Steelers Now
Tony Dungy has been a trusted and respected voice in both NFL locker rooms as a head coach, and in living rooms as a television analyst for decades. He has coached some of the greatest players to ever play the game, and in his almost 50 years in the NFL in some capacity, whether as a player, a coach, and now a respected analyst, it is no exaggeration to say that he has seen it all.
But what a lot of today’s NFL fans might not realize, is that he learned a lot about the game from legendary Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll, including a surprising lesson than he shared this week.
With NFL players being such great athletes, it seems to be widely assumed that they have mastered the basics and fundamentals of the game, and have essentially moved beyond that. But even as Noll coached some of the greatest players in NFL history, he knew of the importance of those fundamentals.
Dungy may be known to most current NFL fans as a television analyst, but he started his career as a player, first as a quarterback at the University of Minnesota from 1973-1976, and from there he would go undrafted and sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1977, and would convert to defensive back. In 1978 he had his best season, when he intercepted six passes, and would go on to win a ring after playing in Super Bowl XIII.
The year is 1977, and Dungy arrived at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania for Steelers training camp. From the start it was clear that Noll coached his players differently than any of the coaches that Dungy had played for. Creating a winning culture, that emphasized fundamentals above all else, Noll’s approach made a lasting impact on Dungy.
“So we come in and we do our stretching, and Coach Noll calls everybody up, line up, defense on one side, offense on the other side,” Dungy said in a recent episode of the Coach 2 Coach podcast with fellow former NFL head coach Jason Garrett. “And [Noll] said, ‘OK, it’s block and tackle by the numbers. Number one is your stance.’
“He put every guy on the team in their stance, and he looked at their stance and you know, so here’s Joe Greene, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and he’s, ‘Now Joe your foot’s just a little bit off here, you need to be this way.’ And I’m looking to myself, he’s telling Joe Greene how to stand after 10 years in the league?
“But we started, I was with him for 10 years, every year started with blocking tackle by the numbers. One was just stance, two, approach, three, contact, and four, follow through. He walked every guy through that, 45 minutes for 29 years. And that taught me something. That’s football. That’s how you build things. It’s not, we all we know what to do and we’re coaching pros. No, we’re going to start at...
