Exclusive with Former Steelers Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley, 2012-2017

First off, tell us what’s going on with you now and what’s next?

Well  I’m at a crossroads. It’s been 26 years of coaching and I’m 52 now. I’ve been afforded some time while I’m still under contract to think about what’s next and to make up some lost time with my family. I’ve watched more soccer and golf games lately than I had over the last 20 years. My parents are in Orlando and they aren’t doing so great so it’s good to be close to them too. So, it’s been really nice not to have to jump into anything. I love coaching and if the right thing comes along sure, but for right now I’m enjoying my time with my family.

Obviously your father was a big influence on you as  coach – who else influenced that style as well and how?

Well my father always reminded me of how fortunate I was to grow up with it as a kid and he was right. The memories of being there at camp in Latrobe as a kid and on the sidelines for things like the Immaculate Reception.

I grew up with the NFL – it was my whole life. I’d watch Hall of Fame players every day with the Steelers – it was such a huge advantage seeing what great players did to be great. Lambert was always my idol – we’d fight as kids to see who would get to wash his car in camp.

Watching Lambert – in the locker room Swann and Stallworth would throw balls to each other in the locker room before games and Lambert would be sitting at his locker smoking cigarettes by himself. It was like a forcefield around him – if one of the balls went past those guys and rolled to Lambert, they’d just leave it there. No one would get it!

Any other coaches influence you?

Perles, Carson, Noll – to be around them as a younger guy – that made a big impact on me.

I got started as a scout with the Jets under Harris and Kirwan when they worked for Parcells. I got a job offer at Oklahoma State but I decided to stay with the Jets for much less money. Parcells told me it was a dumb decision, but he gave me a job working for him and I learned a lot from him as well.

Erhadt and Henning took me under their wing there, and when Bill retired to take on the GM thing, Dan gave me a lot of responsibility. He was such an underrated coach. He had the confidence to give his assistants more responsibility than most coaches did – if you could show things on tape and prove your ideas he’d run with them. That stayed with me.

Parcells and Henning were big influences. And then there was Dick Jauron who was a totally different kind of coach but a great one too. He liked to have family around and every Monday he’d have the wives and kids come to the team and we’d all eat together. That stayed with me too –  having family around really kept the team close-knit.

Later on I went back to working for Parcells – I was more mature as a coach then.  I went to Arizona afterwards – I could have stayed in Dallas – Jerry Jones wanted to keep me around as his pass game coordinator, but I was offered the offensive coordinator position in Arizona with Kenny {Wisenhunt}. People thought I was crazy to leave Dallas then but we did some great things there in a short period of time.

You seemed to bring offensive success to the teams you coached for …

I had experience with turnarounds I think. The Jets under Parcells taught me a lot – then in Arizona we did big things that hadn’t been done there before – and even Dallas. And as a head coach in Kansas City we turned things around there too and led the league in rushing. It didn’t work out there in the end but we had more success there too.

So much talk about your confrontational personality. Overblown? Or is there truth to it?

I think it’s overblown. I have a lot of good friends everywhere I’ve coached! Keyshawn, Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald are all good friends. I’m not a player’s coach, but I do adjust to the situation at hand.

When I got to Pittsburgh there was a certain way things were being done there so I adjusted. They were already successful. I just think you can take a couple clips of any coach and make them look a certain way,  but I don’t think I was much different than any other successful coach. A good example is the Boldin blowup in Arizona, I wasn’t involved in that at all – it was near me but it had nothing to do with me. That was Anquan blowing up after a year of frustration over money and other things that had nothing to do with me.

I learned so much in Kansas City in those three years. Parcells actually called me and told me I did my best coaching job he’s ever seen in that last season – and that was a week before they fired me. We had a ton of injuries to so many key players. But people blamed it on my personality and that is overblown. The problem is when perception becomes reality for people. But if you look, wherever I’ve gone, players have had their best seasons.

After that Kansas City job, how did you end up in Pittsburgh?

I had some opportunities and at the time I didn’t know Mike {Tomlin} at all. But I had a friend who gave me Mike’s number and I cold-called him. I was at the Senior Bowl on someone else’s dime for an interview, and Mike said I should come talk to him there. So I sat down with Mike who was in his sweatpants and socks, and what started off as an informal conversation became a three-hour discussion on the job. I told my wife after that that I didn’t care about the money – I wanted to go back to Pittsburgh and coach there and give my kids that experience of being in Pittsburgh. I was a huge Pittsburgh sports fan – the Pirates and Penguins too – and was impressed with Mike. He and I just hit it off.

I went back again to Pittsburgh again – saw Bill Nunn, who was my dad’s old roommate – and met with them again. I made it clear it wasn’t about money for me =- that I wanted to go for the opportunity.

A lot of talk about the friction that supposedly existed between you and Ben. What was behind that talk?

My number one priority – the direction given to me by Mike – was to change the way Ben played the game. They wanted to prolong his career and get him away from some of the backyard scrambling style of play that he liked – and was very successful at. So we worked together and evolved his game so he got the ball out faster and let his receivers make plays.

The friction thing was overblown. We’d play golf and go out to dinner together. It was tough at the beginning for sure – he and Bruce {Arians| were very close. But I had nothing to do with Bruce leaving. My only regret is in not talking to Ben sooner about implementing the new offense – not talking to him right away. I didn’t understand his sensitivity to losing a good friend in Bruce. But we had a good relationship and had fun together too. I enjoyed it there and being with him.

You had some of the team’s most successful offensive seasons there – why was that?

When I was there there were a number of key defensive guys that were retiring. The defense was in a serious transition. It wasn’t the same defense of years before. That’s how Ben and I came up with the “We need to score 30 points a game.” quote. Mike and I met every week and we’d go over how many point we’d need to score that week – sometimes it was just “As many as we can!”

I just think that wherever I’ve been I’ve taken what I’ve been given and used it to the best I could. In Arizona we didn’t have a great run blocking line and Edgerrin James wasn’t the back he used to be, but we had Kurt and great receivers, so I pushed the passing game. I felt that was my strength – I wasn’t system-oriented. Sure I had my terminology and that, but I never tried to fit a square peg into a round hole. You play with the guys you got – Parcells always beat it into me that you find out what your players do best and get them to do it. We were lucky in Pittsburgh that we had Ben, great receivers and LeVeon – so we could be balanced and run and pass.

Any insight you can offer on what happened after those six years in Pittsburgh?

We had six successful years in Pittsburgh offensively – it’s a testament to the Steelers and everyone there. Everything changes though. Sometimes, it’s about money. Sometimes teams feel they can do things after a coach leaves. We had a pretty good system that was running smoothly there. We didn’t have many new guys on offense to plug in. I felt comfortable letting Randy call some plays for me – I felt that was the right way to do things – to help develop coaches and allow them to grow.

Sometimes a successful coach can coach themselves out of  job?

Maybe yeah.. Again – there could be other things too – they had me and Munchak and Randy to think about and some of those guys had been around a while too.

You like the way the game has been changing?

I think the focus on offense has been great for the game and viewership. People are enjoying the game. As an offensive coordinator you love to have that advantage. Now, as a head coach, you don’t like it so much!

There are a number of young quarterbacks I think you’ll see around for a long time that are fun to watch. It’s the evolution of the league. It’s hard now to find fullbacks in the NFL because colleges haven’t used them as much. Inline blocking tight ends are making a comeback but they were hard to find for a while. I think it’s defined by the college game somewhat. At first it was the super=spread offenses which changed the talent that was available to NFL teams, and now colleges are moving away again from the super-spread.

I watched a lot of film on Lambert when I was a kid – my dad would watch it on his projector – show it on the wall and tell me that was what a great football player looked like. I think coming from a scouting background helps – versus just having a coaching background. We have a vision of what a player could be – not just what he is. We see the vision  of what a player can do and have our minds more open to that.

Any last good stories of your time there in Pittsburgh – as a coach or growing up there?

Oh a couple of ones . One about Lambert. I was hanging out with the Perles boys and afterwards went home, and could tell something was going on. I asked my dad what the problem was, and he told me that Lambert was skinny-dipping in the pond at St. Vincents and a nun saw him there and didn’t know what to do. He was trying to figure out who he was going to send to talk to Jack!

And I remember watching Terry Bradshaw and Joe Gilliam playing catch with each other in practice. They’d take a step back 10 yards after every throw. By the time they were done they were throwing 90 yard passes to each other. I’ve never seen anything like it since – how strong their arms were. And Joe’s was better than Terry’s!

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