It’s true.
The Steelers today are on a coaching hunt, and you’ll forgive them if they’ve hired a consulting firm to reacquaint them with the process. Like, for example, forget looking for resumes with watermarks, or telephone numbers that actually ring inside someone’s home. And not to be alarmed if there is no employment history dated before 1992.
It’s an unusual position the Steelers are in – for them – to be searching for a new head football coach, but there is that necessity now that Bill Cowher has stepped down after 15 years on the job (1992-2006). Before Cowher, someone named Chuck Noll prowled the Steelers sidelines – and for 23 years (1969-1991). That’s two coaches in 38 years, folks. The Supreme Court has more turnover. Much more, in fact.
Two in 38: Noll (top) and Cowher are the only Steelers
head coaches since 1969
Cowher is a Pittsburgh kid, through and through, and his jut jaw would make Scotty Bowman envious. Noll, to give you an idea, played football in the 1940’s, and he was just two coaches ago.
In Detroit, we boast of consistency at the placekicker position: the Lions have employed but two there for more than one game (Eddie Murray, 1980-1991; Jason Hanson, 1992-present).
Terrific. That and a dime will get you a cup of coffee, but that and millions of dollars has reaped nothing more than a single playoff victory. And none since Hanson’s arrival.
Both the Steelers and the Lions are family-run businesses, and both in blue-collar towns. The Rooneys have controlled the Steelers since their inception in the NFL back in the 1930’s, and Bill Ford Sr. wrangled sole ownership away from the consortium of over 100 shareholders back in 1964. Yet the Steelers are a model NFL franchise, while the Lions are a cautionary tale.
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So the Rooney family has a Super Bowl ring for each finger and their thumb, while Bill Ford Sr. and Jr. have never come close to even a pinky ring. Mostly, the only finger associated with their franchise has been the middle one.
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But hold on. The Steelers weren’t always winners under the Rooney name. In fact, for a very long time, they were very bad. The dregs of the league. Laughing stocks. Perennial losers. All that, they were.
But then Art Rooney stumbled upon Noll, an old messenger guard for Paul Brown in Cleveland. He hired Noll in early 1969, months before Neil Armstrong took his small step and giant leap on that big piece of cheese in space. Noll won his first game in 1969 – against the Lions, natch – and proceeded to lose the next thirteen. That landed a top draft pick, which Noll used to select QB Terry Bradshaw from Louisiana Tech, in 1970.
Yet Bradshaw, a Hall of Famer, was awful when he entered the NFL. In his rookie year, he threw 24 interceptions in 216 attempts – a pick for every nine passes. The fans in Pittsburgh called him names and hung him in effigy. People even thought he was too dumb to be a useful NFL quarterback. Sort of what they said about him when he entered broadcasting, though I’ve never considered that business populated by Rhodes Scholars.
The point is, the Steelers struggled to find their mojo. Big time. So when they hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl winners for the first time, after the 1974 season, over 40 years of failure and being a league joke vanished. And, to be sure that it never returned, Chuck Noll’s teams went out and won three more in the next five seasons. They’re otherwise known as the Team of the ‘70’s.
The Lions are the Team of the 70’s, too. As in, 72 losses in their last six seasons. As in, the last decade in which their head coach compiled an overall winning record. But I digress.
The Rooneys didn’t get their act together until they hired Chuck Noll, who’d never been a head football coach. He won four Super Bowls. Then the torch was passed to Cowher, who’d never been a head football coach. He went to two Super Bowls, and won one. Along the way there were many divisional titles and playoff victories.
So the Rooney family has a Super Bowl ring for each finger and their thumb, while Bill Ford Sr. and Jr. have never come close to even a pinky ring. Mostly, the only finger associated with their franchise has been the middle one.
The Lions have Rod Marinelli as their coach, who’d never been a head football coach. But if that’s all you needed to have in common with Noll and Cowher to succeed, we’d see statues of Tommy Hudspeth and Marty Mornhinweg outside Ford Field. So obviously it takes more than that. But it’s worth stating that you can find a diamond in the rough, and it can lead you to studded rings.
The Rooneys didn’t find their football god until they’d owned the team for nearly 40 years. The Ford ownership passed the 40-year mark a couple of seasons ago. So there’s still hope.
There has been some scuttlebutt, probably started by a bottom feeder like a blogger or sports columnist (or magazine editor), that Bill Cowher is merely taking a year off, to reenergize himself, before plunging back into the shark-infested waters of NFL head coach. The scuttlebutt goes on to say that the Lions might be one of the teams interested in him when he decides to take that plunge. And that there might be mutual interest.
Hey, if you’re going to jump back in with the sharks, may as well do it in the most densely populated body of shark water of them all.
Another way to use the word “dense” when referring to the Lions.
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