Building a Dynasty

On the week of the NFL draft, possibly my favorite weekend of the year, I wanted to take a minute and talk about the greatest draft class in NFL history. The year was 1974 and Our Pittsburgh Steelers had just come off a 10-4 season and a disappointing first round playoff loss to the hated Oakland Raiders.

Chuck Noll's draft philosophy was to draft the best player available no matter the position need and in the first round The Steelers picked a WR from USC named Lynn Swann. Round two saw Pittsburgh select an undersized linebacker from Kent State. His name was Jack Lambert. Pick three was traded prior to the draft for a defensive lineman but they had two picks in the fourth round. Those picks turned out to be John Stallworth, WR from Alabama, and Jimmy Allen DB from UCLA whom would eventually be traded to Detroit. In my opinion, the 125th overall pick in the fifth round of this draft is the second biggest steal in NFL draft history because it garnered arguably the greatest center to ever play the game, Wisconsin's Mike Webster. (Bonus points to anyone that guesses which pick I think is the biggest steal ever!)

So count 'em up gents. That's four Hall of Famers in one draft! To put it in perspective no other team has ever drafted more than two HOF'ers in a single draft.

Let's hope this Steeler's regime has the insight and luck that "Good Luck Chuck" had in '74. I doubt seriously there will be even one HOF'er in our draft class but perhaps we can at least get an All Pro or two out of the pack!