Steelers Legend Bill Cowher Recalls His Repulsive Sideline Incident In 1997 On Ben Roethlisberger Podcast

The Pittsburgh Steelers have bitter rivals. The Baltimore Ravens spring to mind as their current long-time nemesis. The Cincinnati Bengals rivalry dates back to the creation of the AFC Central after the AFL-NFL merger. The current version of the Cleveland Browns also plays in the division, but they have never won an AFC North title and have beaten the Steelers just nine times in 48 tries since they returned to the NFL.

If you thought Steelers fans lived in the past, take a digital stroll through the Browns’ Twitter community sometime, they are coming up on the 60th anniversary of their last championship and they are still celebrating like it is 1964. It is all Browns fans of a certain age have to hang onto and do not get them started on the 1950's and Otto Graham!

The Steelers and Bill Cowher had bigger fish to fry when the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars were assigned to the AFC Central in 1995. The Steelers were getting ready to make a run to Super Bowl XXX and when Tom Coughlin’s upstart Jaguars upset them in October of 1995 at the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, it registered as an embarrassment, not the birth of an ugly rivalry that does not get its due after the teams were separated into different divisions in 2002.

The Jaguars held an 8-6 edge during the days of the AFC Central when they met the Steelers twice a year. Fred Taylor, Mark Brunell, and Coughlin seemed especially fond of beating the black and gold and played them tough every time they met. As a lifelong Steelers fan who has lived in Jacksonville since 1991, the only thing worse than getting to finally see your team play every year is watching them lose to an expansion team.

By 1997, the Jaguars were ascending, but the Steelers had managed to even the series at two games each heading into a Monday night showdown in the River City. The fifth meeting was an exciting battle that came down to a field goal attempt with just six seconds left in the game. The 40-yard attempt started with a bad snap and ended with an infamous play that thanks to Mike Tomlin’s fiasco in Baltimore is largely forgotten by the modern NFL. Cowher recounted the incident to Ben Roethlisberger and Spencer T’eo on the latest episode of Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger.

“There was no time left and Norm Johnson’s getting ready to kick,” Cowher recalls. “The first year, I did not have a long snapper. Why am I going to put a spot on the roster just for a long snapper? The long snapper was Kirk Botkin, backup tight end, perfect. So, we get a bad snap, end of the game, the kick gets blocked, the game is over.”

Except for one small detail, the game was not over. Eight rows beyond the Steelers bench, a dejected Steelers fan dropped what was left of his last beer and watched the next few seconds in horror. What seemed like an automatic win, was now a loss and it was not over, not even close.

“It’s the last play of the game and Chris Hudson picks it up,” Cowher continues. “[Hudson] starts running by our sideline. My natural thing was just like [gestures with his shoulder] I just wanted to hit him. I wasn’t mad at him; I was just mad. Can we snap the ball, just snap the ball? All we gotta do is snap the ball back, one job. I was going to do that, [hit him], and ironically enough, it was the same spot on the field where Woody Hayes punched the Clemson player. I blame the ghost of Woody Hayes on that one.”

The incident happened very quickly, but if you watch the video, there is no doubt that Cowher appeared ready to deliver at the very least a vicious clothesline on national television. Tomlin took a tremendous amount of heat for the infamous Jacoby Jones incident, but unlike the volatile Coach Cowher, he at least turned his back to try for plausible deniability. Cowher looks like a WWE participant in a tag team match frustrated he has to watch from the apron.

Unlike Tomlin, Cowher was not fined by the NFL for the incident. When the two teams met later that month, Cowher made it a point to apologize to Hudson before the game and let him know there was no ill will towards Hudson. According to the Associated Press, the apology was brief, but to the point.

"It’s nothing against you, you’re a good football player, ″ Cowher told Hudson. "It was my instincts as a special teams player.″

Steelers' Mike Tomlin Still Catching Heat For Jacoby Jones Incident

Somehow in 1997, that sufficed for the league office, but in 2013, in a similar incident, Tomlin was fined 100k for his transgression. The NFL has changed a lot since the 1990's and if a similar incident happened today, who knows how social media and the national talking heads would react? Cowher never returned to coaching after retiring in 2007 and judging by today’s standards, he probably would not have lasted long if he did.

Cowher was known as a consummate player’s coach, much like Tomlin is today. They have radically different approaches, but both are highly respected. The Steelers' second coach post-merger grew up in and around Pittsburgh and his signature look that resembles a clenched fist is quintessentially Pittsburgh, and that is all he ever wanted to be, the Steelers head coach.

The Pittsburgh vs Jacksonville rivalry is still a bitter affair whenever they meet. Jacksonville is responsible for two painful defeats in the playoffs during the Roethlisberger era. The series has narrowed over the years and the Steelers now lead 14-13, but hostilities will renew when Kenny Pickett and Trevor Lawrence clash for the first time in 2023.

What do you think, Steeler Nation? What do you think would happen if that incident occurred today? Please comment below, or on my Twitter @thebubbasq.