The Pittsburgh Steelers are a franchise built on a blue-collar approach to football: hard-nosed defense, a bruising rushing attack, and hitting opponents in the mouth. During the 1990s, the Steelers continued that tradition with veteran players on both sides of the ball leading by example. Bill Cowher, Hall of Fame head coach, always brought a unique intensity to his role on the sidelines, but apparently, Cowher was the hardest on some of the lesser-known players.
Fred McAfee, a former Steelers' running back from 1994 to 1998, played alongside some of the generational names in Pittsburgh sports history. In an interview with Steelers Takeaways, McAfee spoke highly of the different, incredible Steelers players he called teammates during his time in Pittsburgh. According to McAfee, despite the number of impactful leaders in that locker room, Cowher had a tendency to come down hardest on the punters.
"Mostly, what stands out is just the brotherhood we all had. We had so many veterans and Hall of Famers on that team. Vrabel, Bettis, Dawson, Kirkland, Woodson, Lake... It was a great brotherhood. The locker room was as stable as it comes. If you were a punter, Cowher was always on your butt."
During Cowher's tenure in Pittsburgh, the coach had Mark Royals, Rohn Stark, Josh Miller, and Chris Gardocki as his primary punters. It's an interesting dynamic when the head coach chooses to stay on the punters as McAfee said he did, while the leaders and captains of the team apparently got more leniency.
With names like Mike Vrabel, Jerome Bettis, Dermontti Dawson, Levon Kirkland, Rod Woodson and Carnell Lake on the roster, it's understandable why Cowher's focus on the punters would have stood out to McAfee.
Bettis and Dawson represented two key pieces to Pittsburgh's running game, while Vrabel, Kirkland, Woodson, and Lake were all intimidating, foundational parts of one of the more consistent defenses in the league. Experience like that commands a certain level of respect in the NFL, which could be the reason Cowher felt comfortable harping on the punters and letting the locker room leaders do their thing.
McAfee got to be a part of the 1995 team that made it to Super Bowl XXX that unfortunately lost to the Dallas Cowboys. The brotherhood and stability within Pittsburgh's locker room during that run at a championship were vital reasons for the team's success. When a Super Bowl-winning coach like Cowher trusts his team enough to use his energy on the punting aspect of the game, that means something must have been going right.
Steelers Aiming To Get Back To Cowher's Success
The Steelers, under Mike Tomlin, haven't won a playoff game since Pittsburgh defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional Round of the 2016 NFL playoffs. For a franchise that has forged a reputation out of competing for championships, the seven-year drought is weighing on the fans and front office.
During Cowher's time as head coach in Pittsburgh, the longest the team went without winning at least one game in the postseason was three years (1998 to 2000). Additionally, Cowher only had two seasons in which he lost the first postseason contest his team played (1992, 1993).
Tomlin, despite his impressive lack of non-losing seasons in Pittsburgh, has been one-and-done in the NFL playoffs the last four times the Steelers earned a postseason berth (2017, 2020-2021, 2023).
After a 2024 offseason spent bringing in numerous upgrades to both sides of the ball, including a new offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith, the pressure is on Tomlin to get back to playing for Super Bowls. If the Steelers' head coach leads the team to another anticlimactic first-round postseason exit, Tomlin's seat could start to feel awfully warm.
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