Todd Haley officiated over the majority of the highest-scoring offenses the Pittsburgh Steelers had ever seen in their history. From 2012 through 2017 as their offensive coordinator, the team put up four of the six highest point totals in Steelers history, but they made the decision to part ways with him for 2018.
He quickly found a new home with the Cleveland Browns, but that didn’t last long, as he was fired halfway through the season. He continues to look for work as most of the jobs around the league have been filled.
He did get the most out of the Steelers’ skill position stars, namely Le’Veon Bell at running back and wide receiver Antonio Brown. Both of them were perennial first-team All-Pros when healthy under Haley’s watch. Yesterday, he vouched for them after the former skipped the season and the latter went AWOL at the end of it.
“I can only speak well of them”, he said on SiriusXM Radio. “Le’Veon is a guy that is totally into football. He’d sit by my office before the team meetings in the morning with his iPad out. He’s watching tape full-time. You know, you love to see it. Any time you talk to him, it had something to do with sports or competition or how he could get better at what he needed to do to be the best”.
Former Steelers OC, Todd Haley, talks about coaching Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown…
“Le’Veon is a guy totally into football”
“AB is the hardest worker I’ve ever been around”
🔽 Audio 🔽 pic.twitter.com/9oLIPWz650
— SiriusXM NFL Radio (@SiriusXMNFL) February 20, 2019
In fairness, before the whole contract saga started, and when he wasn’t getting suspended, Bell did legitimately appear to be a hard worker who was dedicated to his craft and of his goal to be the best to ever play the game.
“On the field, he was a very dependable guy that was always out there despite a couple of serious injuries that forced him to miss time”, Haley added. “AB’s the same way. He’s arguably the hardest worker that I’ve ever been around, and I’ve said it many times. When I got there, I said, ‘this guy can’t be a big dog’, and he’s a big dog. And it comes through in his competitive nature and desire”.
On Brown, he continued, “you can never ask anything more of that guy. He wanted to do it all all the time, and what more could you ask for?”.
Perhaps Haley is hoping to coach at least one of them some time soon. It sounds as though both of them will be landing in new cities within the span of the next month or so. Maybe whichever teams land them will be interested in bringing Haley aboard due to his familiarity with them.
