Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher was a guest on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, and Cowher issued a response to Jacksonville Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence’s comment on Pittsburgh’s Terrible Towels.
“No, I know what they are, the little yellow towels that they swing around,” Lawrence said in his press conference yesterday, via the Jaguars’ YouTube channel.
Cowher took offense to that during his appearance on McAfee today.
“A little gold towel? Come on, Trevor, it’s not a little gold towel. It’s called a Terrible Towel. And you’re gonna be terrible because this towel’s gonna make you terrible. That’s why it’s called a Terrible Towel,” Cowher said.
While Lawrence’s quote wasn’t necessarily meant in a demeaning way and he went on to talk about how excited he is to play in Pittsburgh against a historic organization like the Steelers, Cowher’s response is still funny. For what it’s worth, the history of players (and mascots) who try to denigrate the Terrible Towel isn’t a club that Lawrence wants to be part of.
His own franchise was bit by the Terrible Towel curse in 2008, when mascot Jaxson de Ville (yes, that’s really his name) rubbed a Terrible Towel between his armpits and butt at the start of the third quarter in a Week Five matchup. The Steelers won 26-21, and the Jaguars lost eight of their final 11 matchups. You’d think de Ville would’ve learned his lesson, but he continued to get in trouble over the towel.
The Jaguars aren’t the only organization that’s had issues after trying to stomp on or make fun of the towel. The Cincinnati Bengals and T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Jeremy Hill along with the Tennessee Titans and LenDale White and Keith Bulluck all saw their teams success run out after they stomped on the towel.
Lawrence wasn’t nearly as egregious of those other examples, but Cowher, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh and then became Pittsburgh’s head coach, knows far too well what the towel and the Steelers mean to Pittsburgh and Steelers fans. It’s one of the symbols of the team, and it can’t be a fun environment to play in on the road with thousands of fans whipping the towel around. It can make you play terrible. Obviously, that isn’t always the case, as Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers embarrassed the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium in Week One.
But the Steelers are going to try to make Lawrence look terrible on Sunday as they try to move to 5-2 on the season.
You can watch the full episode of today’s Pat McAfee Show below:
