In spite of the fact that every report about Mike Munchak’s interest in working with the Denver Broncos has stressed the fact that his daughter and granddaughter living in Denver was a major, major draw for the former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line coach, it has been an idea that has been very hard for some to accept. Some even expressed incredulity that his daughter wouldn’t simply move to Pittsburgh and uproot her family’s life.
So that’s why I found a recent thread on Reddit pretty interesting. While I’m going to hasten to stress here that I have not in any way confirmed the identity of the poster in question here, there is a user on the Steelers’ subreddit with a lengthy and verifiable posting history professing that Munchak is his uncle, and he had some interesting things to say.
Posting as ‘The Munch Bunch’, he acknowledged that he and his family were not Steelers fans until Munchak joined the organization five years ago. But they quickly grew to love the fan base, and it helped that Munchak himself loved it there. He also added some insight into the recent proceedings that led to him taking the offensive line coach job with the Broncos.
“So I’ll just tell you what I know, after he heard the news about [Vic Fangio] getting the HC job, he flew back to Pittsburgh to negotiate a new contract”, he said. As has already been reported, Munchak’s contract with the Steelers had expired. The fact that he was negotiating a possible new contract before the Broncos came calling a second time tells you that he didn’t have any problems working in Pittsburgh.
“I guess for some reason they didn’t meet an agreement, so he drove back to Scranton to spend time with family there”, he went on. “Family was the driving force in it all, because he didn’t even consider any of the other jobs, but whatever it was that kept him keeping from reaching an agreement at that point, I’ll let you speculate”.
I’m not sure how much time actually lapsed between the moment the Broncos decided to go with Fangio as head coach and the moment they chose to loop back around and hunt Munchak for their offensive line coach, but I’m guessing it wasn’t very long, and likely not as long as the initial reports would indicate.
The user also believes that the Steelers’ offensive line remains in good hands. “I’ll tell you, Shaun Sarrett is the real deal”, he wrote of the team’s new offensive line coach, who was Munchak’s assistant for the past five years. “My uncle trusted him more than anyone and I know he’s gonna to an amazing job too”.
You can look through it all yourself and be your own judge as to whether or not this account has any credibility, but personally speaking, if he’s not telling the truth, he’s been playing a long con with almost nothing to gain from it.
