I will just leave this hear and y'all can discuss it a bit and see how it transpires ...
16–8 playoff record -Chuck Noll
12-9 Playoff record -Bill Cowher
8-11Playoff record -Mike Tomlin
the Standard set by Noll had been rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
Noll only won with Bill Nunn's guys!
It was easier to consistently win in an era where you didn't have to pay players more than peanuts, there was no free agency, you could keep players forever, and the draft was 100 rounds long?
What a stunning surprise.
Noll was a great coach. One of the best ever. Honestly, I am more impressed by current era coaches that win with ever changing rosters and approaches.
now roster sizes are larger than ever because of practice squads that they didnt have back then and hell you can even have vets on the practice squad not just guys learning the league , medical advancements make guys who would have been lost for the season to be able to play again in weeks or months instead of years or ever ...Originally Posted by Mojouw
yes the draft was like 17 rounds but they still found guys who went undrafted that made incredible differences in TEAM ( see Donnie Shell UDFA) and you can still sign a bunch of UDFAs but now with larger roster sizes
see it can be as broad as it is wide
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
I don't know the difference in roster sizes and am far too lazy to try and Google it. As for UDFA's, I have always felt that teams were better positioned to develop UDFA's prior to the salary cap/free agency. They could retain guys on the roster and keep guys around indefinitely. I don't know. Maybe the current era of roster turnover and salary cap math actually encourages UDFA development?
But, I do know that with a salary cap, the 1970's era Noll team(s) would have been together for about 3 maybe 4 years before they were forced to break it up. That means the teams of that era as we know it would likely have been together to make the 74 and 75 SB's...but I suspect that they don't have that entire group as long as 1978 and 1979.
In such an alternate reality, maybe they don't win or even appear in the 1978 or 1979 SB's. Or maybe they would have continued to find incredible players with the need to restock the roster? I don't know. But say they don't make the second two SB's due to roster attrition; how would that change the opinions and comparisons?
- 1974: Teams had 47 active players
- 1993: Teams had 53 players
the addition of practice squads ( they didnt have them back in the day) gives you IMO additional developmental capabilities and gives players a playbook to know and opportunity to practice with the team giving them some invaluable time to gel with teams to some degree vs the old days where they literally got a guy off the streets ( hence the term street free agent) where they have no continuity with the team , do not know the play book and may not even be in shape let alone football shape ...
as far as keeping teams together because of a lack of free agency nobody can predict outcomes because we just never know ...what I do know is it was the same for everybody then as it is now ...if you draft well good things happen
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
I should have also stated these larger roster sizes do not even count the practice squad players so your player pool is actually larger than you accredited roster size
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
How many players from those teams are either in the HOF or should be? 10 and we can probably add a few more to that. Say a dozen. Maybe even a few more? The old heads would have to weigh in.
No way that you keep a roster with a dozen (or more) HOF players on it together for more than maybe 3 years now.
Since 5 of the 10 came in between 1969 and 1972 and then the rest in or by 1974...there is the potential that maybe the math works out that you get to keep all of them through the 1974 draft class, rookie deals. So by the start of the 1978 season, you are looking at having maybe 4-5 of those guys on the roster and the rest are too expensive. Couple that with the fact that to afford those HOF guys at the top of the roster on their second and third contracts, the middle and bottom of your roster would have to be filled out with super cheap rookies and journeyman veteran role players.
The second half of that dynasty starts to look a lot different if the entire roster isn't a highly experienced well schooled band of brothers.
Comparisons between such widely separated eras of football is extremely difficult to make and almost always not terribly revealing.
it still reverts back to drafting well and nobody did it like the 70s Steelers did ... even if they lost guys to free agency they would have got 3rd round comp picks in return for a lot of them ( and they drafted well) and if the Steelers are losing half their stars in free agency we have to then keep the same standard for the other teams as well and at least a few of them end up in Pittsburgh too ....so again we have absolutely no idea how it washes out but what we do know with 100% certainty is how it did pan out when everyone played on the same level playing field ...Draft well, Coach well and succeed .....
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
I guess. That seems incredibly reductive.
One can easily argue that after about 1975 or so, the Steelers did not draft well and that is why the team started falling apart as the 1980's moved on. Some rough math would indicate that the team would have far less talent during the second half of the 1970's with a salary cap in place. In other words, they would have started losing HOF caliber players while not drafting HOF caliber replacements (assuming the same draft picks are made). I suspect that they would NOT have won the second 2 SB's with a salary cap in place.
If Noll wins 5 less playoff games and only makes 3 SBs (winning 2 and losing one)...how does that change the comparison you are trying to make?
Array title="Mach1 has a reputation beyond repute">
Tomlin has won zero super bowls or playoff games with his own players.
Give a lib a fish--he eats for a day
Teach a lib to fish--he is back the next day asking for more free fish.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
I am not looking to change it you are lol
hard to envision drafting the same players if free agency were in play because you would have different holes to fill so that IMO is a flawed argument but when the whole premise is subjective its very difficult to surmise much of anything to be accurate ..
I am sticking with the facts in the OP ...
and that is ...
16–8 playoff record -Chuck Noll 23 seasons
12-9 Playoff record -Bill Cowher 15 seasons (more wins ..less losses than MT.... less years to accrue that playoff record)
8-11 Playoff record -Mike Tomlin 18 seasons (18 seasons and just 19 playoff games averaging a 1 and done per season)
the Standard set by Noll had been rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
You’re still comparing apples and oranges.
It may be a valid comparison and it may not be. Worth talking about either way.
It does not seem you’re interested in discussion.
Me? I’m just looking to pass the time. Thought it might be interesting to attempt to create a filter to do a controlled comparison between vastly different eras. I’ve put my thoughts out for how the 1970’s would’ve been different with free agency and a salary cap.
/shrug ....
though that is what we have been doing since your 1st post in this thread some 3.5 hours ago ....
my bad
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
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There were 14 game seasons in the 1970s and $50k per season to your starting RB was big money.
All Defense!
Ok. I will ask it again.
Play out the hypothetical. If a combination of FA and salary cap attrition combined with the inability to draft equivalently talented replacements by say about 1976 or so cuts into the roster what happens? And a quick look through the draft records makes it seem like between 1976-1980, the team had a pretty dramatic fall off in draft hits compared to the first half of the decade. Which to me, indicates that the speculative idea that FA and a cap would have seriously down-graded the Steelers roster for the back half of the 1970's as not too outlandish.
I would argue that they wouldn't have won 4 super bowls. Maybe a 2-1 record? But I think attrition would have caught up too greatly and I don't know if they make a third appearance. Is it possible that the other AFC rosters would have similarly been impacted and the Steelers would have still held sway through the end of the decade? Absolutely.
But, again, a short review of the second half of the 1970's and I think they would have not been the dominant team in the AFC. What I can not remember is what the other contenders in that part of the decade might have looked like. How close were the Raiders? The Oilers etc.
I know where you are coming from but what you are asking is just far to much speculation to even be remotely accurate because we do not know what players would have been lost by 1 team let alone the rest of the league and then where all those players would have landed and how many players the steelers would have been down considering they would be signing players to replace the ones lost and drafting differently too because of new holes ....
with all that speculation how can anyone draw any conclusions let alone who would win games or championships .....
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
That’s kind of my point in a way.
Comparing Cowher and Tomlin; I’ll buy you can do that.
Comparing Noll and like half of Cowher; I’d buy that.
Comparing Noll and Tomlin? Not sure it is valid in any instructive way. I figure comparing styles or something might be of use but just raw W-L? Not sure it translates across the decades to mean anything.
Out of curiosity, how would you react if Noll had a handful more playoff losses and a few less wins. And he only made it to two SBs?
Array title="Born2Steel has a reputation beyond repute">
The rostered players may be more now. But with the draft being like 20 rounds you had a much larger pool of players to roster from. The Steelers did draft well in the early 70s. Nobody has drafted that well since.
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The Raiders continued to be good into the 80s. They won a SB vs the Eagles and I think they won another over the Redskins. That team drafted well also. They were relevant from '68 through'84.
the player pool was actually basically the same ...all college Jr's and Sr's the pool is whom you can draft from not the amount of folks you draft 17 rounds is a lot for sure but regardless of that you can still bring in UDFAs and have a 90 man roster for camp that is a lot of extra guys and its never been more in any era that I am aware of ...
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
no idea because I am dealing with known results that I have lived through my entire life as a reality .... not trying to play games with what ifs and what might have been's but instead real results .... and perhaps that is why I am so reluctant to engage in alternate reality conversations about it and keep pointing towards real life actual historical results because those things actually happened instead of trying to make it up as we go along with alternative sets of parameters in order to base said made up results from ... but maybe that is just me /shrug
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
Fair enough.
Then I’ll restrict my comment to the fact that so much time and fundamental change has taken place in the NFL between Noll and Tomlin that it makes comparisons somewhat meaningless. It would be like comparing Noll to Curly Lambeau, Guy Chamberlain, or whoever coached the Akron teams in the 1920’s.
Does that mean I’m saying Tomlin is better? Nope.
Because it is important that folks read that bit.
I’m saying that when you compare two dissimilar things, there’s not much you can say.
What can be said is that playing under the rules that he and all other coaches had to play under at the time, Noll was better than anyone else at winning playoff games and that playing under the rules that he and all other coaches have to play under now, Tomlin has been lacking in winning playoff games for a long time.
Ok. But what’s that got to do with anything?
Is Tomlin winning less than his peers? Which peers? How much less?
We can argue that without the advantage that Nunn gave the Steelers and Rooney for being willing to take the risk; far less 1970s era winning happens.
Stats without their relevant context are meaningless.
I think there’s some interesting things to think over coming out here.
Such as:
How do we, as fans, compare between eras?
What are realistic benchmarks or expectations in 2025 and moving forward to measure current success in the NFL?
And. Something I’ve been thinking about lately; where does the Steelers historic reluctance to fire coaches come from? Ownership? The head coaches? Tradition?
What’s more critical to success in the NFL between- roster talent or execution of a strategy? In other words are GMs or coaches more critical to success ?
Yes ..........
he is losing more than his peers as he is 8-11 in playoff games and since in every game you have 1 winner and 1 loser anything under .500 is losing more than your peers
Kenny Pickett is who I though he was .. Eagles didn't value him either , now he is a Stain at the Mistake by the Lake 3 teams in 4 years more of a shooting star than a superstar
They had them as far back as the 50's. Back then they were called "taxi squads".
Fun fact: The "taxi squads" got their name because the original owner of the Cleveland Browns owned a taxi company, and whenever Paul Brown had a player who wasn't quite good enough to make the team but still had potential, the owner would put the guy on the payroll of the taxi company, although his actual job was to practice with the Browns.
I knew the term, but did not know that was why they called it that.
Looked up the history of the practice squad...and lets just say the NFL was basically the wild wild west until the late 1970's. Teams could just make up things and be like "...show me where you can't do that!". No wonder lawyers started getting involved right when the money got big - the first generation of owners were all cowboys!
This post sums this thread up perfectly, well done Mach1.Tomlin has won zero super bowls or playoff games with his own players.
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Don't compare Tomlin to Noll he doesn't belong there.
All Defense!
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