Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Chad Millman
Read between
May 11, 2015 - August 22, 2019
because we had Tony Dorsett as a weapon.”
Sometimes you have to leave the gifted alone.
While the staff reps at Five Gateway Center were sympathetic to the rank and file, they had families, too. They had bills to pay and wives and kids who depended on them to provide. The entire U.S. economy was in freefall. If Sadlowski won, they had no doubt he’d fire them. If McBride won, their jobs were secure. Whether or not the United Steelworkers of America had any steelworkers made little difference anymore. It was every man for himself.
“With technology, the ultimate goal of organized labor is for no man to have to go down into the bowels of the earth and dig coal. No man will have to be subjected to the blast furnace. We’ve reduced labor forces from 520,000 fifteen years ago to 400,000 today. Let’s reduce them to 100,000.” Coyne couldn’t believe what he was reading. To Ed Sadlowski, being a steelworker was the equivalent of being an ox? He wanted to shed jobs? What kind of message was that? They were going to take Gateway Center and knock some heads together, bring the union to the membership, what happened to that?
The careful, egoless ecosystem that Noll had built had been pierced. And even though Lambert and Blount reported to camp just before the season began, and the disgruntled Blount agreed to drop his lawsuit, the team was fractured.
In December, the night before a game with the Bengals, Noll slipped on a patch of ice and broke his arm. The next day, the Steelers lost.
See even a tough football coach can do it!
“And that was his thing—he wanted you to be an individual as long as you functioned within the team concept. He didn’t try to pigeonhole everyone. You could do it in your own way with flair as long it worked with the team.”
While Sadlowski settled back into a position as a rep for District 31, Coyne relied on his wife’s salary as a grade-school music teacher. It was enough to pay the utilities and put tuna casserole on the table for his four kids.
Wow, that could never happen today!
As camp neared in 1978, the story reporters focused on was how the NFL’s new rules would impact the sticky-fingered, beat-’em-up style of Pittsburgh’s defensive backs and its run-heavy offense. The dictates had been the brainchild of Tex Schramm, designed from his perch as head of the competition committee. Before the 1977 season, rules outlawing the head slap and bumping a receiver more than once during his pattern had been enacted.
Instead of managing games, he was going to win them.
Which is why, on the first play in the first training-camp practice of 1978, Bradshaw threw a pass. Reporters made a note of it.
He had been a public relations major at USC, and had chosen that school because the highly touted quarterback he teamed up with in high school had gone to Stanford; he wanted to be on his own, to prove to people that he was the great receiver, not just the guy catching this particular quarterback’s passes. “Lynn looked at himself as a national figure,” says Gordon. “He was more receptive to national media than to Pittsburgh’s.”
“Maybe it’s because of my personality. I think I have charisma, but I don’t think I’ll get the recognition. First mistake I make, I’ll be battered for it. I lose my greatness when I have a bad game. I go back to being a dummy.”
You'd think he'd be easier on Eli then!
Noll had a habit of laying into the team after wins and praising them after losses. It was his way of making sure that no one became complacent with success or too overcome by failure.
It was the perfect storm of accolades and accomplishment for a player who believed he had become bigger than the star on his helmet. When Schramm told Henderson a business associate of the linebacker’s was reportedly shady,
“Empty barrels make the most noise.”
Constant issue with Dallas.
Bradshaw just looked at Swann, smiled as if to say, “Thanks for the call, I’ll get you next time,” and called the play for Stallworth. Then Bradshaw made a quick three-step drop, faked and lofted a wobbly, floating, ugly pass to Stallworth, who had beaten two defenders into the end zone and leapt for the pass. Five minutes into the game, the Steelers were up 7-0. But Bradshaw’s magic didn’t last. On the next drive, he threw a pick.
The Cowboys came out inspired in the third. The Steelers’ first drive went three plays and lost four yards. Their second went four plays (including a false-start penalty) and lost six yards. After that, midway through the third quarter, Dallas got the ball back at the Steelers’ forty-two. After an incomplete pass, Dorsett ran for four yards and Staubach completed a pass for eight. First down. Three plays later, Dorsett picked up another five, for another first down. Two plays later it was seven yards from Dorsett, setting up a third and three from the Steelers’ ten.
“I just said, ‘Get in the end zone, get in the end zone,’” Harris says. The score, with a little more than seven minutes left in the game, was Steelers 28, Cowboys 17. It stayed that way for nineteen seconds. Before the kickoff, Noll specifically instructed Gerela to boot it deep.
