Dan Rooney (41 page)

Greene: It was a solid defense that wasn't necessarily spectacular, but it was very difficult to run the ball on and very difficult to throw the ball on. The offense wasn't flashy. We ran the football for the most part, and then with Terry Bradshaw we threw more later on with Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. It was standard football. You run first and you pass second; you pass-protect and you run your routes. It wasn't the West Coast. It wasn't the Dallas Cowboys' shotgun with a lot of motion. It was a two-back offense when a lot of one-back offenses were emerging.

 

 

Greene: We played Buffalo in the first round of the playoffs, and that's when we really introduced the Stunt 4-3. We were desperate to stop O. J. Simpson, who had put up almost two hundred yards rushing
the last time he played against us. The reason we had been losing in the playoffs was that other teams were running the football on us. Miami did it in 1972, and Oakland did it in 1973.

The thing that really, really gave us the impetus and the mind-set and, as Chuck always said, “the refuse-to-be-denied attitude” came on the Monday after we beat Buffalo in the first round of the playoffs in 1974. People on the outside would always hear things like the refuse-to-be-denied attitude and call them a cliché, but to us it was real. Anyway, we were sitting in the locker room over at the stadium, and Chuck said, “You know, the coach of the Raiders said the two best teams in football [Miami and Oakland] played yesterday, and that was the Super Bowl.” He said, “Well, the Super Bowl is three weeks from now, and the best team in pro football is sitting right here in this room.”

I'm telling you, I think I levitated right out of my seat when I heard that. There was no way the Raiders were going to beat us. It all came from Chuck's consistency, because it was very unlike him to say that. That's why it had so much power. It's almost like it happened yesterday. So during the course of that game we were thinking, “These Raiders don't have a chance.”

Just before halftime in the game, John Stallworth caught a touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone with his left hand and the cornerback was holding his other arm. Stallworth somehow crossed over with his feet and stayed in bounds. The officials called him out. At that time we were trailing, but the amazing thing was that none of us complained about it. We could all see that it was a touchdown, but we didn't complain. And when we walked off the field and through the tunnel where all the Raiders fans were lined up, we ran off with the confidence that we're going to beat you. You have no chance. We're going to give you that touchdown.

I had never felt that way—ever. It all stemmed from Chuck: the quiet, steady confidence that he had in us. And that was because he had built it and he knew what was happening. It was all about him.

I've been in locker rooms since then where you get all kinds of speeches and platitudes, and they don't mean a thing. All Chuck said was, play the way you've been coached, and that's what developed the consistency in that football team.

 

 

Greene: When he called me, he said, “I want you to present me.” I said, “You don't want Chuck?”

I was almost speechless. After it all sank in, I had a better feeling about being asked to do that than I had about being inducted myself. I think Dan wanted someone from that era to present him, someone he thought could represent the team. I never asked him. I'm definitely assuming. That's one of the greatest honors I've ever had.

 

 

Greene: A great boss. I'll never forget him saying that when you have a big decision to make, let it soak. Think about it. He said that when a team loses it's not always the head coach's fault, and good head coaches are hard to come by. Give them time.

After my rookie year, I made some All-Pro team. In my contract, I had a clause that said if I made a specific All-Pro team—the NEA [Newspaper Enterprise Association] team—I'd get $10,000. I made some All-Pro teams, but not the one spelled out in my contract. Dan wrote me the check anyway.

That's the way he's always been. Starting way back, he always made sure that his players were respected by the organization. We never had issues when we traveled to Super Bowls. And Dan made sure, through the people who worked for him, that we never had issues with travel or hotels or tickets.

Dan was a tough businessman, but he was always fair. He always said that as an owner you may have the upper hand, but that doesn't mean you have to beat the guy down. Give in a little. He's lived that way.

I did things many times—I probably couldn't have played for a lot of teams. But the simple fact is that Chuck and Dan and Mr. Rooney knew they were dealing with kids. They had a way of giving us a helping hand and letting us know it was going to get better. When I had a tantrum and kicked in the door of the equipment room at training camp, all Chuck ever did was come up to my room and say, “That'll be $500.” That was it. But I understood, because you can't do that. Through all of my antics, Dan and Chuck felt that my only interest was in winning.

 

Noll: I thought that this probably was the place to come. I talked to Dan Rooney and got a feeling for what he wanted to do. And he liked the thoughts I had, so it worked out well.

 

 

Noll: Not really, no. It was just a meeting with Dan, getting his ideas and what they wanted to do, and our ideas meshed.

What we wanted to do was build through the draft. The Steelers had a history of trading away a lot of people before that. My experience,
coming up through the American Football League, was in drafting people and teaching the skills to play professional football. That's the way that I knew how to do it, and that's the way Dan wanted to go, so it meshed well.

 

 

Noll: Yes, he was head of scouting. That was something that I was very interested in, because there were a lot of teams that wanted to segregate coaching and talent. I don't think you can do that. I think it has to work together. It has to be a team, completely, not only on the field but off the field as well. I was very comfortable that the Steelers would go in that direction.

 

 

Noll: Yeah, no question about it. They were looking for the right way to do things. I came in with some experience of winning, of being with organizations that were successful. They thought, “Hey, this is what made them successful. Why won't it make us successful?” They bought into it, and they were looking for that way to do it.

 

 

Noll: Well, I had worked him out specifically. I had known of him, and that was an important thing. He was a young man who had a great desire to be the best. That's what we needed. We needed those kinds of people. He fit the whole profile. Attitude-wise, talent-wise, he could be a dominating player. We needed help in our defensive
line. Some people didn't think so, but that's what we needed to be able to rush the passer and control the line of scrimmage.

 

 

Noll: Well, before you can win the game, you have to not lose it. That's the premise. So it begins with defense, and defense can set up offense. You can go out there and score lots of points, but end up losing the game because you have no defense. You're running up and down the field, you know, and that may be exciting to the fans. But it's not very exciting when you lose.

 

 

Noll: No. You know, the thing that he wanted so very badly was to win. And to do what you had to do to win. He went out and played very hard, and expected everybody else to as well. Also, he didn't want anybody holding him. If someone was going to hold him, and the officials didn't call it, well, he lost his temper. That was something that we talked about: that you have to really let the officials call the game. You can complain about being held, but you can't physically take on the other people.

 

 

Noll: He was right there, yes. From an attitude standpoint, there was desire; he'd do whatever you had to do to win. And he was special from a leadership standpoint. Everybody thinks leadership comes from how you talk, but it really doesn't. Leadership on the field from a football player comes from how you perform. If you are a
performer, you can be a leader. Joe was an outstanding performer, and led that way.

 

 

Noll: Yeah, I thought we were. It was just a question of upgrading at some different positions. We needed skill positions on offense, which we didn't have the first year. We started off trying to get some defense together, and that picked up a little bit, but not good enough. We still had to get better people.

 

 

Noll: You know, the number of players you're going to get is not going to help your football team. You have to have quality people. So if you trade away quality for less than quality, you're going to be a less-than-quality football team. And what we were after were top-notch players. Terry fell into that category, and that's what we were trying to get via the draft—top-quality people.

 

 

Noll: You know, I really had no way of knowing. I knew he had a great deal of talent. He had the ability to throw the football. He had the ability to run with it when he had to. He had all kinds of physical abilities, and it was just a question of being able to use that on the field.

 

Noll: Very much so. Terry, without a question, had a great desire to be the best. He worked very hard, physically and mentally. He spent time in the classroom, and watching film, and prepared himself very well.

 

 

Noll: John Stallworth probably was a little more physical than Lynn. Lynn was a little more athletic and had the ability to run very well after the catch by making people miss. John Stallworth would break tackles, then run well after the catch. They complemented each other. Both helped the running game, also. In order to have the running game go—to make people respect your running game so you could throw the football—they had to block. They blocked downfield, both of them, very well.

 

 

Noll: There's no question about it. If we had thrown the ball to them every time, they would've been happy. The ball had to be spread around, but in order to do it properly we had to make people respect the run. We had to throw it when we were able to slow down the pass rush, so that we would have time to throw it and get open.

 

 

Noll: The first day he came to camp, you could see his ability to make people miss his quickness. His ability to run with the football was something very special. Franco really had great vision. Every good
runner I know has that kind of vision, and he had it right from the start. Not only seeing the holes, but seeing the people. You know, a lot of people come in there and they close their eyes when they're running into the line, but Franco had his eyes wide open. He could pick the holes and knew the cuts to make.

 

 

Noll: Rocky was a guy who was kind of a—I don't want to say an enigma—but a surprise in a lot of senses because he did not appear to be a great athlete. He had better speed than he looked like he had, and he had a great desire to play. He turned out to be an excellent blocker, which also complemented Franco, and he ended up running routes and catching the ball out of the backfield well. At first I didn't think he had that kind of talent, but he developed it by working very hard. He had a great desire to improve in all areas.

 

 

Noll: When I was with Baltimore and we played against the Steelers, Rocky was was not someone who we were concerned about at all. But when I got here, and had a chance to work with him and see the desires that he had, and how much he wanted to improve, he was a guy that grew on you.