LeBeau dishes on legendary 2008 defense in new book
On Sunday, the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum is hosting a launch for a new book about the 2008 Super Bowl Champion Steelers defense. It’s entitled “Legendary: The 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers Defense, the Zone Blitz, and My Six Decades in the NFL.”
On Sunday, the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum is hosting a launch for a new book about the 2008 Super Bowl Champion Steelers defense. It’s entitled “Legendary: The 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers Defense, the Zone Blitz, and My Six Decades in the NFL.”
The book is authored by the 2008 team’s defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, with former TribLive Steelers beat writer Scott Brown and longtime Western Pennsylvania sports media personality George Von Benko.
In its appendix, Brown refers to the book “as something of a compromise” because LeBeau didn’t want a book written about his 59 years in the NFL. Instead, he wanted it written about the Steelers’ ‘08 defense and their historic accomplishments along the way to the franchise’s sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy.
So, Brown and Von Benko weave LeBeau’s life and career through a week-by-week account of that season and the eventual Super Bowl win over the Arizona Cardinals.
Throughout the book, there are lots of firsthand accounts from LeBeau and many players about some of the “legendary” tales of that season that die-hard Pittsburgh football devotees have come to know well in the 16 years since that championship campaign. However, within those stories, there are many details the average fan may not know.
What you may have known: During the week leading up to Super Bowl XLIII, LeBeau drilled his players on the importance of taking any turnover in the game and trying their hardest to turn it into a defensive score.
“Coach LeBeau gave us the percentages of a team winning if they scored a defensive touchdown in the Super Bowl. It was something like 90%,” linebacker James Harrison said in the book. “That week, every time we practiced — seven-on-seven, nine-on-nine, even one-onone — if a dude got a pick, everybody ran back and made like they were throwing a block, and we would go the whole length of the field.”
Safety Ryan Clark said the only time he remembers LeBeau really getting mad at them that season was when the team failed to do that a few times during the Thursday practice that week.
The defense took that to heart, and, sure enough, once Harrison intercepted Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner at the goal line near the end of the first half of that Super Bowl, every Steeler on the field ran back the other way to get a block to help Harrison get in the end zone for his memorable 100-yard pick-six that turned the fortunes of the game and gave the Steelers a 17-7 lead going into halftime.
What you may not have known: After all that drilling from LeBeau to think touchdown once they got a pick, LeBeau was ironically screaming at Harrison to get down after he intercepted the pass.
With just 18 seconds left in the second quarter, LeBeau didn’t want to see Harrison do anything but get on the ground so the Steelers could kneel out the clock and take a 10-7 lead into the second half instead of risking a fumble back to the Cardinals on the return when they still may have had time to kick a field goal before the clock expired.
“As he took off running, I yelled, ‘James, get down!’ How many times have you seen a guy take off like that and fumble and the other team gets the ball back?” LeBeau said.
In the clip above, Harrison said Larry Fitzgerald almost stripped him at the end of the play, but the Cardinals receiver hit the linebacker’s chest instead of the ball, so Harrison was able to maintain possession as he tumbled into the end zone.
But even if Harrison had fumbled at that point, time had expired, and the half would’ve ended with Pittsburgh up 10-7. What you may have known: Harrison was exhausted at the end of that run and a little banged up after Fitzgerald’s tackle attempt, which ended up with Harrison getting dunked on his head.
What you may not have known: Harrison fought that injury for at least a year.
“I jammed my neck. It was misaligned. It took my chiropractor nearly 12, 18 months to get that (sucker) to pop back out,” Harrison said.
What you may have known: Speaking of big interceptions and injuries, Troy Polamalu’s famous pick-six two weeks earlier in the AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens almost didn’t happen because Polamalu was dealing with an injured calf.
What you may not have known: According to LeBeau, Polamalu’s calf was so bad he almost didn’t suit up.
“We did not know going into Sunday if he would be able to play. We were making provisions for him not to play, knowing there was always a good chance he would play because he was Troy Polamalu,” LeBeau explained. “Once he got loose in pregame warm-ups, he looked pretty good. He did not just play; he played a fantastic game. On his interception, he had the perfect break on the ball, and that’s just Polamalu. He did that a lot of times but few in more critical situations.”
Two plays earlier, after a timeout, LeBeau said Polamalu had been told to man up on Baltimore tight end Todd Heap. But Heap stayed in to block on that play, so that gave Polamalu the ability to freelance and read quarterback Joe Flacco.
What you may have known: The Steelers improved to 10-3 that season by virtue of another interception return for a touchdown. This one was courtesy of Deshea Townsend off of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo in the fourth quarter of a 20-13 win at home on a pass intended for tight end Jason Witten.
What you may not have known: All three of those interceptions came as the direct result of the Steelers coming out of a timeout after instructions from LeBeau.
We discussed LeBeau’s direction for Polamalu on the interception of Flacco (which resulted in a LaMarr Woodley sack on the previous play). On Townsend’s pick-six, tied 13-13 with just under two minutes left, the Steelers called timeout after a first-down run from Dallas.
“Townsend thought he could get to Witten if he had a free pass to do it. I said, ‘We’ll give them this look, and you and Troy make this adjustment. If he goes to Witten, I think you’ll have a good chance to get the ball,’” LeBeau recalled. “It was pretty easy to improvise it, and that was another plus of that group of guys. Because we had been together in the same system, with the same coaching, we could do that.”
On the Harrison Super Bowl interception, the Cardinals called their final timeout before the first-and-goal snap. That gave LeBeau the time to send in a blitz. Harrison improvised and faked it to free up room for Lawrence Timmons to get in Warner’s passing lane before dropping in coverage himself.
“That’s one of the things Coach gave us liberty to do,” Harrison said. “(LeBeau) said, ‘I’m not out there with you. I don’t see what you see. I’ve got a different view.’” What you may have known: LeBeau had two stints with the Steelers as a defensive assistant coach and coordinator (1992-96, 2004-14). He was also head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals from 2000-02.
What you may not have known: LeBeau was almost the head coach in Pittsburgh — of the USFL’s Maulers. They offered him that post before their first (and only) season in 1984, while LeBeau was an assistant with the Bengals.
“I was getting along in years a little bit because I had played 14 years and at that time had been coaching around 15 years. Every coach wants to be a head coach, and so I thought, ‘I better think about this a little bit,’” LeBeau admitted.
“When an opportunity does present itself, I think you owe it to everybody to examine it. But after I thought it over, I decided that my job with the Bengals was the better opportunity.”
What you may have known: The Steelers went 12-4 in 2008 against the toughest schedule in the NFL that season.
What you may not have known: It was one of Pittsburgh’s few losses that LeBeau deemed to be a galvanizing point for the team — a 24-20 home loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Week 10 that dropped them to 6-3.
“Looking back, I think that game had as much to do as any with us becoming world champions. We started to do a lot of things really right in crucial situations in that game,” LeBeau said. “I think it was a great experience for our team. They say you can learn as much from a loss as a win. I’m not sure of that, but I do think that game, in the end, benefited our growth. We were starting to look like a championship team. We answered adversity, and our offense had several really good drives. When the playoffs came, we were battle-tested and ready to win because of losses like this one.”
What you may have known: While LeBeau was a college player at Ohio State and a returning student after turning pro, some of his peers on campus were basketball stars Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek and Bob Knight. Future Major League Baseball star Frank Howard played basketball and baseball. Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf soon followed on the golf course.
What you may not have known: Knight thought LeBeau could’ve played basketball with the Buckeyes.
“Dick was a heckuva basketball player,” Knight said via a subsection in the book. “I think he could’ve played basketball at that level. I think that during the time I was at Ohio State, he may have been the very best athlete that was there.”
Thankfully, for the 2008 Steelers, LeBeau had already been committed to football and was en route to being drafted by the Detroit Lions and his eventual Hall of Fame career for what he did as a player and a coach.