"YOU GUYS ARE GONNA HAVE TO COME TO PITTSBURGH! YOU EVER SEEN SNOW? THE SUPER BOWL GOES THROUGH PITTSBURGH BABY! YOU LIKE SLEET? YOU LIKE RAIN? THAT'S FOOTBALL WEATHER!" the stranger yelled at us as we exited through one of the tunnels in old Jack Murphy Stadium.
When I woke up that morning we did not even have tickets, much less plans, to attend the Steeler game. But when someone called the house in response to a classified ad for the derelict boat that had blighted the front yard for almost a year we seized the opportunity.
Uncle Dominic was out of town visiting his family so my aunt empowered my cousin and I to negotiate the sale of his unseaworthy vessel. I'd like to think that she said something like, "Take whatever you can get. I just want that boat gone."
Flush with cash from selling Uncle Dominic's boat, we had a bright idea. We opened up the classifieds to see how much Chargers tickets were going for.
After a phone call or two, my cousin and I bought lower level seats for the first time in our lives and headed to the game. If my uncle was going to blow his stack later that night I figured I could just drop my cousin off and let him take the brunt. Terrible, I know.
The Chargers wound up making it some of the best money we had ever spent—even if technically it wasn't ours.
Natrone Means carried two Steelers into the end zone. Andre Coleman ran a kickoff back 90-yards for a touchdown. John Carney's field goal with three seconds remaining gave the Chargers a 37-34 win over the top seeded Steelers to secure one of the AFC's two byes in the 1994 season finale. The festive atmosphere in Mission Valley—it was Christmas Eve!—was more than contagious, it was. . .electric.
But not for everyone.
"YOU EVER SEEN SNOW? WE GOT THE HOME FIELD! YOU HAVE TO COME THROUGH PITTSBURGH!" the angry stranger was yelling at the San Diegans merrymaking in the tunnel. He must have seen a lot of snow, which would explain his westward migration.
A month later, in the AFC Championship game, it did rain. It rained two Stan Humphries play-action bombs that arced over the Steelers secondary and into the end zone. Before Humphries picked himself up from the stadium floor to see how the play ended his face was slammed into a puddle of the wet stuff. It didn't bother him.
The Chargers travelled to Three Rivers Stadium and beat the Steelers to 17-13, punching their tickets to the Super Bowl for the first, and only time in franchise history.
Thirty years later, the Chargers, ensconced in Charlotte, N.C. to practice this week before a matchup against the undefeated Steelers, faced the possibility of showers again.
Coach Jim Harbaugh was asked about whether rain would dampen the team's ability to practice. As he often does, Harbaugh flipped the framework of the question on its ear.
Isn't your soft, cuddly, powder blue-wearing So-Cal team worried about getting wet, Jim?
"I hope it does. 'Liquid sunshine,' we like to refer to that as." said Harbaugh.
Did you think Harbaugh was going to concur with the implication? That California teams are as aquaphobic the Wicked Witch of the West?
This Chargers team might have brought the California rays of positivity with them having started 2-0 for the first time since 2012, but Harbaugh and his staff know that the vibes alone do not win football games.
The new regime doesn't look in the mirror and see Hollywood glitz. No, when they look in the mirror I think they see the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Stop the run. Run the ball. Don't turn the ball over. Capitalize on your opponent's mistakes. What year is it anyway?
Through two weeks both teams have played suffocating defense against lower-tier quarterbacks. The Chargers defense is allowing 6.5 points a game (1st), 227.5 yards per game (2nd), and have allowed opponents to convert on third and fourth downs at only a 23% rate (7 for 30).
By defensive DVOA , (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) a metric that measures teams, players, or units by comparing each play to a league-average baseline, the Chargers are first. (DVOA takes into account the down and distance of every play, the quality of the opponent, and yardage required for a first down.)
The Steelers are not far behind them in most categories. They rank 6th in defensive DVOA. They are allowing only 8 points per game (2nd), 260.5 yards per game (5th), and are first in turnover differential (+5).
Both teams have elected to punt on fourth-down and short. Both teams run the ball like they're playing in the Big Ten in 1985.
Aesthetically, you're probably the type who enjoys a pitcher's duel in baseball; a Tarkovsky film; watching CSPAN; listening to classical music in order to appreciate what the Steelers and Chargers are doing.
Conservative? On Sunday Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin will race to the right faster than Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a swing state.
When I think of Pittsburgh I think about a rookie named Dan Fouts going into the game after Johnny U got had retirement papers served to him by a defensive lineman in the second quarter.
I think about Dennis Gibson and a goal line stand for a chance to go to the Super Bowl. I think about the following AFC Championship game; Jim Harbaugh's Hail Mary pass that almost knocked out the heavily-favored Steelers for the second year in a row.
I think about Franco Harris and Troy Polamalu lunging to catch ricochets in the fractal of a second before those footballs fall back to the earth.
Mostly I think about defense. The Steel Curtain.
The Steel Curtain wasn't mothballed when the steel mills shut down in the eighties. Mean Joe. Kevin Green. Greg Lloyd. Troy Polamalu. Hell, in Pittsburgh the wide receivers will break your jaw if you don't keep your head on a swivel.
"There's an aura there. Just everybody that I've ever met from Pittsburgh, said Harbaugh. "I know the kind of football people that come out of 'the Burg'. Its real. Its genuine. Its unique."
Harbaugh knows. As Steeler coach Mike Tomlin likes to say, the standard is the standard.
"I can remember being a young kid and we're playing a team from Dexter (Michigan) this week and they're the Pittsburgh Steelers of the Washtenaw County Youth Football League. Whoa.” said Harbaugh. "We're actually playing the Pittsburgh Steelers this week! Let's find out what we're made of."
Scoring is down, you say? That doesn't bother the Steelers one bit. Which matches the number of touchdowns they have scored on the season.
Football history has a familiar cycle on repeat: The NFL changes the rules to boost scoring. Scoring takes a leap.
The Chiefs and the Rams play pinball in 2018 in a 54-51 scoring orgy .
Brandon Staley won't come out and say it, but maybe punting is for suckers. The future is here, and the nerds won!
Coaches figure out that explosive plays are the quickest path to winning and begin to design schemes to limit them. Checkdowns. Simulated pressures. Wimpy aDOTs (average depth of target). Quarterbacks seeing ghosts.
The defenses catch up, scoring sags, and the fantasy football owners whine. The sky is falling.
The pundits start asking: does the NFL need to change the rules to help teams score touchdowns?
Mel Kiper, a long-tenured draft expert at ESPN, went viral for this take a few days ago. He wasn't joking. Kiper has been around long enough to know that the Steelers were playing two high safeties in the seventies.
The season is only two weeks old, but league-wide averages of 194 passing yards and 1.1 touchdowns per game are the lowest they have been since 1978; before the rules committee abolished defensive backs mugging receivers beyond five yards; before banning contact to the head and neck; before safety was prioritized, at least publicly, above mayhem.
If you think about, a lot of those rules changes trace back to the team in Pittsburgh. The five yard illegal contact rule was nicknamed the Mel Blout rule because it addressed the physical way Blout roughed up receivers as they attempted to run their patterns.
The illegal crack-back block made to a player's head and neck from his blindside was nicknamed the Hines Ward rule.
You can't hit the quarterback below the knee anymore partially because Kimo Von Oelhoffen made a low, lunging hit directly on the Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer's left knee; tearing Palmer's ACL, MCL and PCL in a playoff game.
Have the Steelers succeeded on the field because they toe the line of the rule book, or has their success raised the profile of these incidents which creates the perception of ill-doing?
As habitual line-steppers the Steelers have a way of rubbing people the wrong way. Ask Justin Herbert.
In 2021 Cam Heyward chased down Justin Herbert after a long scramble 40 and fell on him; slamming his body to the mat like a wrestler and giving him a little extra on the way up just for making him run so far. Actually, can you think of a better metaphor for what it looks like when the defenses catch up to the offenses?
Football is a physical game and the Steelers have long prided themselves on being the most physical team in it—even if some of the grievances they use to motivate it are manufactured.
Tomlin was asked about the patented Steeler pettiness this week after giving a game ball to injured quarterback Russell Wilson in Denver, who spend the previous two seasons with the Broncos. His response was pure Tomlin, curt and aloof.
"None of your businesses, respectfully." said Tomlin.
"There's certain things that go on on teams that I don't talk about. Whether it gets out or how it gets out is not important to me and I'm not overly guarded against it. But there's just certain things as a leader that I talk to the collective about that I have zero intentions of sharing with the larger public, because it's about our collective, how we come together and how we appreciate and support one another.
"I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it."
Say what you want about Tomlin, but his methods work. The man has been an NFL head coach for a single franchise for 18 seasons and has never finished with a losing record.
Which brings me to my personal favorite Steelers story: involving a phantom phone call that was allegedly made during the week of practice leading up to a game.
In a scene right out of the movie "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", the rumor was Jaguars receiver Keenan McCardell had called linebacker Greg Lloyd's house to intimidate him.
"Hey, Greg. This is Keenan. I'm coming over to kill you and your family. That's right. Keenan McCardell. I play for the Jaguars. See you Sunday."
Only that story doesn't hold up to the slightest amount of scrutiny.
Why would McCardell, an offensive player 40 lbs. lighter than Lloyd, give the cantankerous linebacker bulletin board material in the days leading up to a divisional game for first place? And even if someone did call the house, how would Lloyd know who it was? Did he use caller ID? Did he Facetime him?
On the Jaguars first offensive play of the game Lloyd obliterated McCardell after an incomplete pass.
When the game was over Lloyd doubled down on his grievances .
“After the game, he told me, ‘Be a man. Own up to it.’ I used to have a lot of respect for him, but not now. He should remember that what goes around, comes around,” McCardell said.
The Steelers locker room confirmed that they heard the rumor too; acknowledging how odd it sounded but offered no contrition.
As Tomlin said, that's just one of the ingredients in the hot dog that we might not like.
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