Tag Archives: football

Tuesday Afternoon Ramblings

January 25, 2011 D.A. Adams Leave a comment

Over the next two weeks, if you watch ESPN or the NFL Network, you’ll see and hear a lot about NFL history and the Super Bowl. Every year, it seems, there is a tribute to Vince Lombardi, the man for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named. Images of Bill Walsh flood the screen, especially that iconic image of him crying after his third Super Bowl victory because he knew it was his last game as a head coach. Bill Parcells and his 600 lb. ego will take up at least an hour of coverage. At some point, Don Shula will be brought up as the coach with most all-time victories and the sole undefeated season in NFL history. Much will be made of the Johnny-Come Latelys, both deserved and undeserved, as well. I’m not disputing the impact these men had on pro football, and I’m not disparaging the quality of their coaching, but the best of them will mostly be ignored.

Chuck Noll is the only head coach with four Super Bowl victories, and he earned those wins in a time when teams had to be built via the draft or with players no one else wanted. In the 1979 season, Noll set a record that most likely will never be duplicated: he won the Super Bowl with a team comprised of players who were all drafted by and played solely for the Steelers. If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is. The man had an eye for talent and an attention to detail that was second to none. Most of the talent he found came from small schools with little fanfare, yet many of those players, including Joe Greene, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert, and Terry Bradshaw, became Hall of Fame players.

Noll rarely gets the credit he deserves because he has always been a private person. Once his coaching career ended, he disappeared from the public eye, rarely making appearances at Steelers games and, as far as I know, never doing television interviews. Unlike people such as Jimmie Johnson or Bill Parcells, he didn’t need to have his ego fluffed on a regular basis. He had other interests to pursue, such as collecting fine wine and learning to sail. He also didn’t leave behind a collection of snappy sound bytes that ESPN can replay year after year. Instead, he spoke simply and often with wisdom, and those two things don’t play well in glitz and glitter.

I’ve often said that if Chuck Noll came along in today’s NFL, he wouldn’t have lasted long enough to build his dynasty. His first year, the team went 1-13, then 5-9, then 6-8. Today, more than likely, he would’ve been fired after the second season and most definitely after the third. There simply isn’t enough patience anymore to allow a coach to build and develop the way Coach Noll built and developed his team. By his fourth season, the foundation he had constructed finally began to take shape, and the team went 11-3, beating the Raiders in the playoffs before losing to the Dolphins in the AFC Championship game. That game against the Raiders, for those who don’t know, ended on the Immaculate Reception by Franco Harris. That play, while shrugged off as little more than luck by Raiders fans and other brainless humanoids, was the culmination of Noll’s dedication to details. The entire reason why Harris was hustling down the field after the pass had been thrown was because Noll had taught that in practice. Harris was in position to make the catch because he was looking for someone to block down field after he had completed his primary duty of picking up the pass rush and his secondary duty of flowing out to the flat as a check down receiver.

Coach Noll’s legacy is remembered by his players and fans. We remember the teams he assembled, and even in the lean years, when the talent had waned and the game was beginning was pass him by, he was a great coach. He will probably never have a trophy named in his honor, and he will probably never receive his due as a member of the top echelon of coaches along with Lombardi, Halas, Brown, and Shula, but no one else won more Super Bowls, and ten of the players he drafted ended up in the Hall of Fame. Some of us feel as if there are at least three or four who deserve to be there who aren’t. He also was one of the biggest advocates for Tony Dungy to become a head coach, and the Tampa Two defense for which Dungy is most famous came out of the Steelers defense of 70’s, which had Noll’s fingerprints all over it.

All I can say as the Steelers prepare for their 8th Super Bowl appearance is thank you, Chuck Noll. You were the architect, the visionary, and the teacher who built this franchise into a winner.

General Posts

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings

January 23, 2011 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

It’s Championship Sunday, and once again the Steelers are poised for a trip to the Super Bowl. I don’t have anything profound or insightful to say. I’m just going to enjoy the game, drink a couple of ice cold beers, and relax. Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, whether you’re watching the games or not.

Here we go, Steelers! Here we go!

General Posts

Saturday Afternoon Ramblings

January 8, 2011 D.A. Adams Leave a comment

There’s a lesson to be learned from Randy Moss and Albert Haynesworth. They are great examples of how talent can only carry a person so far. Both had the raw physical ability to be, if not the very best, one of the best ever to play at their respective positions. However, both men have lazy streaks that kept them from achieving their full potential. Because of his numbers, Moss will probably still make the Hall of Fame, but he could’ve been remembered as one of the greats, instead of a guy who played when he wanted to. Haynesworth, on the other hand, squandered Hall of Fame talent and will hardly be remembered as anything but an overpaid thug.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there was Jerry Rice. For the last two or three seasons of his career, Rice was the third or fourth option for his offense, and most players who commanded his salary would’ve been cut. However, Rice was kept on the team not so much for his productivity but more for his leadership to the younger players. His work ethic and practice habits provided an example for them to mimic. He was the greatest wide receiver and one of the three or four greatest football players ever to play the game, and he showed up to work every single day as if his job were on the line. Not only that, he played every single play as if it were the last play of the Super Bowl.

Neither Moss nor Haynesworth can claim that they have worked as hard as they could in their careers. Throughout his playing days, Moss has consistently taken off plays when he knew the ball wasn’t coming his way. He rarely blocked on running plays, and often jogged routes when he was the decoy. He’s always been selfish and greedy, and now, at the end of his career, he’s been traded and cut and released from team to team to team because he’s a cancer in the locker room and the opposite of a team leader. Physically, he was as gifted as Rice, but mentally, he lacked the drive, motivation, and discipline to live up to those standards.

Likewise, Haynesworth has always showed up at the beginning of camp fat and out of shape. Even in college, he rarely practiced hard, and he’s always relied solely on his physical skills to carry him. Granted, those physical skills were once tremendous, and had he had the work ethic of a Joe Greene or a Randy White, he would’ve dominated the league for a decade. Instead, he had a couple of great seasons, always in contract years, and then a few above average seasons and a few forgettable ones. At the end of his career, his head coach Mike Shanahan finally held him accountable for his behavior, benching him until he got his weight down, sitting him again when his attitude stank, and finally suspending him for the final four games. Hardly the end of a career for a guy with Hall of Fame talent, but definitely the end for one with a welfare mentality.

Both Moss and Haynesworth are wealthier than I’ll ever be. Their worst NFL contracts are probably more than I’ll make in my entire life, so in monetary terms, they were both successful men. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only standard that matters these days, but that’s another issue altogether. I still believe in the archaic notion that a person should be measured by the quality of their work, not just how much money they make. In those terms, both Moss and Haynesworth failed to make the most of the natural skills they were blessed with, and while they did achieve some success on the field, both men failed to elevate their teams to championship levels. That’s because champions are motivated by the desire to be the best in the world, and they work and work and work until they make that happen. That’s the lesson of these two men. Soon, they will be out of football for good and forgotten by most, and the league will be better off without them and their rotten attitudes.