The Tainted Steelers Legacy Of Neil O'Donnell Who Used Money To Justify Brazen 1996 Exit

The Pittsburgh Steelers are synonymous with winning. They have eight Super Bowl appearances and six Lombardi Trophies. Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger account for all six of the Steelers’ victories. Bradshaw won four Super Bowls in the 1970s and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989 in his first year of eligibility. Roethlisberger is likely to join him three years from now.

Neil O'Donnell was the other Steelers quarterback who led the team to a Super Bowl appearance. The Steelers drafted O’Donnell in the third round of the 1990 NFL Draft from the University of Maryland. Bill Cowher anointed him as his starting quarterback ahead of Bubby Brister in his first season as head coach. The Steelers were 9-3 with O’Donnell as the starter in 1992 and won the AFC Central for the first time since the 1984 season. He was selected to his only Pro Bowl at the end of the 1992 season.

O’Donnell started 61 regular season games for the Steelers and seven playoff games. He posted a 39-22 record in the regular season and a 3-4 record in the playoffs. O’Donnell is not recalled fondly, even though he was a solid quarterback for the Steelers under Cowher in a very conservative offense. Their approach led to two first-round exits in the 1992 and 1993 AFC playoffs. The first-round exits were followed by a shocking loss to the San Diego Chargers in the 1994 AFC Championship game. 

During 1995, the Steelers’ passing attack became the offense's focal point. After back-to-back losses to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cincinnati Bengals at 3-4, Cowher put the ball in O’Donnell’s hands.

Yancey Thigpen and O’Donnell put together a monster season going 8-1 down the stretch. Thigpen caught 85 passes for 1,307 yards. A rookie backup quarterback named Kordell Stewart burst onto the scene as a versatile explosive chess piece for the offense.

The Steelers' offense was unpredictable for the first time since Bradshaw had retired. They stormed through the remnants of the Buffalo Bills dynasty in the Divisional Round of the playoffs with a 40-21 win. After the Indianapolis Colts shocked the 13-3 Kansas City Chiefs 10-7, Pittsburgh was set to host the AFC Championship game for the second season in a row.

The 1995 AFC Championship was eerily similar to the 1994 game. The Steelers let the Chargers hang around until the end and lost late on a Stan Humphries miracle throw. After O’Donnell led a drive early in the fourth quarter to put the Steelers in position for Norm Johnson to attempt a 40-yard field goal, a queasy feeling crept into the Pittsburgh crowd when he missed the attempt. The Steelers were clinging to a 13-9 lead.

Just four plays later, queasy turned into nausea as Jim Harbaugh connected with Floyd Turner for a 47-yard touchdown with 10 minutes to go in the game. The Steelers faithful were stunned. Humphries had thrown a 43-yard touchdown to Tony Martin to dash their Super Bowl hopes in 1994 after an O’Donnell last-gasp rally failed.

The Steelers took possession of the ball with almost nine minutes left, but the ensuing drive failed. The Steelers held the Colts and they got the ball back with just three minutes remaining. It was a huge moment for Cowher and his quarterback who had fallen three yards short of the Super Bowl in 1994.

O’Donnell had his finest moment as an NFL quarterback. He went 4 for 6 for 66 yards, including a beautiful 37-yard completion to Ernie Mills that put the Steelers on the 1-yard line with just under two minutes to go. It took two tries, but Bam Morris punched the ball in with just 1:34 remaining and a 20-16 lead. The Steelers were headed to the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl XXX ended up being a nightmare for the Steelers and their fans. The Dallas Cowboys were favored by 10 points and the Steelers were down 13-0 in what looked like another blowout win for the NFC. The defense stiffened in the second quarter and O’Donnell was poised for a fairytale comeback when then he found Thigpen with just :17 seconds remaining in the half to make the score 13-7.

The Steelers got the second half kickoff with a chance to take the lead, but the drive stalled. The next time Pittsburgh got the ball, O’Donnell threw his first of two terrible interceptions to Larry Brown. The Cowboys took advantage and stretched the lead to 20-7. O’Donnell and the defense fought back again to bring the game to 20-17 with just under five minutes remaining.

The Steelers quarterback had another chance to engineer a fantastic finish for Pittsburgh. The Steelers had the ball with plenty of time in good field position at their 32-yard line. The miracle finish did not materialize. Just two plays into the drive, O’Donnell found Brown again, and he returned the ball inside the 10-yard line. It was over when Emmitt Smith found the end zone two plays later for a 27-17 lead.

Steelers All-Pro Greg Lloyd Adamantly Denies Involvement In Neil O'Donnell's Pittsburgh Disappearance

In 2022, Greg Lloyd did an interview with Leon Searcy in which he recalled Super Bowl XXX. The pair joked about O’Donnell being a missing person because of Kevin Greene and himself, but ultimately Lloyd took the high road regarding the game.

“I have no ill feelings,” Lloyd mentioned. “We can say OD did what he did, he threw interceptions. He did, whatever. As a defense, if you can’t score, you can’t win. As a team, we lost that game. I know we can start pointing fingers now, but at the end of the day we had our chance.”

Lloyd’s observation about the game is a life lesson on how to handle a loss with class. However, he was not joking about O’Donnell disappearing from Pittsburgh. He was a free agent and after his performance in the Super Bowl, Dan Rooney still offered him a team record bonus of $4 million and the highest average salary in club history ($3.75 million) to keep him as the quarterback of the Steelers. O’Donnell passed and signed with the New York Jets for an average salary of $5 million per year.

It was a disastrous decision by O’Donnell. He lasted just two seasons with the Jets. In 1997 when Bill Parcells asked him to renegotiate his contract, he refused. Parcells waived him and he moved on to a four-year deal with the Bengals worth $17 million. O’Donnell had the sixth-highest passer rating in the NFL, but the team was 3-13, so they released him and drafted Akili Smith.

O’Donnell took on a backup role for the Tennessee Titans and appeared in 25 games for them over his last five seasons. He retired after the 2003 season having played in 59 games for three teams over his final eight seasons in the NFL, posting a 16-23 record.

O’Donnell had a chance to return in 2004 when Tommy Maddox and Charlie Batch were hurt, but he refused Cowher’s request to back up a rookie in Roethlisberger. O’Donnell had gotten his financial reward, but he could not find football redemption and face the fans again as a member of the Steelers in Pittsburgh. The price wasn't right. 

Perhaps the embarrassment of facing the fans in the Steel City clouded his decision, but O’Donnell forfeited his chance to return. He chased the almighty dollar and found more money in two locations after leaving. O'Donnell made it into the Steelers Hall Of Honor in 2022, but it is hard to overlook him jilting the Steelers twice. 

What do you think, Steeler Nation? Have you forgiven O’Donnell for Super Bowl XXX? Please comment below or on my Twitter @thebubbasq.

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