Chuck Noll - His Life's Work

Have you read this book? I am it reading now. It is a pretty good read. It brings back a lot of memories of when I first became a Steelers fan and being a teenager during their 4 Super Bowl wins. I already know a lot of the stories from the America's Game series and The Football Life series, but the book gives good insight of how Noll valued the fundamentals. In that sense, he had a lot in common with Lombardi.

 

I got it two Christmases ago and really enjoyed it.

And thanks for the TV show tips. I'll check them out.

 

My son got it for me this past Christmas. Getting ready to dig into it soon!

 

Same here got it this past Christmas, also getting ready to dig in?

 

As I read Noll's book, one of his coaching philosophies was for each player to do his own job, thus the sum of all the individual parts would produce a team work result. As I look back at the Patriots loss, I see the Patriots closer to this philosophy than the Steelers. Someone tell me who was the last white Pro Bowl receiver. Steve Largent? Yet our secondary let Chris Hogan slash them as if he was the second coming of Don Huston or Raymond Berry.

The two greatest points I have learned about Chuck Noll is his understanding of the importance of a smart offensive line and defense wins championships. He cut his teeth as an offensive lineman and started his coaching career on the defensive side of the game. Go back to the 2005 and 2008 seasons, these teams were closer to the Noll philosophy. Probably the difference between Troy Polamalu and Mike Mitchell.

 

Travis Kelce
Greg Olsen
Rob Gronkowski (unanimous)
Jordy Nelson
Wes Welker

Not sure where you're going with this. I don't know the racial demographics of the NFL receiving pool over the past decade or so, but I'd have to guess its pretty strongly skewed toward African-Americans. When viewed in that light, the All Pro makeup doesn't seem out of line.

 

Thanks, I forgot about Jordy Nelson. Wes Welker, was he really a pro bowler or the product of the system? The other three you listed were tight ends, albeit they flanked wide as receivers. My point is Noll asked everyone to do their job, even though he had four hall of fame players and at least 3 or 4 others that were pro bowl type players. The current Steelers defense is not up to par even to the 2005 and 2008 teams, much less to the teams of the 1970s. I do like the improvements they have made the past few years in Shazier, Heyward, Tuitt, plus the 2016 rookies. Even before 1972, the steelers defense was starting to gel under Noll. Noll understood the finer points of the game, similar to Lombardi and Belichick.