January 29, 1974: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Greatest NFL Draft

January 29, 1974: The NFL Draft is usually now held in April, but no team has ever had a Draft as good as the Pittsburgh Steelers did on this day. It allowed the Steelers, who had made the Playoffs the 2 previous seasons after years of being a doormat franchise, to go to the Super Bowl 4 times, winning them all, over the next 6 seasons.  

And, as Michael Wilbon correctly said on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, they did it with scouting. Not with an NFL Scouting Combine. Not with analytics. Not with a Wonderlic Test. They did it the old-fashioned way, and in so doing, they may have built the greatest team in NFL history.

Not too old-fashioned: In 1969, the team's owner and founder, Art Rooney, was approached by his sons, Dan and Art Jr. They told him that, as much as he loved football, he didn't know the game as well as he thought, and the proof of this was that, in 37 seasons, the Steelers had never made the Playoffs. They suggested that he let them make the personnel decisions. He figured he had little to lose, and so he did. And they hired Chuck Noll as head coach, and built a great scouting system around themselves.

They had the 1st pick in the 1969 Draft: North Texas State defensive tackle Joe Greene. They had the 1st pick in the 1970 Draft: Louisiana Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw. In the 3rd round in 1969, they chose Oklahoma State offensive tackle Jon Kolb. In the 3rd round in 1970, they chose Southern University cornerback Mel Blount.

In 1971: In the 2nd round, they chose Penn State linebacker Jack Ham; in the 4th round, East Texas State defensive end Dwight White; in the 5th round, Kansas tight end Larry Brown, whom they moved to offensive tackle. In 1972: In the 1st round, they chose Penn State running back Franco Harris; and in the 5th round, they chose University of Rhode Island defensive end Steve Furness. The 1973 Draft would be relatively unimpressive for them. But they were just getting warmed up for 1974.

Ironically, it would be the Dallas Cowboys who had the top pick in that Draft, having acquired it in a trade with the Houston Oilers. They chose defensive end Ed Jones of Tennessee State, whose 6-foot-9 height earned him the nickname "Too Tall." He became a star, but not a Hall-of-Famer. In fact, none of the 1st 20 picks in this Draft made the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The 21st pick was the Steelers' pick: USC wide receiver Lynn Swann. In the 2nd round, they chose Kent State linebacker Jack Lambert. They had traded their 3rd round pick. In the 4th round, they chose Alabama A&M receiver John Stallworth. In the 5th round, they chose Wisconsin center Mike Webster.

In the 1st 5 rounds, they had 4 picks, and all of them made the Hall of Fame. After the Draft, they signed South Carolina State safety Donnie Shell. He made the Hall, too. The only non-Steeler in this Draft to make the Hall of Fame was Dave Casper of the Oakland Raiders. (UPDATE: That changed in 2024, when the 14th pick was elected: Ohio State linebacker Randy Gradishar, by the Denver Broncos.)

Choosing Swann was easy, as he had helped USC win the 1972 National Championship. Giving Bradshaw another good receiver was a good idea, since they already had good running backs in Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier. But hardly anybody had looked at Stallworth.

They were not afraid to look at players from historically black colleges, including Greene, Blount, White, Stallworth and Shell. (As had Jones, chosen by the Cowboys' scouting genius, Gil Brandt.) Nor were they afraid to look for big fish in small ponds. Louisiana Tech was no power when Bradshaw was there. Furness was from URI, in the Yankee Conference.

And Lambert was from a Mid-American Conference school, and seemed undersized to be an NFL linebacker. But he was fast. And he was mean. Greene had become the NFL's top defensive tackle, and he was called "Mean Joe Greene," because it rhymed with his name. But, off the field, he was a nice guy. Greene said Lambert was much meaner than he was: "He's so mean, he don't even like himself."

The 1970s Steelers had 10 players make the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Greene, Bradshaw, Blount, Ham, Harris, Swann, Lambert, Stallworth, Webster and Shell. Noll, would also be elected, as would Art Rooney Sr. and Dan Rooney.

*

January 29, 1974 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 104-83 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Buffalo Braves, 128-121 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 118-111 at the Cleveland Arena. Pete Maravich scored 33 points in defeat for the Hawks.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 115-107 at the Hofheinz Pavilion (now the Fertitta Center) in Houston.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 126-106 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were no games scheduled in the NHL, and none in the American Basketball Association. In the World Hockey Association, the Jersey Knights beat the Toronto Toros, 6-1 at the Cherry Hill Arena in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. And the Quebec Nordiques beat the Los Angeles Sharks, 5-0 at the Colisée de Québec.