Exasperated Steelers Legend Terry Bradshaw Just Wanted To Go Fishing During The 1970 NFL Draft; But His Dad Would Not Let Him

The Pittsburgh Steelers are currently scheduled to make pick 17 in the upcoming NFL Draft. The yearly event has become must-see TV and is now split over three days. The NFL Draft is rotating through different cities like the Super Bowl and the interest in the incoming crop of college football stars is not showing any signs of waning in 2023. It was not always like this; the NFL has come a long way over the last half-century.

The Steelers were an NFL doormat when they hired Chuck Noll in 1969. The league had already agreed to a merger with the upstart AFL and Noll used his first-round pick in the last NFL/AFL draft on Joe Greene. The process was 17 rounds long and it was closer to a classified briefing at the Pentagon than the event it would become over the next few decades.

The Steelers had the misfortune of being bad enough in 1969 to have the number one overall pick in 1970. They tied with the Chicago Bears for the worst record in football. In those days, the NFL did not go into endless tiebreakers to determine who got the first pick in the draft. The league used the highly complex formula of taking a coin and flipping it to determine who picks number one. Art Rooney’s acumen for gambling paid off and the Steelers won the toss.

Noll was probably not aiming to end up with the first pick overall at the end of his first season as the head coach in Pittsburgh, but it happened anyway. It was a bitter pill to swallow for Noll and Dan Rooney that they were the worst team in football, but it put them in a position to change the fortunes of the franchise forever. The pair of Hall of Famers put together an all-star scouting team and went to work.

There was no NFL combine in 1970 and the success or failure of draft classes was dependent on how good your scouting department was at evaluating talent. There were not endless mock drafts and 24-hour-a-day coverage of where teams could go in the upcoming selection process. Quarterbacks were highly valued in those days, but they were not viewed as franchise saviors, and they definitely weren’t expected to play unless a catastrophic injury occurred.

A Louisiana Tech signal-caller named Terry Bradshaw who had spent his freshman and sophomore seasons backing up Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson was coming off two sensational seasons. He was 17-4 as a starter highlighted by a win over Akron in the first of two appearances in the Grantland Rice Bowl. Bradshaw was the top quarterback in the country and in 2023 that would make him a lock to go at or near the top of the draft, but in 1970 it was anyone's guess.

“Dad told me it was draft day and he heard from the Bears,” Bradshaw recounted. “I told him I wasn’t going until the third or fourth round. I was going fishing.”

It is almost unfathomable to conceive of the top quarterback in a draft class skipping out on the NFL Draft machine in 2023, but in 1970, Bradshaw wasn’t even convinced he would go in the first round of the draft, never mind number one overall. The good-natured country boy who was about to become a national celebrity was more interested in relaxing than reporters. It is a trait that shines through even today and that humble every man has been appealing to America for over 50 years. It is a good thing his dad forced him to stay home.

“My Dad stopped me,” Bradshaw said. “Boy, I was mad, but I put on a jacket for my dad. Then, I got drafted number one. It didn’t mean that much. I was coming to the worst team in the NFL, which wasn’t good.”

Clueless Chris Wallace Opens Old Wounds For Terry Bradshaw

The Steelers had not won a playoff game in the history of the NFL when they drafted Bradshaw and 1970 and 1971 did not change that. Bradshaw was mercilessly booed, and his accent was mistaken for a low IQ, and he still harbors ill-will towards anyone who suggests he is less than intelligent. Chris Wallace found that out the hard way in an interview this year before the Super Bowl.

Bradshaw went through torture in those early years in Pittsburgh, but he was at the helm when the Steelers defeated the Oakland Raiders in the playoffs in 1972. He threw for the first touchdown in Steelers playoff history when Franco Harris secured the Immaculate Reception. It wasn’t smooth sailing, but by the time he retired, Bradshaw was an NFL MVP and a four-time Super Bowl Champion. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989 during his first year of eligibility.

A lot had to go right for the Steelers and Bradshaw to pair up in the 1970 draft. They had to lose 13 games with Noll on the sidelines and then win a coin toss with the Bears. The legacy of Bradshaw as a player and his impact on the franchise is profound. In the 53 years since they selected the Hall of Fame signal-caller first overall, they have only drafted in the top 10 six times and have not had a top-five pick since they selected Bradshaw. That is a pretty good result for a country boy who just wanted to go fishing on draft day.

What do you think, Steeler Nation? Are you surprised about how Bradshaw wanted to spend his time on draft day in 1970? Please comment below or on my Twitter @thebubbasq.