AAron will be talking to the Steelers today

He didn’t exactly deal with Bradshaw real well

 

The Tommy Gunn experience was an outlier more than a proven fact. Maddox in combination with Ward and Burress had a great statistical year because at that time teams had to stack the box to slow Bettis up. The following years debacle of switching to an air attack was one of the worst decisions Cohwer was ever convinced to do. When there wasn't the threat of Bettis pounding down the defense they could cover the air attack and get pressure on Maddox. Bettis needed those 10-15 carries in the first half to warm up and wear a defense down. Trying to jump start him late in the fourth was an abject failure. Is it really a surprise that it was the only time he changed things from the concepts Marty taught him? If they hadn't try to change who the Steelers are the Tommy Gunn offense quite possibly would have had another statistically impressive year.

 

Bradshaw was a headcase and asked to be traded. Noll refused and stuck with him and eventually things worked out really well. Bradshaw respects the hell out of Noll to this day. Id say Noll handled bradshaw as well as one could.

Tomlin wouldve traded Bradshaw the first chance he got. Probably the same with Cowher

 

This is a great example of what I've been talking about with the Steelers letting players force their way off the team in recent years. The whole volunteers, not hostages thing is nonsense. It is bad coaching. If a player who can help the team is disgruntled, the coach's job is to straighten him out, not ship him out. Not that I think Pickett was going to be great, but giving up on him rather than trying to settle him down after they guaranteed Wilson the starting job was a failure by Tomlin.

 

Actually they can and back then when top 10 picks held teams up for millions of dollars before even seeing the field there was language put into contracts and bonus structures that prevented or incentivized players from taking risks like riding a donor cycle without a helmet to protect their investment.

 

Sorry, but I'm not wearing a helmet to give blood. I don't care how much my signing bonus was.

 

My Uncle has literally had his life saved by wearing a helmet well over 10 times in his lifetime but when he came out for a visit and found out that there is no helmet law in North Dakota, off his helmet came. Tried telling him about stupid NoDak drivers but he was like meh it's fine.

 

Yes

No

 

to your No reply. Or Tomlin would've coddled Bradshaw and he would've never seen his true potential.

 

Yep. People love recalling the glory we had with Terry but there was a lot of turbulence in those years.

 

I recall the Braves pitchers who ruined the Pirates last real chance were PO'd they had to limit golfing during season. I think Mike Trout (he was at my driving range a few years back) is not allowed to play golf during baseball season.

 

Though it is tough to compare quarterbacks in the early '70s to quarterbacks today, there is a good argument to be made that Bradshaw's first two seasons were significantly worse than Pickett's. He led the league with 24 interceptions and only threw six touchdowns as a rookie, then added 22 more picks in his second year. Given Tomlin's "volunteers, not hostages" nonsense and Bradshaw's extremely poor play, it is very likely that Tomlin would have granted him his desire by trading him well before Bradshaw finally grabbed the starting job and never let go in 1974.

 

Huh?

 

Does the contract say what mode of transportation to use? Really?

 

I’m suggesting that exactly.

you’re saying because cowher couldn’t get Ben to do non-football related things as per nazi type mandates, then Ben wouldn’t have listened to football matters. I totally disagree with that, and find making that connection flawed.

Unless stipulated by a contract what one does with their free time, one is not obligated to obey their boss on their free time. It’s rather simple logic.

 

really? Is that factual or conjecture?

if it’s fact that Ben violated his contract, then there serious issues.

 

Well I'm sure glad he did because...

 

Jason Williams 2003 donorcycle accident

 

Someone argued that Tomlin would have traded Bradshaw at the first opportunity, and perhaps Cowher would have as well. Jeh simply wrote no without any argument or context. I chose to respond to the part about Tomlin. Given that he was so quick to unload Pickett, I pointed out that Bradshaw was far worse during his first two seasons in the NFL, which supports the idea that Tomlin would have moved on from him long before he finally kept the job.

I'm not so sure about Cowher, who was overly patient with Kordell Stewart. I imagine he would have been at least that patient with Bradshaw.

 

I don't think it was in his contract that he couldn't do it, but the team threatened to come after his signing bonus if he got hurt while riding.

I brought it up more as a way to show that Cowher couldn't get Bradshaw to listen during those early seasons.

 

Like you said. Its hard to compare the two eras they are vastly different. The QB position is more important for success in todays NFL. QB’s now have a very small time period too prove themselves often one season two at most before teams move on. Albamas coach said it best about rookie first round QB’s today in the NFL. The pressure on them is immense to succeed in their first year. The way the system is setup it really is an injustice to them truly developing and flourishing. He said in the old NFL it was traditional for these guys to sit for a few years and learn behind a veteran QB. Most don’t have that luxury.

I think the ideal situation for a rookie QB is to be surrounded by a really good organization with veteran talent with solid coaching. Teams like this can go to from good to great if they get the right rookie QB and develop him. Our problem is we still don’t have the team built up enough yet, especially on the line and I am convinced we have below average coaching.

Certain teams have their system down and they have sound fundamental positional coaches so they know how to coach up players and develop them. We seem to rely on drafting high pedigree players (which is great) and hoping they will become leaders to lead the rest of the team. Then we often try to force players with specific talents into positions or roles within a scheme that may not fit their talents (see Najee, See Dotson, See Benton, See Minkah last year) asa few examples. What’s alarming to me is I had thought we had our system down on the defensive side of the ball but it is apparent we still don’t. Ever since we drifted away from the Lebeaue defense we slowly started to digress on defense until you have what we have today, which is an overpriced defense which underperforms. It lacks no innovation or creativity. It plays conservative to limit the big play and force a turnover with everything revolving around QB pressure. If that fails the whole defense fails.
No 3 and outs, no shutting down the run game consistently. Its let them complete the pass and tackle the catch.

Sorry I digressed. Teams like LA Rams, Denver, Minnesota, Miami and SF have offensive minded coaches and great systems in place. Those teams don’t necessarily need great QB’s to be still be good teams and good offenses. However once you get a good QB on those teams they turn into great offenses. They are QB friendly systems. I’m not sure Tomlin and his style is QB friendly. On defense his system certainly isn’t DB or ILB friendly. Good coaches can take mediocre talent and make it good and good talent and make it great by putting the players in position to succeed through innovative schemes and having good positional coaches. We lack in the innovative scheme on both sides of the ball and with the positional coaches with the lone exception of our Defensive Line coach.

 

Tomlin has been quicker on the trade trigger in more recent years. It has been argued he hangs onto players too long as well.
I don't know with Bradshaw. Very possible once he asked to be traded he would get his wish with Tomlin. He wasn't a bigger knucklehead than young Ben though.

 

I can't say for sure, but some pro athletes have it in their contract they can't ride motor bikes etc.

 

No, but he was a far worse player early in his career.