Let's Talk Bill Cowher

94 - come on now------- we should have blown them out 13-3 at half where we had 240 yds of offense and they had 1 first down and cower decides to play marty ball and takes air out of ball. until the last drive I think odonell threw ball 6x in second half.... Wasnt the Mcker play 4 and 13? OMG I just threw up in my mouth. That loss was devastating...........

 

I think it was 3rd down.
I agree Cowher shut it down, but they were 9-0 when leading at the half that season. The strategy had worked.
They still ended up 3 yards, or a deflected pass, away from winning.

 

Watching old/new interviews of our 70's players along with sports analyst they attribute Noll to having his players perform their skills to perfection. Noll was all about proper execution they have said. I think we had smart players too. Jack Ham, Lambert, Mike Wagner to name a few. I don't think it was 100% of athleticism with Noll. I'm guessing he insisted the players had to have somewhat upstairs strengths also.

 

That loss absolutely can not be defended, the Steelers were 11 pt favorites at home against a very average at best Chargers team who never should of been in the game, considering the Steelers hadn't been to the Super Bowl in 15 years at that time it was absolutely the worst loss in Steelers history.

 

It is funny how Cowher is remembered. There are many who think he's so much better than Tomlin. But Cowher lost a lot big games and took a lot of heat for it at the time.

Reminds me of the joke: How many Pittsburghers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Ans: 3, one to change the bulb, and 2 to remimisce about how great the old bulb was.

To me, the similarities are more interesting. Neither were very good X and O guys, and both got out coached when they played good strategic coaches. Both were skewered for their cop or clock management. Both made emotional decisions, sometimes caution to the wind and go on 4th down, other times cautious to a fault. Both were better at over achieving on D vs O. Both were players coaches, that motivated their players, and more often than not, the team bought into their message.

 

4 words: The loss to Tebow

 

I'm not defending the loss, but I'm not going to pin it squarely on Cowher. They were in a position to win at the end of the game. Cowher had winning through attrition down to a science.
The 2 SB losses were worse, imo. I don't speak about the Tebow loss.

 

I remember wondering after that game if the Steelers would ever go to another Super Bowl.

 

Agree to disagree. I have a hard time calling a defense with Steve Atwater, Bill Romanowski, and Neil Smith mediocre. Pittsburgh's window was almost closed by that point. Took them 3-4 years to reload.

 

The Tebow loss was bad cause it was Tebow but we were not going anywhere that year. The next week we were gonna be in new england. LMAO

 

I just watched some of that 94 game and foster fumbled in redzone that probably would have put us up 14-0 and probably would have changed that game completely. Too bad there wasnt review back then cause his knee was down............

 

But he never had a great QB for most his career coaching the Steelers!

Can we all agree neither Cowher nor Tomlin has won any rings without Ben.

 

We can agree about the Ben bit. I will say Cowher's best game as a coach was SB XXX. I just don't know why he wasn't as urgent in other playoff games.

 

That was an embarrassing loss. Absolutely the worst QB the Steelers have lost to in the playoffs.

 

Agree 100%

 

Oh one more thing about watching that 94 championship game. I forgot how great levon kirkland was. Absolute beast. to bad he never had sack totals for strong considerations for hall.

 

Whoever says the Tebow game was a worst loss than that 94 championship game is either too young or is lying to themselves, almost every Steelers fan was practically looking past the Chargers to the Super Bowl. We were an 11 pt favorite at home playing a west coast team with freaking Stan Humphries as the Qb, mind you the Steelers hadn't been to a Super Bowl since 1979 everyone had our Super Bowl ticket punched.

Losing that game was like a stomach punch i didnt read a sports page for weeks or watch one second of the Super Bowl, no other Steelers loss hurt as much, only 2001 came close.

The 2 Superbowl losses where against a great team(Dallas) and a great QB (Rodgers), and thr other Championship losses were 1997, 2004, 2016 were not surprising.

A

 

Also all this nonsense with AB and Bell doing Facebook live or making videos would not be happening. AB would of been put in check by Cowher. Bell's video isn't causing problems, but he shouldn't even bother to respond to the Cowboy lover Skip Bayless. Tomlin's a good coach, but has had talent from the day he got the job. Plus Tomlin's SB came with all Cowher's guys. In 2010 was a mixture of Tomlin and Cowher players. Cowher made it to two SB's and won one with his own players. Tomlin got to two as well and won one as well, but they weren't with all his players. So I think the critiquing of Tomlin should start in 2010-present. It's a toss up to me on who's a better coach.

 

The problem is, there no way to know that, given the different contexts of social media usage.

But for ****s and giggles, here's a question: who said the following, after a player was arrested for the second time in a matter of months of being drafted?

"Whatever he did wrong, I don't think he handled it properly. I think he'll learn from it and understand the scrutiny he's under. We have not talked face to face about it. I don't have any long-term concerns."

It was Cowher. But it's not a world away from something you could hear Tomlin saying. I don't think one is more iron-fisted than the other. I think both of them have a similar line on player discipline.

(The player was Santonio Holmes.)

 

A loss to New England and we are back to arguing whether Tomlin won with Cowher's players or not. Hell Belichick has been winning with other people's players for years now. How come we aren't arguing about that?

 

Your right Belichick has been winning with other outcasts for a long time. In the league now there's nobody better. The question was basically do you think Cowher was a good coach? He listed some of Cowher's resume and said Tomlin hasn't had a losing season. So you have to bring up Tomlin won with Cowher's guys if your going to say Tomlin's always had a winning season. Personally I think they were both good coaches, but I think Tomlin's had more talent overall. I think Cowher drafted better especially on the defensive side of the ball. That's just my opinion.

 

IMHO, Cowher is HOF worthy. There's no need to compare him to Tomlin, they weren't head coaches at the same time. As far as Tomlin winning with Cowher's players, there is no guarantee that had Cowher stuck around he would have won. We hope he would have, but 2006 happened.

 

Agreed!

 

They were tough that's for sure but we did take it to them that game. Bettis in his prime, but Stewart had an awful game.