End of an Era

Last week Bill Cowher resigned as coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I was a sad day but entirely expected as word began to leak out month's ago that he wanted to spend more time with his family. Cowher is one tough SOB and he was a great fit for Steeler football. His personality epitomizes what Pittsburgh is all about and the city may miss him more than the team does.

One short anecdote about Coach Cowher. His daughters went to school with cousins in Fox Chapel. Apparently he was just as passionate about watching his girls play basketball as he was about coaching football and would make his opinions known at the games. I guess he couldn't seperate his competitiveness from the rest of his life.

With his resignation, the Steelers begin only their second coaching search since 1969. It's great that my team has only had two coaches my entire life and both Chuck Noll and Cowher have been hugely successful. It is an of an era in Pittsburgh as they look for a new coach but it also signals the end of an era when one coach would stick with his team for a long period of time. Since Cowher was hired just under 100 other coaches have come and gone in the NFL. Shoot the lions have had half a dozen coaches all by themselves. With free agency players change teams frequently and it makes it tough to find the face of a franchise. Coaches can fill that void but now they seem to switch allegiance more than the players do. I call this trend the Nick Sabanization of football.

Cowher was a great coach. He has more wins than any other team in the league during his tenure. He ranks 13th all time in coaching victories. He also had his team play in 6 AFC championship games and 2 Superbowls including winning last year's championship. He can proudly walk away from the team because he has nothing left to prove.

The next coach has big shoes to fill. I am a little nervous about who they will select. The two in house candidates are current assistant coaches Russ Grimm and Ken Whisenhunt. Both are highly respected but neither one are proven head coaches. I guess I have to trust the Rooney family as they hired an untested 34 year old coach named Bill Cowher to replace the legenday Chuck Noll and that turned out okay.