field when it didn't happen.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: That was before instant replay.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: And they had the little like the paper printouts.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: If anybody remembers anything, he ran over and stuffed it in the guy's pocket.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was funny.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: He traded for Jerome Bettis, which is probably one of the best trades in Steeler history.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: He was very passionate.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: He took a 7-19 the year before and got them to an 11-5 record.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: Chuck Knowles' last record was 7-9.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And he took pretty much, yeah, that exact same team and got them to an 11-5 record.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: So he also had a 108 1-1 record when leading 11 points or more.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: The tie, of course, was that Atlanta game.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, maybe I'm too hard on him when for being conservative in the second half, but it always seemed like those second halves were way closer than they ever should have been.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: He drafted well.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like they Alan Fanica, Troy Palomalo, Lavon Kirkland, which of course was like that's always like one of those stories where he's like, oh, didn't like they took the guy that he wanted, and he just like pointed to Levon Kirkland, and it ended up being like a great pick.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: He also like did really well finding players that went undrafted, like uh Willie Parker and James Harrison.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he had one of the most successful playoff runs of all time.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: They beat the first, second, and third seed, and then the number one seed from the NFC.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: So that was the uh infamous, you know, Bengals, Colts, Denver, Seattle Super Bowl run of Super Bowl 40.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: He ranks 20th in coaching wins in the regular season, ahead of Pete Carroll and behind Joe Gibbs.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and many of his coaching staff went on to be head coaches.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Bruce Arians, Don Capers, uh David Culley, who's currently the coach of the Texans, uh Chan Gailey, Jim Hazlitt, Dick Lebeau, Marvin Lewis, Mike Mullarkey, and Ken Wisenhunt.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: So he's had a lot of people go on to uh be head coaches.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: Umlin uh or not Mike, the Bill Cower profile there.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I always remember Coward's first game.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they were playing in Houston, and the Oilers used to often beat us in Houston back then.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they they Oilers were up 14 and nothing, and we it was like, okay, we're we're just not gonna be very good this year.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was in the other room, and I remember my dad and my brother were like, come come quick.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: The Stewart just did a fake punt.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, uh a what now?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't even know that was possible to do a fake punt because I'd watched Chuck Knoll for the last 10 years, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and and so and they and they actually ended up uh coming back and winning that game.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, him like screaming on the sidelines and the spit coming out of his mouth and everything.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was it was definitely like a sensation those first few years.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: People just loved him, he was so different than Knoll.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: But kind of to your point, Steve, as time wore on, uh I don't want to say he was similar to Noel, but the conservative kind of side, he he you you talked about Schottenheimer, he was so similar to Schottenheimer, and he and Schottenheimer both were infamous for getting their teams to really big games and then losing to teams that maybe weren't as good as them.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and Coward did that several times, and like you you mentioned those two championship games, especially, that they probably should have won.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think the other negative about Cower was just that um you know what you said about not drafting it, like he just he tried so long to just win with game game manager, quarterback, and a solid defense and a good running game.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: They always had that.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: All those years they had a great defense, and they had uh you know, Bettis or Ben Morris or Barry Foster, whoever is a running back, and then they usually had a quarterback, I mean, you know, Sans like the year that we had like Kent Graham, but they usually had a quarterback that could do you know good enough, but then if you got down 10 points in a playoff game, like we did against Denver the one year, it was like you just didn't have a guy that that could lead you back like when you had Ben or when you had Terry Bradshaw.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that that all being said, he was a great coach.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and and I was so happy.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, I was so happy they won the Super Bowl because we're Steel War fans and we waited our whole lives for that.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I was happy for him.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: And and my favorite cower moment was him, his daughters coming onto the field and him seeing his daughters because there's a great there's a really famous clip of him with I I think it was I can't remember if it was Megan, I can't remember which daughter it was, but um, he's like trying to hold back tears after they lost to the Cowboys.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: And she's you know maybe like 10 years old at the time, and then 10 years later she's like an adult and she's they're all screaming and crying together.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that was pretty cool.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I loved Cower, I really did.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: And there were some negatives, um, but he was a great coach.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard to argue with his regular season success.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Playoffs definitely, but it's tough to win a Super Bowl, and I think it's tough to win a Super Bowl without like a really good quarterback.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like you might sneak and win one like Tampa Bay did, but if you don't have like that Hall of Fame, it's tough to do.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: But we'll set Bill kind of with Chuck Dole and we'll move on to the last uh person we're introducing here.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: That would be the current coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: That would be one Mike Tomlin.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Mike Tomlin's background, he grew up in Newport News, Virginia.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: He went to William and Mary, uh, which that's an Ivy League school, I do believe.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: So uh Mike Tomlin's smart.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: He was hired by Tony Junji in 2001 to be a defensive backs coach, and he was on John Gruden's staff in Tampa Bay when they won the Super Bowl.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um he actually ended up he ended up being a defensive coordinator for the Vikings for one year in 2006.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: So he had really only been a defensive coordinator for one year, and he had been a head coach for not a head coach, but like an assistant coach that just kind of bounced around.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: So he wasn't.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: I remember him getting some hype, but I don't, you know, he wasn't like definitely on people's radar.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was hired as Steelers head coach in 2007, and he was surprisingly hired over Russ Grimm and Ken Wisenhunt, which I know I I think Russ Grimm thought he had the job.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: So it was kind of surprising.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um he's uh definitely he's one of the youngest coaches to make and win a Super Bowl.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um Mike Tallman's coaching style, I would call him aggressive because he I remember he would go for two like a lot, and like he liked to go for it on fourth down, like very, very hyper aggressive.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if they run as many trick plays as Bill Cower, but he's definitely like aggressive.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: Although, I don't know, the last recently then people are kind of saying he's not, but I don't know.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: I think I always thought he was aggressive.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh players and coaches seem to really like playing for him, so I definitely call him a players coach.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he handles the media, I think, better than Cower or Noll.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: He's almost like the best person I always thought with handling like the media was Bill Parcells.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: And he's very like Bill Parcells.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like he just always has like these great quotes that can just like in the media, like he gives the media something to say, but he doesn't say anything at the same time.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: So it's or he doesn't say anything that's not obvious, and it's not like abrasive, like Bill Belichick, who's trying to do the same thing, but I just think Bill Belichick just doesn't want to be bothered.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I I guess yeah, there's not a lot of contempt from Tomlin.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like Belichick, it's all contempt.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like he gives a short answer, and it's like he's almost like daring you to ask a follow-up because like you're such an idiot.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: I dare you to ask another question.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: And Tomlin just kind of gives those like Tomlinisms, which can be a little frustrating, because it's like just talk like a normal person, dude.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, but like you said, it it gives an answer, it's polite, and it doesn't really, you know, he doesn't ramble on or say anything that's gonna people are gonna point to him be like, oh, coach said this.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's very good about just giving controlled uh simple answers.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, yeah, he's very good at that, and like he'll say, like I think after one of the games they I think they lost just recently to Green Bay, he just said, you know, we we gotta play better.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: But he said it in such a way it's just like you know, we'll be judged on how well we play future in the season or something like that.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just like he basically said, Oh, we gotta play better, without saying it that way.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: So he's very good at press conferences.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I will say that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: I used to I used to steal his stuff for my job.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were talking about um some project that didn't go so well, and I was just like, we don't look in the rearview mirror.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just like he says just some of his like sayings and stuff.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I just I used to love to just use his sayings because they were just so um I don't know, unique, you know.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: The standard is the standard, yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean it doesn't really say anything.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, because what he means is we're we're we're we're holding ourselves to a high standard.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the follow-up question is, well, what is the standard?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, what it what what is your standard?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: What standard are you holding yourself to?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that that's usually when somebody gets hurt.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you have yeah, I don't know, like back in the day, like Le'Veon Bell is out for the season, and now somebody else has to come in and you know, well, he's not gonna be as good as LeVeon Bell.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the standard is a standard, you know, just keep moving forward, and we expect them to play just as well.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of that where that phrase used to always be used, like we're not gonna make excuses for guys getting hurt.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's that yeah, he does, yeah, because he doesn't try to make excuses, and that's probably more for his players than anything else.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, it's a it's an interesting way of doing things.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, media and fan reaction, these are fun.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, my thanks to Tim for sending them over from the old uh blog.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: Was this from the Postgazette Blog and Gold website?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: So now we're into 2007, the internet is in full effect, and we can uh go on there and slander people that we really don't know.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: So um what is this?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Tomlin, the beginning of an era, the destruction of a franchise.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: I guess somebody said that.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: Almost as big as a mistake as cutting Johnny Unitis or not drafting Dan Marino.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: The Rooneys blew it in their frantic desire to adhere to the Rooney rule.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Super Bowls are out of the question.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: All stealers stuff in the garbage, not wasting my time following this waste of time.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Ruin a good team because you are too cheap to pay.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think I think part of this was so I th I think there's a couple factors here that I that a lot of people were upset when they made that hire.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: One was that what you said before.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: They had Russ Grimm and Ken Wisenhunt already on staff.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think Grimm was like the assistant head coach Enric Howard, and Wisenhunt was the offensive coordinator, and they had won a Super Bowl two years earlier.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Grimm especially was like very, you know, he was an offensive lineman, a Hall of Fame offensive lineman for the Redskins, and he was very like big mustache, bring your lunch pal to work, kind of, you know, blue-collar guy, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: The guy the Pittsburghers love.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Two, I think, was the fact that um Todlin didn't have much experience.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: He, like you said, he was at one year of a defensive coordinator.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it and I think a lot of people, even though the Steelers were eight and eight at the time, like everybody always forgets they had a pretty bad season before he got hired.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I think a lot of people at the time were like, well, we just won a Super Bowl 18 months ago or whatever.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: So what are you doing hiring like a guy with no experience?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think three, and I I hesitate to say this because I I think that um it in our culture today, we tend to blame everything on racism.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's some things that are legit and some things that aren't, and I think we just overuse the anything anything negative happens to a person of color, and we just it must be that everybody's a racist, and it's not always the case.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: But man, I I just have to think that some people, at least there were some portion of the population in this case, that just weren't happy that we hired a black coach.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and that are still not happy today that we have a black coach.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: I've heard I've heard that argument before, but I mean I'm gonna criticize Mike Tomlin, and I mean I I I just stick to the you know the facts.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to you know, I don't think it really matters what his appearance is.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's a difference between criticizing him and like like all steeler stuff in the garbage, like that comment you read, or people that's ridiculous, yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Want him want him fired every time we lose a game.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, granted, there were people that wanted fired every time we lost a game, too.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: So again, this is a percentage, and it could be one percent, it could be higher.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying I I just can't help but think there's some percentage, however minuscule or large that is, that just maybe would react differently if we were a white coach.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I have no data to back that up.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: We can uh percep do we want to hear from the immortal Terry Bradshaw?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: Who doesn't?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: I I Tim, I have a clip of this.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: Do you would you like me to play the clip or would you rather me just read it?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do we want to have a clip himself?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, play the clip.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Roll that video, roll that beautiful bean footage.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: Terry, I think Mike Collins still needs to prove he's a great coach.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't think yeah, I don't think he's a great coach at all.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's a he's a nice coach who needs a to me.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I and I've said this, I'd say he's he's really a great cheerleader guy.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what he does, but I I don't think that he's a great coach at all.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Never even his name never even pops in my mind when we think about great coach coaches in the NFL.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now the coach the coach before him, Bill Coward, did you think Bill was a great coach?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think Bill Bill came in, yeah.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think Bill was Bill was.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think Bill came in and took over a team that had been struggling.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when you take over for Chuck, and you know, even though even the the Steelers had some good years, really good years, and then they kind of, you know, for by their standards, kind of mellowed out.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And at Chuck's end of Chuck's career, in comes Cower.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cower kind of gave him that boost to get him back up and win a Super Bowl.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: So Cower, I I had more identity with Cowler than I do Tomlin.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know Cower when he came over from Kansas City as a defensive coordinator, I believe, down there, and his teams were tough.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Tomlin came in from Minnesota, and I didn't know anything about him.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe it's unfair for me to make the comparison.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to agree with Terry.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I pose him a question, then I'm gonna finish it.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I believe Mike Tomlin is a very good football coach.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I believe that their defense hasn't played well under his tenure because they spent all the money on the offensive side.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's had a major reflection on how the team has played.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: We we can just I don't want to listen to Chris.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, nothing against Chris Carter, but whatever.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it's funny, he that was in 2016, which is the a year that we made the AFC championship game.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean I uh Bradshaw I honestly I I I don't I mean, to me, I like Terry Bradshaw, but his opinions mean so little to me because he flips back and forth on things a hundred times.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: He flips back and forth on whether he likes Pittsburgh, doesn't like Pittsburgh, likes the fans, hates the fans, you know, the whole thing with Chuck Noel.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's just he's very almost schizophrenic in the way he talks about things.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's a that's a lame opinion.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And he's sitting there like his his reason for bet his whole logic for that seemed to be I knew who Cower was when the Steelers hired him, but I didn't know who Tomlin was.
• 39:09
  unknown: Cool.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: So what?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I I I I don't know what to make of Terry's comments there sometimes, or Terry Bradshaw's comments.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: I I I don't know, like here, I'll go with my negatives.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Let me go with my negatives.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I've done negatives about everyone.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: We'll do Mike Tomlin's negatives, and these are in my opinion, just like they were with Chuck Knowle and Bill Cower.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: And feel free to write angry letters to the editor or whoever.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Respond on Twitter.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so um he was uh I always I thought he's become, I think not at first.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's become too friendly with his players sometimes.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this is a reaction because I think the first year he came in, he correctly understood that he needed to come in and be like, you know, tough guy Tauntlin, like crack the whip on this veteran team.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because he had a veteran team, like you said, that was two years separated from the Super Bowl.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: So he came in and he practiced them hard, was really strict, and he ran them down.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I think he had to do that to get because like if he comes in there and he's buddy buddy, they're not gonna respect him.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I think he did that to kind of get their respect because he had only been, he had never been a head coach before, you know.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: So then after that, he kind of backed off and gave guys rests, rest periods, and stuff, so he doesn't wear down his veterans.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I think he sometimes he's gone too far the other way, where like when they got that team that had Brown and Bell on it, I thought he should have cracked the whip more on that team and gone back to kind of his old way when he first came in.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: But that kind of gets into maybe a little different.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: We'll continue with the negative.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think he wasted an opportunity, like I just said, with um Ben and Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell, Ben Rotheswear, all of them.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: He had those three and they didn't even make the Super Bowl.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's that's as bad a wasted opportunity as Bill Cower.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they should have at least had one Super Bowl with that group.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he almost tripped Jacoby Jones that one time when he was actually standing on the field.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: He actually got fined for that.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: He got a hundred thousand dollar fine for that.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um he's had mixed results in the draft.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Tomlin's had some pretty good, they get a wide receiver.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_03: They can find wide receivers, but defensive backs.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: He can't translate the wide receiver to defensive back.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: I but they've got a lot of great wide receivers, and they've done really well.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was totally outcoached in a championship game by Bill Belchek, and I guess that was that 2016 season when or the year they went and Bell, that was another time.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: Bell, like, oh, I can't play, I'm hurt.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: So Bell can't play.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then they play zone defense against Brady.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, maybe they didn't have the people that year, but it was just like, and that was that uh, who was that lacrosse player who like had like 10 catches and a bunch of touchdowns?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Was that Hogan?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: Chris Hogan.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then they lost to Blake Bortles in Jacksonville in the playoff.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: Come on.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: That that that that was another one.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: That was pretty pretty bad.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: Those are those are the two games that really stick out to me with Tomlin.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Enough of the negatives.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: Let's do the positives.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he has seven AFC North tile titles.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: He has 154 wins already, 87 and 1.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: What is the one tie?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Did they tie Cleveland once or something?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was the opening game of the season.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was at Cleveland.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I want to say 2018, but don't quote me on that.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was but I remember because our our record was 00-1 when we won when we played our second game.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um he was smart enough at the beginning to keep Dick Lebeau on staff when he was hired.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: That was probably one of his better moves.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um he's been in two Super Bowls, as many as Cowler.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: He's won one and lost one.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: He's never had a lost losing season.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: He seemed the team does seem to play hard every week.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: Every week the team does seem to play, to come and play.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but once again, that postseason, that eight and eight postseason record.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: And um the eight and eight season with Duck Hodges at quarterback, that was unbelievable.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how that team won eight wins with that guy.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, nothing against Duck Hodges.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: He's a nice, nice guy, but he's just probably not an NFL quarterback.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: He traded for Minka, Fitzpatrick, him and uh Colbert.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: So pretty pretty good pretty good uh things there.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I I Tomlin's definitely, you know, I I think more of him than Terry Brad Bradshaw does.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's you know got to be one of the top five, top ten coaches.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: in the league currently, right?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean so um that's the background.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: So we got our Knowles, our cowlers, and Tomlins.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_03: So here go, here's the fun part.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: How do we compare the three?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Can I chime in on Tomlin somewhere?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, go for it.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: Go, go, go with Tomlin.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I I I well first of all I I couldn't believe you didn't uh have the challenges in there for one of the negatives because Mike Tomlin cannot win a challenge if his life depended on it.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what that is.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: I don't put any stock in those challenges because it's just the rules are so ridiculous that there's just ever since the Jesse James catch, it's just like it is what it is at this point.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: You're just they're gonna do whatever it's either a badly written rule or a you know I I don't know.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of like one of those things where like they write rule they try and fix something and I've said this many times they try and fix something that maybe isn't quite perfect and then they make it worse.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of what they did with a lot of the rules and I think that's what happens to uh Tomlin sometimes is he tries to challenge things and it's just you can't catch a break with the rules.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't really hold that against him.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: I I think too on the postseason record it it's it's easy to just look at record and I think if you really dig into the context so let's just compare with Cower because Noel it's hard to compare postseasons because Noel had obviously a lot more success in the postseason than either of those two guys but Noel just spent a whole decade pretty much not getting to getting to the postseason two.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you know the rub on Cower for years was oh my gosh he always loses the AFC championship game at home.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: He lost four AFC championship games at home and that was unbelievable.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: People just were beside themselves.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: Tomlin the rub is he doesn't even get to the championship game except for you know a couple of times um so I what I try to look at is who should they have beat and who shouldn't they have beat.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: So Coward lost four AFC championship games at home.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well one was to Elway and the Broncos in that year that they won the Super Bowl so I don't know that we should have beat them even though we're playing at home and the in this and two were to Brady like you said that first one was a special teams blunders and bled so I think we should have won that one but the second one again the Patriots were were in the in their third Super Bowl year so you can't say that they absolutely should have won.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Tomlin some of his playoff losses you know the Tebow game a lot of people remember that but as we talked about in our our Denver episode so many people were hurt in that game it was a joke that we were we were even you know in the game at that point.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: The the Ravens in 2014 the Broncos in 2015 those were two other games where you know that that Ravens playoff game we had to sign a running back off the street and start him I mean so there there were definitely some games where we the team just didn't have enough guys left.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh the Jacksonville game his first season was another one where we just didn't have enough guys.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now that being said the Blake Bordos game you mentioned the Cleveland game in 2020 I mean there's that there's some definite playoff games that they should have they they they they had the advantage and they should have won.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: It bothers me that that that Patriots game that that championship game against the Patriots should have been much more competitive.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: You just you can't play zone against Tom Brady and everybody knew that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe they didn't have the people to do that but I'm sorry to interrupt I think that's a fair point.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's I like you you you maybe they shouldn't have won but they shouldn't have been out of the game by the third quarter which is which is what happened.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's fair.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah that's a comparison to the to the uh other people's uh I would say noel has the most Super Bowls cower had the most impressive Super Bowl run uh tomlin's definitely had the most consistent regular season success and he has a Super Bowl win we are comparing kind of their wins uh the regular season um historic wins like I would call that like like historic wins I think like Cowers win is the one over the Colts in 2000 and Super Bowl 40 run and then I would say for Chuck Knoll was the Super Bowls against the Cowboys probably who built who had the who built the team the best I think Chuck Knowle hands down he basically like started from scratch I mean and set everything up you know although you know it's tough to you know just because it you know something set up doesn't mean you can't screw it up and not keep it going.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: And um wins over contemporaries um I have no versus Don Shula Tom Landry John Madden Bill Parcells Joe Gibbs Bill Walsh and I think this kind of goes back to what you were saying where Noel in the 70s like he's definitely better than Don Shula and Tom Landry and John Madden.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: But then in the 80s like I don't know the guy maybe the game just got away from him or he just couldn't keep up like Parcell Gibbs and Walsh are definitely had much more better coaching I don't know times at that time than Noel did.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: Cower was tough like like who was really cower's big like coaching contemporary I put Jimmy Johnson Bill Belichick and Andy Reid I I that's the only ones I could really come up with for Cower like I couldn't think of anybody else like Dick Vermeel I I don't I don't know.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah you could Mike Holmgren or um who was the Denver coach I'm blinking on here Shanahan Shanahan right you could have put those guys in there it was those those windows were a little smaller for those two guys but you could have put them I guess in there potentially and and of course Tomlin versus Belichick Belichick's been around a while Andy Reid again and I put John Harbaugh they're in the same division and they both they're both pretty similar coaches quite on like probably I I didn't look up John Harbaugh's rec record but I bet they're pretty close.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Harbaugh hasn't lost the Super Bowl right no no so but I you want to get back to your point about uh the contemporary who who do you think uh well well I think I think for the contemporaries um at least for Tomlin and and we could look at this for the other guys too uh you made a point earlier it's really hard to win a Super Bowl and so um again it it it tomlin had these great teams with Antonio Brown Le'Veon Bell coward had these great teams in the 90s with this stud defense and Hall of Fame players and and you know both of those guys only won one Super Bowl well Sean Payton had Drew Brees for how many years and Pete Carroll's had had this great defense and Russell Wilson and uh you know Mike McCarthy had Aaron Rodgers and Brett Farpe I mean if you go on down the list those guys I just named all won one Super Bowl Andy Reid won Super Bowl right uh just like Tomlin.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't know it Harbaugh won Super Bowl and and all those guys had not necessarily Harbaugh but the rest of those guys all had franchise quarterbacks uh you know a a stacked team and they still only won one so I I just think it's harder to do than people think and it it's just you know if if and then I you could say the same thing for Cower because again if you look at the 90s some of those guys we named I mean Shanahan won two but Mike Holmgren with Brett Favre and that team only won one uh George Seafert with Steve Young and and whoever was after George Seifert they only won one so it it's just hard it's hard to do.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you can say that coaches didn't live up to expectations but then you could also say that it's it's just who who does right other than Belichick and and and and and like Shola and Knowle and those guys in the 70s but that was such a different era you didn't have you know free agency like a guy you drafted a guy and he was on your team forever so I mean if you look at Tomlin and and Cower I just other than Belichick I don't know that you can find too many coaches that you would have been like man I wish we'd have had that guy instead fair point fair point um I just I it just comes down just I think Tomlin like it just it would be nice for him to win another Super Bowl like I would like to see him win one more and like just I don't know like maybe I'm asking like one that's all like why is one okay for cower and not for Mike Tomlin I don't know maybe I still feel like that first one that Tomlin won he kind of won with like a lot of Cowers players so maybe that's that's kind of coming into it a little bit but it would be definitely nice to see like I think Tomlin's a really good coach and like I I think he's top five you know definitely I mean I don't know if I can name you know five better coaches than Mike Tomlin you know I mean like you you said Sean Payton's you know supposed and then there's the young and up and coming coaches like the guy in um Buffalo who's the guy who gets worship.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well to him but like there's the guy in the Rams the Rams guy Sean McVeigh yeah yeah yeah yeah who's who's also oh and one of two I'm so uh yeah I mean uh Tomlin Tomlin and Cower hasn't exactly had a franchise quarterback either you know Jared Goff I mean fair I mean it at as of the time of this recording we're recording this in 2021 at the end of this current season Tomlin and Cower will both have been the coach of the Steelers for 15 years.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: Tomlin unless the Steelers really go into the tank here is going to pass he's gonna he's gonna finish the season with more wins than Cower by by you know a handful uh and both will be one on one in Super Bowls at the 15 year mark.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: Now Cower retired after the 15 year mark.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: I think Tomlin to your point Steve it's gonna be very interesting what happens from here because you're gonna lose your franchise quarterback to retirement that Tomlin had this entire time and can he rebuild?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Can he restack?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Can he get back to that Super Bowl?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Can he even still field a competitive team going forward?
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think I think his legacy still is still to be written and I think it does you know for Cower it was like years and years of disappointment and then at the very end he finally won and that kind of erased a lot of things you know which helps.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean John Elway I mean look at look at John Elway lost three Super Bowls he was just a guy that always lost the big game and then he wins one at the end and two at the end and then it just yeah none of it matters you know but if to you know if John Elway wins a Super Bowl in 1984 and then loses all the big games after that maybe his legacy's different right so I don't know but but all I know is that those two guys are both at 15 seasons in cow and I don't think Roman's going anywhere anytime soon.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_03: So it I think if we did the show in five or ten years I think I think then you're really going to be able to differentiate those two guys at least well history is always being written you know so uh a little more history historical comparison and uh a fun another fun fact is Norv Turner has 144 wins so and I think I I'm and that's I don't know if that's more than uh Tomlin.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_03: Is that more than Tomlin?
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: Norf Turner has 144 wins that's unreal.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_03: But uh Buddy Parker who I said I would mention he has 104 wins overall so but he only has 51 with the Steelers so outside of like these three like the Steelers really didn't have much anything in the way of success andor coaching.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: Bill Belichick like you said like what if Bill Belichick like after like being defensive coordinator of the Jets or something just decides oh that's it I'm just gonna be defensive coordinator and not a head coach again.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know I mean what's his legacy like oh well he kind of coached in Cleveland for a little bit or you know or he retires after the uh spy gate stuff so but I mean historically when you compare these three coaches Belichick obviously has six Super Bowl wins he has 282 wins he's third all time now uh Don Shula has two Super Bowl wins in the only undefeated win only undefeated season and Don Shula is still the all-time coaching wins leader at 328 so Belichick has like a long way to go to that's a hundred wins that's that's that's quite a ways to go to catch up to Shula.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about Shula because Shola you could compare Shola to Tomlin because very similar trajectory Shola won those two Super Bowls in 72 and 73.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that was his first you know he was the coach of the Colts in 68 so I mean that was his first couple years in Miami and then he had a ton of success the Dolphins were in the playoffs a ton in the 70s 80s 90s but then he never he never won another Super Bowl after that so you know he he spent the last literally 20 plus years of his career not winning a Super Bowl.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that might be that might be Tomlin.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: He could be the new Don Shula I hope not I I'd like to see him win another one I mean just because I'm a Steeler fan.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: I like Mike Tomlin I think he's a I think he's a very good coach I just I guess it keeps going back it's tough to win a Super Bowl like Andy Reid we already he only has one he's sixth all time in wins Bill Walsh has three Super Bowls I didn't look up his wins um the second all time is Papa Bear George Hallis he has six NFL championships and curly Lambeau has six NFL championships too whatever they're like well you know how many yeah you know how many championships Vince Lombardi has he has five so and that's yeah you have three NFL and two Super Bowls so so you don't you're not you're not too big on Curly Lambeau or George Hallis but but even Lombardi has five so I guess that's one more than null but gets kind of into the comparison like you know how do you compare NFL championships with Super Bowls it's so it's so hard to compare with a grain of salt.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: Lombardi when Lombardi three of those before they started playing the Super Bowl there were something like 13 NFL teams and then they merged with the AFL and that's what created kind of the modern NFL that's why that's why so much of NFL history is post-merger you know anytime they cite records or stats it's always post merger because that's really when the modern game started I mean not to take anything anything away from Lombardi or Hallis or Curly Lambeau.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think Hallis and those guys their legacy is more that they kept the league running at a time where it wasn't what it is today and you had to scratch and claw to have enough money to put on the next season and if they never do that then we don't have an NFL so I I think that's their more important legacy personally and I'm sure they were good coaches too but again it's impossible to compare you know the 1929 Packers who you know played three teams that folded by week four you know like I I it's just hard I'm not discounting the impact that Bronco Nogerski had uh I think he didn't he play for the Bears in one of their teams I probably did so I mean Bronco Nogersky was just awesome and George Hollis knew how to use him in his uh T formation isn't that their little Bears song in the T formation yeah bear bear down Chicago Bears I'll just take your we'll post that in yeah we'll post that in the link somewhere the the Chicago Bears fight song but uh um I all in all like I I I don't know if you go wrong with either of these three guys which one is the best out of all the three which one would you prefer uh it's like picking between your kids here but um I I don't know I I guess it it's it's a it's another hard comparison because no no no was probably no building from the ground up he literally like started he did at a time that things were so different right and would would he be able to do that today you know and then Cower I mean he came in it was such a refreshing change when he came in Tomlin's just kind of like slow and steady wins the race kind of a guy I you're right I think it's really hard to like if you had to start a team if you had an expansion team today and you could take one of these three guys in your prime who would you take is that kind of what you're asking if I okay let's say all right we both for some reason we luck out and win the Powerball and you'd buy the Detroit Lions and from the Fords and I'll buy the Jacksonville Jaguars because I want to go be warm you can go hang out in Detroit I'll go to Jacksonville and hang out with Shat Conn and own the team and play my games in London too much.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I own the Jacksonville Jaguars you own the Detroit Lions we you can hire you know two out of the three you know one of these coaches of these three who are you hiring no and we're getting them in their like in their like yeah in their prime they yeah the the he knows they know how to do it they're willing to deal with free agency uh well no we'll keep it keep it in context maybe they're not willing to deal with free agency so I don't know I I would know what Chuck knows because I think he knows how to build build a franchise and I think with with that that's probably the in set of culture.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_03: Although Tomlin is a close second but I I think I trust noel more but that's just me.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_03: I I I mean I can't argue with that it's it's you know so the is it the Detroit Lions are going to pick Chuck Know too or they got in their four Super Bowls in the next ten years.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well and and and you know the the competition that Noel had in the 70s I mean yeah um you know this the Cower and Tomlin both both lost to Belichick and Brady in championship games but you know the Dolphins and the Raiders and the Cowboys I mean there were these great dynasty teams in the 70s and the Steelers trumped all of them and so yeah I I I don't know if you're just going off of track record and who you think can build from the ground up I can't argue the Noel selection.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_03: So would you go with them though to start a team or would you go with somebody else?
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_03: I I'd probably yeah I'd probably take my shot on Noel.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_03: Not on Tomlin really.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: See I think Tom would be I don't know like if Cower could build a team because he kind of but so did Tom I don't know I I think Tomlin would be really good at setting a culture and I really like that about Mike Tomlin like like definitely Tomlin would be like one B.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I would pick Tomlin over Cower because I could see Tomlin coming in and creating a culture and if I could get a good front office like Colbert kind of people to go along with him I think at very least you're going to make the playoffs every year you know so but I I'd probably pick Tomlin over Cower too just because I think that um I just I saw enough of the uh the game manager good running game good defense to know that it's it's the the Marty Schottenheimer the Marty ball like I just I I think that was always Cower's first you know go to and like you said he didn't even really want to draft Ben.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I don't know that that can especially today I don't think that can win anymore.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I like you said there's exceptions for sure uh like the like Tampa Bay when they had you know Brad Johnson and all that but but boy it's a quarterback's league now so I I I just you know now now granted again it's easy to say that for Tomlin because he already had Ben so can Tomlin replace Ben I think again it would be interesting to have this conversation in five or ten years.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe we'll revisit it we'll revisit it Ben but um there you go.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well uh yeah thanks thanks all us on uh Twitter at Pittsburgh Sports Memories you know if you want to you know tell me how I was wrong how like you know really Buddy Parker is really the greatest Steelers head coach of all time feel free to chime in um thank you and I will catch you next time