by D Server

Created on: February 14, 2010

Winning pretty much followed Chuck Noll throughout his career in football. During his playing days with the Cleveland Browns, he was one of the messenger guards. Coach Paul Brown called the plays himself, which was unheard of at that time. The way Brown got the plays in was to send in a different guard on every play. Noll was one of those guards. He played on the great Browns teams of the fifties who were in the championship game most every year, winning the titles in 1950 and 1954.

After his playing career, Noll worked for awhile for the San Diego Chargers on the coaching staff of Sid Gilman. He became a specialist in coaching defense. This became most apparent when he was the defensive coordinator for Don Shula and the Baltimore Colts in the last sixties Although the team didn't get a Super Bowl win until after Noll-and for that matter Shula- had left the Colts, the defensive stats of the team were awesome. While Johnny Unitas and the offense got most of the attention, the defense was the most dominant in the NFL. The Colts only lost one game in 1967, but didn't even make the post-season (there were no wild cards at that time.) The Colts team in 1968 again only lost one regular season game, and the Colts' defense had several shutouts, including the NFL championship game over the Browns. Almost all of the great accomplishments of that 1968 Colts team have been forgotten because they lost the Super Bowl game to the New York Jets. But others noticed the way the defense played. The Pittsburgh Steelers decided to hire Noll as their head coach.

It must have been a shock to Noll after all the success he had in Cleveland and Baltimore when he arrived in Pittsburgh as the head man in 1969. The Steeler franchise had never played a post-season game. Though they had many good players through the years (including Bobby Lane, Ernie Stautner and John Henry Johnson) the team was usually a non-contender. When Noll arrived in 1969, the quality of the team was at one of its lowest levels. According to Andy Russell, who had been in Pittsburgh for several years and would stay there for many more, Noll was very blunt when he talked to the team for the first time. He told them, "Most of you aren't very good and I'm going to get rid of you. "

In Noll's first year in Pittsburgh, he won his first game of the season, but then lost the last thirteen. But his master plan was going into effect. He was going to build the team with the players he wanted through the draft. That first year, he brought in Mean Joe Green. The second year, his quarterback, Terry Bradshaw.  Year after year, the Steelers drafted brilliantly, adding a number of great players to the roster. Mel Blount and Jack Ham were brought in, then Franco Harris at running back. Then Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, two future hall of fame receivers, were drafted in 1974, as was hall of fame linebacker Jack Lambert.

With all these top players assembled, Noll's Steelers quickly became a playoff team. In 1974, Noll's sixth year on the job, the Steelers won their first Super Bowl. Then they won another one the next year, dramatically beating the Dallas Cowboys. Later in the decade, they won two more Super Bowls, giving them what at the time was an unprecedented four wins in the big game.

Eventually, as the great players began to age and depart, the Steelers stopped winning championships, though they were usually a playoff contender. Noll coached on through 1991 and was an obvious choice for the hall of fame as soon as he was eligible, where he joined so many of the players he had coached to such great success in Pittsburgh.

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