There is an interesting connection between the two teams scheduled to meet Monday afternoon in BuffaSNOW.
And it is much more than a footnote, given what the Pittsburgh Steelers accomplished from 2005-10.
Dick LeBeau, architect of the defenses that powered the Steelers to two Super Bowl wins in three appearances during a six-season span, spent the 2003 season working with the Buffalo Bills as an assistant head coach. The next season he returned to Pittsburgh for a second stint as the Steelers’ defensive coordinator under Bill Cowher. The rest, as they say, is history.
But there is much more to the story.
The Cincinnati Bengals moved on from LeBeau as their head coach after the 2002 season, and he pondered his next step. Enter Tom Donahoe. The Steelers’ director of football operations from 1991-99 had been with LeBeau in Pittsburgh for five seasons. By 2003, Donahoe was the Bills’ general manager.
LeBeau is convinced that Donahoe was instrumental in bringing him to Buffalo since he did not know Gregg Williams, who was the Bills’ head coach at the time.
“I knew the only reason Williams talked to me had to be through Tom, and that was the job I got to stay in coaching,” LeBeau told Steelers Depot. “Who knows what would have happened? I could be retired to this day. That’s the way careers go, especially in coaching. I took the job, and then it just worked out that Bill called me the next year. It worked out great.”
That is an understatement considering Pittsburgh gave LeBeau a key to the city after he left the Steelers following the 2014 season.
What LeBeau looks back on as a lifeline that Donahoe tossed him was anything but that.
The two became good friends after LeBeau arrived in Pittsburgh in 1992 as a defensive backs coach on Cowher’s first staff, kindred spirits who loved teaching. Donahoe had been a successful high school coach before going into scouting, and sometimes one of the Steelers’ head honchos found himself as a student when it came to LeBeau.
“I used to love to sit in on his defensive meetings when I was with the Steelers, just to watch him interact with the players, watch him teach and, for my benefit, learn football,” Donahoe told Steelers Depot. “Dick was really instrumental to me in my career learning about defensive football, zone blitz, game planning. He was huge for me.”
It was a no-brainer for Donahoe to help get LeBeau to Buffalo when he had a chance. But LeBeau, who ultimately spent almost 60 years in the NFL as a player and coach, still wonders what might have been if not for the season he spent in Buffalo.
“It kept my name active in the league. If it wouldn’t have been Buffalo, where would it have been?” LeBeau said. “Who knows? Maybe nowhere. I went from being fired [by Cincinnati] to having a job to getting back to Pittsburgh.”
LeBeau then added with a laugh, “Which, if I would have had half a brain, I never would have left.”
