Winning the Terry Bradshaw Sweepstakes
The Steelers had one win and the Chicago Bears zero when they met on November 9, 1969, in Chicago. The night before the game, Bears defensive tackle Ken Kortas de-briefed his teammates since he had played for the Steelers from 1965 to ’68.
“I gave [Bears linebacker] Dick Butkus a tip about an offensive lineman that used to lean too much—I think he was overweight—and Butkus murdered them,” Kortas told Pittsburgh Sports Daily Bulletin in 2012.
A Butkus-led defense indeed destroyed the Steelers as the Bears recorded eight sacks and allowed just 86 yards of total offense. Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo scored three touchdowns between them—Piccolo would leave a game the following week because of an illness and later was diagnosed with cancer—and the Bears rolled to a 38–7 win.
Neither team recorded a victory the rest of the season and finished with identical 1–13 records. A tie for the worst record in the NFL pitted the two franchises against one another in a coin flip for the first pick of the 1970 draft.
The seminal moment took place in a New Orleans hotel and the Steelers prevailed when the Bears called heads and the silver dollar used for the flip landed on tails. The Steelers took Terry Bradshaw, the consensus No. 1 overall pick, landing their quarterback of the future.
They also struck gold at the top of Round 3 when they selected Southern cornerback Mel Blount; Bradshaw and Blount are the only two players from the 1970 draft who are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Not that it came easy for Bradshaw.
He threw a whopping 24 interceptions as a rookie and shared time at the position with Terry Hanratty, whom the Steelers had considered taking fourth overall in the 1969 draft before selecting Joe Greene.
Bradshaw’s inconsistent play early in his career put him at odds with coach Chuck Noll and led Steelers fans to boo him on occasion. Questions were also raised about his intelligence because of his rural Louisiana upbringing, a stigma Bradshaw had trouble shaking, as unfair and rooted as it was in parochialism.
He hit bottom in his fifth NFL season when Noll benched Bradshaw for Joe Gilliam, and Bradshaw attempted just 148 passes in 1974 compared to 212 by Gilliam.
Bradshaw, however, bounced back and regained his starting job. He led the Steelers that season to their first Super Bowl title, and by the end of the decade Bradshaw’s early struggles seemed like a distant memory.
He led the Steelers to three more Super Bowl titles and twice won Super Bowl MVP honors. By the time Bradshaw retired he had also led the Steelers to eight division titles and thrown 212 touchdown passes while calling his own plays.
Bradshaw has never forgotten the harsh treatment he received early in his career and he has only returned to Pittsburgh a handful of times for Steelers events. His absences are scrutinized, such as when he did not attend Noll’s funeral on June 17, 2014. And, fair or not, they always add to speculation about Bradshaw’s ambivalence toward playing in Pittsburgh.
What isn’t a question is the impact he had on the organization after he found his footing as an NFL quarterback.
The Bears struggled for years to find a franchise quarterback after missing out on one because of a lost coin flip. The Steelers, meanwhile, don’t own the ’70s without Bradshaw.