Terry Bradshaw Called His Own Plays in College and the Pros: ‘That Was the Way to Play, Man’

Terry Bradshaw Called His Own Plays in College and the Pros: ‘That Was the Way to Play, Man’

Bradshaw, a four-time Super Bowl champ with the Steelers, told Julian Edelman that he made play-calling a collaborative effort with his team

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Kari Anderson

Former Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw (left) said that he got “the biggest kick” out of watching quarterbacks like Tom Brady (right) checking their playbooks during games. Focus on Sport/Getty Images

Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw has a highly decorated career, with four Super Bowl victories, two Super Bowl MVPs and a regular-season MVP award.

But it’s all the more impressive that Bradshaw did all of that without the aid an offensive coordinator while he was on the field, instead calling plays himself and with his teammates.

Bradshaw, who played for the Steelers from 1970 to 1983 and spent his entire career in Pittsburgh, told former New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman about making his own calls on Wednesday’s episode of the Games With Names podcast.

“I ended up calling all my plays in college, I called all my plays in the pros and realized that people don’t call their plays,” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said that he got “the biggest kick” out of quarterbacks like Tom Brady would use a card on his wrist to go through the plays. Edelman, Brady’s teammate in New England, confirmed that there were three or so plays on the quarterback’s card that he would pick from.

“I just sat there and looked at the marker and the placard would move down,” Bradshaw said. He would then ask his teammates what he thought they should do: “What do you think we ought to run here?”

Bradshaw said that at the time, they didn’t have an offensive coordinator. Although the running back and receivers coaches would run the offensive meetings, it was up to Bradshaw and his teammates on the field.

“I mean, that was the way to play, man. Get in a huddle with your guys and scratch your head,” Bradshaw said. “That’s fun. That’s when you’re in the huddle, and Franco (running back Franco Harris) says, ‘Hey, give me a trap.’ … Okay, let’s run it.”

Bradshaw made sure to share credit; although he made a number of calls, he had plenty of input from his teammates.

“I say I called plays, but we called plays, because I involved everybody,” Bradshaw said.

The self-calling came with risk: “When you run a play in football, and it’s not successful, but in practice, it’s set up to be successful. So if it’s not successful, it’s not my fault. It’s their fault,” Bradshaw said. “But I’m calling the plays and so it’s my fault for calling the play.”

Bradshaw said that when things “weren’t going right” with the running game, he would switch to passing, and vice versa. “And it would work or it wouldn’t work and then that’s okay,” he said.

“Plays are like a beautiful movie. There’s a beginning, there’s an end. And there’s a storyline. And they’re stars in the storyline. Maybe it’s a romance or maybe it’s a drama, melodrama,” Bradshaw added. “It’s all set up beautifully and everything is tied in.”

From there, he said, it was about matching movement.

“You learned if the dancers which are the safeties, if they danced this way, then the linebackers have to dance that way. And if the corners are in this and are the inside technique, outside technique, or they’re squaring up looking at it — there’s little things you’ve learned in the middle of the play, and go ‘aha,'” Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw admitted that he was occasionally fooled, but that he learned more overtime.

“You learn to pick up on all of this. And then when it’s all said and done, you know, it really got kind of easy,” he said.

These days, though, things are different.

“Now they make it really hard. I think today with all the formations that are set up,” Bradshaw said. “Because there’s so much shit to read.”