Bill Cowher praises Jerome Bettis, slams quarterbacks
By Mike Dyce
No one doubts that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it is a matter of how long they wait before putting him in that is the issue. Former head coach Bill Cowher is campaigning for his old running back to get in sooner rather than later using the “who’d he play with, he did it on his own” argument.
“With all due respect,” Cowher said, “for most of his career he played in an offense without a quarterback you could name.”
“Whoever it was, any of our quarterbacks, when you played us, we were a running offense and what we accomplished with a running offense was pretty amazing,” Cowher said. “He gave us our identity. We ran what people knew we were going to run. We were a running football team. If you wanted to stop the Pittsburgh Steelers, you had to stop the run first.”
Cowher has a point, quarterbacks he played with before Roethlisberger are: Mike Tomczak, Kordell Stewart, Kent Graham and Tommy Maddox.