If you hadn’t known by now, famed actor Ed O’Neill was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent in 1969. He was a two-year starter at Youngstown State and parlayed that into time with the Steelers at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. He was cut during that first training camp and started his journey to become the actor we all know today.
“My problem was I was out trying to play outside linebacker, and I never played the position,” O’Neill said on a recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “So I was trying to make the team and learn the position at the same time, which is not recommended.”
Maybe that’s why O’Neill was called to Steelers head coach Chuck Noll’s office before the end of camp and told to bring his playbook. And that was that for his professional football career. Instead, he turned back toward acting. Then, almost 20 years later, O’Neill got his big break portraying former high-school football star, Al Bundy, on “Married… with Children.” That role lasted 260 episodes over 10 seasons. O’Neill went on to act in multiple movies and television shows before he hit it big again as Jay Pritchett in “Modern Family.”
However, after O’Neill was called to Noll’s office and told he was cut by the Steelers, he was thrown a proverbial football lifeline. It involved the other Pennsylvania professional football team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
“He said, ‘By the way, I talked with Coach [Joe] Kuharich with the Eagles, and they’re desperate for linebackers,” O’Neill said. “‘So how about we rent you a car, you drive down to Philly, and they’ll give you a good look. But I have to know right now, because they got to fill the spot…’ And I said, ‘No, I’m done.’ He said, ‘You’re done?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m sick of it.'”
How different could things have been for O’Neill? How different things could have been for the general viewing public? If O’Neill had decided to take the offer and headed to Philly, could he have kept playing football?
Maybe. We will never know just how different both football and television history will be. Instead, we have a legendary actor whose first big role was a defining one for 90s television.
You can watch the entire interview, including a recurring dream about Steelers training camp, below:
