Captcoolhand
04-09-2008, 09:02 AM
Bradshaw's future rested on coin toss
'Heads' call allows Steelers to draft Hall of Famer
Draft positions in the annual NFL lottery are often determined by the toss of a coin, a 50-50 chance of victory, heads or tails.
This year, the Atlanta Falcons won a flip to pick third in the first round, after finishing the regular season in a tie with the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, each team ending finishing with 4-12 regular-season records and the same strength of schedule.
In fact, in the past decade, coin flips have determined drafting order on six occasions.
Who goes in that No. 3 slot to the Falcons, however, likely won't have the enormous effect that a spinning coin did in 1970 when the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears determined who would get the first overall selection in the draft.
"It changed history," Bears owner Mike McCaskey, the grandson of NFL founder George Halas, said last week.
That it did.
The Steelers and Bears were pitiful the previous season, each team going 1-13, Chicago's only victory coming, in fact, against Pittsburgh.
Projected as the best player available in the 1970 draft was a tobacco-chewing, strong-armed kid from Louisiana Tech by the name of Terry Bradshaw, a North Louisiana legend who could throw a football nearly as far as he could a javelin.
Coincidentally, the coin toss between the Bears and Steelers was scheduled to take place in New Orleans, site of Super Bowl IV.
Just seven years earlier, the Bears had won the most recent of their NFL championships when Halas coached the "Monsters of the Midway" to the 1963 title.
In their ignominious history, the Steelers had never won a title or a postseason game, having made such decisions as keeping a quarterback named Jim Finks and cutting a quarterback named Johnny Unitas.
The year before, in 1969, the Steelers took the first step toward rebuilding their future when they hired Chuck Noll to be the head coach, replacing Bill Austin.
Noll's initial No. 1 pick was defensive tackle Joe Greene.
But after that first season, the Steelers had a 50-50 chance of adding an offensive weapon to their arsenal in the form of Bradshaw.
"We think we were heading in (the right) direction anyway," said Steelers President Dan Rooney, the son of team founder Art Rooney, who was charged that January 1970 day to represent the team at the coin toss with Halas' son-in-law, the late Ed McCaskey. "But Terry sure was the piece that did it. He was the main guy, no question about that."
In those days, events such as these often were opened to the press by the always-public-relations-conscious NFL, which was led by Commissioner Pete Rozelle, whose résumé included a stint as the public relations director of the Los Angeles Rams.
Dozens of ink-stained writers attended what would become arguably the most noteworthy predraft coin toss in league history, one, as McCaskey's son Mike noted, that would alter the course of two franchises.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Rooney said. "We were going to get better anyway. We had a great coach, Joe Greene was sort of a team leader. We had some pieces in there. There's no question that Terry was it."
Rooney recalls neither party seemed eager to make a heads or tails call.
"I told Ed McCaskey to call it," Rooney said. "I said, 'You call it.' He said 'No, you call it.' I said again, 'No, you call it.' He called the wrong thing."
"I think he called 'heads,' " Mike McCaskey said.
It was tails.
The Bears went on to trade the second selection in the draft to Green Bay for running back Elijah Pitts, linebacker Lee Roy Caffey and center Bob Hyland, drafting defensive tackle Mike McCoy with the pick obtained from the Packers.
Pittsburgh took Bradshaw.
In the next decade, the Steelers had a composite regular-season record of 99-44-1, winning four Super Bowls, the first of which came in New Orleans. The Bears, during that same span, went 60-83-1
Interesting story. :yesnod: I never knew that the first pick to the Steelers was determined by a flip of a coin. What is we would had lost it, would we still have gotten Bradshaw.:scratch:
And to think that they had 15 rds in the draft back then. :eek: Man, that had to take forever.
'Heads' call allows Steelers to draft Hall of Famer
Draft positions in the annual NFL lottery are often determined by the toss of a coin, a 50-50 chance of victory, heads or tails.
This year, the Atlanta Falcons won a flip to pick third in the first round, after finishing the regular season in a tie with the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, each team ending finishing with 4-12 regular-season records and the same strength of schedule.
In fact, in the past decade, coin flips have determined drafting order on six occasions.
Who goes in that No. 3 slot to the Falcons, however, likely won't have the enormous effect that a spinning coin did in 1970 when the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears determined who would get the first overall selection in the draft.
"It changed history," Bears owner Mike McCaskey, the grandson of NFL founder George Halas, said last week.
That it did.
The Steelers and Bears were pitiful the previous season, each team going 1-13, Chicago's only victory coming, in fact, against Pittsburgh.
Projected as the best player available in the 1970 draft was a tobacco-chewing, strong-armed kid from Louisiana Tech by the name of Terry Bradshaw, a North Louisiana legend who could throw a football nearly as far as he could a javelin.
Coincidentally, the coin toss between the Bears and Steelers was scheduled to take place in New Orleans, site of Super Bowl IV.
Just seven years earlier, the Bears had won the most recent of their NFL championships when Halas coached the "Monsters of the Midway" to the 1963 title.
In their ignominious history, the Steelers had never won a title or a postseason game, having made such decisions as keeping a quarterback named Jim Finks and cutting a quarterback named Johnny Unitas.
The year before, in 1969, the Steelers took the first step toward rebuilding their future when they hired Chuck Noll to be the head coach, replacing Bill Austin.
Noll's initial No. 1 pick was defensive tackle Joe Greene.
But after that first season, the Steelers had a 50-50 chance of adding an offensive weapon to their arsenal in the form of Bradshaw.
"We think we were heading in (the right) direction anyway," said Steelers President Dan Rooney, the son of team founder Art Rooney, who was charged that January 1970 day to represent the team at the coin toss with Halas' son-in-law, the late Ed McCaskey. "But Terry sure was the piece that did it. He was the main guy, no question about that."
In those days, events such as these often were opened to the press by the always-public-relations-conscious NFL, which was led by Commissioner Pete Rozelle, whose résumé included a stint as the public relations director of the Los Angeles Rams.
Dozens of ink-stained writers attended what would become arguably the most noteworthy predraft coin toss in league history, one, as McCaskey's son Mike noted, that would alter the course of two franchises.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Rooney said. "We were going to get better anyway. We had a great coach, Joe Greene was sort of a team leader. We had some pieces in there. There's no question that Terry was it."
Rooney recalls neither party seemed eager to make a heads or tails call.
"I told Ed McCaskey to call it," Rooney said. "I said, 'You call it.' He said 'No, you call it.' I said again, 'No, you call it.' He called the wrong thing."
"I think he called 'heads,' " Mike McCaskey said.
It was tails.
The Bears went on to trade the second selection in the draft to Green Bay for running back Elijah Pitts, linebacker Lee Roy Caffey and center Bob Hyland, drafting defensive tackle Mike McCoy with the pick obtained from the Packers.
Pittsburgh took Bradshaw.
In the next decade, the Steelers had a composite regular-season record of 99-44-1, winning four Super Bowls, the first of which came in New Orleans. The Bears, during that same span, went 60-83-1
Interesting story. :yesnod: I never knew that the first pick to the Steelers was determined by a flip of a coin. What is we would had lost it, would we still have gotten Bradshaw.:scratch:
And to think that they had 15 rds in the draft back then. :eek: Man, that had to take forever.