Still crazy after all these years

Chuck Noll with four Lombardi trophies he won Photo courtesy of Pinterest … Tomlin inherited Super Bowl talent, but has built nothing From the time that I started rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955, until Chuck Noll arrived in Pittsburgh as the Steelers head coach in 1969, the team compiled a 75-102 record, winning just 42 percent of their games. They had never captured any kind of championship from 1933 until that time. I remember as a boy about nine or ten years old, saying to my father, “Daddy, can’t I root for any other team than the Steelers?” He immediately replied, “No, they’re our team.” “But Daddy, they’re so bad.” When the Steelers captured their first Super Bowl in the 1974 season, I was 27 years old. Worse, my dad was 68, and he had been a loyal fan for 41 years. Who made that happen? Chuck Noll My father loved Chuck Noll, not just because he started a winning tradition with the Steelers. As a referee at the college and high school levels, he liked coach...

… jury still out on Jackson, but 2019 has been special As I wrote last week, the Steelers made a monumental error when they passed on drafting Dan Marino with their first-round pick in the 1983 NFL Draft [“You took the wrong guy”: Art Rooney, Sr., “The Chief” and founder of the Steelers, on his team passing on Dan Marino in 1983: Could have given them more Super Bowls] Marino went on to be selected by Don Shula and the Miami Dolphins, where he set the then record for passing yardage with 61,361 yards and 420 TDs. Marino played in only one Super Bowl in 1984 with the Dolphins, which turned out to be his best season, but he never earned a ring. Had he played for the Steelers, he could have led them to Super Bowls in 1989 [Bubby Brister et. al.], 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998. That may be optimistic, but they were that close on occasion. Imagine Marino instead of Neil O’Donnell against the Cowboys in 1996. However, the failure to draft current 2019 MVP candidate Lamar Jackson in 2018 m...

… just place an * after their Super Bowls “Who thought this was a good idea?” … Tedy Bruschi on ESPN When the Patriots were again accused of cheating last week when they taped Bengals coaches on the sidelines giving signals during a game with the Browns, the team immediately shot out another of its patented denials. It stated that the production crew did nothing that even remotely resembled cheating. And then the truth came out when it was revealed that the cameraman in the press box whom Bengals staff watched him film coaches on the sideline for eight minutes before had his camera and film confiscated. That showed not a video of an advance scout as the Patriots had said was the case. So, on ESPN where he works, Bruschi, while admitting to loving the Patriots, said, Bill has denied it and says that he has nothing to do with Kraft Productions. I know that Kraft Productions is a separate part of the building. However, Kraft Productions is under the umbrella which is the New Engl...

Tom Brady: Dude, the rules do not apply to us … why not just put an asterisk after their Super Bowls? In 2007, the New England Patriots were embroiled in a scandal that was referred to as “Spygate.” Unfortunately, the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, destroyed the evidence before it could be evaluated, saying that they had made their own investigation. After an uproar ensued about Goodell's conduct, and photos emerged of him with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, the league fined the Patriots $250,000 and Coach Bill Bellichick $500,000 for their elaborate efforts to steal signals and other information from opponents. And then, there was Deflategate of a few years ago which led to the suspension of quarterback Tom Brady.. However, on Sunday, the Patriots were again caught filming, this time in the press box in Cleveland. When caught, the team yesterday issued a statement saying that they were simply filming a piece about one of their advance scouts that they were going to place on...

Art Rooney, Sr. (left) and Art Jr. Photo courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers … from the Chuck Noll biography In the background, the Chief was circumspect. He’d met Marino and was extremely fond of him. More than once that weekend, Art Sr. would sidle up to Artie [son, Art Rooney, Jr.] and say, “You took the wrong guy.” Michael MacCambridge, “Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work,” University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016 On a snowy Sunday in January, 1985, I met Art Rooney, Jr. [known as Artie by his family] at St. Francis College in Loretto, Pa. The visit had nothing to do with the Steelers, but had everything to do with my job recruiting athletes as the head football coach at the college. At the time, Art, Jr. was personnel director for the Steelers, and he was the one who led the drafting for the four Super Bowl teams of the 1970s. It was a nice visit except for one nagging question that I as a devout Steelers fans wanted to ask him on that day — but the timing was not r...

... LSU behind Ohio State, whose schedule is 29th in the country When Lousiana State University defeated the Crimson Tide of Alabama, scoring 46 points against the then-undefeated Tide that has won more national titles in this century than the Big Ten combined, everyone figured that the LSU Tigers would be the number one seed in the College Football Playoffs as long as they defeated Georgia for the SEC title. However, the CFP committee, which includes a slew of over-the-hill septuagenarian coaches, has Ohio State at the top of its list today despite LSU being about 30 points better in each of the national polls. Note that in addition to defeating Alabama, the Tigers knocked off seventh-ranked Florida and will face fourth-ranked Georgia in the SEC title game. About those Buckeyes According to the Sagarin rankings, the Buckeyes has played the 29th strongest schedule in the country. Woeful. They have played no one of any quality outside the Big Ten, and as I have written befo...

... my note to Gov. Tom Wolf Dear Gov. Wolf, You are no doubt aware of the first part of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State …” Well, it appears that the nefarious Cleveland Browns are in Pittsburgh for another football game against our beloved Steelers. However, while they have not won in the ‘’Burgh since 2003, the last game — in Cleveland — was a debacle, with a player taking a swing at our QB with his helmet. That player is gone, but the others who knocked out our beloved JuJu Smith-Schuster and our promising rookie Diontae Johnson are still there. In the interest of safety, you need to alert the state militias, the guard and reserves, to be ready for this violence. Please get them to Heinz Field ASAP. Rumor is that some fans with Cleveland Browns regalia are already in the stadium, so time is of the essence.  Sincerely, Hugh Conrad A quiet and reserved Steelers fan