Steelers Now
Bill Cowher left his mark on the Pittsburgh Steelers. By the time he stepped down, he’d trailed only Chuck Noll on the franchise’s all-time wins leaderboard and led it to a Lombardi Trophy, another Super Bowl appearance and six trips to the AFC Championship Game.
After Noll resigned in 1991, though, one of his former players, assistant coaches and someone who has to be on the Steelers’ Mount Rushmore — “Mean” Joe Greene — had his eyes on the job.
“When Chuck Noll left, Joe Greene was our defensive line coach at the time, and Joe Greene had become a mentor of mine,” former Steelers running back Merril Hoge said Friday on the “Straight Facts Homie!” podcast. “I love Joe Greene. I think he is iconically one of the best — not (just) Steelers — but football players in NFL history. I was a captain at the time (and he) asked me if I would go talk to Mr. Rooney about him being our next head coach. I’m a 25-year-old player, my scope’s (zeroed in) and I’m like, ‘Chuck Noll to Joe Greene, couldn’t be better.'”
Dan Rooney had an open-door policy, and the then-fifth-year ball carrier walked in, sat down and brought up the idea. Rooney, Hoge said, got up and closed the door.
“I was like, ‘Ooh, that’s never happened before,'” Hoge said. “And then he comes back, he sits down and he just said, ‘Listen, we’re not gonna do that to Joe.’ And he explained all the reasons, and, honestly, all of them made sense. The expectation and the standard that would (have been) on Joe would just be overwhelming, daunting — and he wasn’t gonna do that.”
The choice worked out. Cowher cemented his place in Steelers history. Greene, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987, will forever be remembered as a cornerstone of the team’s dynasty of the 1970s.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Hoge: Steelers Legend Wanted to Succeed Chuck Noll
