Watch Tower: Dissention in Pittsburgh Over Jonathan Dwyer? Plus Hail to the Chief, Art Rooney Sr.

Cut down day always brings a flurry of news around the NFL, this year things were more active than ever at the South Side as the Steelers 2013 Roster contained some surprises, giving the Watch Tower plenty to focus on. And it begins by shining its light on a story that wasn’t told.

Dwyer:  The Glory and Agony of 140 Characters 

The biggest cut that the Steelers made the release of Jonathan Dwyer. Dwyer was not only their season leading rusher, he was also the only healthy back.

• Nonetheless, he got a visit from the Turk.

The fact that Dwyer’s roster spot was in jeopardy was not a surprise in Steelers Nation. On the blogesphere, (or at least at Behind the Steel Curtain) several articles and many fan exchanges rested on the premise that the numbers game would dictate that either Dwyer or Isaac Redman would be a goner.

But among the professional press, the conventional wisdom was that Dwyer was safe, esp. in light of the injury to Le’Veon Bell, as Jim Wexell’s tweet indicates.

This is why #Steelers wouldn't have cut Dwyer. They can win with him as feature back.
— James C Wexell (@jimwexell) August 15, 2013

To be fair, the arrival of Felix Jones complicated the picture, but the move to cut Dwyer was nonetheless a surprise.

Shortly after the move became public, Mark Kaboly  of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review dropped a bomb via Twitter:

One last thing on Dwyer ... it wasn't the coaching staff that wanted him gone.
— Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly_Trib) September 2, 2013

In journalism speak, Kabloy had a scoop.

News of the front office overruling the coaching staff on a personnel selection, regarding a past and potential future starter, is a tremendous news coup for Kaboly. In fact, such a morsel literally screams for more.

• Yet none was forth coming.

Not in the regular Tribune Review, not in the Steel Mill Blog (which still remains inaccessible from the Trib’s main Steelers site – yours truly had thought the blog had gone dark and needed to find it by Googling it), not anywhere else.

To make matters worse, Kabloy himself seemed to validate the need for more information in an additional Tweet.

24 hours later and it still makes no sense whey #Steelers released Dwyer.
— Mark Kaboly (@MarkKaboly_Trib) September 1, 2013

• The Watch Tower agrees… or at least it makes no sense that a further explanation was given.

Kaboly obviously learned that Dwyer had supporters on the coaching staff, perhaps the entire coaching staff, but that they were overruled by someone else in the organization, and since you can rule out the business and scouting departments, that leaves the front office.

Which means that someone named Colbert and/or someone name Rooney spoke up on the issue. What happened?

• Did the coaches split and Colbert/Rooney provided the deciding influence?
• Were the coaches united, but a cap conscious Kevin Colbert, with backing from Rooney, overruled them?
• Or did Art Rooney II just pull rank?

We know from Bob Labriola’s tweets that coaches had concerns about Dwyer, but no matter how you slice it there’s a story screaming to be told there, and one that goes far beyond the confines of Twitter’s 140 characters.

5 Bars of Hail to The Chief

August 25 marked the 25th Anniversary of the passing of a legend, namely the death of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr.

The death of Art Rooney Sr. was a touchstone moment for me, as it coincided with my renewed following of the team (not very easy to do from suburban Maryland in the pre-internet era.)

And although his passing had little impact on the Steelers, clearly Pittsburgh lost some of its finest citizens then.

• Credit the Post-Gazette for remembering the anniversary.

It was entirely appropriate to do so and the Tribune Review did not run anything on the Chief. Neither did ESPN, nor did any of the other major fan sites.

• Yet the commemorative piece(s) were not without problems.

The article dealt with the way in which the five Rooney sons divided their father’s possessions, and then offered perspectives on how each of the five Rooney sons, Dan, Art Jr., Tim, John, and Pat, felt about that day and provided some insights into the relationships that the men had with their father.

• The real issue was with the Post-Gazette’s presentation of the articles. There was one article which told the entire story. And then there were five other articles on each of the Rooney brothers.

The problem was that the individual pieces on the Rooney brothers were written as part of a single story, and not intended to be stand alone pieces. So if you clicked on one of the individual links, such as the story on Tim Rooney, the stories were disjointed, making references to events in other stories.

The Post Gazette did later provide some clarifying text and a link to the main story, but that was only after several people complained via Facebook.

PG Takes Shot at SEO?

One possible reason behind the Post-Gazette’s decision to publish multiple articles on the Rooney brothers is to catch more search engine traffic.

• SEO, for those not familiar with the term, is the art of trying to get your pages to rank well on Google (and Bing, for what that’s worth) so that you get more visitors to your site.

While the Watch Tower has not (yet) done any comprehensive assessment of how the various major Steelers news sites fare in SEO, some cursoury analysis shows them lagging behind the competition.

Search rankings for major Steelers related stories are frequently dominated by the likes of Behind the Steel Curtain and the Bleacher Report.

The decision to break the Rooney stories up into multiple pieces, could be a step towards changing that, as could their decision to create a separate landing page for what has been a rather impressive series of regular season previews.

Post-Gazette Goof on Dwyer

While the Post-Gazette’s regular season preview coverage was generally very good, they did let one rather glaring error slip through in Ed Bouchette’s Five Keys piece as the screen shot reveals:

Jonathan Dwyer had been cut by the time this ran...

• The problem with this piece is that Jonathan Dwyer had already been cut by the time this article ran.

Its normal (and highly advisable) to write stories like this in advance of publication, but going back and making these corrections is also necessary.

Steelers Today Goes Dark?

Finally, the Watch Tower notes, and laments, what appears to be the passing of a long established, well written fan site Steelers Today.

Steelers Today has been around for several years, dating back to about 2006 if memory serves. While the site was known for long periods of inactivity during the off season, it had been active up until the NFL draft.

However, attempts to access it now reveal that the domain registry has expired, seemingly signaling that the days one of the more prominent fan-based sites has unfortunately come to an end.

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Steelers Hall of Famer Jack Butler, 1927-2013

Former Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame cornerback and long time BLESTO Director Jack Butler has died after a long battle with a staph infection he received as the result of an artificial knee transplant.

Butler was 85, and is survived by his wife and 15 grand children, and 8 children, including his son Mike, who recently joined the Steelers scouting department.

Unknown to the last several generations of fans in Steelers Nation, Jack Butler was a star on the SOS squads “Same Old Steelers.” As the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1950’s struggled in mediocrity, Jack Butler was building a Hall of Fame resume as a cornerback.

According to the obituary published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review by Bob Cohn, Butler intercepted 5 passes as a rookie.

The Steelers were on the road and losing 13-0 to the Washington Redskins and despite out rushing and out passing the Redskins all day, Butler had intercepted the legendary Eddie LeBaron 3 times.

As told by Tim Gleason in his classic, From Black to Gold, the Steelers scored a face-saving touchdown late in the 4th to make it 13-7. Butler intercepted LeBaron a still NFL record 4th time, returning the ball for a pick-six and leading the Steelers to victory.

Butler’s career was cut short in 1959 when he blew out a knee, which is a shame because he’d intercepted 19 passes in his final two seasons – an even more remarkable feat when you consider that Butler only played 12 game seasons in an era where a team that threw 20 passes a game was considered “pass happy.”

All told Butler played in four Pro Bowls, three All NFL teams and the NFL’s All Decade team for the 1950’s. As of May 2012, Butler stands tied for 15th on the NFL’s All Time career interception list, picking off legendary quarterbacks such as Sammy Baugh, Johnny Unitas, Otto Graham, Y.A. Tittle and Norm Van Brocklin.

Butler even saw spot duty at wide receiver, catching 7 passes and took four of them into the end zone for four touchdowns.

From Being the Talent on the Field to Finding the Talent to Field

After retiring from the game, Jack Butler first dabbled as an assistant coach and then join the BLESTO scouting combine, serving as its director from 1966 to 2006.

BLESTO stands for Bears Lions Eagles Steelers Talent Organization, and was formed when player data on NFL prospects was far from ubiquitous as it is today.

In his capacity as BLESTO scout, Butler hired and/or trained hundreds of NFL scouts, including former Pittsburgh Steelers Director of Football Operations Tom Donahoe and current Steelers General Manager Kevin Colbert.

From his perch at BLESTO Butler also had a hand, at least indirectly, on the scouting reports that Chuck Noll used to select Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Blount, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Rod Woodson, and Dermontti Dawson – all of whom are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Jack Butler, Man of Class, Man of No Regrets

Injuries didn’t simply end Jack Butler’s NFL career, they impacted the rest of his life. He under went multiple surgeries, walked with a limp for over 50 years, and had both knees replaced – and it was the latter knee replacement which lead to the staph infection which cost him his life.

• Butler, however, had no regrets.

As Ed Bouchette recounted in the his obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, When asked by Art Rooney Jr. if given the constant pain he struggled with, Butler would do it again, the former Pro Bowl cornerback did not flinch, telling Rooney, “’He said, “Playing football was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If I could go out today and suit up, I would do it.”'"

Butler was also a class act, drawing praise from Dan Rooney who said “He was an excellent person both on and off the field, and he played an integral role in the BLESTO scouting program and our entire draft process before his retirement.”

Art Rooney II followed suit, explaining that “Jack Butler was one of the all-time great Steelers. He devoted his entire life to the NFL and made contributions to many teams and many players through his work with BLESTO and player personnel matters.”

Kevin Colbert’s comments were perhaps the most effusive:

Jack was a great person and great friend who always placed his faith and family first. Beyond his great play on the field, he was a legendary personnel man who helped so many of us get established in our scouting careers. He will be missed, but never forgotten.

It is fair to say that a majority of Steelers fans who’ve rooted for their beloved Black and Gold without knowing who Jack Butler was, but they certainly are well acquainted with his legacy.

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Pittsburgh Steelers 2013 Draft Needs Matrix

Depending on whose mock draft you read, during the 2013 NFL Draft the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to take:

• Linebacker Jarvis Jones of Georgia, and if not…
• Safety Kenny Vaccar of Texas, and if not…
• Tight End Tyler Eifert from Notre Dame, and if not…
• Cornerback Dee Milliner from Alabama, and if not…
• Wide Receiver Tavon Austin from West Virginia, and if not…
• Safety Eric Reid from LSU

…And if its not one of the above players the Steelers certainly will take some other highly hyped college prospect in the first round.

Of course you know all of that.

Now here’s something you’re not likely to read on any other Steelers site, with or without a mock draft:

• Steel Curtain Rising will neither offer an opinion on who the Steelers will or should draft

Regular readers know this blog is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where suffice to say college football is not a sports programming priority. (Neither is the NFL, but at least there’s the Sunday Ticket.) Truth be told, I never followed the college game much when I still lived in the US.

But what I can do is focus on the Steelers Needs...

Breaking Down the Steelers 2013 NFL Draft Needs

...And needs the Steelers have a plenty. Unlike previous years, you have to go all the way to kickers and punters to find an area the Steelers can safely avoid in the draft.

Here’s another confession. Due to time constraints, I was not planning on doing individual needs analysis, but there was no way to construct a Steelers Draft Needs Matrix without doing so.

Even then evaluating the Steelers 2013 Draft Needs is difficult because of the conflict between short-term and long-term needs. The Steelers have both, and they don’t always over lap.

The temptation on the South Side to focus on the short term has to be strong.

• Kevin Colbert, Mike Tomlin and Art Rooney II must resist that temptation.

Focusing on short term needs is one of the things that caused the Steelers Dynasty of the 70’s to collapse under its own weight. With so many entrenched Super Bowl starters, Dick Haley, Art Rooney Jr. and yes, Chuck Noll, stopped focusing on taking the best player available, and drafted with any eye toward their depth chart, out thinking themselves into going for guys that other teams some how missed on.

Heaven only knows how many future Pro Bowlers the Steelers passed on in the late 1970’s based on the assumption that “there’s no way this kid can beat out Dwight White, even if he is getting old….”

Worse yet, focusing on the short term can cause a team to reach, as it did in the 1999 Draft when they picked Troy Edwards and Scott Shields 1 and 2, both men turning out to be horrendous busts.

And let’s acknowledge that the temptation for this kind of thinking has to be strong, given that Ben Roethlisberger’s window as a viable Super Bowl quarterback could be narrowing quickly, if the injuries of the past two seasons are any indication.

• But focus on the long term the Steelers must.

2013 Steelers Draft-Needs Matrix

And that brings us to the Steelers 2013 Draft Needs Matrix.

This matrix is not intended to suggest that the Steelers should target (aka “reach”) for players in this particular order. Rather, it is intended to guide the choice that must be made when the clock begins ticking, and there are two players of equal, or near equal, value on the board.

In developing this Steelers Draft Needs Matrix, absolute need is balanced against long term vs. short term need, with long term need getting the higher priority.

In that respect, safety takes precedence over linebacker, simply because the Steelers are order and thinner at safety with virtual novices playing behind Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark.

And outside linebacker takes precedence over inside linebacker because there’s just a little more depth and a few more players under contract for a longer time than at inside linebacker, and so on down the line.

Steelers 2013 Draft-Needs Matrix:
(click on the position title for a detailed needs analysis)

• Safety takes precedence over Outside Linebacker
• Outside Linebacker takes precedence over Inside Linebacker
• Inside Linebacker take precedence over tight end and wide receiver
• Tight End (barely) takes precedence over Wide Receiver
• Wide Receiver takes precedence over running back
• Running Back takes precedence over defensive line
• Defensive Line takes precedence over offensive line
• Offensive Line takes precedence over cornerback
• Cornerback takes precedence over Quarterback

And for heaven sakes, the Steelers should not even be thinking of drafting a kicker!

Note, however, that there is a very, very fine line separating the needs outlined below. Really, the Steelers needs, long and short term, at any of the positions mentioned above save for quarterback could merit a first round pick if the right man is available.

It’s not likely that a top ten prospect like David DeCastro could fall to the Steelers as happened last year or as happened in 1987 with Rod Woodson, but that’s the beauty of the draft.

Enjoy the 2013 NFL, my fellow citizens of Steelers Nation because our beloved Black and Gold’s ability to bagging Lombardi Number Seven during the Roethlisberger era likely depends on Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert getting this draft right.

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In Memory of Rita McGinley, Part Owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers

Long time Pittsburgh Steelers minority owner Rita McGinley has passed away.

Rita McGinley was the daughter of Barney McGinley who bought out Bert Bell’s shares of the Steelers when Bell became NFL commissioner. She was related to the Rooney’s by marriage as her brother Jack McGinley was married to Art Rooney Sr.’s sister Marie.

McGinley Loyal to Her Community and Her Team

McGinley was a graduate of Carlow College (then known as Mount Mercy) where she earned a degree in biology, graduating in 1940. She went on to teach at Braddock High and Woodlawn Hills High.

Rita McGinley was not a silent partner in the Steelers. In her obituary on Steelers.com Art Rooney II went at great pains to say that she watched games at Three Rivers Stadium and Heinz Field for as long as she could, always attended shareholder meetings, and was a frequent presence at training camp.

Like her brother before her, Rita McGinley was fiercely loyal to both the Rooney’s and the Steelers.

During the Steelers ownership restructuring of 2008, it became known that shortly after the death of Art Rooney Sr. a representative of an investor approached Jack McGinley asking him if he would be interested in parting with his shares of the Steelers. (Sorry, no link available.)

McGinley promptly told the said representative that his patron could keep his money and while he held on to his share of the Steelers. After McGinley passed away in 2006, a similar offer was made to his heirs.

That suitor was none other that Stanley Druckenmiller, who of course emerged in 2008 with his attempt to buy out the shares of Tim, John, Pat, and Art Rooney, Jr. after Roger Goodell ordered the Rooney family to divest itself of either the Steelers or its horse racing interests.

• For a time there it seemed like the Rooneys could lose control of the Steelers.

But Rita McGinley made it clear in an interview that she was not parting with her shares of the team, no matter what price was offered to her.

True to her word, she retained her 10% stake in the Steelers when the ownership restructuring was complete. It is unknown who now inherits those shares.

Friend to Carlow College and St. Vincents

While part ownership of the Pittsburgh Steelers may have earned Rita McGinley notoriety, “The best description of her is that she was a teacher and philanthropist who happened to have an interest in a football team,” explained her Jack McGinley in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

McGinley was generous with her wealth, donating 5 million dollars to Carlow College where she founded the Rita McGinley Center for Student Success. Mary Hines, President of Carlow College, told the Tribune-Review that was a very dear friend of the university who truly exemplified what a Carlow alum is and what they value.”

• She also endowed a chair at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe to help perpetuate the legacy of Pittsburgh icon Fred Rodgers.

St. Vincent’s College is well known to Steelers Nation for the obvious reason, but Carlow College might very well be new for many. Situated on “17 glorious acres  in the Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, Carlow is a small, traditionally female, Catholic liberal arts school sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy.

In the generations when female higher education was the exception and not the rule, Carlow severed as a gateway to a college degree to thousands of young women in Western Pennsylvania, including my aunt and my mother.

Thanks, in part, to Rita McGinley’s generosity that door will remain open, and perhaps that will be her most enduring legacy.

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Steelers Nation: "Generation Immaculate Reception" Celebrates 40 Years

Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris connected through the Immaculate Reception on December, 23rd 1972, combining to make the most spectacular play in football history.

The play happened precisely a week before my 4 month birthday, making me a member of Steelers Nation’s post Immaculate Reception generation.

Comprehending what that means requires knowing what came before, experiencing what followed, and appreciating the almost super natural aspect of what occurred on that day. Scroll down or click on the links below to reach each thread of this incredible story.

The Post Immaculate Reception Steelers
The Pre-Immaculate Reception Pittsburgh Steelers
The Immaculate Reception – A Franchises’s Fortunes Change

The Post Immaculate Reception Steelers

While the Steelers lost in the following week to Don Shula’s perfect 1972 Dolphins team, the Immaculate Reception ushered in an unheralded era of pro football prosperity. Since that fateful the Pittsburgh Steelers have:

• Won 6 Super Bowls, more than any other team
• Played in 8 Super Bowls, tying the mark for championship appearances
• Achieved a winning record in 32 of those 40 years, again, more than anyone else
• Posted an overall winning percentage that is better than any other NFL team
• Sent 64 players on the NFL's All Pro Teams, more than any other franchise
• Never once did they win fewer than 5 games something that no one else in the NFL can say 

These stats come courtesy of Tim Gleason, author of From Black to Gold, whose article on the Immaculate Reception on Behind the Steel Curtain is simply one of the best articles on the Pittsburgh Steelers I have ever read (full disclosure - I also writer for BTSC.)

Pittsburgh measures success in Super Bowls. Few other NFL cities can make that claim. Its often said that Steelers fans are spoiled, and to a large extent that’s true.

No other NFL franchise can match the Steelers record of success, stability and sustained since that day in December 1972.

The Pre-Immaculate Reception Steelers

The Immaculate Reception was also the Steelers first playoff victory.

• That’s hard for many fans to fathom, just as it was hard for me to grasp as a child.

The morning after the Penguins most recent Stanley Cup victory, I declared that Pittsburgh was once again the City of Champions.

In doing so, I shared memories of seeing framed copies of the Sports Illustrated cover featuring Terry Bradshaw and Willie Stargell adorning walls that overlooked barbershop counters where Iron City Steelers Championship cans were proudly displayed.

An unremarkable memory, until you consider the fact that Dino’s barbershop lay in Aspen Hill, Maryland, which is about 10 miles from the DC border.

But to a 7 year old all of this was "normal." Neither of my parents followed sports closely, but as a child I naturally asked them if they’d similarly been Steelers fans growing up.

“You don’t understand, the Steelers and Pirates were terrible when we were growing up,” was the response.

The Pirates did have their moments in the sun, but the Pittsburgh Steelers were a paragon to futility for 40 years. Aside from failing to win a playoff game, the pre-Immaculate Reception Steelers could “boast” of:

• A single playoff appearance (a 1962 loss to Detroit)
• A mere 8 winning seasons and 5 more seasons at .500
• Not even allowing Johnny Unitas, perhaps the best quarterback ever to play, to throw a pass in practice before giving him his walking papers
• Cutting Len Dawson, future Super Bowl Champion and NFL Hall of Famer
• Trading Bill Neilson away for nothing to the arch-rival Cleveland Browns where he’d appear in two NFL Championships
• Passing on future Hall of Famers Bill Schmidt and Lenny Moore opting to pick dud Gerry Glick in the later case
• Stubbornly sticking to the obsolete Single Wing formatting deep into the 50’s

The pre-Immaculate Reception Pittsburgh Steelers also suffered their share of bad luck.

Legendary Pitt coach Jock Sutherland coached the Steelers two winning seasons following World War II, but unfortunately died after the 1947 season on a scouting trip. Joe Bach was also making progress towards building a winner, until health problems forced him form the game.

Then there was Gene Lipscomb aka “Big Daddy” tragic death to heroin in 1963. Former Colorado stand out Byron White led the NFL in scoring, rushing, and total offense in 1938, but decided to study for a year at Oxford and played for Detroit in 1940. (White later went on to the US Supreme Court.)

The Steelers just couldn't seem to get a break.

The Immaculate Reception -- A Franchise's Fortunes Change

The root of many if not all of the Steelers ills for those 40 years was the simple fact that Art Rooney Sr., for as decent and honorable of a man he was, was as bad at picking coaches as he was good at handicapping horses.

Dan Rooney began to take over control of the Steelers in the 1960’s while Art Rooney Jr. began building the scouting department. Rooney in fact influenced his father’s decision to fire the mercurial Buddy Parker, yet could not persuade The Chief to ignore Vince Lombardi’s advice to hire Bill Austin.

Austin failed after just two seasons, and Art Rooney Sr. finally relented in allowing Dan to conduct a thorough coaching search. Then, things began to change for the Pittsburgh Steelers:

• Rooney hired Chuck Noll, the first and as yet only NFL coach to win four Super Bowls
• The city of Pittsburgh agreed to build Three Rivers Stadium, giving the Steelers a modern home
• Noll selected future NFL Hall of Famer Joe Greene with his first pick in 1969 NFL Draft
• Terry Bradshaw, a future Hall of Famer, came to Steelers in the next year as the number one overall pick in the 1970s NFL Draft
• Jack Ham, another future NFL Hall of Famer followed in the second round of the 1971 NFL Draft

Chuck Noll entered the 1972 NFL Draft actually wanting to draft Robert Newhouse. But Art Rooney Jr. and Dan Radakvoich and prevailed on him to ignore Newhouse and instead take Penn State fullback Franco Harris.

• Finally, reason intervened in the draft room and tipped the scales in the Steelers favor to another Hall of Famer.

Still, when Harris first joined the Steelers, team capital Andy Russell feared he wouldn’t make it, as Harris seemed to shy from hitting holes.

Yet, in his first exhibition game start off tackle to the left, found nothing, planted his foot, and cut back to the right, exploding for a 75 yard touchdown. After the play Noll offered his running backs coach, Dick Hoak a simple instruction:

• “Dick, don’t over coach him.”

At 6’2” 220 lbs., Franco Harris was a big back for his day. Yet he was fast. He was also cerebral.

According to The Ones Who Hit the Hardest Harris once confided to NFL Films that “The art of running is being able to change and do things because what you thought would be there is not there.”

• That ability served Franco Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Steelers Nation extremely well on December 23rd 1972.

The Raiders and Steelers staged the first of many hard-fought battles those two teams would fight throughout the 1970’s. The score stood at 0-0 at the half, and the fourth quarter found the Steelers clinging to a 3 point lead.

John Madden benched starter Daryl Lamonica for of “The Snake” Ken Stabler. With just over a minute to play, Stabler exploited the weakness of a the Steeler Curtain without Dwight White, and ran 30 yards for a touchdown.

• Art Rooney Sr. had waited 40 years to taste playoff victory, and the Chief concluded he’d have to wait one more, heading to the locker room to console his team.

The Steelers got the ball back, but only advanced to their 40 by the time 22 seconds remained. The call was “66 Circle Option Play” to Barry Pearson.

Terry Bradshaw faded back. The Raiders laid in the blitz. Bradshaw evaded. Bradshaw stepped up. Bradshaw fired a missile downfield to Frenchy Fuqua. The ball soared downfield carrying with the momentum of 40 years of losing.

As the ball reached about the 30 it slammed into a wall created by a hellacious collision between Jack Tatum and Frency Fuqua ricocheting it backwards.

And in that instant, the fortunes of the Pittsburgh Steelers changed (available as of 12/31/12):


Certainly no one diagrammed “66 Circle Option Play” to end that way.

Was it luck or did a divine hand intervene to push the ball in Franco’s? I’ll lean towards the later, but you decide that question for yourself.

But there was nothing super natural about Franco being in the right place at the right time.

Franco Harris role in “66 Circle Option Play” was to block the outside linebacker. He wasn’t even supposed to be downfield. But when the linebacker didn’t appear, Franco took off feeling he might contribute elsewhere.

• As Chuck Noll explained, “Franco hustled on every play.” 

Fortune’s hand, in one form or fashion, opened the door between winning and losing for Pittsburgh, but it was Franco’s dedication and determination that drove the Steelers through it.

• And for 40 years the franchise has continued moving forward. 

Since then more Steelers seasons have ended at the Super Bowl than have ended as losing efforts.

Since that fateful day, “Steelers” has been synonymous with success, winning, and championships for an entire generation within Steelers Nation.

You can simply call us Generation Immaculate Reception.

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Jerome Bettis, Kevin Greene, and Bill Cowher Headline NFL Hall of Fame Ballot

Its only September, but the Pro Football Hall of Fame has already announced its list of eligible candidates for its 2013 class. Could this be another Black and Gold strewn summer in Canton?

It certainly is possible as several high-profile Steelers lead the lists. The Steelers best shot is Jerome Bettis, who played in the NFL for 13 years and retired after Super Bowl XL. Currently Bettis remains 6th on the list of All Time NFL rushers.

The Steelers next shot is likely former Head Coach Bill Cowher, who coached in Pittsburgh from 1992 to 2006, a span where the franchise won more games than any other NFL franchise. During that time Cowher only had 3 losing seasons, earned 8 AFC Central/AFC North division championships, 10 playoff appearances, two AFC Championships, and of course Super Bowl XL.

Gary Anderson is likewise eligible. Anderson of course played for six different NFL teams, but kicked in Pittsburgh from 1982 to 1994.

Kevin Greene only played 3 of his 15 NFL seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it was in the Black and Gold that Greene first won national acclaim. The Steelers also give Greene his only Super Bowl appearances, which came in their losing effort in Super Bowl XXX. Greene, a member of the Dick LeBeau coaching tree, did get a return trip to the Super Bowl, serving as the linebackers coach for the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV.

Art Rooney Jr.'s name once again is appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot. Often overlooked, Art Rooney Jr. is Dan Rooney's younger brother, and directed the Steelers scouting department and had a HUGE hand in drafting the players that would from the Super Steelers, who went to the mountain top in Super Bowl IX, Super Bowl X, Super Bowl XIII, and Super Bowl XIV.

Rooney Jr. probably will not make it in -- but that is a crime. He deserves induction into Canton, alongside his brother and father.

The HOF list also includes one strong Pittsburgh connection. Buddy Parker, who coached the Steelers from 1967 to 1954, appears on the list.  Parker was below .500 with the Steelers, barely, but did win two NFL Championships while coaching the Detroit Lions.

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Dermontti Dawson, Jack Butler Round Out Chuck Noll's Hall of Fame Resume

In 1987, Joe Greene and John Henry Johnson entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame together. Happy happenstance allowed the first Super Steeler to share this individual honor with a star from Pittsburgh’s SOS (same old Steelers) era.

Greene and Johnson had little in common beyond having worn the Black and Gold.

Scribes in Steelers Nation might be tempted to say the same thing about this past weekend’s induction of Dermontti Dawson and Jack Butler, but they’d be mistaken because the two men share a deeper, if latent, connection that spans several generations of Steelers football.

Dermontti Dawson – Succeeding a Legend

Men who follow legends generally fail, at least by comparison. Frank Pollard took Franco Harris’ place in Pittsburgh backfield, and while he did finish his career with a better yards-per carry average, Pollard’s sin was to be merely good instead of great.

Dermontti Dawson followed legendary Pittsburgh center Mike Webster, and in a very literal sense of the word, he succeeded his predecessor.

Success on offense starts with the offensive line but, in an ironic twist of fate, few metrics exist to evaluate offensive lineman. They accumulate no yards, score no points, make no splash plays. Instead, their efforts empower others to make plays.

Dermontti Dawson claims his share of success in this regard, because Dawson:

• Opened holes for 1000 yard rushers Jerome Bettis and Barry Foster
• Did road grading that allowed the troika of Erric Pegram, Bam Morris, and John L. Williams to help Pittsburgh to Super Bowl XXX
• Blocked and pulled open the door to Merril Hoge’s cult-hero status

“Pulling” is perhaps Dawson’s greatest legacy. Prior to Dawson, only guards pulled.

Outside of quarterback, the center has the most difficult job on the offense.

He’s got to keep one hand on the ball, pay attention to shifts by linebackers and lineman, release the ball backwards, get the snap count exactly right, snap the ball backwards and then, in a split second, shift his attention to one or two 300 pound tackles with blood in their eyes.

• Dawson was able to do all that, then move outside to take on linebackers and defensive backs.

A single play suffices to illustrate Dawson’s excellence at pulling.

In January 1998 the Pittsburgh Steelers were hosting a playoff game vs. the New England Patriots. The two teams had fought a neck-and-neck battle that the Steelers won in OT after never leading in regulation.

The game was a pure chess match, and Dawson made the pivotal move.

Early in the game Kordell Stewart rolled out. It was meant to look like a pass, but it was in fact a designed run. After snapping the ball, Dawson pulled out wide to the strong side, and as Kordell began his advance up field, Dawson obliterated the closing defender.

• 40 yards later Kordell was in the end zone on a day when the final score was 7-6.

"Dermonti Dawson" doesn’t appear in the box score, but his ability to pull and then deliver a decisive block carried the day.

The Butler Did It

Jack Butler came from an era where the Steelers played third fiddle behind the Pirates and Pitt. He became a Steeler because Fr. Silas, St. Bonaventure’s athletic director, was Art Rooney Sr.’s brother.

Butler joined the Steelers in 1952, playing it wide out and the defensive end. Then, as a testament to how times have changed, a defensive back got hurt and Joe Michelosen put him in the game.

As Ed Bouchette detailed, in his second game, Butler took his first NFL interception to the house and never looked back.

In fact, Butler hauled in 52 interceptions – an incredible sum during an era when seasons lasted 12 games and a 200 yard passing game was considered exceptional.  When Butler retired he held the number 2 spot on the all-time interceptions list. Over 50 years later, he’s still 14 on the list.

BLESTO, Butler, Noll and Dawson

Canton is honoring Butler for his achievements on the field, but he easily could have earned induction for his accomplishments off of it. From 1963 to 2007, Jack Butler directed BLESTO (Bears Lions Eagles, Steelers Talent Organization), the league’s first scouting combine.

Obviously, the Steelers were not the only team to benefit from Butler’s prowess as a scout.

• But four generations of Pittsburgh Steeler rosters can’t help but bear his figure prints. 

And of course, the Pittsburgh Steelers won a few games during that time.

The key to winning those games, was of course the players. From 1969 to 1991 one man had the final word on draft day, and his name was Charles Henry Noll.

• Noll’s run of Hall of Famers selections in the 1970’s remains unprecedented. 

But Noll’s drafting record slipped in the late 70’s, a tendency that worsened in the ‘80’s.

Many reasons those draft misfires, but a big factor was Noll’s inability to get along with effectively with Art Rooney Jr. (to better understand Pittsburgh’s drafting woes in the 80’s, click here to read the article Chuck Noll vs. Bill Walsh – Talent Evaluators.)

Tensions got so great in 1986 the Dan Rooney was forced to make a choice, and he fired his younger brother.

Ed Bouchette chronicled the move in his classic, Dawn of a New Steel Age, and concluded that Dan’s difficult decision failed to pay dividends.

The record suggests Bouchtte is mistaken.

• In his first post Rooney Jr. draft, Chuck Noll drafted Hall of Famer Rod Woodson
  A year later he picked Dermontti Dawson 

Even in his twilight of his reign The Emperor retained an uncanny ability to transform raw data from the scouts like Butler into draft day home runs.

And that’s what makes Jack Butler and Dermontti Dawson’s simultaneous induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame just a little extra special for Steelers Nation.

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Steelers Not Among iPad Early Adopters in NFL

Training camp is still a few weeks away, but this might be the last summer that a familiar NFL ritual plays out in St. Vincents.

What every player dreads all summer long in Latrobe is a knock at the door from “The Turk.” Who knows who plays the role of “The Turk” today.

That’s not what’s important. It’s the news he brings.

The knock at the door is usually followed by the grim phrase:  “Coach wants to see you. And bring your play book.”  The later part of that phrase tells all – your days as a Steeler are over.

Some unfortunate few will hear that dreaded phrase this summer, but they might be the last.

No, the Steelers are not planning on holding camp elsewhere.

But as NFL.com recently profiled, tablet computer technology is sweeping the NFL, simultaneously replacing the traditional pen and ink playbook and radically alerting the experience of film study.

As the article details, every NFL team is experimenting with the iPad with several teams discarding dead tree editions of the playbook.

The Steelers, as reported by Neal Coolong of Behind the Steel Curtain, are not one of them. The Steelers will make film and plays available for iPads, but they’re not making them mandatory.

Avoiding “Putting on the Dog?” Not so Fast

Why aren’t the Steelers early adopters? There’s no way to be sure.

Art Rooney Sr. always admonished against “Putting on the dog,” his way of reminding the boys to be modest, translating his credo in to practical advice such as “Don’t get a Cadillac, get a Buick instead.”

Dan Rooney is a traditionalist when it comes to the game and its presentation. In 1998 when a Jacksonville Jaguars team mascot and mocked the Steelers huddle Rooney loudly complained, going as far as to say, “It’s a shame we didn’t have Lambert or Lloyd with us. They’d have put him in the hospital.” 

When the Jacksonvillebeat reporter protested “But its only entertainment” Rooney’s report was “At Three Rivers Stadium our entertainment is in between the lines.”

But it would be a mistake to insist that the Steelers resist technology.

In fact, as part of the BLESTO scouting combine, the Steelers were one of the first teams to use computers in the scouting and evaluation of players. In fact, former Steelers defensive back, long-time BLESTO head, and soon to be Hall of Famer Jack Butler starred in a Sperry Rand commercial touting its computer’s role in the NFL draft.

Down Side to Technology

Traditionalists like Art Rooney Jr., who ran the Steelers scouting department in the 70’s, were “OK” with using computers, but were smart enough not to become slaves to them.

As he details in his biography/autobiography Ruanaidh, that self-same BLESTO computer didn’t think that Mike Webster could cut it in the NFL.

Even when it factored in intangibles like attitude and football intelligence, Webster simply lacked the measurables, or so that Sperry Rand algorithm concluded.

Fortunately Dick Haley, Tim Rooney, Art Jr. and Chuck Nolltook the time to look at tape on Webster, who of course became a Hall of Famer.

The smart money says that the Steelers will fully embrace tablet technology. But they’ll leave it to others to work out the kinks.

So it might be a few summers before the phrase “Coach wants to see you, and bring your iPad” are uttered in the halls of St. Vincents.

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Are the Steelers Mortgaging Their Future?

The Steelers of the ‘70s won four Super Bowls in six years largely because they out drafted the rest of the league.

One part of this success came the Steelers active scouting and drafting players from the Historically Black Colleges circuit, a talent trove that most of the rest of the league willfully ignored then.

That foresight was important, but it would not have paid off in the form of Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, John Stallworth, and Mel Blount had Art Rooney Jr., Dick Haley, Jack Butler, Bill Nunn Sr. and Chuck Noll not been superior talent evaluators.

• The Steelers system delivered Hall of Famers whether they were drafting first in 1970 or 21st in 1974.

All good things come to an end, and this happened in Pittsburgh when few were noticing. In the midst of their Super Bowl runs the Steelers shifted their drafting strategy.

With a roster stocked with All Pro talent they veered away from taking the best man on the board, fearing he might not be able to justify a roster spot, and started seeking players who might have “slipped” for some reason.

The results were far from fruitful.

• From ’75-’77 the Steelers picked Dave Brown, Bennie Cunningham, and Robin Cole, all future Pro Bowlers.
• From ’78-’80 the Steelers drafted Ron Johnson, Greg Hawthorne, and Mark Malone, Johnson’s career got derailed by injuries, while Hawthorne and Malone were out right busts.

This neat little story is relevant today because it is a fair question to ask if something similar might be unfolding before our eyes.

Mastering the Salary Cap

Once upon a time conventional wisdom held that free agency would do to the Steelers what it did to the Pirates. Critics derided Dan Rooney as a cheap sake who had no hope of competing with free spenders like Jack Kent Cooke, who was the Daniel Snyder of his day.

• The opposite of course happened.

The Steelers remained competitive through the 1990’s and thrived in the ‘00’s because they pioneered the principles for mastering the salary cap:

• Avoid bidding wars
• Focus on resigning your own, home-grown talent
• Never over pay
• Minimize the amount waste money (salary cap space devoted to players not on the roster)

The Steelers are not likely to get into any bidding wars anytime soon, nor are they likely to go on a shopping spree. As for over paying, if Lawrence Timmons does not play dramatically better than he did in 2011 they will have overpaid for him. But beyond that, the Steelers have been and should remain good about getting more bang for their buck.

Which brings us to our last point.

• What do Ike Taylor, Lawrence Timmons, LaMarr Woodley, and Willie Colon have in common?

If you guessed that they all signed contracts last summer that the Steelers have turned around and renegotiated in less than a year, you guessed right.

The Steelers started the NFL off season about 15 million dollars over the NFL’s 2012 Salary cap and with Ben Roethlisberger’s recent renegotiation, have just about gotten to or perhaps slightly under the cap.

• That is good news of course.

But how, and why this was necessary remains a different question, given that such drastic renegotiations are far from Standard Operating procedure on the South Side, to borrow the words of Neal Coolong of Behind the Steel Curtain.

The mechanics of renegotiating a contract are simple: A team converts a part of the player’s base salary for the said year (or years) into a signing bonus, which then gets paid to the player in a lump sum, and is divided among the remaining years of his contract.

In pure dollar terms it amounts to a wash for the player because he loses no money.

For the team the issue is more complicated, because money converted to a bonus remains on the team’s books and can never be erased. In other words, if Willie Colon suffers another debilitating injury in the season opener and decides to call it a career, the Steelers are on the hook for his entire bonus.

The Road from Here

The NFL’s salary cap is expected to expand greatly when the new television deals kick in, easing the future bit of already paid bonuses. That’s fine, but that is still a few seasons away.

In the mean time, Omar Khan, Kevin Colbert, and Art Rooney II have taken a calculated risk. Their margin for injury or error is greatly reduced.

• The flexibility that allowed the Steelers to bring in Flozell Adams when Willie Colon went down is something they’ll likely miss for the next season or two.
• Signing Mike Wallace is also greatly complicated by their current situation.

It is far too early to say that the current Steelers brain trust is making the same types of errors with the salary cap that their brethren made with the draft in the late ‘70’s.

But it is a situation that bears watching.

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Steelers Say Hello to Haley, Good Bye to Battle, Bryant McFadden

The Pittsburgh Steelers named Todd Haley their new offensive coordiantor this week, ending a lengthy search process to replace Bruce Arians.

As they said hello to a familiar face, Haley is in fact the son of Dick Haley who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Art Rooney Jr. and Bill Nunn as the team's director of player personnel during the drafts of the 1970's, they also began what will likely be a lengthy, and at times painful series of good byes.

The Steelers are projected to be 10 to 15 million dollars over the NFL's salary cap for 2012. To get under the team will need to clear a lot of space, and the only way to do that is to part ways with veterans, many of whom will walk out the door past two Super Bowl trophies that they had a hand in winning.

The process began today as the Steelers waived Bryant McFadden and Arnz Battle. McFadden was a rookie in Super Bowl XL and a starter in Super Bowl XLIII. He departed to Arizona after 2008, but returned via trade during the 2010 NFL Draft. McFadden was often injured during his second stint with the Steelers, although he did remain a consistent special teams contributor during the 2011 season.

Battle was one of the members brought in by the Steelers suprise 2010 free agent signing spree, and contributed heavily to the improvement on special teams that year. His contributions were missed when he fell injured during the 2011 season, but ultimately salary cap needs made him expendable.

These two cuts were both anticipated and fairly easy.

The next ones promise to be more difficult.

Stay Steel Curtain Rising will be commenting on those as they happen, as well as offering commentary on both Todd Haley and Bruce Arians' departure.

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From Black to Gold: A Pittsburgh Steelers Transformation

From Black to Gold

The title feigns simplicity. At a glance one quickly concludes that Tim Gleason’s 260 page volume simply covers everything Steelers, from Black to Gold.

But From Black to Gold tells a more profound story, lending its title deeper significance.

Perhaps it’s appropriate then that I read the book on a trip to Uruguay that included a day in Piriapolis, the city founded by Francisco Piria the New World’s most famous Alchemist.

Why you ask?

Because medieval Alchemists sought to turn lead into gold.

While Gleason never mentions Alchemy, he might as well have, because one of the most remarkable transformations in sports history – the metamorphosis of the Pittsburgh Steelers from a 40 year perennial loser into North America’s most prestigious professional sports franchise is From Black to Gold’s tale.

He Knows Enough to Write a Book…

How often do we hear, “So-and-So knows enough to write a book…”? Perhaps no one ever told Gleason that, but he separated himself from the pack by having the guts to go out and self-publish his own book on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I first found Gleason’s work, under the pseudonym of Mary Rose, on Behind the Steel Curtain, one of the net’s best, if not simply the best fan-based Steelers sites (full disclosure, I am an occasional contributor to BTSC.)

Mary Rose first caught my attention with a retelling of the Rocky Blier story that was at once fresh and engaging. Since then he’s told and retold many stories of Steelers Nation in prose that always captivates.

If you seek an example look no futher than his article on the Immaculate Reception. All of us know the story, but the hair on everyone’s neck will stand straight up by the time you’re done with Gleason’s rendition.

The quality of Gleason’s writing in From Black to Gold is perhaps a smidge bit below the standard he sets for himself at Behind the Steel Curtain, but he did not alter his style explaining, “I only know how to write one way, so whatever and wherever I write, it’s pretty much the same style,” although he does concede that “There is a difference in the way you write based upon the subject matter.”

All of which simply means that prose of From Black to Gold is good or very good, and it is certainly well above the watered-down mushy middle schoolesque writing that plagues too many sports books.

Pittsburgh’s Story. The Steelers Story. Our Story.

The Pittsburgh Steelers count themselves as one of the NFL’s most storied franchises, anchored by a wide-spread and fiercely loyal fan base. Steelers Nation faces no shortage of reading material. A simple search for “Steelers Books” on Amazon.com brings back 468 results.

Storytellers have spun and re-spun the yarns that comprise the Steelers 79 years countless times.

Gleason follows in step, telling stories of World War II’s Stegals, Johnny Unitas getting cut, Jack Lambert’s confrontation with Chuck Noll over a short-lived health-food kick one summer at St. Vincents, and the all-important inclusion of Bill Nunn Sr. into the Steelers scouting department.

What then, sets From Black to Gold apart?

From Black to Gold stands apart from other Steelers literature because Tim Gleason narrates it with his own voice.

The first rule they teach in Journalism 101 is “Never Make Yourself Part of the Story.” Tim Gleason breaks this rule with relish throughout From Black to Gold.

Into each of the Steelers well-trod stories, Gleason weaves tales from his life, and that of his family. Don’t be fooled. Not all of these anecdotes end happily. In fact, one of the Steelers greatest moments, perhaps the franchise’s pivotal play, happened just two weeks after his family suffered a terrible tragedy.

But if you’re reading this, you’ll understand how that lends Gleason’s narrative both depth and authenticity. The Steelers hold great importance for all of us, and key moments in Steelers history not only remind us of our Beloved Black and Gold’s glories or failures but also serve as touchstones for remembering personal aspects of our lives that happened to coincide with events on the gridiron.

For example, Gleason shares how watching the late John Henry Johnson upset the mighty 1964 Cleveland Browns served as a key bonding moment between him and his father.

A generation later, he tells of how his daughter Mary Rose grew into a natural affinity for the Steelers, and he relives how watching the Steelers shocking upset of the Colts in the 2005 playoffs served as an important bonding moment between him and his daughter.

Such stories bring back my own memories, such as my 79 year old Argentine father-in-law staying up late in solidarity to watch Super Bowl XL, his first American football game. As nice as that was, it paled to the richness of enjoying the glory of Super Bowl XLIII in Buenos Aires with my Argentine wife. Likewise, the back injury my wife suffered while in Brazil during Super Bowl XLV left me with no need to be reminded that “it was just a football game.”

Fresh Insights Gleamed from Old Stories

From Black to Gold goes beyond simply repackaging the Steelers experience from Gleason’s view point. Very few will fail to learn something new while reading it.

Do you know why players like Len Dawson and Earle (Greasy) Neal get listed (in lower case letters) as part of the Steelers Hall of Fame contingent while Bobby Layne of Detroit Lions glory joins Joe Greene-John Stallworth et. al. in all upper case letters?

For decades I’d seen this in Steelers Media guides, and figured that some over zealous Steelers PR guy pulled a fast one by in claiming Layne was one of their own. Alas I was wrong, and I learned why reading Gleason’s book.

People under 40, such me, likely grew up needing to be convinced that the Steelers were atrocious during their first 4 decades. Could things have been different? Gleason convincingly making the case for a baker’s dozen of could have, would have, should have been history changers in a poignant chapter titled “If Only They Had Stayed.”

Everyone knows the story of Myron Cope’s Terrible Towel, and how proceeds of it sales benefit a home for the developmentally disabled in Western Pennsylvania. All of us have our superstitions about both how to use this talisman for greatest effect, as well as excusing it in the face of inconvenient truths.

But do you know why opposing players might really want to think twice about abusing the Terrible Towel? Gleason spins a yarn of players who’ve abused the golden towel at their own peril – the record is so consistent that it’s hard to write these off as mere coincidence.

Believe it or not, men whose names were not Noll, Cowher or Tomlin did once coach the Steelers. Gleason goes to the trouble of rating the seven of them who lasted more than a season – the only such rating I know of in existence.

Gleason devotes a chapter to stories on how he acquired a memorabilia/autograph collection that would be the envy of any Steelers fan. He’s got two Steelers helmets, one Black, one Gold, adorned by autographs of everyone from a member of the Steelers first squad in 1933 to players who started in Super Bowl XLV.

A Personal Primer on the Pittsburgh Steelers

From Black to Gold exemplifies the fact that you can tell a complete and compelling story in just a few words. Gleason begins his tale by recounting his meeting with Ray Kemp, the first African American NFL player and a member of the inaugural 1933 Pittsburgh Pirates squad, and then Gleason takes the reader through to the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

If Gleason’s book is complete, it is not all-inclusive. It contains very little on the Steelers of the ‘80’s, a period about which I was hoping to learn more.

Likewise material from the 1990’s is surprisingly thin, especially when one considers this was a decade where Pittsburgh returned to contender status. This represents a deliberate decision by Gleason as he explains “but I didn’t want to give equal time just to give equal time. There really was no correlation between the team being good and the amount of ink I used.”

Those who cut their teeth as Steelers fans during the Cowher-power inspired renaissance of the 1990’s will likely quibble that Gleason did not rank the Alfred Papuni AFC Championship loss more prominently on his list of playoff heart breaks.

While Gleason empathizes to some degree, he reminds us that the ’95 49ers team won the Super Bowl that year explaining: “For some reason, knowing that San Francisco would be the next opponent, that loss didn’t hurt as much as some others.”

While From Black to Gold is many ways a first-person story told by Gleason, he meticously researched the book admitting “My memory gets distorted with time. It was amazing how many things were a bit different than what I remembered.”

Beyond his own research, Gleason shares that he sent a manuscript to be vetted by the man he calls Mr. Steeler aka Dick Hoak, and was impressed that the only error Hoak found in 80,000 words was the fact it was in Palm Springs, and not in San Diego, that Frank Sinatra enjoyed his induction into Franco’s Italian Army.

A number of good Steelers history books have hit the market over the past few years. Dan Rooney’s self-titled autobiography and Art Rooney Jr. Ruanaidh provide an excellent inside view. The Ones Who Hit the Hardest by Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne tells many of same Steelers stories from the ground up.

From Black to Gold covers much of the same ground, but does in a way that allows it to serve as an almost personalized primer on Pittsburgh Steelers history, making it must read for every serious Steelers fan.

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Steelers Sign Troy Polamalu to 4 Year Extension

Troy Polamalu has a knack for saving games at the 11th Hour. The Steelers it seems, are about to repay him in kind.

The Post-Gazette, as well as numerous other sources are reporting that the Steelers have reached an agreement to extend Troy Polamalu’s contract through the 2014 season. Steelers Digest confirmed the report, indicating the Polamalu signed the extension prior to boarding the team's charter for Baltimore.

Change of Heart?

When news broke that the two sides were negotiating, Steel Curtain Rising weighed in against making the move now, simply because it seemed questionable to commit big, guaranteed dollars to a player with mounting injuries.

Moreover, the Steelers had given indications that the “vault was closed” after having dished out hefty signing bonuses to stars such as Ike Taylor, Willie Colon, LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons. It made more financial sense to wait.

Obviously Art Rooney II, Omar Khan, Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin thought differently.

Reversal of History?

As everyone knows, the Steelers didn’t draft Dan Marino who went to Miami, and it took 20 years and a kid from Miami, Ohio to live down that mistake.

The back story of rumors about Marino’s involvement with drugs along with contradicting confirmations and rejections by Chuck Noll and Art Rooney Jr. are also well known.

But the back story runs deeper.

After the Steelers selected Gabe Rivera in the first round of the 1983 draft, John Clayton, then writing for the Pittsburgh Press, suggested to Dan Rooney that the Steelers get Marino trade back into the first round by packaging Cliff Stoudt and some picks for Miami’s first.

Word is that Chuck Noll and the other Steelers coaches embraced the idea, until Rooney mentioned its source, which killed the deal before it even got started.

Jim Wexell, of both Steelers Digest and Steel City Insider has suggested several times this off season that the Steelers dare not make the same mistake with Polamalu that they made with Rod Woodson.

Did someone on the South Side lend their ear to Wexell?

I have no inside information that this is the case, but it is an interesting enough possibility to throw out there.

Good Football Move

How the Steelers arrived at the decision to resign Troy Polamalu is less important than why they resigned him.

And that reason is simple.

Every generation boasts a handful of players who possess the rare combination of athleticism, skill, dedication, and “on the field presence” that allows them to change the course of games with a single play.

The Steelers of the 70’s had at least a half dozen – something you’ll never see again. Rod Woodson was one such player.

And so is Troy Polamalu

Although I questioned the wisdom of when the Steelers should resign Polamalu, it was always a question of when and not if.

Troy Polamalu is truly a special player and the Steelers have just taken steps to ensure he plays his entire NFL career in Pittsburgh.

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