Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Let's Talk Steelers is sponsored by Italian Village Pizza. Lawrence
Field is Stealing enjoy their handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio
Red Fox Winery and Lounge. Call any Italian Village Pizza
(00:27):
on Steelers game day and say Let's talk Steelers and
any size pizza is buy one, get one free take
out or delivery. Let's talk Steelers.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Huddle up Steelers station, it's tank Let's well, let's talk Stealers.
Uh uh? Does your head to hurt as bad as
my head hurts right now? Have you ever been in
an abusive whether it be mental or relationship? You know,
(01:05):
maybe it was a teacher that used to beat you
over the head, like missus Kazemchek used to whack me
in ahead in fifth grade because I suck at math.
S uk that four letters fo r, there's math for you.
This lady hit me in a head because I was
not with a pen a pencil. You know, I would
(01:29):
cry because I would I probably wanted to punch her.
I didn't realize that, you know, with my temper. Anyway,
I'm thank you're listening to Litstocks Dealers here. I'm wheeling
Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, baby, this is my time slot
ten am every Saturday morning. I get the rattle off
my my nonsensical view of the world, and quite frankly,
(01:53):
I don't care if you care. I don't care if
you like what I have to say that Mike Tomlin
needs fire like the guy who bought the Did you
just see the guy bought a billboard in Pittsburgh this
week paid good hard dollars too. I don't know. Maybe
(02:14):
this guy doesn't pay the electrical bill and he's putting
up billboards instead. And his wife is going, Larry, there's
no electricity. And a guy's like, yeah, but I bought
a billboard, it says Fire Tomlin. She's like, Larry, I'm
leaving you and going to my mother's. So I don't
know where he got to buy a billboard. I mean,
(02:35):
they're not cheap, let's say that. But there's somewhere in
Pittsburgh a billboard, it says Mike Tomlin. Dear mister Rooney,
fire Mike Temblin, or sell the team. How did we
get here? How did we get to this place in time?
(02:57):
In history? February of twenty twenty five that a devoted
a Rabbit Steelers nation that the iconic quote says, if
you meet a Steelers fan, they'll say, damn right, I
(03:19):
bleed black and gold. I bleed black and gold. That
that isn't a Seattle Sea Chickens fan. I mean they're
fair weather out in Seattle. Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson delivered
them championships. The Legion of Boom Secondary. You know, they
(03:43):
couldn't tell you, you know, what a slot receiver does,
what a Michael linebacker does, what a post pattern is.
But they dress up like seed chickens and go to
games and go we're really loud. They don't bleed green
or teal or whatever penguin's color is. Out there in Seattle,
(04:07):
we bleed black and gold. In Pittsburgh, we live and
die by this franchise.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
A picture of Coach Knowle chez No the Emperor for
you young kids, that's what's Coach Nole's nickname was by
the great One Myron Cope, the Emperor, the Emperor the
NFL because he won four Super Bowls in six seasons.
(04:40):
Did Chuck Nole and the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rocky Blier, Mel Blunt,
Mike Webster, you know the names. So here's the arc
where I'm heading with this. How we got to February
of twenty twenty five with people putting up billboards and
fans like yourself screaming for Mike Tomlin's head. You know,
(05:08):
nobody handed Chuck Noll the keys to a Maserati. Nobody
handed the keys to a Lamborghini and said, here you go, chess.
All you gotta do is just don't crasherr No Chuck No,
(05:31):
Bill None. If you don't know who Bill None is,
you are ignorant. To Pittsburgh Steelers sports history. Build None built.
The modern scouting departments actually had scouts go to college
(05:51):
football games and evaluate talent. Prior to that, most scouting
departments were looking through sources like Athalon Sports. Oh, here
you go. They list out the top five quarterbacks, They
list out the five top centers, five top linebackers. No
(06:13):
Bill Nunn of Europe Pittsburgh Steelers way back in the
day Baby invented scouting departments. Chuck no himself played for
the great Paul Brown when the Cleveland Browns were an
(06:37):
championship football team in the fifties. As a guard, Chuck
No so intelligent. Paul Brown used Chuck Noll to shuffle
in plays from the sidelines. Noel, a mastermind of the game,
played in the NFL, then got into coaching. He'd been
(07:02):
around the game's best. You know Jim Brown, Guys like
that Paul Brown. Chuck Nole was a good football player too.
Nobody handed him the keys. In fact, they handed him
the keys of a rusty Studebaker. One of the jokes
(07:28):
of car history when he inherited the Pittsburgh Steelers chess
Nol in sixty nine. It was rusty, beat up. There
was no engine in the car that Chuck Nole got.
The seats were ripped up. It was rusty chas. No
(07:50):
took one look at that car, called the Pittsburgh Steelers
and said, I can work with this. Hey, Bill Nunn,
you were talking about that kid out of Texas, that
defensive lineman. What's his name? Bill Nunn replied, Joe Green.
(08:13):
I don't know, coach. The kids got a nasty, nasty,
nasty disposition. Chuck Noll said, my kind of football player,
that Joe Green. Go get him. The drafts of the
early seventies of the Steelers produced names like Lynn Swan,
(08:38):
John Stalworth, Jack Lambert. You sit up when I say
mister Lambert's name Mike Webster. Chuck Noll built that team
from the ground up, that team that would go on
(08:58):
to win four Super Bowls in six years. It had
been a dilapidated Jappie John Loppy before that. Chuck Noll
turned the Steelers franchise into a dynasty. Got a kid
(09:22):
out of Penn State named Franco Harris, got the blonde
bomber out of Louse, Siana State. Javelin champion in high
school was Terry Bradshaw. Chuck Noll, probably out of respect
(09:43):
for the young man who had gone to Vietnam and
seen his hopes dashed after a great career Notre Dame,
having his football career ruined by a war that should
have never been fought. And I'm no bleeding art liberal kids,
(10:04):
and I served my time in the army too, but
that Vietnam War, and I loathe Communism, I loathe it.
But the end of that thing didn't need to happen.
Maybe Rocky Blier didn't need to get his foot blown off,
(10:25):
So the Chief God rest his soul, and Chuck Noll,
probably just to give the kids some hope, put Rocky
Bayer on the roster we all know now Rocky proved
(10:45):
to be Superman, a hero, a national treasure. Chuck Noll
built that team, turned it into champions. Then, after a
good long stint, the writing was kind of on the wall.
(11:13):
The Eskimos used to well, nobody really wants to say
goodbye to Grandma. They call it when you can't chew
the seal fat anymore. The Eskimos would build an igloo,
and this is true, and they would hug Grandma and
tell Grandma they loved Grandma, and they would leave her
(11:36):
gifts and food. They would build her an igloo and
put her in it, and they would seal the igloo up.
Harsh reality, right, it's truth. I'm getting a little bit
long in the tooth myself. Don't build me no iglu yet, man,
I'll take a flamethrower to that thing. The tank ain't
(12:01):
done yet. Hey, your listeners, Let's talks dealers. Let's talks
dealers on Fox Sports Netwheeling, Pittsburgh. We'll be morphing into
golfing around pretty soon. Baby, Yeah, the old tanker. I'm
heading to Scotland and Ireland. You could learn how you
could win a trip to Scotland by going and playing
(12:21):
in Canton in August at our Team USA National Championships
Amateur Golfers. You don't need a usg again handicap to play.
What are you talking about, Tank, Well, look, go to
USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf dot com,
USA Scotland Golf dot com and you can learn how
(12:45):
you could be a member of Team USA and win
a trip to Saint Andrews. So the Emperor Chazenall's time passed,
Pittsburgh Steelers turned to a homeboy, a guy named Bill Caller. Now,
(13:08):
if you never saw Bill Cower, he's scary. He's scary.
This cat played football like it was meant to be.
Probably him and Jack Lambert are third or fourth cousins.
I bet Bill Cower grew up a Steelers fan in
(13:29):
the North Side. Bill Cower saw the teams of the seventies.
Bill Cower respected Charles no No, he respected the Chief
and Dan Rooney. More so, he respected the fan base
in Pittsburgh. I was there for that era here in
(13:55):
Pittsburgh during the nineties. Man, I saw him all. I
saw one number fourteen never mentioned his name around me.
Through the interception against the Chargers. There went that Super
Bowl dream. I was in Dallas when Number fourteen dare
(14:16):
not mention his name around me through the two interceptions
that blew the game against the Cowgirls. Uh uh, it's
a pain. You can't understand, baby, unless you've been there.
(14:38):
Chuck Noll extended, extended the vision of the Steelers. Chuck
Noll then handed off the mantle of what the Pittsburgh
Steelers were, what the core was. To Bill Old Coward,
(15:06):
you know, I've had my media credentials for the Steelers
for a long long time. At one season point in
one season, the championship season, Super Bowl forty three in Tampa.
(15:26):
That season, for whatever reason, I decided, you know, I'm
a journalist. I get ideas in my head, I get foughts.
So starting in training camp in La Trobe, it's my hometown,
it's not Latrobe, it's Latrobe. That's how you say that.
(15:46):
Throughout the season, I went to different management at different times,
including Dan Rooney himself, including Dick Lebau and the answer
the question I asked was a simple one. Why were
the Pittsburgh Stealers able to be a championship competitive team
(16:11):
for so long? Going back to Charles Noll Chuck Noll
to that date in two thousand and eight, and it
was amazing. At different times of the season, at different places,
Dan Rooney, Dick Lebo, others in the organization all told
(16:33):
me the same thing verbatim. We surround ourselves with good people.
We surround ourselves with good people. We surround ourselves with
good people. It became very apparent to me that that
(16:57):
wasn't by happen chance. That all the people people in
the Steelers organization at different times throughout that campaign in
two thousand and eight, repeated the mantra the philosophy we
surround ourselves with good people. And you think about some
(17:18):
of the people like Paula Molo, good people. So how
did we get here in February of twenty twenty five
that people are buying billboards in Pittsburgh saying fire Mark
Tomlin or get rid of the team? How did we
(17:40):
get to the point where I'm losing my mind, I
feel like I'm in an abusive relationship. Well, kiddies, the
answers to these questions are coming up in the next
segment of Let's Tuck Stealers Here on Fox Sports Net.
Wheeling Pittsburgh Radio fourteen AM one three point nine f M.
(18:05):
All right, go listen to some commercials. Change your underwear,
strap your ankle, strap your jaw, put your helmet on
because I'm bringing a heat on Mike Tomlin in the
next segment.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's Talk Stealers is sponsored by Italian Village Pizza Lawrence
Field Distilling. Enjoy their handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio, Red
Fox Winery and Lounge. Call any Italian village pizza on
(18:48):
Steelers game day and say let's talk Steelers and any
size pizza is Buy one, get one free take out
our delivery. Let's Talk Stealers. Let's Talk Steelers is sponsored
by Italian Village Pizza Lawrence Field is Stealing. Enjoy their
(19:11):
handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio, Red Fox Winery and Lounge.
Call any Italian village Pizza on Steelers game day and
say let's talk Steelers and any size pizza is Buy one,
(19:31):
get one free take out or delivery. Let's Talk Steelers.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Hey, welcome back to Let's Talk Steelers. I'm your host,
Tank Tantlinger. Here every Saturday morning on Fox Sports Net
Wheeling Pittsburgh Radio Radio Radio. We will be transitioning into
the golfing around show here in the next couple of weeks.
Golf is coming. If you would like to win a
(19:59):
trip to St. Andrews, Scotland, you amateur hacker golfer, you
listen up. Log on to USA Scotland Golf dot com,
USA Scotland Golf dot com, U s A Scotland Golf
dot Com, go to our website and you're gonna see
(20:19):
about our amateur golf tournament. You don't need a USGA
GIN handicap to play in our events. We're gonna be
doing a local qualifier here in Wheeling this summer. If
you win your flight and Wheeling, you'll win your entry
into Canton, Ohio in August. It's where our national championships
(20:40):
will be played. If you win your flight in Canton,
you win a trip to Saint Andrews, Scotland to play
for Team USA again. No usg AGAIN handicap required. Log
on to USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf
dot Com to learn more. Then, of course we're gonna
(21:03):
be adding the uh well, I think you're in for
a treat. Who's a Pirates fan around here? Anybody We're
adding a new segment to the show. It's called Let's
Talk Bucos. Let's Talk Bucos. Yeah, that's right. The kids
in the dugout, I call them kids. I'm sixty years old.
These kids are in their twenties. You know. To me,
(21:25):
they're kids, some of the brightest, youngest, sharpest kids. Well
you're gonna hear them in the next segment from the
Dugout with their Let's Talk Bucos show. Old Nate and
Peyton there, and these kids are the up and coming talent.
I always tell them when I'm dead and buried, you
guys better remember me when you've got your TV shows
(21:47):
and radio shows going. Some of the very best minds
in sports talk in Pittsburgh right now, Nate and Peyton,
And I gotta tell you, these guys love baseball. If
you want these guys that are into the numbers and
into the deep dive on Bucos Pirate's Talk, Well we
(22:08):
got you here at Fox Sports Wheeling. iHeart Pittsburgh with
Let's Talk Buccos from the Dugouts with Pirate, Peyton and Nate.
So but that'll be in the third segment. All right,
how did we get here? Steelers Nation. If you heard
the first segment, how did we get here in twenty
(22:30):
twenty five that people are buying billboards that say fire Mirk,
Tomlin Hey Art Rooney the second sell the team? I
mean this was a dedicated fan base. I wrote a
story or I should call it a what do they
call it? A doctoral thesis on our Facebook page at
(22:54):
Let's Talk Steelers Facebook and that's stil hyphen you can
read it. It got a lot of hits and when
I wrote it, I didn't know what people were gonna say.
I would say ninety percent of the people that commented
agreed with me. As I said in the first segment,
(23:20):
Chuck Knowle wasn't handed a Lamborghini. He built along with
Bill Nunn in the scouting department, a franchise that won
four Super Bowls in six seasons. Called that a dynasty.
That dynasty was then handed out to the good stewardship
(23:45):
a Bill Cower, and he's benefited as well from the
best scouting department in the NFL. Why do I say that,
You guys that are sports fans know this, Western Pa, Ohio,
West Virginia. We played football. We invented the game. The
(24:08):
first Pro game was played in Lake Trope, Pennsylvania, not Canton.
We invented football around here. We put a few guys
in the NFL through the years. You know the names,
Johnny Uniteds, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Bill Freelek, Bill Moss.
(24:29):
We know football in western Pennsylvania. The scouting department for
the Steelers was the best because these guys had played
the game and learned from some of the best coaches.
Bill Coward was the steward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and
(24:54):
he managed it well. Did he not, sir? Did he not?
Are you not entertained? Did you not enjoy the Super Bowl?
Even though we lost in Dallas? There were a couple
others along the way, weren't there? There were AFC Championship games.
(25:15):
They were all pros. But like the old Eskimo Grandma
that the Eskimos build the igloo and stick her inside
and seal it up and say Granny, we love you,
but you just can't chew the seal fat anymore. Bill
cower knew it was time to go. Then came Mike Tomlin.
(25:40):
Mike Tomlin, the name alone these days evokes passion. I'll
say passion. You have adamant Mike Tomlin defenders and hands. However,
(26:04):
after eighteen seasons, the scales have fallen from the eyes.
That's a biblical quotation, meaning you can see the truth.
Chuck Nall built a team from the ground up, a
(26:26):
horrible team. He built into a dynasty. Mike Tomlin was
handed the keys to a dynasty franchise. Mike Tomlin was
handed the keys to a Ferrari. The Rooney rule became
(26:47):
a fact about the same time, and I'm all for,
you know, based on merit, the best man for the job.
I don't care if he's green and he can lead
my Pittsburgh Steelers to the Promised Land and has antennas
(27:07):
and comes from work from Orc. I don't care if
he's a football guy and can lead my team because
I bleed black and gold too. Baby, I don't care
what color you are. Can you tell me the color
of a man's soul? Only God knows that answer, but
(27:34):
it's come to me. I think that Dan Rooney himself
came up with the Rooney Rule, and they went looking
for that coach and they found it, Mike Tomlin. I
(27:55):
don't think it was the best man for the job. Scenario.
I think, and I'm guessing here that they said, you know,
we can prop him up. We know we have one
of the best organizations in the league. We know we
have one of the best scouting departments in the league.
(28:21):
We've got remnants of Bill Cowers team left here. We
can prop Mike Tomlin up and he'll catch on. That's
what I think happened here. I truly believe that Mike
(28:42):
Tomlin is an average, average football coach. I think he's
been the beneficiary of the Rooney Roll. I think he's
been a beneficiary of a great organization. And let me
explain a great organization to you and again for you
guys that don't listen to the show a lot. I
(29:03):
played the left bench at PITT. I worked for the
NFL Players Association for a while. I have coached football
on a high school level. When I was with the
NFL Players Association in their contract research department, Gene Upshaw,
(29:23):
you remember, Ami played for the Raiders, was the executive director.
It was time to spread my wings and I got
a few job interviews with the Denver Broncos, the Raiders,
amongst other teams. The Broncos facilities are incredible man. You
go into them and Pat Bowling out there spends spends
(29:47):
money like it's water. Beautiful facility. You walk in and
they've got these beautiful bronze statue of horses. It's like
twenty feet high. Things got to be millions of dollars everywhere, marble.
Good organization. When I had my interview when they were
(30:10):
with the Los Angeles Raiders and El Segundo, how do
I explain this to you? Al Davis bought a used,
used junior high school. It looked as if he sent
Marcus Allen and Howie Long to Walmart and said, here's
one hundred bucks, go buy a bunch of silver and
(30:32):
black paint, the cheap stuff, and the team is painting
this place next week. The weight room was antiquated for
the Los Angeles Raiders. It's not a good organization for
a long time. And I love the Raiders, and I
(30:52):
love what's going on out there with Pete Carroll coming
aboard and Tom Brady becoming franchise owners. Second favorite team
in football. We all know the Cincinnati Kitti Cats for
a long time. We're a bad organization until they changed management.
(31:12):
So when I say the Steelers were and still are
a great organization that helped prop up Mike Tomlin. This
is what I mean. I am convinced had Mike Tomlin
been hired by, say, the Cincinnati Bengals when they around
(31:34):
that same time period, or the Browns in that same
time period, Mike Tomlin wouldn't have lasted more than three
or four years. Couple of good organization with the Steelers
with one of the best scouting departments, and Mike Tomlin's
been a lucky, lucky man. But luck coupled with a
(32:02):
great organization and a great scouting department does not make
a great coach, does not make another Chuck Nole Bill Cower.
What is evident now eighteen years into this process is
(32:25):
that Mike Tomlin doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
Dick Lebow fired, Mike Munchak, ran out of town. Bruce
Arians said, I've had enough of this junk with Tomlin
retired only to go on to win a Super Bowl
with Tampa Bay, Tomlin's hiring of Todd Haley, Randy Fiegner,
(32:54):
Matt Canada, and now this clown show and Arthur Smith.
Think about that Tomlin's higher That's not the Rooney family
that's not the scouting department. That's Mike Tomlin that hired
these guys. And you can all say that Todd Haley, Oh,
Todd Haley was a good offensive coordinator. No he wasn't. No,
(33:15):
he wasn't. That was the Killer Bees era, when that
scouting department gave them and found them two guys in
Le'Veon Bell and nobody in Antonio Brown. You had Ben Roethlisberger,
you had Mike Munchak's offensive line, you had Troy Paulamalo. Look,
(33:41):
I'm out of time here. We're gonna pick this up
for next week's show. My berating of well, I'm gonna
buy my own billboard, all right. In next segment coming up,
it's gonna be let's talk buckos with Pirate, Peyton and Nate.
I think you're gonna enjoy these guys. Like I said,
they're the up and comers in broadcasting in Pittsburgh, and
(34:02):
boy do they know they know pirates baseball. All right,
we'll be right back
Let's Talk Steelers is sponsored by Italian Village Pizza. Lawrence
Field is Stealing enjoy their handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio
Red Fox Winery and Lounge. Call any Italian Village Pizza
(00:27):
on Steelers game day and say Let's talk Steelers and
any size pizza is buy one, get one free take
out or delivery. Let's talk Steelers.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Huddle up Steelers station, it's tank Let's well, let's talk Stealers.
Uh uh? Does your head to hurt as bad as
my head hurts right now? Have you ever been in
an abusive whether it be mental or relationship? You know,
(01:05):
maybe it was a teacher that used to beat you
over the head, like missus Kazemchek used to whack me
in ahead in fifth grade because I suck at math.
S uk that four letters fo r, there's math for you.
This lady hit me in a head because I was
not with a pen a pencil. You know, I would
(01:29):
cry because I would I probably wanted to punch her.
I didn't realize that, you know, with my temper. Anyway,
I'm thank you're listening to Litstocks Dealers here. I'm wheeling
Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, baby, this is my time slot
ten am every Saturday morning. I get the rattle off
my my nonsensical view of the world, and quite frankly,
(01:53):
I don't care if you care. I don't care if
you like what I have to say that Mike Tomlin
needs fire like the guy who bought the Did you
just see the guy bought a billboard in Pittsburgh this
week paid good hard dollars too. I don't know. Maybe
(02:14):
this guy doesn't pay the electrical bill and he's putting
up billboards instead. And his wife is going, Larry, there's
no electricity. And a guy's like, yeah, but I bought
a billboard, it says Fire Tomlin. She's like, Larry, I'm
leaving you and going to my mother's. So I don't
know where he got to buy a billboard. I mean,
(02:35):
they're not cheap, let's say that. But there's somewhere in
Pittsburgh a billboard, it says Mike Tomlin. Dear mister Rooney,
fire Mike Temblin, or sell the team. How did we
get here? How did we get to this place in time?
(02:57):
In history? February of twenty twenty five that a devoted
a Rabbit Steelers nation that the iconic quote says, if
you meet a Steelers fan, they'll say, damn right, I
(03:19):
bleed black and gold. I bleed black and gold. That
that isn't a Seattle Sea Chickens fan. I mean they're
fair weather out in Seattle. Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson delivered
them championships. The Legion of Boom Secondary. You know, they
(03:43):
couldn't tell you, you know, what a slot receiver does,
what a Michael linebacker does, what a post pattern is.
But they dress up like seed chickens and go to
games and go we're really loud. They don't bleed green
or teal or whatever penguin's color is. Out there in Seattle,
(04:07):
we bleed black and gold. In Pittsburgh, we live and
die by this franchise.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
A picture of Coach Knowle chez No the Emperor for
you young kids, that's what's Coach Nole's nickname was by
the great One Myron Cope, the Emperor, the Emperor the
NFL because he won four Super Bowls in six seasons.
(04:40):
Did Chuck Nole and the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rocky Blier, Mel Blunt,
Mike Webster, you know the names. So here's the arc
where I'm heading with this. How we got to February
of twenty twenty five with people putting up billboards and
fans like yourself screaming for Mike Tomlin's head. You know,
(05:08):
nobody handed Chuck Noll the keys to a Maserati. Nobody
handed the keys to a Lamborghini and said, here you go, chess.
All you gotta do is just don't crasherr No Chuck No,
(05:31):
Bill None. If you don't know who Bill None is,
you are ignorant. To Pittsburgh Steelers sports history. Build None built.
The modern scouting departments actually had scouts go to college
(05:51):
football games and evaluate talent. Prior to that, most scouting
departments were looking through sources like Athalon Sports. Oh, here
you go. They list out the top five quarterbacks, They
list out the five top centers, five top linebackers. No
(06:13):
Bill Nunn of Europe Pittsburgh Steelers way back in the
day Baby invented scouting departments. Chuck no himself played for
the great Paul Brown when the Cleveland Browns were an
(06:37):
championship football team in the fifties. As a guard, Chuck
No so intelligent. Paul Brown used Chuck Noll to shuffle
in plays from the sidelines. Noel, a mastermind of the game,
played in the NFL, then got into coaching. He'd been
(07:02):
around the game's best. You know Jim Brown, Guys like
that Paul Brown. Chuck Nole was a good football player too.
Nobody handed him the keys. In fact, they handed him
the keys of a rusty Studebaker. One of the jokes
(07:28):
of car history when he inherited the Pittsburgh Steelers chess
Nol in sixty nine. It was rusty, beat up. There
was no engine in the car that Chuck Nole got.
The seats were ripped up. It was rusty chas. No
(07:50):
took one look at that car, called the Pittsburgh Steelers
and said, I can work with this. Hey, Bill Nunn,
you were talking about that kid out of Texas, that
defensive lineman. What's his name? Bill Nunn replied, Joe Green.
(08:13):
I don't know, coach. The kids got a nasty, nasty,
nasty disposition. Chuck Noll said, my kind of football player,
that Joe Green. Go get him. The drafts of the
early seventies of the Steelers produced names like Lynn Swan,
(08:38):
John Stalworth, Jack Lambert. You sit up when I say
mister Lambert's name Mike Webster. Chuck Noll built that team
from the ground up, that team that would go on
(08:58):
to win four Super Bowls in six years. It had
been a dilapidated Jappie John Loppy before that. Chuck Noll
turned the Steelers franchise into a dynasty. Got a kid
(09:22):
out of Penn State named Franco Harris, got the blonde
bomber out of Louse, Siana State. Javelin champion in high
school was Terry Bradshaw. Chuck Noll, probably out of respect
(09:43):
for the young man who had gone to Vietnam and
seen his hopes dashed after a great career Notre Dame,
having his football career ruined by a war that should
have never been fought. And I'm no bleeding art liberal kids,
(10:04):
and I served my time in the army too, but
that Vietnam War, and I loathe Communism, I loathe it.
But the end of that thing didn't need to happen.
Maybe Rocky Blier didn't need to get his foot blown off,
(10:25):
So the Chief God rest his soul, and Chuck Noll,
probably just to give the kids some hope, put Rocky
Bayer on the roster we all know now Rocky proved
(10:45):
to be Superman, a hero, a national treasure. Chuck Noll
built that team, turned it into champions. Then, after a
good long stint, the writing was kind of on the wall.
(11:13):
The Eskimos used to well, nobody really wants to say
goodbye to Grandma. They call it when you can't chew
the seal fat anymore. The Eskimos would build an igloo,
and this is true, and they would hug Grandma and
tell Grandma they loved Grandma, and they would leave her
(11:36):
gifts and food. They would build her an igloo and
put her in it, and they would seal the igloo up.
Harsh reality, right, it's truth. I'm getting a little bit
long in the tooth myself. Don't build me no iglu yet, man,
I'll take a flamethrower to that thing. The tank ain't
(12:01):
done yet. Hey, your listeners, Let's talks dealers. Let's talks
dealers on Fox Sports Netwheeling, Pittsburgh. We'll be morphing into
golfing around pretty soon. Baby, Yeah, the old tanker. I'm
heading to Scotland and Ireland. You could learn how you
could win a trip to Scotland by going and playing
(12:21):
in Canton in August at our Team USA National Championships
Amateur Golfers. You don't need a usg again handicap to play.
What are you talking about, Tank, Well, look, go to
USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf dot com,
USA Scotland Golf dot com and you can learn how
(12:45):
you could be a member of Team USA and win
a trip to Saint Andrews. So the Emperor Chazenall's time passed,
Pittsburgh Steelers turned to a homeboy, a guy named Bill Caller. Now,
(13:08):
if you never saw Bill Cower, he's scary. He's scary.
This cat played football like it was meant to be.
Probably him and Jack Lambert are third or fourth cousins.
I bet Bill Cower grew up a Steelers fan in
(13:29):
the North Side. Bill Cower saw the teams of the seventies.
Bill Cower respected Charles no No, he respected the Chief
and Dan Rooney. More so, he respected the fan base
in Pittsburgh. I was there for that era here in
(13:55):
Pittsburgh during the nineties. Man, I saw him all. I
saw one number fourteen never mentioned his name around me.
Through the interception against the Chargers. There went that Super
Bowl dream. I was in Dallas when Number fourteen dare
(14:16):
not mention his name around me through the two interceptions
that blew the game against the Cowgirls. Uh uh, it's
a pain. You can't understand, baby, unless you've been there.
(14:38):
Chuck Noll extended, extended the vision of the Steelers. Chuck
Noll then handed off the mantle of what the Pittsburgh
Steelers were, what the core was. To Bill Old Coward,
(15:06):
you know, I've had my media credentials for the Steelers
for a long long time. At one season point in
one season, the championship season, Super Bowl forty three in Tampa.
(15:26):
That season, for whatever reason, I decided, you know, I'm
a journalist. I get ideas in my head, I get foughts.
So starting in training camp in La Trobe, it's my hometown,
it's not Latrobe, it's Latrobe. That's how you say that.
(15:46):
Throughout the season, I went to different management at different times,
including Dan Rooney himself, including Dick Lebau and the answer
the question I asked was a simple one. Why were
the Pittsburgh Stealers able to be a championship competitive team
(16:11):
for so long? Going back to Charles Noll Chuck Noll
to that date in two thousand and eight, and it
was amazing. At different times of the season, at different places,
Dan Rooney, Dick Lebo, others in the organization all told
(16:33):
me the same thing verbatim. We surround ourselves with good people.
We surround ourselves with good people. We surround ourselves with
good people. It became very apparent to me that that
(16:57):
wasn't by happen chance. That all the people people in
the Steelers organization at different times throughout that campaign in
two thousand and eight, repeated the mantra the philosophy we
surround ourselves with good people. And you think about some
(17:18):
of the people like Paula Molo, good people. So how
did we get here in February of twenty twenty five
that people are buying billboards in Pittsburgh saying fire Mark
Tomlin or get rid of the team? How did we
(17:40):
get to the point where I'm losing my mind, I
feel like I'm in an abusive relationship. Well, kiddies, the
answers to these questions are coming up in the next
segment of Let's Tuck Stealers Here on Fox Sports Net.
Wheeling Pittsburgh Radio fourteen AM one three point nine f M.
(18:05):
All right, go listen to some commercials. Change your underwear,
strap your ankle, strap your jaw, put your helmet on
because I'm bringing a heat on Mike Tomlin in the
next segment.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Let's Talk Stealers is sponsored by Italian Village Pizza Lawrence
Field Distilling. Enjoy their handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio, Red
Fox Winery and Lounge. Call any Italian village pizza on
(18:48):
Steelers game day and say let's talk Steelers and any
size pizza is Buy one, get one free take out
our delivery. Let's Talk Stealers. Let's Talk Steelers is sponsored
by Italian Village Pizza Lawrence Field is Stealing. Enjoy their
(19:11):
handcrafted spirits. Visit Canton, Ohio, Red Fox Winery and Lounge.
Call any Italian village Pizza on Steelers game day and
say let's talk Steelers and any size pizza is Buy one,
(19:31):
get one free take out or delivery. Let's Talk Steelers.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Hey, welcome back to Let's Talk Steelers. I'm your host,
Tank Tantlinger. Here every Saturday morning on Fox Sports Net
Wheeling Pittsburgh Radio Radio Radio. We will be transitioning into
the golfing around show here in the next couple of weeks.
Golf is coming. If you would like to win a
(19:59):
trip to St. Andrews, Scotland, you amateur hacker golfer, you
listen up. Log on to USA Scotland Golf dot com,
USA Scotland Golf dot com, U s A Scotland Golf
dot Com, go to our website and you're gonna see
(20:19):
about our amateur golf tournament. You don't need a USGA
GIN handicap to play in our events. We're gonna be
doing a local qualifier here in Wheeling this summer. If
you win your flight and Wheeling, you'll win your entry
into Canton, Ohio in August. It's where our national championships
(20:40):
will be played. If you win your flight in Canton,
you win a trip to Saint Andrews, Scotland to play
for Team USA again. No usg AGAIN handicap required. Log
on to USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf
dot Com to learn more. Then, of course we're gonna
(21:03):
be adding the uh well, I think you're in for
a treat. Who's a Pirates fan around here? Anybody We're
adding a new segment to the show. It's called Let's
Talk Bucos. Let's Talk Bucos. Yeah, that's right. The kids
in the dugout, I call them kids. I'm sixty years old.
These kids are in their twenties. You know. To me,
(21:25):
they're kids, some of the brightest, youngest, sharpest kids. Well
you're gonna hear them in the next segment from the
Dugout with their Let's Talk Bucos show. Old Nate and
Peyton there, and these kids are the up and coming talent.
I always tell them when I'm dead and buried, you
guys better remember me when you've got your TV shows
(21:47):
and radio shows going. Some of the very best minds
in sports talk in Pittsburgh right now, Nate and Peyton,
And I gotta tell you, these guys love baseball. If
you want these guys that are into the numbers and
into the deep dive on Bucos Pirate's Talk, Well we
(22:08):
got you here at Fox Sports Wheeling. iHeart Pittsburgh with
Let's Talk Buccos from the Dugouts with Pirate, Peyton and Nate.
So but that'll be in the third segment. All right,
how did we get here? Steelers Nation. If you heard
the first segment, how did we get here in twenty
(22:30):
twenty five that people are buying billboards that say fire Mirk,
Tomlin Hey Art Rooney the second sell the team? I
mean this was a dedicated fan base. I wrote a
story or I should call it a what do they
call it? A doctoral thesis on our Facebook page at
(22:54):
Let's Talk Steelers Facebook and that's stil hyphen you can
read it. It got a lot of hits and when
I wrote it, I didn't know what people were gonna say.
I would say ninety percent of the people that commented
agreed with me. As I said in the first segment,
(23:20):
Chuck Knowle wasn't handed a Lamborghini. He built along with
Bill Nunn in the scouting department, a franchise that won
four Super Bowls in six seasons. Called that a dynasty.
That dynasty was then handed out to the good stewardship
(23:45):
a Bill Cower, and he's benefited as well from the
best scouting department in the NFL. Why do I say that,
You guys that are sports fans know this, Western Pa, Ohio,
West Virginia. We played football. We invented the game. The
(24:08):
first Pro game was played in Lake Trope, Pennsylvania, not Canton.
We invented football around here. We put a few guys
in the NFL through the years. You know the names,
Johnny Uniteds, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Bill Freelek, Bill Moss.
(24:29):
We know football in western Pennsylvania. The scouting department for
the Steelers was the best because these guys had played
the game and learned from some of the best coaches.
Bill Coward was the steward of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and
(24:54):
he managed it well. Did he not, sir? Did he not?
Are you not entertained? Did you not enjoy the Super Bowl?
Even though we lost in Dallas? There were a couple
others along the way, weren't there? There were AFC Championship games.
(25:15):
They were all pros. But like the old Eskimo Grandma
that the Eskimos build the igloo and stick her inside
and seal it up and say Granny, we love you,
but you just can't chew the seal fat anymore. Bill
cower knew it was time to go. Then came Mike Tomlin.
(25:40):
Mike Tomlin, the name alone these days evokes passion. I'll
say passion. You have adamant Mike Tomlin defenders and hands. However,
(26:04):
after eighteen seasons, the scales have fallen from the eyes.
That's a biblical quotation, meaning you can see the truth.
Chuck Nall built a team from the ground up, a
(26:26):
horrible team. He built into a dynasty. Mike Tomlin was
handed the keys to a dynasty franchise. Mike Tomlin was
handed the keys to a Ferrari. The Rooney rule became
(26:47):
a fact about the same time, and I'm all for,
you know, based on merit, the best man for the job.
I don't care if he's green and he can lead
my Pittsburgh Steelers to the Promised Land and has antennas
(27:07):
and comes from work from Orc. I don't care if
he's a football guy and can lead my team because
I bleed black and gold too. Baby, I don't care
what color you are. Can you tell me the color
of a man's soul? Only God knows that answer, but
(27:34):
it's come to me. I think that Dan Rooney himself
came up with the Rooney Rule, and they went looking
for that coach and they found it, Mike Tomlin. I
(27:55):
don't think it was the best man for the job. Scenario.
I think, and I'm guessing here that they said, you know,
we can prop him up. We know we have one
of the best organizations in the league. We know we
have one of the best scouting departments in the league.
(28:21):
We've got remnants of Bill Cowers team left here. We
can prop Mike Tomlin up and he'll catch on. That's
what I think happened here. I truly believe that Mike
(28:42):
Tomlin is an average, average football coach. I think he's
been the beneficiary of the Rooney Roll. I think he's
been a beneficiary of a great organization. And let me
explain a great organization to you and again for you
guys that don't listen to the show a lot. I
(29:03):
played the left bench at PITT. I worked for the
NFL Players Association for a while. I have coached football
on a high school level. When I was with the
NFL Players Association in their contract research department, Gene Upshaw,
(29:23):
you remember, Ami played for the Raiders, was the executive director.
It was time to spread my wings and I got
a few job interviews with the Denver Broncos, the Raiders,
amongst other teams. The Broncos facilities are incredible man. You
go into them and Pat Bowling out there spends spends
(29:47):
money like it's water. Beautiful facility. You walk in and
they've got these beautiful bronze statue of horses. It's like
twenty feet high. Things got to be millions of dollars everywhere, marble.
Good organization. When I had my interview when they were
(30:10):
with the Los Angeles Raiders and El Segundo, how do
I explain this to you? Al Davis bought a used,
used junior high school. It looked as if he sent
Marcus Allen and Howie Long to Walmart and said, here's
one hundred bucks, go buy a bunch of silver and
(30:32):
black paint, the cheap stuff, and the team is painting
this place next week. The weight room was antiquated for
the Los Angeles Raiders. It's not a good organization for
a long time. And I love the Raiders, and I
(30:52):
love what's going on out there with Pete Carroll coming
aboard and Tom Brady becoming franchise owners. Second favorite team
in football. We all know the Cincinnati Kitti Cats for
a long time. We're a bad organization until they changed management.
(31:12):
So when I say the Steelers were and still are
a great organization that helped prop up Mike Tomlin. This
is what I mean. I am convinced had Mike Tomlin
been hired by, say, the Cincinnati Bengals when they around
(31:34):
that same time period, or the Browns in that same
time period, Mike Tomlin wouldn't have lasted more than three
or four years. Couple of good organization with the Steelers
with one of the best scouting departments, and Mike Tomlin's
been a lucky, lucky man. But luck coupled with a
(32:02):
great organization and a great scouting department does not make
a great coach, does not make another Chuck Nole Bill Cower.
What is evident now eighteen years into this process is
(32:25):
that Mike Tomlin doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
Dick Lebow fired, Mike Munchak, ran out of town. Bruce
Arians said, I've had enough of this junk with Tomlin
retired only to go on to win a Super Bowl
with Tampa Bay, Tomlin's hiring of Todd Haley, Randy Fiegner,
(32:54):
Matt Canada, and now this clown show and Arthur Smith.
Think about that Tomlin's higher That's not the Rooney family
that's not the scouting department. That's Mike Tomlin that hired
these guys. And you can all say that Todd Haley, Oh,
Todd Haley was a good offensive coordinator. No he wasn't. No,
(33:15):
he wasn't. That was the Killer Bees era, when that
scouting department gave them and found them two guys in
Le'Veon Bell and nobody in Antonio Brown. You had Ben Roethlisberger,
you had Mike Munchak's offensive line, you had Troy Paulamalo. Look,
(33:41):
I'm out of time here. We're gonna pick this up
for next week's show. My berating of well, I'm gonna
buy my own billboard, all right. In next segment coming up,
it's gonna be let's talk buckos with Pirate, Peyton and Nate.
I think you're gonna enjoy these guys. Like I said,
they're the up and comers in broadcasting in Pittsburgh, and
(34:02):
boy do they know they know pirates baseball. All right,
we'll be right back
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