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Steelers Stories · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:15
SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm Tim Hannon.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: And in this episode, we decided to do something a little different.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: We're going to share with you some clips from some of our previous episodes where we talk about our favorite football team, the Steelers.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: And just want to share some of some of our favorite stories and tidbits and things that we've discussed in this podcast specifically concerning the Steelers.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: The first one we wanted to share is on an episode we did called The Forgotten Pittsburgh Sports Stories.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: And it's a it's a really interesting story about a time that the Steelers were sold.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: It's a story that not a lot of people know about and that we found really fascinating.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: So here that is.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: So on December 9th, 1940, uh the Steelers finish the season 2-7-2.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: It's another year of bad football.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: It's another year of financial setbacks.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Remember, the Steelers are only seven years old at this time.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: And Rooney just says, you know what, this isn't working.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: And he sells the Steelers to a guy named Alexis Thompson for$160,000, which is the equivalent of about$3 million today, which is pretty good money.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: Not obviously an NFL franchise would sell for a lot more than that today.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: $3 million would be like what you pay the kicker.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: But at the time, that's pretty good money.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: And so Alexis Thompson is a guy that's really young.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: He's 26 years old.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: But his father had just died and left him with like millions of dollars.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: So the way, again, I don't know much about Alexis Thompson, but the way he's portrayed in the media back then is kind of like a young playboy who just inherited money.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: He made his money the old-fashioned way.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: He inherited it.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: So this is kind of at least they're portraying this as kind of like a vanity project for him.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: He's like, ooh, I want to own a football team and I have all this money to spend.
2:14
SPEAKER_02: So he pays top dollar for the Steelers.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: And just like new owners do today, Thompson kind of says all the right things.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: Like, we're going to make the team a winner.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: He goes out and he pays a lot of money for a new head coach.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: He also renames the team to the Pittsburgh Ironman.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: Like he actually renamed the team Pittsburgh Ironman.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Now, Alexis Thompson, he lives in New York City.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't live in Pittsburgh.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't want to manage the team remotely.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: So he says he does agree that he's going to keep the team in Pittsburgh for the 1941 season, but ultimately he makes a known he wants to move them out of Pittsburgh because he doesn't want to be in New York managing a team in Pittsburgh.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, he can't move them to New York.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: They already have a team, the Giants.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: So he decides that Boston is the next best market.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: Like he can easily meet to Boston and it's a good market and they don't have a team.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, so Rooney has now sold the Steelers.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: So he buys stock in the Philadelphia Eagles with his friend Bert Bell, and he becomes part owner of that franchise.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: So Bell and Rooney now own the Philadelphia Eagles.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: And um Rooney, Rooney decides that he's still going to live in Pittsburgh.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: And he also has this plan.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: So Rooney and Bell, like Thompson's going to move the Steelers to Boston or wherever, right?
3:35
SPEAKER_02: He's going to move them out of Pittsburgh.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: And once that happens, Rooney and Bell have a plan to have the Eagles split their home games between Pittsburgh and Philly.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: So we talked, you talked earlier, Steve, about them playing games in West Virginia.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: So they want to play games in Pittsburgh and Philly.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: In fact, they're going to rename the team from Philadelphia Eagles to Pennsylvania Keystones.
3:55
unknown: Nice.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: So like they're going to take the whole state.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Take the whole state, right.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: Why not?
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Now we have all this territory and we can take the whole state and we'll and we'll make more money.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: We'll get more fans that way.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: Well, the rest of the owners, so so Thompson wants to move the team, and Ronnie and Bell want to take the team.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Take the whole state, yeah.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: And the owners bock at this for two reasons.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: So number one, the the whole plan to move a team to Boston, two teams, two other teams that already tried and failed in Boston.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: One was the Boston Bulldogs, who was a team in the 20s that folded.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: And then the Boston Redskins who moved to Washington, D.C.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: because they were not successful in Boston.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: So the owners are like, football will never work in Boston.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: You know, who would ever put a team in Boston?
4:38
SPEAKER_02: That would be a failure.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: You know.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine that.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: They'll never win anything.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: No, they'll never win anything.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: So that's reason number one.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: And then reason number two is the owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, uh, who is a guy that was pretty fiery and outspoken, he catches wind of Rooney's plan for the Eagles to make them the whole state of Pennsylvania, and he flips out because his team's in Washington.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: He's pulling fans from, you know, central Pennsylvania.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, central Pennsylvania is kind of a weird area like that.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of like I have a lot of family from there, and like like football-wise, there well back when I was growing up, there was no Baltimore Colts.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: So there they were more either Redskins fans, Steelers fans, and there were some Eagles fans, but it was more Redskins Steelers.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Although the Steelers are so big anymore, I mean it's they almost take over that at a yeah.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, right.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: And and But it wasn't that case in 1940 for sure.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: And if you had a team called the Pennsylvania Keystones, you would hopefully pull them in.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: And if you lived in Lancaster or Harrisburg, New York or whatever, then hey, that's my team too.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: And you could do like the Huntington, West Virginia thing, play like games in Harrisburg, yeah.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Or eerie, you know, Scranton.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: It was a good plan.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, honestly, especially back then, there was no TV.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's you would kind of barnstorm the state.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Come up with a good thing.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Yep, you made all your money from attendance.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And so it was a pr it was actually a pretty good plan.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: But again, if you're the owner of the Redskins, you're like, no way.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, those fans might be tri I mean, uh Harrisburg to DC probably isn't that far of a trip for you know, even back then, and maybe the train, you know, the train probably went there.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: So maybe there were some fans that were commuting down to DC for the football games.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: He's just like, no, but you're not taking the whole state of Pennsylvania.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: So the owners just say they nix the whole thing.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: You're you're not moving the st the Ironman to Boston, the Steelers to Boston, and you're not gonna make the Eagles the whole state of Pennsylvania.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: So now Alexis Thompson's stuck owning a team in Pittsburgh and running it from New York City.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: And then Rooney's plan and Bell's plan of you know covering the whole state, that's not gonna work.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh not only the owner were the owners against it, but obviously if the the Thompson's team is playing in pit staying in Pittsburgh, then that wouldn't have worked anyway.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: So like now Thompson and Rooney are both like, oh this maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: So Rooney, Rooney actually is like, hey, you know, he goes to he goes to Thompson, he's like, you know, you know what city's kind of close to New York City?
7:15
SPEAKER_02: Philadelphia.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: That's that's an easy one to like you could you could run a team in Philadelphia from New York City.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: And Art Rooney basically offers to trade cities with Thompson.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: So this is a little hard to follow, so I will do my best here.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: So here's what happens.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Here's what happens.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: Thompson takes all of the Steelers, aka the Ironman, players and coaches to Philadelphia.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Art Rooney and Burt Bell take all of the Eagles players and coaches to Pittsburgh.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: Um they they Thompson also ditches the Ironman name and decides to call his team in Philadelphia the Eagles, since that's what the football team there was already called.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: And they keep the same uniforms, the same colors, and all that.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: So I'm trying to try to put this in perspective.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: It would be like today, so so today Art Rennie III owns the Steelers, Jeffrey Lurie owns the Eagles.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: It'd be like if those two guys swapped teams, so the team in Pittsburgh would still be called the Steelers, and they would stay still have black and gold uniforms, but the head coach of the Steelers would be Doug Peterson and the quarterback of the Steelers would be Carson Wentz.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: And meanwhile, the team in Philadelphia would still be called the Eagles and they would still wear green and white, but Mike Tomlin would be their coach and their roster would be all players that played for the Steelers the previous season.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Makes sense, yeah.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Colonel Mustard in the uh library with a candlestick.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: This is uh this is a terrible idea at this point.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's so goofy, and if you go look at Is that what actually happened?
8:48
SPEAKER_02: What did no Yeah, that's what actually happened.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: If you go look at the So that's what actually happened?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I thought I thought Rooney just bought the shares back off of this is what actually if you go look at what's so Thompson actually so the team Wow So if you So technically I've been an Eagles fan all these years.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Technically, yes.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow, I'm not sure how to like you know make my peace with that.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's the Eagles like outside of the features are just one of those teams I'm not a fan of.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: If you go to like Pro Football Reference or one of those sites and you look at the 1941 Steelers roster and click on any of those players and see where they played in the previous year, it was Philadelphia.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: Like there's no player on the 1941 Steelers that played for Pittsburgh the previous season because that was the Eagles roster.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: Nice.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: That moved to Pittsburgh and became the Steelers.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And this was before the Steagles.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: And and and actually the the um the incorporated owner of the Steelers for about three or four years was like Philadelphia Football Club or something, like own the Steelers.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: And then in the Well, him and Burt Bell always did have a close relationship.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: They did.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: And then and then Burt Bell eventually becomes a few years later, he becomes the commissioner of the NFL and he has to sell off his ownership shares.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: And he does that to the um, what's the family, the McGintes?
10:05
SPEAKER_02: The Art Rooney like in-law family.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: So he basically sells the shares back to the Rooney family.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
10:11
SPEAKER_02: And that's how the Rooneys then become like the the sole owners again for the rest of time.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Oh, the Steelers.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: So Bell actually co-owned the Steelers for a few years, but then he sells the shares, and again, no one really remembers that.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: It's a footnote.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: The next clip we want to share is a actually from a three-part episode we did on the 2005 Steelers, that great run that they made to the Super Bowl.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And of course, probably the most memorable moment in that run was the the end of the playoff game against the Colts, where Jerome Bettist had one of the most shocking fumbles and moments in Steel War history.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: So we talked about that here.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, Jerome Bettis the last couple years has become like the short yardage specialist.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: He had already scored earlier that game.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: The Colts broadcasters are paying praying for a fumble.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Bettis had not fumbled that season.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: So Bettis decided they call on Bettis, which is you know, it is conservative.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Now you want to be conservative.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: You're into like, you know, I call it just just fall down mode.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Just literally, whatever you do, just fall forward.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even matter.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, just hold on to the ball and fall forward.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: That's all we're trying to do here.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Even the even the Rex Ryan on coward quarters, like, no, just run the ball.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Don't do anything dumb here.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to hand it off.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: If you if you got like a quarterback you think can sneak the ball, you know, just yeah, if I had Lamar J, that's what I you know, or one of these running quarters, that's what I would do.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: I just fall forward, dude.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Both hands on the ball, and if you get a yard, great.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, Joe Bettis runs into the line and he decides like instead of just meeting Gary Brackett head on, he like turns and Gary Brackett, to his credit, makes a great play.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: He hits the the ball right with his helmet.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And Bettis, like the ball pumps out, and the ball, like I never it just like all happens in slow motion, like because your brain slows things down when traumatic things happen.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: And so the ball's bouncing around, and Nick Harper comes up and scoops up the ball, and he has one chance, like Jeff Harding's who saw it happen, misses the play, misses a tackle, and they're in like goal line, and Nick Harper's like a fast defensive back.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So Nick Harper is like literally on his way to becoming super like Indianapolis Colts legend.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: If he just stays to the top of the screen to the right.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: If he literally just picks the Bo Jackson play from Tech Mobile, the Colts win this game.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, like Ben to his credit, runs backwards, just figures, you know, and that's the other thing.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: We kind of get we're at their two-yard line.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: So Ben had some room to work.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: He's just trying to like keep Nick slow Nick Harper down until hopefully somebody can help him make the tackle.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, all Nick Harper has to do, like I said, is cut to the right.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: For some reason, he cuts to the middle of the field.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: I guess he thought he was going to make a move on Ben.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And Ben literally at the last minute reaches out and grabs him by his shoe.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: I am not making this up.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Grabs by his shoe and pulls him down.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: And I mean Ben is now a legend, you know, for attack.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the most, you know, craziest things.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: So um Tonjokin says, cancel the reservations at Denver.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: We got a game to finish.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Dick Enberg drops an oh my that is probably still reverberating somewhere in the stratosphere.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh on a personal note, um, yes, uh this game, that that that play um I was watching with my parents, and I I swore.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Like my mother is like a very conservative person, and I've only ever sworn from a mother twice.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the times I called Jerome Bettis every name in the book that I could think of, and it was not flattering.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: But you know what, he deserves no, I don't know.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean it happens.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: It was so shocking.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: It was just I I I I'm sure I was not the only one that was literally calling Jerome Bettis making fun of his weight and in his, you know, what would you say, ancestral not I want to say his like mare the marital status of his parents when he was born, let's say without saying.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: Let's say that.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I was yelling.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: I think I was the sort of I remember being on the floor and I think I was sort of like in a fetal position.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: I had my dad like sucking your thumbs buried into the ground.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: I just I just I could not believe.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: I just couldn't believe that happened.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I remember my dad yelling, he's like, knock that off.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I was just so angry at because it's like, dude, what was it?
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You played the most conservative game on offense the whole second half.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Well and and Vettis, like, you know, this was gonna be probably his last season, and this might be how his career ends.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: And like he's he's money.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Like that that was like we talked about in our last episode about Jose Lean making the error.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this was equivalent to Yeah, it was equivalent to that.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: Like the the guy that was like the best defensive second baseman and made the error at the worst possible time.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: That was this.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Um fan actually did have a heart attack after the baddest fumble, but fortunately for him, I think there was I don't know if there were fire, like volunteer firemen in the bar with him, or but yeah, they were able to revive him and bring him back to life.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was one of the bars on the south side.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was the famous story.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: And then they like interviewed him in his hospital bed.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: He was like, Jerome literally broke my heart.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, because I yeah, I have the story, like yeah, talking about a heart stalking game.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: It was Terry O'Neill, and uh O'Neill O'Neal said he said Bettis is his hero.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't upset the Steelers might lose.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: I was upset because I didn't want to see him end his career like that.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Which is a very nice thing to say.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want him.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: He's obviously a big Jerome Bettis and Steelers fan.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: He didn't and I can understand that.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to see his own.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: And for all the people who think we take um sports too seriously in Pittsburgh, we absolutely do.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: This guy was living proof.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: And you can kind of laugh about it afterwards because he was okay.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, fortunately.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, you know, I guess Jerome Bettis should come with a disclaimer.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Can can cause heart rat.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite things to cover on this podcast is stories that maybe people weren't aware of or that had kind of been lost to time.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: And one of the ones I thought was really interesting was an episode we covered on a 1982 playoff game that the Steelers played against the Chargers.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: It was a game that was very compelling, had a lot of uh backdrop and drama associated with it, and we went through the detail of that game.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: And one of the interesting tidbits from that game was was what happened on the last play and how it caused this um long-standing beef between two all-time Steelers.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: So here's that clip.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: And and I I do want to talk about that that that last play for a moment because if you watch it on a tape, it's just a a miserably failed Hail Mary that doesn't even come close to anybody.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: But it actually is pretty significant.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Um one guy that we didn't mention on this episode is Lynn Swan.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Lynn Swan's still playing at this point.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: He did not have a good season in 1982.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: It was the first time in his career he didn't catch a touchdown pass the whole season.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: So he's definitely not the Lynn Swan that was making acrobatic catches in the Super Bowl, right?
17:42
SPEAKER_02: Um he only has one reception in this game, but he is on the field for that Hail Mary attempt.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we mentioned that the Bradshaw aired it down the left sidelines.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Swan was actually on the other side of the field running towards the end zone.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: And years later, um, here is how Lynn Swan described that play.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna read his quote.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: Quote, John's on the far left, I'm on the far right.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm um I'm I'm on the far right moving down towards the scoreboard.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And Rajov throws the pass to John, and and had John caught it in the most spectacular way at the highest point that John was able to reach for the ball, he still would have been at least 10 feet out of bounds.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: If he throws it into the middle of the end zone, I come from where I am, come across, at least sell out, jump as high as I can, make the catch, sell out, grab the ball, whatever it is, try to make this catch.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: End quote.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh Swann was already bitter at Bradshaw for what he perceived as Bradshaw's kind of intentional attempt to ignore him over Stalworth.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's been a lot said about that.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: Swann and Stalworth were always, like a lot of receivers probably did, were always battling for their quarterback's time.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: But for Swan, this was kind of the icing on the cake.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: And he says, quote, to end my career and not have an opportunity to help us win that ball game, uh, and the ball was just uncatchable.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: I went into the locker room and I wanted to kill Bradshaw.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: And and in fact, um Swann claims that the only reason the only thing that stopped him from literally confronting Bradshaw in a potentially a physical way was that um Bradshaw's father was in the locker room sitting next to him.
19:21
unknown: Wow.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: And and it's the first thing got that contentious with the 70s dealer, yeah.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, it it it does, and it apparently really severs the relationship between Swan and Bradshaw.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Swan says at one point, years later, that the only contact that they have is an occasional like hello during events that they're appearing at.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: And so Swann actually that Hail Mary play, he carries a lot of bitterness.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Um it ends up being his his final play and final game in the NFL.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And that was it, that was his career, and he feels like he should have had a chance to make a play there.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you never really hear about that kind of uh acrimony among the 70s Steelers.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Normally it's always the uh kind of got along a lot, but uh it's uh kind of weird.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I guess with Terry Bradshaw, though, that's kind of yeah, what'd you get?
20:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and some people might say, like, really, you're that upset about about one play, uh, but the Swan, it was it was some kind of disrespect, perceived disrespect, and it was his last ever play in the NFL.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was just that one play that might have been like you know, the old you know domination.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the whole season of not getting the ball for NDU.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: I I I'm sure, I'm sure it was.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: Um, but man, it's just interesting that that that play just had that big of a uh an impact.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: Here's another clip to fall under the uh category of stories you probably hadn't heard before.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: This is an episode that we did on Art Rooney, and we talked a lot about the early days of the team.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And here's something that you probably wouldn't see today.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: It's the head coach and the owner getting into a fist fight in the owner's office.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: In 1933, once again, he has these interpersonal connections and relationships with politicians and other people.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And he he buys into the NFL because he realizes that um from his political connections that they're gonna repeal the blue law so they'll be able to play football on Sundays.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, which starts his uh relationship with the NFL and the Steelers.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And um boy, at first it was a rocky relationship for uh all involved.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: He he um he got into fights with his coaches over over, I don't know what, but they they got mad at him.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And so they I know in his one the one coach, they pushed the furniture to the edges of the office.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And I guess uh the these Joe Bach was a tough guy.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't like no pushover, but uh Rooney drawing on his uh barnstorming days of boxing totally just beat the heck out of uh uh the coach so bad that the uh players didn't respect Joe Bach anymore because he got beat up by the chief.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just can't imagine stuff like this.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, only back then in that generation.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's I could just never uh imagine that a player and a coach and an owner would literally have just like a boxing match in there, you know.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine that?
22:33
SPEAKER_02: Some of them doing that.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: There was a time when you were sort of more accountable for your words, right?
22:40
SPEAKER_02: You couldn't just go on Twitter and call somebody names like you can today, I think back then that that got you into into fights, into physical fights, and uh just a just a different time.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: Hard to hard to like criticize or or whatever that because it's just a different time, right?
22:58
SPEAKER_02: Very different.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like a total fist fight either.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: They they actually got like boxing gloves and set up like an area to do it.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like they just like, okay, we're just going at it.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: They jumped over the desk.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: They actually had like for real, like like barring match, I guess.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: And uh kind of like like telling him to a duel kind of like that, only without the pistols.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh my honor has been assuaged, I guess.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh Joe Joe's wasn't too much because I guess he didn't last too much longer with the Steelers after that.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: We did an episode on the 2000 Steelers.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: That's a team that um didn't go very far, wasn't very successful, but uh overcame a lot of obstacles and and had some interesting stories.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that happened that season was a game in Cleveland that left me as a fan really, really disgusted, and we talked about that here.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: Um then they head to Cleveland in week three, and and this game is I remember this game.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: So it's back and forth.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: Um it's a very back and forth game.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh a lot of emotion.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: I think this is was this this was a game where um their punter flipped off uh.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: A future steeler.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: Did he flip off the sideline, the steeler sideline?
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was a cower, okay.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: So so just yeah, good, like, you know, this was again, Cleveland had just come back into the league, and it was like, oh, this is kind of like the old Steeler Brown rivalry.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: It was a fun game.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And um late in the game it's tied.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: The Cleveland has a ball inside their own five-yard line, uh, but Tim Kelch hits Kevin Johnson on a 79-yard bomb.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: The defensive back that Johnson beat was Scott Shields, who for some reason they gave number 47 to.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: It was Mel Blunt's number.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: And Scott Fields was terrible.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was just a terrible safety.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: He was a weird two.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was a weird, he was like big and like he could run fast, but like he wasn't quick.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Like it seemed like it would take him like two to three steps to get up to speed.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And as a that doesn't seem to work too well as a football player.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, at least as def defense, especially on defense.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: I I don't I don't know if he ever really got into many games after that.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: He he was I remember him getting burned badly there because he ran him down.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Because like I don't think that guy scored on that.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I think he did run him down on that.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: You're right, he did.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: And so that's that's key.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: It's like a perfect example of like the problems with Scott Shields.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like he can't really cover because he's not quick, but he's fast.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: You can catch the guy after he gets burnt.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there was that.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: And that was actually important because the defense actually buckles down and they hold the Browns to a field goal.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: So now the Sea Wars are down by three instead of by seven, and they mount their own kind of last-minute drive.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh Graham gets them all the way to the Cleveland 10-yard line.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: So they have first and goal at the Cleveland 10-yard line with 30 seconds left, but they have no timeouts.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so so what are you gonna do, right?
26:03
SPEAKER_02: You can run three plays, you have to be careful because you have no timeouts, you can run three plays with 30 seconds and then try to get the field goal unit out to send them in at overtime if you can't get into the end zone, right?
26:14
SPEAKER_02: Like the worst case scenario here is overtime.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: So what happens?
26:18
SPEAKER_02: First down, they run a draw play.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the killer there.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: You can't you just on first down, you can't run the ball there.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: They run a draw play, and it goes nowhere.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: I I know they were trying to catch him by surprise.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Like they'll never see this coming.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: They're that we have to throw the ball, they'll think we have to throw the ball.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: Coaches sometimes outthink themselves, and this was a terrible call.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: That runs the clock all the way down to 14 seconds.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: So they lose half their time running that play.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh second down, Graham has to spike the ball to stop the clock.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: And then third down, okay, now with 14 seconds left.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: You're at like the nine-yard line, just throw it in the end zone.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: If you don't see anybody, throw it away, and we'll get the field wheel unit out there.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Whatever you do, don't take a sack.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: And Kent Graham takes a sack.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: He was kind of big and slow and Ofish.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: He was big and slow and oh fish, but you can't take a sack.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: And and and and so now like the field wheel unit runs on as fast as they can to try to line up, but time runs out.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: Time literally runs out as they're trying to line up for the field goal.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember that.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: And it it was it was the the single If I had to pick a time in all my years as a Steeler fan when I was just done.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: I just didn't want to be a Steeler fan anymore.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: It was it was after that game.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: I was so disgusted.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: I I said at the time, this is this is my quote that I wrote down.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: I went and unearthed it.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm sick of the Steelers finding the most unheard of ways to lose games.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: I hope we go 0 in 16 just so we can draft Drew Brees, who was at Purdue at the time.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the the other thing about that game, Steve, was um that was the weekend that Pitt beat Penn State 12 to nothing in River Stadium.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: And so I was on such a high that day.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, because Pitt beat Penn State.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: That was such a big deal.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: And I I didn't if Cleveland would have won that game 32 to nothing, I wouldn't have cared.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: But the Steelers, like, they play they played this close game, and then they have it where all they have to do is kick the hip shock field with ascending overtime, and they can't even get a field goal attempted.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: It was such an embarrassing, horrible way to lose a game.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: Um at this point, the Steelers have lost nine out of their previous ten games dating back to the previous year.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, the future could not look more bleak.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you know, sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to climb out.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: We did a whole episode on Cordell Stewart and we kind of talked about his ups and downs as Steeler quarterback.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: And it was funny, probably about two weeks after we released that episode, Cordell published an article in the Players Tribune where he talked about the rumors that came out about him uh right around the 1998 season and just kind of how devastating that was to his life and career.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: And we had actually talked about those rumors in our episode uh right before he came out with that story, and here's us talking about that.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it it's tough to say.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Like and I would say this like, you know, another reason maybe, you know, racism, you know, was people and rumors like Coriels or was always rumors about his sexuality.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Was that just like stealth racism?
29:32
SPEAKER_00: You didn't want to sound like a racist, so you would say, Oh, he's you know, whatever you know.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: People would call him gay, and it was always, oh, my second brother's cousin do some do this or that, and it was always like stupid rumors.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, and and it's it's hard, and and you you you have it in the notes here, like it's tough to read people's minds.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: Like you don't know what their where their motivation's always coming from.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: But some of the stuff that was directed at Cordell was just so vicious and angry, and I don't know.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: I like people uh we weren't we were too young to remember the the anger that was directed at Bradshaw.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: But a lot of people really hated Bradshaw too for a while.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, people didn't like me O'Donnell, but it was never to that level.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: It was just like, oh, he threw those interceptions, which I can understand, you know, that's a fan, and you know I I think that's more of a fair criticism than this.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: This is just like somebody just made this up.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: And O'Donnell, somebody just made this up as well as O'Donnell's career arc with the Steelers wasn't the same as any of those other guys.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Like O'Donnell sort of like was a game manager and then he like progressively got better every season until he threw those interceptions at the Super Bowl, then he didn't stick around long enough to he left after then.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if there was a whole arc there.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Ben's had a couple ups and downs in his career, and there's been viciousness thrown his way, but boy, Cordell.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think Ben's though, like it isn't like stuff people made stuff out a whole although I've heard like weird rumors about Ben too.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but the Cordell thing was much more prominent.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, everybody was sure because they had a source inside the Whereas like Ben, it's like it's you can't, you know, Ben like the the couple incidents is there's been a couple well publicized incidents.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Then there's been some other rumored incidents, but but it's like, well, if these other incidents and that definitely happened, you know, could have this, you know.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: The rumors about his sexuality seemed to start when he cried on the sidelines.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes, which seemed like almost too convenient.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: Like, well, he's crying on the sidelines, so that means he's not a real man.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: It's it is hard to ignore race when you think about the just like I said, the viciousness of some of the things were said about him.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: And and like you said, it who knows what people were really thinking, but boy, it's hard to it's hard to not at least factor that in.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And uh and Bill Cower went through it too.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh just you know, Cordell wasn't the only person that this was directed at.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Um Kay Cower, his late wife, actually addressed it.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, and we'll post that quote up on the website of from Kay about that.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Um and here's an ironic thing.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: In October 2017, uh Cordell actually won a three million dollar default judgment in Atlanta against uh a YouTuber, I guess it was some guy on the internet named Andrew Caldwell, who claimed he had sexual encounter with Stuart and Stewart had given him expensive gifts.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Stewart denied these claims.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Caldwell later recanted the claim and denied that it had ever happened.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And he actually got court actually got a judgment against this guy for three million dollars in court.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, there you you know, so it it just I don't know why it just keeps dogging him like this and like people just making it up, obviously.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: And he literally lost a court case.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: You've lost three million dollars over this.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I hope it was worth getting your five minutes of fame on YouTube.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And that was after 2017, he hadn't played football in five years.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, who who would even care at that point?
33:02
SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I I don't know.
33:04
SPEAKER_02: It it was just you're right, it was a lot of anger, people were angry at Cower.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: Then there was people that said Cower had an affair with the secretary, and that's what the K Cower quotes are about.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, I had also the other rumor was that Cower was sleeping with Cordell's sister or something.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: That's why that's that's why he kept starting him, was because I again so many ridiculous rumors, but but it was i it only took one season.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Like usually you'd think it would take a whole bunch of bad seasons.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: He was in the AFC championship game in 97, and by like the next calendar year, he was, you know, have like in all these terrible off-the-field situations and hated.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it the town really, really turned on him quick.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which was unfortunate.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: It was.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: It was And it wasn't over just like play on the field either.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: It was just like these stupid little like just made-up rumors.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: That's unfair.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: That's unfair to him.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: It was unfair to him.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: It really was.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: We did an episode about the 1980s Steelers.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: That's kind of a an era that a lot of Steelers fans would would like to forget.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: The team wasn't very good.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's the era that Steve and I kind of grew up in.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: So we thought it'd be fun to revisit and and highlight you know some of the things that were interesting about that era.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And and I think one of the things that was most interesting was the the division that the Steelers were in, and and the coaches in that division, and we talked about that in that episode.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: The the AFC Central um was a very colorful division at that point.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: So there were four teams.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: It was Cleveland, Houston, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: And and the four coaches were were so for the Browns it was Marty Schottenheimer, who was a very big personality and and of course is is sort of best remembered for having a lot of great teams and always choking in big games.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh Sam Weich was a coach of the Bengals.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: That was another guy.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: Um just crazy.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they called him Wiki Wacky.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, recently.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: He did, he just passed away, yeah.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: Um he was kind of like the precursor to Belichick where he'd find ways to bend the rolls.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh the the NFL would have to make new roles because of stuff he did.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: One of the things he used to do was he used to bring eleven or he used to bring twelve guys into the huddle, into the offensive huddle.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: And then when they broke huddle, he'd run one guy off the field.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: So, like, for example, he'd he'd bring three receivers into the huddle on a running play and then run one of the receivers off the field, and so the defense would line up thinking it's a pass because there were three receivers.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: But it would be around.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: And so the NFL made a role where you're not allowed to do that anymore.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Um he one of my favorite Sam White clips is uh there was a game at Riverfront Stadium where his fans were throwing snowballs at the I think it was the Seattle Seahawks.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And this was literally in the middle of the game.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: Like not before, not at halftime.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: This he in the middle of the game, he picks up a microphone.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: I don't know where he got a live.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody gave him a microphone.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: That's the best part.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: And he just gets on the microphone, he screams at his fans at Riverfront Stadium and he says, You're not in Cleveland, you're in Cincinnati?
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Like ac act like grown-ups.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was uh that was Sam Weich.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: That was on the internet too.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Like that made the route.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: You're act you're we're not in Cleveland.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: I like I like Sam Weich.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I I know he's uh he's he's one of our own, but he was always a fun guy to listen to and uh stuff.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: I he was very like you said, a I think he was a um player for um Paul Brown.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think he actually played with Paul Brown.
36:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Which gosh, we're getting old, Paul Brown, and then uh he was a coordinator under um uh the Walsh, yeah, in San Francisco.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So he kinda had that uh you know, and he Kane Anderson, so they kinda had that uh you know dink and dunk and West Coast offense.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's they were within 30 seconds.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: He almost won Cincinnati as Super Bowl.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Well it had some defensive coordinator that you know maybe should have blitzed a little more or something.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: Was that Dick Lebeau?
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's okay.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, their problem was Tim Crumwrig got hurt.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: If you watch that game, that's a really ugly injury.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like and he was their best defensive player.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And once Tim Crumwrig got hurt, that kind of like limited their ability to blitz.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't the Cincinnati Bengals podcast.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can we can talk about the 80s Bengals on another podcast.
37:17
SPEAKER_02: And then of course, Houston, the coach was Gary Glanville, who who we just talked about, you know, and just a a dirty team.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: We talked about how Noel threatened him at midfield.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh so it wasn't just Chuck Noel that hated Glanville, the whole division hated Glanville.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Sam Weich, uh there was an infamous mu game where Cincinnati was beating the the Oilers 45 to nothing, and Sam Well Sam Weish attempted an onside kick.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the spite the spike kick, yeah.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean just just to I mean onside kicking when you're up forty-five-nothing, just to stick it to Glanville harder.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: This this is all stuff where I feel like the age we're in now, like the social media.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, can you imagine people would like be fainting, you know, like the clutching of pearls that would go, you know what I mean?
38:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh my, my stars, you know, like who cares?
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Get over it.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: And and so you had these you had these big personalities, and then you had Noel, who was the old school kind of even-keyed uh guy who who, you know, against these big personalities.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: I just I always thought that would make a good like 30 for 30, like the 1980s AFC Central Division.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: It would be it would be interesting.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't, yeah.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: There, like you said, there are a lot of characters in that division.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: We did an episode about the 2004 Steelers.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: That was the year that Ben Rothesberger was a rookie, and we talked about his first start, which included some controversy leading up to the game.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh during that week, uh Alan Fannica made the news because um he said some quotes that weren't uh probably flattering to Ben, but um they were definitely, you know, I would say this is the attitude of the other veterans on the team.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh somebody asked him if he was excited to be playing with a rookie quarterback, and he stated, exciting.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not exciting.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go to work with some little young kid who's just out of college?
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got to do a little more, everybody's got to help out the do a little more, do a little extra, take that extra step, put the extra work in this week and rally around him and help him out.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a learning process for him.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: He's a number one pick, he's fresh out of college, and that's the big thing.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: He's throwing in, thrown in a new offense.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: He's not in that Miami, Ohio offense that he sat in for three, four years.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: He has to learn that too.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot to soak in.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: And it's like every play you get better, you see things, you start to realize things, how a play works, how defense reacts to it.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: It's just a process.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: But mainly the the first part of the quote, I I I put the second part in there just to be fair to Alan Fannica, but the media would never play that second part.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: They would always play the first part where, oh, Alan Fannica doesn't like Ben.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't want Ben to play.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And da-da-da, you know.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I always thought that was unfair to Fannica because I mean, uh heck, even in my job, I you know, I remember when I came out of college in my job, you know, I'm I'm constantly asking people like, hey, how do I do this?
40:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, where do I send this?
40:24
SPEAKER_02: How do I, you know, you're just you're you're new, you don't know exactly what you're doing, everybody else has to do more to help you.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: It's a natural feeling, and and it wasn't like Ben had earned the job or had been anointed, it was because of injury.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: So I I don't know, it was a natural reaction, and it just showed it's just anytime you get annoyed with athletes giving vanilla boring answers, this is why.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Because it really got blah.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: I remember just like the whole week, that was really a big thing.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: And and that was before like the media was really crazy like it is now, like, you know, on Twitter and Oh, yeah, that was before social media.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but you yeah, you still had sports talk radio and you still had you know a lot of a lot of people like, oh now there's dissension in the locker room and blah blah blah.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: So again, the like I said, to me there wasn't any optimism for this season at this point.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: No, there was zero optimism.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: And so the next game, they were scheduled to be played on a Sunday Miami, but they had to delay it to Monday night because there was Hurricane Janine.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And um they and they still like the hurricane had kind of I guess gone through enough to where they could play, but there was still like all the rain left over from it.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: So it was a complete monsoon.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Um the team said they bonded on this road trip because I guess they had to sit in the hallway of their hotel because it was too dangerous to sit in the room on that Sunday.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: So this is part of like the team kind of coming together and you know, an unexpected bonding experience.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: So um also they played the Dave once.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: That was the coach of the Dolphins.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, very sloppy weather conditions.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh the they had the they still played baseball at what pro player or whatever.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: Hard I guess it's hard rock stadium now, but it's pro player stadium back then.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: It's the same stadium.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: But there was dirt infield, and with all that rain, it was just like playing in a bunch of mud.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben threw an interception on his first pass.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: He did that a lot that year, like his first couple passes, he would throw an interception.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Know if that's like a rookie thing or just something Ben had to kind of work his way through.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: But in spite of all that, the uh Steelers' defense won 13-3.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, the Dolphins weren't considered a good team that year.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: They were mediocre at best.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Was Feet Fiedler was probably still their quarterback, or you know, it wasn't it wasn't the marina.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: That's what you can say about the Dolphins of the 21st century.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't the marino.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, a weird kind of game, but uh they won it and now they're two and one.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And uh they kind of went through some adversity there.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh, got through the week and with a hurricane and some mud.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: We did an episode where we talked about the Steelers and Broncos having kind of a uh rivalry that isn't very well known, but has a lot of history to it.
43:17
SPEAKER_02: And one of the really great games that these two teams played against each other was the 1984 divisional playoffs.
43:23
SPEAKER_02: And we talked about how that game ended in that episode.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: So so now the game's all tied, and there's only about two minutes left, and Elway gets the ball back, and so you kind of know what's coming, right?
43:40
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be one of these patented John Elway uh drives the team down the field to get the game winning field goal, and that's gonna be the end of the Steelers.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: But instead, this happens.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: Intercepted by Eric Williams at the 20.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: Williams is out of bounds at the two-yard line.
44:07
SPEAKER_03: Eric Williams.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: So Eric Williams, the very famous Steelers defensive back, I always say this is like the greatest play in Steelware history that absolutely nobody would remember.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: It's such a big play because he he intercepts Elway and and runs it all the way back to the two-yard line.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: A couple of plays later, Pollard punches it in for the touchdown, and it's game over.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: And the Steelers win in the final minutes at Denver.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: Really on the back of that of that turnover.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Dick Enberg didn't even give him an O my for that.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: There was an O Mai when Anderson missed the field goal.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: I almost played that just to get the Dick Enberg over.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh my.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's a pretty shocking upset.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: Again, Denver was thirteen and three that year.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: They had four more wins than that Steelers team.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: And they they never lost at home.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: The Steelers do go on to lose the AFC title game the next week to Miami.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: Um but it's it's kind of a bright spot in an era where the Steelers really didn't have a lot of bright spots.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: There have certainly been a lot of Steelers players who have been beloved over the years.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: There's also been a lot of players who we as fans have been a little maybe a little hard on, and maybe that was a little deserved.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: Two of those guys uh we talked about in our most reviled episode.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Number Ocho, that would be Dwayne Washington and Chad Scott.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Years of giving uh Steeler fans uh heart attacks there as their defensive back play was not quite up to snuff.
45:46
SPEAKER_02: You know what the the hard thing about Dwayne is?
45:48
SPEAKER_02: So if so there's been lots of bad cornerbacks in Steeler history.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: Dwayne Washington and Chad Scott, they weren't awful.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Like they were good enough to stay on the team for like eight years.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: But man, did they give up a lot of big plays and get burned a lot.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus Dwayne kind of reminds me of uh a half-step slow Ike Taylor.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: Like he never got like till the end when he was finally done, he never got like flat out burned.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: But like something weird would happen.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Like the ball would bounce.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: He had terrible hands.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: He had terrible positioning.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: He'd be he'd be right on a guy.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: But it would the guy would still catch the ball.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: Because he'd just have his backbone or whatever, like in the wrong way.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: He yeah, you're right.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't slow.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: He just never was in the right position.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: But Chad Scott probably should have been a safety.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: I I've I've often thought that.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Like he just like especially after the first couple years, like because he was big too.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: Chad Scott was big.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: He was a number one number one draft pick, too, and I think that might be why they stuck with him as long as they did, because he had a lot of pedigree.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he just he was more he I saw him get burned just flat out like people like run by him.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Dwayne, like, I never felt like people like ran by him.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: He just was like, whoops, woo.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: The the thing the thing I always remember about Dwayne Washington is in the first couple years at Hines Field, they they always play this public service announcement at some point during the game.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: And the public service announcement is hey fans, please respect each other, don't throw things on the field, blah, blah, blah.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a standard thing that they play.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: And for some inexplicable reason, those first few years, they had Dwayne Washington record the message.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine people were excited about that.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, somebody would catch a touchdown over Dwayne Washington's head, and then during the TV timeout, it's like, hey fans, this is Dwayne Washington.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: Just want to make sure everybody respects each other, and it's like, boom, we I mean, it was it just I always felt bad for Dwayne that that he was the you know, the hey everybody, let's be nice guy that they chose.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: And they never did that again.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: They always had um like like uh you know uh Craig Woofley or like some retired guy or some media guy do that announcement years later.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: They never again had an active player do it because poor Dwayne always got the wrath of the stadium every time he came up on the scoreboard.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Poor Dwayne.
48:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, Dwayne Washington and Chad Scott may have uh not not been the greatest pair of cornerbacks, but they also never threw a Super Bowl away to the Dallas Cowboys.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh Neil O'Donnell did very famously, and we we talked about that in in our episode we did about the 95 Steeler team, and we talked about kind of Neil's legacy and how it was sort of all based around that game and really um those two interceptions that he threw.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: And that second interception, you know, there's a little more debate about that one.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: Um Andre Hastings, it was it was it was another blitz where O'Donnell kind of unloaded the ball on a blitz.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh Andre Hastings, the receiver, um, was supposed to um O'Donnell said he was supposed to cut outside on a blitz like that.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: Hastings said I was supposed to cut inside.
49:04
SPEAKER_02: So O'Donnell threw to a spot where he thought Hastings would be.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: Hastings was on the other side.
49:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh whatever the reason, um it's Larry Brown picks off the ball again by covering grass.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's all anybody remembers.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: And uh and it's a painful loss.
49:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was painful because everybody hated Dallas back then, not just in Pittsburgh.
49:26
SPEAKER_02: I think that Dallas was widely hated by a lot of people with that team, with Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders and those guys.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: So seeing them win a third Super Bowl just was was hard.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: But then seeing the Steelers lose in a game where they had in the second half, the Steelers outgained the Cowboys in yards 201 to 61.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh outgained them in first downs 25 to 15.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: And the Dallas running game, 56 yards.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: That's all they got in the second half.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: That's your Hall of Famer there.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, yeah, and and so with that with those numbers, uh the Steelers should have should have won that game, but they didn't um because of the interceptions.
50:04
SPEAKER_02: And and it's so ironic, because we talked about earlier, right, that O'Donnell's game was he was safe.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: He would take a sack.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: And that was frustrating.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: All those years you watched O'Donnell take a 10-yard sack in instead of trying to throw the ball away or trying to throw the ball into coverage, but that was his game.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: Play it safe.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: And in going into Super Bowl 30, he was the NFL's all-time leader and fewest interceptions per pass attempt.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: And he throws two interceptions to Larry Brown, who's named the game's MVP for covering grass.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I think it illustrates to the more of an overarching like, you know, theme is it's the difference between like great quarterbacks and good quarterbacks.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: O'Donnell's a good quarterback, like Mark Rippin's a good quarterback, Jeff Hostettler, good quarterback.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Tom Brady, you know, Ben Rothelsberger, Terry Bradshaw, John L.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: You're you're talking great quarterbacks.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: If that's you know, one of those guys, John L.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: Way steps out of the way, Ben Rothelsberger scrambles around.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, Merino uses his quick release to defeat that blitz.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: But and it's it's it's a you know, to quote Bill Cower, it's a fine line between winning and losing, and I think that's what we kind of bumped into there was you know, that just got the a little too big.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: And you even saw it, you know, the with the Super Bowl with uh San Francisco and um just this year.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: Kansas City.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, Garoppolo had a guy wide open like, you know, and that's the difference between a guy that's good and a guy that's great.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Tom Brady hits that pass.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: Peyton Manning probably hits that you know.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just the difference.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: It is it's hard to criticize, you know, the O'Donnell was still a good quarterback, but it's you just you know you needed to make just one if he makes not one of those interceptions, it's maybe a different game.
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: No, that's a really good point.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: I mean, greatness, you you really want to talk about especially in the Super Bowl, greatness.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: So those guys you mentioned, Montana, uh uh Brady, Ben, even Eli Manning.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, w when they had the ball down by a certain amount of points late in the game, all those guys led game-winning drives to win the Super Bowl.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you mentioned that the last year's Super Bowl, Mahomes had a terrible game.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
52:25
SPEAKER_02: With ten minutes left in the fourth quarter, he leads the team down and wins the game because that's greatness.
52:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:32
SPEAKER_02: And O'Donnell never had greatness.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: Finally, the last clip that we wanted to share was from an episode that we did pretty recently called the Top Ten Almost Miracle Plays.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: And one of the miracle plays was from a 1992 playoff game against the Buffalo Bills.
52:49
SPEAKER_02: There was a cornerback for the Steelers named Richard Shelton that almost made a huge play that would have really turned the game around.
52:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was definitely an almost miracle play, but if I'm being honest, I put it on the list just because um I I knew Steve had a personal connection with the story because Richard Shelton's son went to our school at the time, and so we talked about that here.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: But Kelton had that chance to take it back.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: And you're right, I don't know that that makes all the difference, but them being ahead 10-7, the next time they get the ball, if they could hold Buffalo and get the ball back, now they can hand off to Foster.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: They can play that ball control game.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: When they were down 14-3, now they're trying to, you know, operate outside their comfort zone.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that was in the I didn't realize you that's in that that happened in the second half.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: Boy, I thought that was earlier in the game.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was in the second half.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really thought that game was over a lot earlier than I guess it was.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: I thought that game was over in the first half, but I guess it but I just remember after that it was definitely over.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Because like you said, the Bills ended up scoring a bunch of points after that.
53:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: They just ran away after that.
53:56
SPEAKER_02: And again, the Steelers were totally outside their comfort zone on offense.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: Steve, any uh any personal memories of of that play for you?
54:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh this was not the play that I yelled at Richard Sheldon's son about.
54:08
SPEAKER_00: We went to school with his son, and that was that was a play in Denver that same year.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: And his to much of his class, his dad tried to tackle a running back from Denver, I don't remember the name, but the running back outweighed Richard Sheldon, who was like I said, like a dime back, like by like probably like 70 pounds, and the the running back for Denver just totally mauled him.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of like like, what was your dad?
54:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, I kind of did though, what was your dad doing on that play?
54:35
SPEAKER_00: And it and like, you know, I I guarantee like that was probably like my first real year watching like professional football.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: Because like I really hadn't watched football before '99, like regularly in 1992.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: He like correctly pointed out.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: It's like, dude, the guy's like a running back, you know, like like what like you're not you're not gonna defensive back isn't like just gonna like you know, tackle somebody that much bigger.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that game they they had already gone home.
55:00
SPEAKER_00: He never he never he they didn't come back to school, I think that after that.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
55:05
SPEAKER_00: He just said they just went back to Florida.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I thought I thought it was that play because that's the only thing I remember about Richard Shelf dropping that pick six.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, he did drop that pick six, but I don't think about that one.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, it was more idiotic than that.
55:22
SPEAKER_00: I was it was even dumber than you remember to him.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: I was even more of an idiot than he tried to tackle the guy, just but no, yeah, I felt bad about that.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe we did because I I remember I wasn't that negative about that one to him.
55:39
SPEAKER_00: It was that other play that and they lost to Denver.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: Because they never I in fact then I didn't realize like you never beat Denver in Denver.
55:47
SPEAKER_00: Like I've come to realize that like Denver really doesn't lose at home very much.
55:52
SPEAKER_00: But poor poor Richard Shelton.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: I whatever Richard Shelton and his son, I wonder if his son ever made it to college on a football scholarship or anything.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: He was gone after that season.
56:03
SPEAKER_00: Richard Shelton never came back to the Steelers after that, I do believe.
56:08
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: That completes our first ever click show.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: Hope you enjoyed it.
56:13
SPEAKER_02: Hope you enjoy the podcast.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: Um would love it and be very humbled if you would leave us a review.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: That helps people find us.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: You can also connect with us via our website, our uh Twitter feed, or our Facebook page.
56:26
SPEAKER_02: And the links for those are all in the show description.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: We'll catch you next time.