View topic - PFW's Tom Danyluk's the last pass

[thesteelhammer Profile]

http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/Features/NFL+Features/2008/danyluk2302.htm

Bradshaw's is one of the better last pass stories.

Move ahead to 1983, Steelers at Jets. Pittsburgh needs a win to wrap up a playoff berth, and Terry Bradshaw had missed the entire season with elbow problems.

“We tried everything to get him back on the field that year,” former Steelers personnel director Art Rooney Jr. said. “ ‘Rest,’ said the doctors, ‘rest.’ But it stayed sore. Some guy even brought in this magic mynah bird to sit on it. ‘It has great healing powers,’ he told us. No luck with the mynah.

“I was on a scouting trip that December when my brother Dan called me. ‘Terry’s practicing,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t look too bad.’ ”

But Bradshaw’s recovery was just a tease. He began 4-for-7 passing and had the Jets in full retreat, but on one of the throws he felt something pop. Ligament failure.

On the play prior to the injury, NBC color man Merlin Olsen had given the viewers a peek into the immediate future.

“The one thing that I would be really concerned about if I were Chuck Noll,” Olsen said, “was that Bradshaw try to do too much in the early part of this game, might get carried away with emotion and try to put too much on the ball. If he indeed does do that, he could injure that arm further.”

He gave it one more go — a little flip to Calvin Sweeney that went for a touchdown, his second of the afternoon.

“And then I knew my career was over,” Bradshaw said. The Steelers went to the playoffs without him.

[stillDrink Profile]

Some petty trivia related to that game. It was the last Jets game played at Shea Stadium. To my knowledge, it was the last NFL game played at Shea.