Steelers Icon Terry Bradshaw Takes Playful Jabs At Tom Brady's Legacy: "He Flipped A Card"

The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Terry Bradshaw with the first pick in the 1970 NFL Draft. The NFL was a very different league in those days. The defense was allowed to hit the quarterback with force. There was no such thing as a defenseless receiver. Unconscious, maybe, but definitely not defenseless. When you stepped on the gridiron in those days, the prevailing rules were from the Marques of Queensbury to protect yourself at all times.

NFL coaching staffs were not comprised of passing game coordinators, quality control coaches, and assistant quarterback coaches. Most teams did not even have a quarterback coach, never mind an assistant. The NFL signal-callers, in some cases, were expected to be more than players in that era. They were sometimes the offensive coordinator and play-caller. Chuck Noll subscribed to that theory. He might have benched Bradshaw multiple times during the early days of his career, but when he was on the field, he called the offense for better or worse.

On Tuesday, Bradshaw joined New England Patriots legend Julian Edelman on the Games With Names podcast on YouTube. The original TB12 and Edelman discussed the recently retired Tom Brady. Bradshaw has often praised Brady for his career record of seven Super Bowl Championships as a quarterback. He took issue with the difficulty Brady faced in the modern era versus what he was tasked with in the 1970s.

“I called all my plays in college. I called all my plays in the pros,” Bradshaw said. “I’m not realizing that people don’t call their plays. I get the biggest kick out of saying I called my own plays. Brady didn’t call his own plays. He flipped a card. I never saw a card.”

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Bradshaw was poking fun, but this is not the first time he has brought the subject up during an interview. The two-time Super Bowl MVP has lamented in the past that he does not get enough credit for calling his own plays. Bradshaw is highly competitive, and while he beat Fran Tarkenton and Roger Staubach in three of his four Super Bowl appearances, Tarkenton and Staubach are often ranked above the 1978 NFL MVP when the quarterbacks of his era are discussed. 

"I just sat there and looked at the marker and the placard. What do y'all think, is that five yards or four? Looks like five to me; that would be long yardage, wouldn't it," Bradshaw cackled. "What do y'all think we ought to run here? That was the way to play, man. Get in the huddle with your guys and scratch your head. I've already called this play twice. Let's run the same play. [John Stallworth] You do the post option, and Lynn [Swann], if I can squeeze it into you, if he stays back, I'll go to you at the top of the dig. There it is wide open, that's fun."

The NFL has allegedly evolved offensively. Quarterbacks follow progressions. Bill Walsh and the West Coast offense began evolving to the short passing game to replace the running game in the 1980s. Running backs have progressively become afterthoughts as the decades have passed, and quarterbacks have coaches in their ears until seconds before they snap the ball. 

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was often accused of playing "backyard football," might have been the last quarterback fans will ever see play even close to that style of football. Roethlisberger did not call every play like Bradshaw, but players in the huddle alleged he was drawing plays up in the dirt when Pittsburgh beat the Indianapolis Colts in 2020 to clinch the AFC North. It was the only game they won down the stretch after starting 11-0 that season. 

"I say I called plays, but we called plays. I involved everybody," Bradshaw answered Edelman, who asked what the offensive coordinator was doing. "Didn't have one. Had a head coach. I had a whole lot of help in the huddle calling plays."

Bradshaw quickly credited Franco Harris and John Stallworth with feeding him ideas as the game progressed. Bradshaw also gave credit to Dick Hoak and Tom Moore, who were the only offensive assistants on Noll's staff, for giving him ideas in between series. Edelman marveled at the concept of a quarterback being responsible for that level of responsibility. 

"People don't understand. That is extremely hard to be able to manage and talk about this whole quarterback operation and quarterback manager now," Edelman observed. "They got some of the best minds in their head telling them the play. Terry is doing that all himself." 

Professional football is not returning to how the game was played in the past. Gambling and fantasy football are doing everything they can to incentivize the NFL to eschew the game toward the offensive side of the ball. Any long-standing rule that does not favor the offense, like the current fumble through the end zone rule controversy, is decried as archaic because it hurts the offense. The over/under and point spread is too important to be left up to the players. 

The Hall of Fame quarterback and long-time studio analyst for Fox Sports has been reduced in stature by the analytics crowd who focus on his completion percentage and interceptions. He gets virtually no credit for his knowledge of the game, and modern data cannot compute the value of Bradshaw acting as the offensive coordinator during a game. 

Modern players are bigger and stronger, but the NFL is increasingly a cookie-cutter league, looking for prototypes and consistent repeating results. There is very little room for improvisation and unpredictability. In the words of Billy Joel, "Some say it's better, but I say it ain't." Now, could you get off my lawn? 

What do you think, Steeler Nation? Should Bradshaw get much more credit for calling his plays during his Hall of Fame career? Please comment below or on my Twitter/X: @thebubbasq. 

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