Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

LOCKER ROOM CHAT

One-On-One with Tom Donahoe
February 25, 1998

Tom Donahoe joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1986 as an area scout before being promoted to the position of Director of Pro Personnel and Development in 1989, Director of Football Development in 1991 and Director of Football Operations in 1992, a position he has held since 1992. His responsibilities include evaluating college and pro personnel and overseeing all player acquisitions through trades, free agency and the draft. Tom has been instrumental in building and directing what has become one of the most successful franchises in professional sports, although it's unlikely that he'd accept much of the credit for the Steelers success...one of the things that struck me most during my interview with him was his modesty.

WR: The Steelers, for a lot of reasons, have become a model franchise in the 90's. They've won consistently, but they've done so since '94, the year the salary cap was implemented, in a cap responsible manner. The organization has avoided going down the cash-over-cap road that other teams have gone down chasing high priced free agents. They are an efficiently run, small market franchise that has managed to stay on top, and one of the things I would like to talk to you about, Tom, is the reasons for your success. Let's talk first about the fact that you are a small market franchise. Tell me how that impacts how you do business as compared to teams in larger markets. Or does the size of your market even impact your business? Maybe it doesn't matter because of the League's revenue sharing.

TD: Well, to a degree you still have a level playing field in football and that's what makes it different from baseball and some of the other sports. The television money, which constitutes a significant portion of DGR, is divided up equally among the 30 teams. But the problem in recent years is that some teams have developed, particularly with new stadiums, ways to increase additional revenue. The PSL's, deals with the stadiums with regard to concessions, parking, etc., those types of things. So what has happened in the League over the last ten years is that the difference in team revenues has grown. The spread used to be relatively close. The difference between the high revenue team and the low revenue team was maybe 8 to 10 million. Now it's up over 60 million in many cases.

TD: Well, because of stadium leases, concessions, revenues from those types of areas. For example, if a team owns its stadium, every time they have an event in the stadium it generates them revenue. If they have a concert or a truck pull or wrestling, they get the concession money, the parking, the rent, basically all of the revenue. As a result the playing field in the league, while it is still level to a degree, is definitely more slanted now than it was in the past.

TD: It's a little bit of both. You know, the television money we feel always gives us a chance because everyone gets the same amount. And that fact that we have a cap means that everybody's dealing with basically that same cap. It does fluctuate a little bit because of things like incentives. You might get some charges next year for incentives that guys earned this year, and so whatever the cap is next year, it's not going to be that same amount for every team. But it is going to be in the same ballpark. If it is $50 million, if that's what is established as the cap, some teams might be at 48.5 because of deductions for incentives earned but not counted the prior year.

TD: That's right. You've given players unlikely to be earned incentives and they earn them. That money has to be charged somewhere, so it's a charge against your cap in the following year which reduces your cap. For example, if you had 2 million in incentives earned that were not likely to be earned, and the cap next year is 50 million, that 2 million is charged against next year's cap, so your net cap is 48 million. But you are in the same ballpark. We think that those two things, the television money and the salary cap, gives us a chance to be competitive. Or course, we have to operate a certain way. We can't go crazy with signing bonus money because we just don't have the extra revenue that some teams are able to generate.

TD: We don't have it. It's not a question of whether we want to do it. We don't have it. But we still feel that if we are fair with our players, and we're smart about the free agents we sign and we continue to have good drafts we can be successful. It's really a three prong approach. Obviously, the draft is a very important element.

TD: Well, personally, I think that it is something the League should look at.

TD: Well, that's just my philosophy. I believe competition is critical to our, the League's success. In baseball, the teams that spent the most money the last couple of years are the teams that were in the World Series. I think that takes away from the competitive aspect of the game. The teams that do the best job in personnel, and do the best job in coaching, and do the best job in developing the right chemistry, those are the teams that you'd like to see have a chance to win. Not just the teams that can spend the most money, like the Florida Marlins or the Atlanta Braves, or what ever team you want to pick that is at the top of the scale with regard to salaries.

TD: That's true. But as I said, we have some things in football that they don't have in baseball. The Pirates situation here is much more difficult than ours. When they sell their local broadcast rights, they might get 2 or 3 million for that deal. When Atlanta or the Mets sell their broadcast rights, they might get 40 or 50 million. MLB doesn't share the TV revenues like we do. They don't have a salary cap. They do have a luxury tax but it's much more difficult for the Pirates to stay afloat than it is for the Steelers to remain competitive.

TD: It was really a lot of things. It was an economic growth package. Stadiums were a part of it, but it was destroyed at the polls. It was overwhelmingly defeated.

TD: If they do, they never say it. They probably feel here that the Steelers, one way or another, will be here forever.

TD: That's what they expect us to do.

TD: It could happen. We don't like to think that way and we never talk publicly like that. We've never threatened to move. We have just tried to make people understand that we want to compete and put a good product on the field. Just look at our division. Every team that we compete against is either in a new stadium or will be in a new one within the next year or two. We have to compete with that. At least give us an equal chance to compete.

TD: Well, we had a big advantage initially because Mr. Rooney was involved in putting this deal together and he probably understood it as hard at it. We have a lot of people here who take pride in what they are doing, whether its negotiating contracts or selecting players. Our coaches have been very understanding. They recognize that we will lose some players. As an organization, we've never tried to complain about the players that have left. We've just tried to come up with an alternative plan. And our people have been patient so that we have had a chance to work through some of the losses. No one has panicked when we've lost quality players. So it's been a combination of a lot of things, but I think the biggest key is that we have great resource here with Mr. Rooney.

TD: Well, at least you've admitted it. Nobody else has. A lot of other people predicted the same thing, but no one has admitted publicly that they were wrong.

TD: We were in a tough position last year and we knew it. The cap was not going to go up very much and we had a lot of players whose contracts were up. We had to prioritize our needs before the off season started because we knew we couldn't keep everybody. We decided that our number one priority going into last season was Jerome Bettis. That was the number one priority. We felt we had to get him signed.

TD: Right. That was exactly it. In our offense, we need a high quality running back, and Jerome is a perfect fit so that was our priority. Having said that, we knew it would take significant money to keep him and, in signing him, we realized that we were probably going to have to eliminate some other people. We just weren't going to have enough money to satisfy everyone. But that's the system and we have to live with it just like everyone else does. We tried to go out and sign some other players who we thought could come in and help us. We tried to look ahead to the draft and make sure we got a couple players there that could come in and help us. To the credit of our coaches, they put the whole thing together and made it work. It goes back to what I said before. It's a lot of people working together.

TD: Right, we could never have done that. That would have been out of the question. We expected Chad to get a pretty good offer, but we never anticipated that it would be in that area. All we could do was thank him for his contributions here and wish him well. We couldn't compete with that signing bonus.

TD: That's right. And Kordell certainly proved last year that he has a bright future. He has a year under his belt and he's signed I believe for three more years. For us, that's a nice position to be in.

TD: Well, we've tried to do that with players who we've identified as key players. We've tried to talk with them going into the last year of their deals to see if they would be receptive to an extension. In many cases, they have been. As a result, some of our better players have never gotten to free agency. Dermonti Dawson never got to free agency. We signed him twice before he was on the open market. Greg Lloyd never became a free agent. Joel Steed did this time, but not the last time. Carnell Lake never got to free agency. We try to identify the right people. But if they don't want to talk and they're determined to go out and test the market, there's not much you can do about it.

TD: Exactly. That's a great analogy. It's a finite pie and we talk about that all the time. The one thing about football that people sometime lose site of is the fact that it's a team game. And the problem in football as compared to basketball, baseball, and hockey, is that you need a lot of players. You can't take ten players and pay them $4 million and then fill in the rest of the team with guys at the minimum because your team will stink. And you have to be careful how you structure contracts and who you give the money to, so that you have enough players at each position. You have to have some depth and you need players who can help you out on special teams. It's really a constant juggling act that you go through.

WR: I'm not casting stones here, but some teams obviously have a different philosophy. Dallas for example, had a ton of money wrapped up in maybe four or five key players. If one of them goes down, they are clearly at a disadvantage because there's no provision for any kind of a cap rebate for injured players. I guess you could include the 49ers in this discussion. I assume that this type of philosophy makes it more difficult to retain quality back-ups at key positions and probably requires you to retain a lot of minimum wage players. I guess it's just a choice a team makes. It probably reflects their attitude toward risk.

TD: Well, we've been fortunate. We went two years in a row losing our best player in the first game of the season. We lost Rod Woodson the year we went to the Super Bowl and then we lost Greg Lloyd the following year in and got to the 2nd round of the playoffs. What that shows you is that it's a team game, and just because you lose a player or two or even three, four, or five to free agency, that doesn't mean that your team is devastated and the next season is going to be a disaster. You just have to fill in the blanks, put it together and get back after it.

TD: It's a little bit of both. Our coaches are very much involved in our draft meetings. They sit in on our discussions about players. Because of that, our scouts know what kind of players our coaches' want and we can provide them with those types of players. Because our coaches are involved, they feel a greater responsibly when the pick is made. Our head coach is extremely patient with young players.

WR: How are decisions made? Are they made collectively?

TD: Yes

TD: Well, if you're talking about free agency, it's generally Bill Cowher, myself, and Charles Bailey. If you're talking about the draft, it's generally Bill, myself, and Tom Modrak. That's usually the way we work it.

TD: All the time. To us, that's the fun of being involved in personnel. You get different opinions but the bottom line here is we all have the same agenda and that is to pick the players who will help us be successful. We have different opinions but we discuss it and eventually come to a consensus.

TD: Well, we are. And again, that's probably a credit to the stability of the ownership and the fact that our owner is in the football business. He's not a car dealer who does this part-time. His business is football and that's all it has ever been. He understands the game and has been around it all his life so he doesn't panic, if we had a bad game, or a season where we were devastated by injuries and didn't win as many games as we would like. He understands that those things happen. He understands that they are part of football. Sometimes you see people panic and they do things which probably ends up in the long run setting them back further than if they would have just stayed the course and said, "Hey, you know we didn't have a very good year but we will bounce back next year."

TD: Not really. We have always tried to keep an open mind in free agency and look at our team and who's available, and then decide what to do in the free agent market.

TD: No, but we have been selective. We've signed some good free agents. We signed Kevin Greene. He was very significant. Will Woolford was very significant. We're not going to be the major player in free agency and jump out and establish the market every year when free agency starts. We would prefer to keep our own players because we know those players. We don't really know someone else's players. In free agency, you never know exactly what you're going to get. In many respects, you don't know what you're going to get in the draft. Those are much more of a crap shoot then if you have had a player who's been with you 3 or 4 years. You know that player. You know his work habits, how he practices, how he prepares, how he is on game day, and what type of person that he is. Your chances of failure are a lot less with your own people.

TD: Yes.

TD: Yes, and as a result, he understands how the deal was put together. He'd be the first to tell you that some of the things that have happened with this deal were not anticipated when they put it together. Like the signing bonus money.

TD: Right. That's what it was intended to be. But people found ways to get around it. You know, in some respects, the signing bonus money has violated the spirit of the agreement, not that people are doing anything illegal, but that probably wasn't the intention when they put the deal together.

TD: I would imagine he would have.

TD: Well, it's interesting. When Bill Cowher came here six years ago and put his defensive staff together, Dom Capers became the coordinator and Dick Lebeau came from Cincinnati as a secondary coach. Dick had already done a lot of the things that we implemented in Pittsburgh in Cincinnati when they were doing well and went to the Super Bowl. He had been using a lot of the zone blitz scheme that we do, so the three of those guys really put their heads together and came up with a style of play that has sort of became our trademark. It's been kind of flattering because people have imitated it. It has worked well for us and now just about everyone in the League is doing some sort of zone blitzing.

TD: The League has gone back and forth with that. If you go back far enough, there were more teams playing a 34 than a 43. So it's kind of a thing that goes in cycles.

TD: The personnel is a little bit different because you need to start with the nose tackle, and they are difficult to find. It's a hard position to play because you are generally getting double teamed and people are flying at you from all directions. You need a guy who can tie up one and sometimes two blockers so the linebackers can make plays.

TD: No, its hard to play. It's hard to play it well.

TD: And as far as defensive ends in this system, they are a little different than defensive ends in 43 defense. In a 34 defense, you need players who are bulkier, but who are still good enough athletes to run to the ball. In a 43, you can play with 260 lbs. or 270 lbs defensive ends. We have trouble doing that in this defense. But an advantage that we have right now from a personnel standpoint is that there seems to be more and more players coming out of college each year who are undersized defensive ends who we project as outside linebackers. Those players don't really fit well in the 43, but they fit well as outside linebackers in our defense. Jason Gildon is a good example. Jason was a defensive end at Oklahoma State, and we projected him to an outside linebacker.

TD: Right, his size and his pass rush ability. Our outside backers have to be able to play over the tight end so they have to be good at the point of attack, but they also have to be able to rush the passer and drop into coverage. We're looking for guys at that outside linebacker spot who are primarily pass rushers. And that's what a lot of these undersized defensive ends did in college. They rushed the passer and they're good at that. But most of the ones who we can fit in our defense weigh about 250-260 lbs. And they'd have trouble fitting in the 43 defense.

TD: They haven't and sometimes that's an adjustment for them. You look at Jason Gildin's first couple of years. He struggled. Now he's pretty good at it. You have to buy a little time with some of those guys, but while you're buying time they can still help you on third down as a rusher. That's what we've done the last two years with Steven Conley. Steven has played primarily on third down. Now we think he's ready to be a three down player because he's gotten experience and he understands the position. He can drop in coverage and he understands where he is supposed to be. Initially, though, that's hard for those guys.

TD: Well, he's out of position. He's not a defensive end in a 34. This is our feeling.

TD: They could play him at nose tackle if they want, he is not our player. When we looked at Hugh Douglas, we evaluated him as an outside linebacker in our defense and thought he would be a great fit at that position.

TD: Right, but if we had him here in a 34 and played him at defensive end, he would probably struggle. And its not anything negative towards Hugh. It's just that he is going to get pounded going up against 330 lb. tackles all the time.

TD: I can't answer that question.

TD: Well, I don't know because we play a 34, so I really only look at players who we think can fit in this defense. Maybe. Often people feel that it's easier to find big defensive tackles than it is to find athletic outside rushers. I don't. You would have to ask somebody who plays a 43 why they stick with it.

TD: Well, Bill is really flexible on that. He has been asked that question in the past, and he just feels that a lot of the things we do can be adapted whether we are playing a 43 or a 34. But when he looked at our talent initially, he felt that the best defensive front for us talent- wise was the 34. Now, when we look at college players, we are trying to find players that fit somewhere in our defense. So we're consistent with it and we plan to stay with it because it's worked very well for us.

TD: This is my recollection and I'm not sure it is totally accurate. They were having difficulty getting someone to move and someone went to Art Rooney and said, "Look, for the good of the game and the good of the League, would you consider doing it in Pittsburgh?" and Mr. Rooney agreed to do it.

TD: Probably not.

TD: Our fans would be outraged. They love our uniform and we think it's one of the best uniforms in the League, so we don't have any plans to tinker with it. We tinkered with it last year because we went with Nike and they came in with unbelievable elaborate designs, pictures, a lot of things that they wanted to do. Mr. Rooney just looked at them. He just didn't feel it would sell.

TD: Oh yeah!

TD: The logo wasn't really different, the design of the uniform was pretty far out there.

TD: Not quite, but in that direction.

TD: Yeah, we are too. We like it and it's us.

TD: Well, there's not many. But maybe we're one of them.