Pittsburgh Steelers' Defensive Coordinator Dick LeBeau had been in the NFL for 46 years before he finally won a championship. His thirst for a title was quenched in 2005 when the Steelers got their hands on the Lombardi Trophy after winning Super Bowl XL. The only thing the legendary coach remembers from that victory over the Seattle Seahawks though was at the end when everyone was celebrating. It was that moment when he took a second to take it all in.
Despite a Hall of Fame playing career with the Detroit Lions collecting a franchise record 62 interceptions, while playing with greats like Night Train Lane, and Lem Barney, LeBeau only played in one playoff game in 1970. He retired at the end of the 1972 season and first joined an NFL staff as a special teams coach with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1973.
He bounced over to the Green Bay Packers in 1976 to become the team's defensive back coach. Then in 1978, he returned to his home state of Ohio to become the Cincinnati Bengals defensive backs coach in his first term with the franchise lasting 12 seasons, eight as the defensive coordinator.
The Bengals made the Super Bowl twice in LeBeau's first stretch with the team in 1981 and 1989. They lost both games to the dynasty team of the era, the San Francisco 49ers. LeBeau said to one of his former players, Bryant McFadden, that he wasn't a young coach then after losing two, but felt like the clock was ticking.
LeBeau joined the Steelers in 1992 as a secondary coach under first-year Head Coach Bill Cowher. Three years later, LeBeau was promoted to the defensive coordinator job and the Steelers reached the Super Bowl for the first time since 1979. The team only allowed 254 yards against the Dallas Cowboys that night, but three costly interceptions by Neil O'Donnell kept LeBeau still waiting for a ring.
He said he was starting to feel like the Buffalo Bills after their four straight trips to the Super Bowl with no victories from 1990-1993. Sitting on three appearances and no victories himself, it was time for a change.
He left Pittsburgh for a second stint with the Bengals from 1997 to 2002 and a year as the assistant head coach in Buffalo before returning as the defensive coordinator in 2004. In 2005, just before the team was set to travel to Detroit, he began to wonder if a Super Bowl was ever in the cards for him.
Then after Ike Taylor knocked down a ball and Ben Roethlisberger trotted on to kill out the clock, it sunk in for the then 68-year-old that he was going to be a championship-winning coach. As players and team staff stormed the confetti-covered field, LeBeau stayed back on the bench with no one near him.
"I was starring at that scoreboard," he said. "It kept saying Pittsburgh 20 and Seattle 10. I kept saying, 'Yeah, that’s right. That’s what it says. This isn’t a dream. It isn’t going to flip around and have Seattle to 21 or nothing. That’s the final score.'"
And that's the only thing LeBeau says he can remember from that game that cemented him forever in the history books. He was there for a full five minutes just astonished by the feat he and his team had accomplished. He said he was blessed to get to win another one when the Steelers won again in 2008.
Steelers' McFadden Had An Important Role In Getting LeBeau His 1st Ring
The Steelers finished the 2005 season with an 11-5 record and second in the AFC North. The team knocked off the Bengals 31-17 in the AFC Wild Card round and faced a tough challenge in the Divisional round against the Indianapolis Colts. LeBeau came into the game with the perfect plan to silence Peyton Manning. The Steelers got the win 21-18, with some help from McFadden after an almost costly fumble by Jerome Bettis.
"When Bettis fumbled the ball, we all thought the game was over," he recalled. "We had to go out again and we had to stop Peyton Manning. They had the ball at mid-field and I was like, 'BMac [McFadden] is going to have some work.' You made three plays on that drive and from that day on, I never worried another second about how you were going to hold up when the chips were on the table."
The rookie McFadden defended a pass intended for Reggie Wayne in the end zone on 2nd and 2, and two plays later, Mike Vanderjagt missed a 46-yard field goal to secure the Steelers' spot in the conference championships. After Roethlisberger fulfilled a promise to get Bettis to the Super Bowl with a win in the AFC Championship, the Steelers helped to squash any lingering thoughts LeBeau had of retiring without a ring.
Do you remember LeBeau finally getting his Super Bowl? Is there anything you'd wait 46 years for?
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