Ed Bouchette: Questions Fan's All-Time Team Choices

Ed Bouchette on the Steelers: As with any popular vote, the Steelers' all-time team left plenty of room for scratching of the head and raising of the brow.

A weekly look inside the team & the questions

Sunday, October 28, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Steelers fans did a good job, for the most part, when they picked the all-time team. They did a terrible job at a few positions.

At linebacker, they chose Jack Ham, Jack Lambert and Andy Russell. So, too, they chose Greg Lloyd, who brought a Lambert-like attitude to the position. But Joey Porter and not Levon Kirkland?

Kirkland was the best linebacker in the NFL for several seasons. He would have been the game's MVP had the Steelers won Super Bowl XX. He never came off the field, playing inside linebacker in the base defense and middle linebacker in their dime.

You also can make a case for Mike Merriweather over Porter. Merriweather made three consecutive Pro Bowls on bad teams in the 1980s. He still holds the club record with 15 sacks in the 1987 season.

They left off their all-time sack leader, linebacker Jason Gildon, who had 77 -- 17 more than Porter, who played the primary rush position on defense at right outside linebacker. Bryan Hinkle, who played 12 seasons through 1993, was probably their most underrated linebacker. He might be in the Hall of Fame had he played in the 1970s.

Porter certainly was one of the team's better linebackers, but there were several better than him who did not make it on the all-time team.

Bill Dudley

The same case can be made at running back, where Franco Harris, Jerome Bettis and Rocky Bleier made it. No offense to Bleier, who probably got more out of his talent and had more drive than most any of their players over 75 seasons, but two Hall of Fame backs deserved to be on it over him.

Bullet Bill Dudley led the NFL twice in rushing in 1942 and 1946 and no Steelers player has done so since. John Henry Johnson led the team in rushing four consecutive years, including two of more than 1,000 yards. They were great enough for the Hall of Fame but not for the Steelers all-time team.

Bleier ranked seventh among rushers and while he also was a good blocker, Frank Pollard, Dick Hoak and Barry Foster all outran him.

And, how can you have a team with 33 players and not have more than one guard? The last time I checked, they've been playing with two guards all 75 seasons. Alan Faneca was a good choice, but a second guard could not be found? Here are two others: Carlton Haselrig, one of the NFL's better guards in the early 1990s who made one Pro Bowl, or Sam Davis from the 1970s.

Picking Bobby Walden as the team's all-time punter shows how stuck fans can be on the 1970s. Or how soon they forget. Coach Chuck Noll refused to allow Walden to punt late in the game in Super Bowl X because he feared it being blocked. He's seventh on the team's career list for punters by average, behind Bobby Joe Green, Pat Brady, Josh Miller, Chris Gardocki, Mark Royals and Harry Newsome. Soon, he'll find himself behind Daniel Sepulveda as well. It may have been the fans' worst choice.

Some could argue for Eric Green, Mark Bruener or still-young Heath Miller at tight end ahead of Bennie Cunningham, but the choice of Cunningham as the second tight end to Elbie Nickel was not a bad one.

It does say something, though, that an all-time Steelers team has two tight ends and just one quarterback. Terry Bradshaw was such an overwhelming choice that apparently whoever finished second did not receive enough overall votes to make the club.

My second quarterback would have been Bobby Layne.

Since they included special teams members, a punter and kicker, they also should have picked a punt/kick returner. Then someone such as Louis Lipps could have made the team. Lipps' 656 yards in punt returns during the 1984 season are a club record and his 437 yards in 1985 rank seventh.

Finally, for the second time, the Steelers picked a team but not a coach. They did not have one for their Legends team either. It may be as obvious as picking a quarterback, but Chuck Noll should have had the honor of coaching this team.

Other than that, fans showed savvy in their choices and, other than Walden, picked good players even at the positions under dispute.