First, can you let me know what you’ve been doing with yourself since your time in the NFL?
I’m basically retired now. I’m in Athens, Georgia living in a golfing community – we have 27 holes here and I can drive for an hour-and-a-half and never leave the community, It’s a university town – I’m trying to get back to my roots. I went to school here as did my kids.
As a retired guy, everybody loves me here because they can get me to work for free! I help raise money for charities. We do golf tournaments to raise money for kids and I also coached high school for a couple of years for free and work with the kids of some of our friends too.
I’m also recovering now from ankle fusion surgery. It was an old injury that ended my football career. You could say it ended my career before my lack of ability did!
So, stepping back some. Tell me a bit about being hired by Coach Cowher – what did he say/expect from you?
I was with the Giants for nine years – that was a lot of football. After the ’87 strike season Bill Parcells decided he wanted to make some changes and send a message to the team that no one was safe, so he let me go.
Later, Bill was looking at taking a job with Tampa Bay and I was his contact point. He decided to turn the job down though. But Ron Earhardt was another guy Bill was interested in bringing to Tampa Bay with him before he turned the job down. Ron wanted me to go with him when he was hired by Bill Cowher to be his offensive coordinator instead. I knew his system from New York. They liked big blocking tight ends. It wasn’t like the Bill Walsh theory of using light pass receiving tight ends.
I didn’t know Bill Cowher, but when I interviewed with him, it lasted for about two hours, then he offered me the job. He wanted someone who could help Ron implement his new system. I played versus Pittsburgh in the 60’s when I was with the Redskins. I knew about Pittsburgh but not much more than that. But I wanted to get back to the NFL. Parcells and I mended fences. He told me he made a mistake letting me go. He and Bill Belichick were similar guys. If you knew them, it was always “Bill’s way.” He apologized for messing things up. That’s the politics of football sometimes.
How was Bill Cowher to play under?
Cowher was more of a defensive and special teams guy. He just wanted someone to go along with what Ron wanted on offense and to get off to a good start. I was so mad when I was let go by New York I swore I would never coach again. Three days after I was let go my brother’s youngest son was killed and that put things into perspective. Before I interviewed with Bill I had to dust off my old playbook and bone up on things.
I got to play for the Rooneys, Maras, Hess’….There were no better three teams to coach for.
Tell me a bit about your role as tight ends coach when there are already other coaches there teaching blocking and receiving skills?
Well, the role of the tight end began to evolve over time when I started there. Around those years it started out as one tight end, two wide receivers and two backs. The fullback was the least valued as they moved to multiple formations and a second tight would be used instead. So, it used to be that the same person coached the receivers and tight ends. But tight ends became fullbacks too, and the role of the coach separated as the demands on the position increased. We started drafting tight ends that could match up with linebackers but still block too.
So I still focused on technique. Everything is still technique. Steps, new calls with a new offense, more shifts and motioning …reading routes and adjusting to coverage all required more coaching.
You went from Eric Green to Mark Bruener. Describe working with two very different first rounders and how they were to work with?
Eric was a unique personality. You had to get buy-in from players as a new coach in a new system. Adrian Cooper wanted more playing time but he was behind Eric. Eric could have been anything he wanted to be. He was fast and over 270 pounds, No linebacker could match up with him and a safety was a mismatch. I had Mark Bavarro in New York and he was like Mark – a big guy who could catch, run routes, adjust to passes and block. But Eric could have been as good as he wanted to be – you just had to find the trigger to get him motivated as a coach.
Mark was not as big of a guy. He was smart and capable. He could catch and run and was a competitive blocker. I only had him for one year. I was gone after his first year and the system changed afterwards. Earhardt used a run-based offense with play-action passing, They wanted a ball-control offense then. Under Gailey, that all changed.
What was your involvement in the draft process – especially with Mark Bruener?
What happens with the draft – the coaches don’t get involved until after the season is over. Then we look at film mostly and go to the combine and travel to work out tight ends. The scouts looking at Mark had two-to-three years already, but when I saw him at the combine it was my first time. And you don’t draft a guy based on what you see at Indy.
Coaches are more film-based. But I can say I had Mark graded very highly. I had good input about him and thought he would be good.
How did you help Mark as a rookie?
It can be a shock for a rookie. They think they played a lot of football. But after preseason games, they play 20 games versus maybe 12 in college. Mark was a smart kid and didn’t make many mistakes. But it takes time learning the tricks of the trade. Blocking schemes, how to pick up stunts, how to nick people on your way out. It takes several years to learn all of that and to learn and read coverages and adjust patterns. That’s why we’d take three-to-four hours before practices during training camp just to go over that stuff.
Plus, we had some gurus as defensive coaches on the Steelers. It was a pain in the ass playing ourselves in practice compared to playing other teams.
Any funny stories you can share?
Ron Earhardt and I lived together in an apartment near the stadium until our wives got there. If you can imagine a 60-plus year old Ron Earhardt and I living together!
I remember once when Neil O’Donnell was having a tough game. I could hear Ron in my earphones going off on him. In essence, he was saying “Let me talk to him! What the hell is he seeing – is he at the same f’ing game we’re at?”
Cowher was a different guy than Parcells in some ways – he was more of a player’s coach. He handled things differently. That was a good thing…it let me play interference between the players and the head coach. But they both disciplined players and the players liked that. They wanted to be coached. The inmates didn’t run the asylum and I appreciated that. I remember the Jets under Kotite; it was very different. A year later Bill Parcells was there and we took them to the playoffs.
I remember when I was with the Jets, when Belichick was coaching Cleveland and Ernie Adams on their staff knew our offense so well. I did the play signaling then, and we knew Belichick had Adams watch us like a hawk. So we implemented a system and practiced it for days. We had three guys give signals at the same time to go in three different directions, with one signal to start it indicating which was the live signal. We practiced it all week. We beat the Browns nine out of 11 times. Belichick used to come up to us telling us how he knew we were screwing with him and couldn’t figure it out. I still get a chuckle out of that!
How has the tight end position changed today – and do you like the changes?
I watch these guys and still see Belichick using the system we ran with the Jets. I see teams using guys like Witten in Dallas now. Not monster guys, but powerful guys that are better athletes. Guys that are mobile, that can run.
There are more substitutions now on offense. Teams are going with one back more and multiple tight ends and receivers. More receivers mostly until teams get close to the goal line. With the Giants Parcells said there were three ways to win a game and offense was the third.
That’s what we brought to Pittsburgh. We had Woodson, Lake, we rebuilt the offensive line. The running backs and quarterbacks kept changing, but the defense was always in good shape. You never knew who was going to blitz from where. We played ball control to score 17 or so points and let the defense win the game.
And last thoughts for readers?
I spent four years in Pittsburgh. I’ve never been back – my travels never took me there. But I loved our time in Pittsburgh. You take a town where every pro team wears the same colors…there’s no false stuff with fans. We got to know the other teams guys – spent time with the Penguins and Pirates players. And the Rooneys were a class outfit. It was a special time. The four years there were the best our years of my life.
I had fun when we won a Super Bowl in New York. We should have won one in Pittsburgh if we could have just read a zone blitz and not thrown interceptions. But we helped Coach Cowher take the team to the playoffs all four years. I have special feelings for Pittsburgh. It was a special place.
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
