Former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls under head coach Chuck Noll, but it’s no secret that the two didn’t have a good relationship. Bradshaw has opened up multiple times about his strained relationship with Noll, and on Tim Green’s Nothing Left Unsaid podcast, Bradshaw told a story about Noll humiliating him that led to Bradshaw’s hatred toward his former head coach.
“Nobody knows this, the only person is Joe Greene, Mel Blount. But one day, he made me stand up on a chair and he just tore into me. Because I had missed a film session because I was in a snowstorm and I couldn’t get to Pittsburgh,” Bradshaw said. “It was so humiliating. And I actually ended up hating him. I can say that. I hated him. He wasn’t nice to me. Always condescending. I never could figure out why he even drafted me.”
Noll wasn’t a players coach, and he was more focused on players doing their job and getting results. So even though Bradshaw claims a snowstorm prevented him from missing a film session, a player, especially the team’s quarterback, not showing up to film likely didn’t sit well.
It was a clash of styles between Bradshaw and Noll. Bradshaw admitted on the podcast he wasn’t “emotionally ready” to play in the NFL, and having a coach who wasn’t going to prop him up likely didn’t help their relationship, especially given that Noll benched Bradshaw multiple times early in his career.
Even though the two might not have gotten along well personally, Noll was a great judge of talent and in the end, Bradshaw was the quarterback he trusted. He gave him the freedom to call his own plays, and the Steelers became a dynasty with four Super Bowl wins with Bradshaw as their quarterback. Both men are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
It is disheartening that two Steelers legends were never able to get along and that the poor relationship sapped Bradshaw of his love of football. While they accomplished a lot together on the field, Bradshaw’s memories of those days aren’t very fond due to what happened between him and Noll. He told Green that some of the stuff Noll said to him has “still scarred him” to this day.
Both Noll and Bradshaw will be remembered for turning a hapless Steelers franchise into a dynasty in the 1970s and one of the most well-respected franchises in football. It’s a legacy that both deserve, but their poor relationship is an unfortunate part of what led to that.
