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Straight from the horses mouth: Montana say Steelers chose O'Donnell over me

antdrewjosh

antdrewjosh

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I think this makes it official, Dan and Joe are now in a elite club.................



Salute the nation
 
It would have been an interesting dynamic with a young Cowher in 1993.

Cowher was still trying to mold the team away from a legend in Chuck Noll. Would bringing in the star that was Montana at the time has usurped that message? Probably.

I'm not saying it wouldn't have worked. Cowher would have deferred a lot to making Erhardt create a hybrid "west coast" system that could work. Erhardt had been around the block, so it might have been okay.

I mean, at that point I think Montana was the same age as Cowher. That would have been weird.
 
Drink IRON City said:
I think this makes it official, Dan and Joe are now in a elite club.................



Salute the nation
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Both wanted to be Steelers. We are talking 1992. Montana wasn't great on Kanas City. I think Cowher made the best long term move.
 
I for one think we screwed up by not bringing in Joe. Are you kidding me? Joe Montana or Neil O'Donnel? Joe could have taken a young offense and been it's leader. Remember during that time we had Yancey Thigpen, Ernie Mills,Eric Green, Andre Hastings, and Barry Foster. A pretty good offensive line anchored by Dawson, Searcy. With Montana who still had life in him for a few more seasons, that would have been fun to watch.
 
Based on the title of the thread I was hoping to see some Hannah Davis


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And we cut Johnny Unitas. And we passed on Marino. So add that to the list too.
 
But we drafted Roethlisberger.

Who knows what Montana would have done here, but it would have been cool to watch him in the black and gold.
 
Coach said:
Both wanted to be Steelers. We are talking 1992. Montana wasn't great on Kanas City. I think Cowher made the best long term move.
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If I remember correctly Montana beat the Steelers twice in the playoffs!
 
fogdoctor said:
And we cut Johnny Unitas. And we passed on Marino. So add that to the list too.
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Also Dawson was here at one time. One thing that might have hurt the prospect of getting Montana was the trade aspect. We do not know what was asked for Montana at the time, it might have been different by the time KC was involved. The steelers also had a history of trading away draft picks to bring in big name veterans in the twilight of their careers and that failed in a big way for them letting them be the door mat of the nfl for decades. It was not until they began building through the draft that success became something that was mentioned in the same sentence with the steelers.

Now with that being said Marino, Dawson, Unitas, Montana how many Lombardi could we have had had those guys been kept when the chance presented itself.
 
Unitas is the only player that would have cost us championships. He was an all time great, if not the best, but we had to be the worst team in football and still win the coin flip, to land Bradshaw. We would not have been the worst in the league with Unitas. I'll take Bradshaw's +4 over Unitas +1 and 2 NFL Championships.

Marino's the only one that hurts. What compounds it is that Gabe got paralyzed and Malone is the reason why we didn't draft another QB. Hindsight is clear, but at the time I understand the decision. It just turned out to be a poor one for the franchise. Just think of the 84 team with Marino instead of Malone. That team would have had a better chance at the SB that year alone.

We passed on Joe twice and he was taken the spot before our vacated pick in rd 3.
 
Montana was 37 at the time and O'Donnell was 27. I can see the reasoning behind it but that said I think if we had Montana for even one season we would have had a better chance at a super bowl. Not that Montana lit the world on fire his last two years but I think that leadership and steadiness would have been the difference. Neil fell apart in the Super Bowl in 1995. He was just never anything more than a game manager who fell apart during the big games. Montana at that point was more of a game manager but he always flourished during the big moments.
 
In hindsight, bringing Montana would have given the Steelers a better shot at a championship, but it wasn't clear how much he had left, as he was injury plagued at the end of his 49ers' tenure and flat out lost his job to Steve Young. Plus, O'Donnell showed a lot of promise in 1992
 
If nothing else, Joe Cool most certainly does NOT throw those two picks against the Cowgirls.
 
fogdoctor said:
And we cut Johnny Unitas. And we passed on Marino. So add that to the list too.
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We also picked up Jerome Bettis and gave up something like warm six-pack.

Cope said:
Marino's the only one that hurts. What compounds it is that Gabe got paralyzed and Malone is the reason why we didn't draft another QB. Hindsight is clear, but at the time I understand the decision. It just turned out to be a poor one for the franchise. Just think of the 84 team with Marino instead of Malone. That team would have had a better chance at the SB that year alone.
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Agree, if Rivera isn't paralyzed in a car accident and turns into the force that it looked like he would be, then we're not worrying so much about not drafting Marino. Malone didn't look all that bad but he tore up his knee early on, missed almost a full season, and lost quite a bit of speed and mobility when he came back. Was never the same player. And at the time we thought Bradshaw had a year or two left, which he didn't.
 
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If ands and buts were candies and nuts. By the time he got to the chiefs he was pretty much done from back and elbow injuries. Plus they traded him and just because he wanted to be a Steeler doesn't mean the Steelers offered the most. Joe was in Pitt and waxing nostalgia for the locals.
 
SteelerSask said:
If ands and buts were candies and nuts. By the time he got to the chiefs he was pretty much done from back and elbow injuries. Plus they traded him and just because he wanted to be a Steeler doesn't mean the Steelers offered the most. Joe was in Pitt and waxing nostalgia for the locals.
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He had enough to beat us in the playoffs
 
Chicoman said:
If I remember correctly Montana beat the Steelers twice in the playoffs!
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With the help of a blocked punt if memory serves.
 
antdrewjosh said:
http://m.wpxi.com/news/sports/Joe-Montana-Pittsburgh-Steelers-Neil-ODonnell-nfl/nmYt3/


I brought this up before but it was debunked as rumor. Montana set the record straight. He wanted to come but the the Steelers chose to stick with Neil. Curious decision to me Neil was hardly established at that time. We had a good Oline could of protected Montana if injury was a concern. Thoughts?
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So can we blame Coach Tomlin for this decision??? My trigger finger is itchy!!!
 
deljzc said:
Based on the title of the thread I was hoping to see some Hannah Davis


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I love watching her, but for ****'s sake she needs to quit talking.
 
antdrewjosh said:
He had enough to beat us in the playoffs
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But not enough to win a championship with the chiefs (pretty good defense and Marcus Allen in his twilight as I remember). The list of QB's that beat the Steelers in the Playoffs between 1992-2005 is rather large. Did you want all of them too?
 
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