Kevin Greene had his gold jacket on, nice and snug as if it were his Steelers No. 91 game jersey. His face turned red as he spoke about his short time in Pittsburgh, his connection with the fans and his former teammates.
A few feet away sat his Pro Football Hall of Fame bust, his bronzed hair flowing just as it was during his playing career and still today. There was the election in February, the enshrinement in August and Sunday night the final leg of his Hall of Fame journey at Heinz Field.
None of it, Greene said, would have been possible without Greg Lloyd, his former Steelers teammate who presented him with his Hall of Fame ring during a halftime ceremony of the game between the Steelers and Chiefs.
“The way I look at it, if it wasn’t for Greg, I wouldn’t have a gold jacket and I wouldn’t about to put on a Hall of Fame ring,” Greene said before the game. “They had to account for Greg. Greg was a game-changing player. Offenses could not focus on me. They had to account for Greg and Chad Brown and Levon Kirkland and Rod Woodson and on and on and on. My hunting partner on the other side just lifted me up and made me a better player.”
Together, Greene and Lloyd terrified opposing quarterbacks from 1993-95, the only three seasons Greene spent with the Steelers. Greene recorded 35½ of his 160 career sacks during that three-year span. Lloyd had 22½ of his 54½ career sacks during that era, when the Steelers advanced to the postseason three times and played host to two AFC championships at Three Rivers Stadium.
It was Blitzburgh in its heyday. Hall of Fame coach Dick LeBeau, Dom Capers and Marvin Lewis created the zone blitz pressure scheme that confounded NFL offensive coordinators for years, and Greene was at the center of the mayhem.
“I can just envision Dick LeBeau and Dom Capers and Marvin Lewis drawing that stuff on the board at night,” Greene said. “Let’s see if we can drop [nose tackle] Joel Steed to the hook, curl area and let’s bring Greg and Kevin and Rod off the same corner.
“We’d go into each game with 8, 10 or 12 new pressures that were un-scouted looks that we didn’t have on film before. The coaches were creating this stuff so they threw it in there to see if we could do it. Most times we could. We understood the zone pressure concept.”
The Steelers of today could use some of that sack magic. They entered the Chiefs game with one sack, the fewest in the NFL, before Cam Heyward got the second early in the first quarter.
Greene might not have been able to teach the Steelers pass rush moves in the few moments he got to spend with them about an hour or so before the game. But coach Mike Tomlin didn’t bring him into the locker room for that. He wanted some passion and surely Greene could deliver that.
“He said he needed some fire and brimstone,” Greene said. “I said I’m your guy.”
Greene, a former Army reservist, also wasn’t shy about stating his opinion on the widespread protests throughout the league that have been popularized this year by San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started a movement when he began kneeling during the national anthem.
The movement has trickled down to the college and high school level, and Greene doesn’t see a place for it before NFL games.
“I understand the need for people that have a conviction in their heart to make a statement,” Greene said. “I understand that need. But I will say this. I humbly think that time, the national anthem time, is reserved.
“That time is reserved for the warriors that have sacrificed. The warriors that sacrifice now and the warriors that are going to come in the future and sacrifice for this country that will allow that flag to flap in freedom forever. That specific time is reserved to honor the warriors past, present and future.
“The reality is if that flag isn’t flapping in freedom we’re under someone’s thumb and we can’t do what we really want to do for a living. That’s sad. And there are a lot of people that have sacrificed for that freedom for us to choose. But that time needs to be reserved for the warriors.”
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
First Published: October 3, 2016, 2:38 a.m.
