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ARTICLE
Steelers All-Time
Team Bios Thirty-three players
were named to the Steelers All-Time Team the club announced the members as part
of the Steelers 75th Season Celebration. The squad includes both
former and current Steelers players who make up the official Steelers All-Time
Team. The players were honored at the team’s Nov. 4 Gala
event at the Throughout this week
www.steelers.com will feature bios of the
players who were voted to the team. Be sure to check the 75th Season page for
any you might have missed. LINEBACKERS
Jack Ham – Outside Linebacker (1971-82)
It was 1975, and the
Steelers were having their way with the San Diego Chargers in the regular season
opener. Protecting a big lead in a game they eventually would win, 37-0, the
Steelers coaches had just told Jack Ham and Andy Russell they were through for
the rest of the day, and so Ham had begun to tell Russell about the coal
business he had gotten into during the offseason. In the middle of the story,
the Chargers returned an interception to the 3-yard line, and with the idea of
protecting the shutout Ham was sent back onto the field. Wrote Russell, “The
first play the Chargers ran was a sweep to the right. Bad idea. Ham took their
giant tight end, threw him aside, speared the runner behind the line of
scrimmage causing him to fumble, which of course Jack recovered. As he slowly
walked off the field, he casually flipped the ball to the ref. Returning to our
position on the sideline, Jack turned to me smiling and said, ‘Where was I?’”
Ham earned All-Pro or All-AFC honors in seven consecutive seasons, played in
eight straight Pro Bowls, was named
the Football News Defensive Player of
the Year in 1975 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988. He
also forever changed the way outside linebacker was played in the NFL.
Jack Lambert – Middle Linebacker (1974-84)
When asked for the umpteenth time by the media about a hit on Browns quarterback Brian Sipe that got him thrown out of a 1981 game, Jack Lambert said, “Brian has a chance to go out of bounds and he decides not to. He knows I’m going to hit him. And I do. History.” Said teammate Andy Russell, “Tough, raw-boned, intense – that’s the way he’ll be remembered, but I’ve seen a lot of guys like that come into the league. No, Jack’s a whole lot more. The range he has … they put him into coverage 30 yards downfield. They gave him assignments the Bears or the Packers never would’ve dreamed of (for Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke). He brought a whole new concept to the position, and that’s why, for me, he’s the greatest there ever has been. His first step is never wrong, his techniques always have been perfect. His greatness has nothing to do with his popular image.” But what an image. After Lambert threw Cliff Harris to the ground for taunting Roy Gerela after a missed field goal in Super Bowl X, Chuck Noll said, “Jack Lambert is a defender of what is right.” Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990 after a very productive NFL career, Lambert led the Steelers in tackles in every season except his last one, which was ruined by the toe injury that forced him to retire. He was a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowl selection. Lambert was voted team MVP twice in his career. Greg Lloyd – Outside Linebacker (1988-97)
Dick LeBeau has been involved in the National Football League for 47 years, 14 as a player and the last 33 as a coach. He has had two stints as a defensive coordinator in both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and he was the Bengals’ head coach from 2000-02. When asked which player he has coached over those 33 seasons that he’d pick to build a defense around, LeBeau answered almost immediately: Greg Lloyd. What distinguished Lloyd from so many others? “Greg had a no-nonsense approach,” said LeBeau, “that seemed to permeate the rest of the group.” Lloyd played college football at Fort Valley State, where he also majored in chemical engineering, and the Steelers discovered him on a tape of the Sheridan All-Star Game, which featured players from the predominantly black colleges. Lloyd stood out because he made just about every tackle, all over the field, and the Steelers made him their sixth-round draft pick in 1987. Then, on his first play during his first minicamp, Lloyd covered the back out of the backfield and made the interception. A three-time All-Pro, Lloyd ranks sixth on the team’s all-time sacks list with 53.5, played in five Pro Bowls and was named team MVP twice. Joey Porter – Outside Linebacker (1999-2006)
There are a lot of
elements that must come together for a team to put together a run to an NFL
championship, and when the Steelers were doing that in 2005, Joey Porter was
invaluable. Not only did he post three sacks in the three AFC playoff games, but
Porter used his personality to make sure his teammates were ready for whatever
they might encounter. He called the Indianapolis Colts “soft” before the AFC
Divisional Playoff game, and then he took on Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens
during the verbal run-up to Super Bowl XL. And it was Porter who orchestrated
two tributes to Jerome Bettis that week – one with the Notre Dame replica
jerseys and the other by allowing him to take the field alone during pregame
introductions at Ford Field. Porter finished his eight seasons in Pittsburgh
with 60 career sacks, which ranks fourth on the team’s all-time list. He also
had 10 interceptions and eight fumble recoveries, which he turned into four
touchdowns. Porter was named the team’s co-MVP in 2002 and earned three trips to
the Pro Bowl. What
Porter Said About Making the Team:
"It's definitely an
honor. There's a tradition there, it's historic. That's the first thing you know
when you walk into that situation, especially playing the linebacker position.
It's held at a higher standard than a lot of positions, especially on defense. I
mean, the front line is always going to be known for the Steel Curtain just
because of Mean Joe Greene and all the guys that played there, but the
linebacker tradition, it's a long list of guys. You know when you play
linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, you have a higher standard because those
guys watch the game, they come to the game each week and you're going to be held
up against what they did in the past. That's what they do. When I first got
there, I got compared to Greg Lloyd. I had the number 95 in pre-season. I had to
get out of it because I would never have my own identity if I wore that
number. It's definitely an honor.
I've won a lot of achievements and (accomplished) a lot of goals, but besides
winning the Super Bowl and being voted on that team, I definitely would have to
say as far as playing football that would be my second-highest goal
ever." Andy Russell – Outside Linebacker (1963, 1966-76)
Wrote Jack Ham,
“Today, most players back into the Pro Bowl by playing mediocre football on good
teams. Andy played great football on a worse than mediocre team. Why? Because
Andy was always the consummate professional. His personal pride and drive for
excellence allowed him to stand out on even the worst of football teams. It
would have been easy for him to give up or be sucked into the mediocrity that he
saw all around him, but he refused to do so. That attitude was clear to me from
my first day of training camp to Andy’s last game with the Steelers.” From
1963-71, Russell played on a lot of Steelers teams that did a lot of losing, but
he also was part of the dramatic turnaround that ended with back-to-back Super
Bowl championships in 1974-75. Russell played in 168 consecutive games during
his NFL career with the Steelers. A No. 16 draft pick from Missouri, Russell
played in seven Pro Bowls and was voted team MVP in
1971. |
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