But Noll knew how far to push. He was there to make the Steelers better football players, not be their father. Gone were the petty rules players hated. No more dress codes. Being clean-shaven didn’t matter. Noll looked the other way when Mansfield snuck players out of the dorms for a late-night beer. He even let reporters stay in the dorms, partly so they’d talk to players instead of bothering him. Noll didn’t do these things to win hearts and minds; none of these rules helped improve performance.
