Bradshaw: 'We did steroids'

Terry Bradshaw was all 'roided up

By MJD

I doubt that it's going to cause much of an uproar or that anyone will be calling for asterisks on the four Super Bowl trophies that the Steelers won in the 70s (although Patriots fans might want to leave it in their backpocket as kind of a trump card), but Terry Bradshaw admitted last week that he used steroids during his playing career.

If you're detecting a lack of surprise in my tone, congratulations on being perceptive. I already looked at the 70s Steelers as doing for steroids what the Bill Walsh 49ers did for the west coast offense. The 'roids were legal then, no one was testing for it, and there's no way the Steelers were the only ones. At the time, no one knew any better.

Here's what Bradshaw said on Dan Patrick's radio show:

“We did steroids to get away the aches and the speed of healing. My use of steroids from a doctor was to speed up injury, and thought nothing of it. … It was to speed up the healing process, that was it. It wasn’t to get bigger and stronger and faster.”

That may not have been the intent, but according to Jim Haslett, that's what it did. And while we're on the subject of unintended side effects, now might also be an appropriate time to mention that 70s Steelers are are dying off like NYC construction workers in The Happening.

Click to expand...

PITTSBURGH -- New Orleans Saints coach Jim Haslett says he used steroids when he starred as a linebacker in the early 1980s, and claims the Pittsburgh Steelers' use of the drugs during Super Bowl championship seasons in the 1970s brought steroids into vogue around the NFL.
Advertisement


Haslett said Thursday that when he played in the NFL, steroid use was rampant because the league had no policy banning such drugs. The NFL has since attacked the problem, he said.

"That's because it wasn't illegal then," Haslett said. "That was my point. You had so many people using them because they were legal. I talked about it to show how far our league has come. We have the best policy anywhere on steroids."

Haslett, the Steelers' defensive coordinator from 1997-99, made his initial remarks about his own steroid use and his accusations against the Steelers on Wednesday in Hawaii, where the league was holding its annual meeting. They were published in Thursday's editions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Los Angeles Times.

Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who ran the team during the 1970s, denied the Steelers pioneered steroid use in the NFL.

Haslett played in Buffalo from 1979 to 1985, and finished his career in 1987 with the New York Jets. He said he used steroids for one season early in his career.

Current Saints coach Jim Haslett played linebacker for seven seasons with the Bills (1979-85). (AP)
Current Saints coach Jim Haslett played linebacker for seven seasons with the Bills (1979-85). (AP)
"It started, really, in Pittsburgh. They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger (in the) '70s, late '70s, early '80s," Haslett said Wednesday. "They're the ones who kind of started it."

Rooney rejected Haslett's claims, noting the Steelers were known for smaller, quicker linemen who ran trap plays that required they be agile, not bulky.

"This is totally false when he says it started with the Steelers in the '70s," Rooney told the Post-Gazette. "(Then-coach) Chuck Noll was totally against it. He looked into it, examined it, talked to people. Haslett, maybe it affected his mind.

Click to expand...

Fresh off their first Super Bowl victory in 26 years, the Steelers have experienced the emotional gamut. The franchise has lost 18 former players -- age 35 to 58 -- since 2000, including seven in the last 16 months.

"There is no explanation," said Joe Gordon, a Steelers executive from 1969 through '98. "We just shake our heads and ask why."

The numbers are startling. Of the NFL players from the 1970s and '80s who have died since 2000, more than one in five -- 16 of 77 -- were Steelers.

"It's just an anomaly that we can't explain," said John Stallworth, who starred at receiver for Steelers teams from 1974 to 1987. "From an emotional standpoint it just makes you sad and makes you feel like the time we spent together was even more precious."

Freak accidents led to some of the deaths, and at least one was a suicide. Others share hauntingly familiar details.

Seven died of heart failure: Jim Clack, 58; Ray Oldham, 54; Dave Brown, 52; Mike Webster, 50; Steve Furness, 49; Joe Gilliam, 49; and Tyrone McGriff, 41. (In 1996, four years before the steady succession of Steelers deaths, longtime center Ray Mansfield died of a heart attack at 55.)

There is speculation that steroid abuse could have played a role in some of the deaths, but no hard evidence. It's just as plausible that weight issues were a factor. Counting Mansfield, five of the eight heart-attack victims played on the offensive or defensive line.

Click to expand...

Texan_Bill said:

Oiler fan: "Howdy, punk-ass cheatin bastage!!, This is Houston calling, we want our AFC Championship rings back and subsequent Super Bowl appearances!!!"

Click to expand...

Lucky said:

Oiler fan is making a big assumption that his team didn't have steroid abusers.

Click to expand...

Lucky said:

Oiler fan is making a big assumption that his team didn't have steroid abusers.

Click to expand...

I doubt that it's going to cause much of an uproar or that anyone will be calling for asterisks on the four Super Bowl trophies that the Steelers won in the 70s (although Patriots fans might want to leave it in their backpocket as kind of a trump card), but Terry Bradshaw admitted last week that he used steroids during his playing career.

Click to expand...

Second Honeymoon said:

Bradshaw probably needs to keep his mouth shut. Declarations like this are a disservice to his teammates both alive and dead. What's done is done and I am sure just about everyone was doing it to some degree. It was legal after all.

If Bradshaw is saying this to increase awareness and solve a problem, fine. His admission seems to me like he just wants to stir the pot a bit and make the news.

I like Bradshaw but just shut up already, because you are hurting the game and sullying the reputation of your teammates.

Click to expand...