One of the greatest defensive players in NFL history, this man's selection as our number one in 1969 turned the franchise around, forever. His leadership, his fire to win, his ferocious play on the field is legendary. For me, no one I'd ever see play before or since could turn a game around like Mean Joe Greene. He was so quick, so explosive off the snap of the ball, he was in the backfield before any of the offensive players knew what hit them. From 1969 through 1974, I don't believe there was a more dominant defensive player in the game, and his play during that time was historically one of the best I've ever seen. After that, he suffered some injuries, had to change his game a bit, but could still dominate a game, perhaps not as much rushing the passer, but stuffing the run? There was no one better.

One of my memories I will never forget. Mean Joe Greene bellowing when it was all over but the shouting in SB IX. "World Champs...number one, number one". When you consider all this team...and all that player...went through....it means so much.

Great interview:



Can't embed these, but they are worth a look:

http://www.nfl.com/videos/pittsburgh-steelers/09000d5d82750b06/Films-Encore-Mean-Joe-Greene

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-top-ten/09000d5d81d2bbb6/Top-Ten-Steelers-of-All-Time-Joe-Greene

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d81bba0b8/Top-100-Joe-Greene-bonus-feature

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Playing football was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If I could go out today and suit up, I would do it.--Jack Butler

Weegie Thompson? Oh, Mean Joe Greene. Yeah, he was good too.

Joe Montana ushered in a decade of winning for the 49ers as did Tom Brady for the Patriots. But rare is the player that does not play the quarterback position completely reverses the fortunes of an entire franchise the way Mean Joe did for the Steelers. Not only did he represent the Black and Gold on the field, he was just as worthy off the field as evidenced by his Dapper Dan lifetime achievement award.

Anyway, another great post from the only SteelerFury poster I can think of worthy of the name “Mean Joe.”

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"You seem angry, Drama."
"I've always been, Billy. Only now, I'm drunk too."

Haven't watched the vids yet, MeanJoe, but there's no more influential player in Steeler history than Mean Joe Greene, football's ultimate sore loser...and I say that in a good way.

There was his rookie year, we got his ass kicked out of multiple games. There was the infamous finale at the in Philly in 1970, where he took the ball off the Line of Scrimmage and hurled it high into the stands. And then there were the tales of his explosive temper in high school...his team losing and Mean Joe encountering the winning team at a local diner. The winning team's QB was eating an ice cream cone. Mean Joe took the cone, shoved it in the QBs face. The opponents are on their bus about to leave town, somebody throws something at Mean Joe. Mean Joe, by himself, get on the opponents bus....whereby the entire opposing team empties out the back door, appropriately scared as hell of Mean Joe Greene.

He was the unquestioned leader of the Steelers. As Rocky said on one of the America's Game vids..."If Joe didn't like something....well....I guess we all didn't like something."

There is a great story attached to the picture of Mean Joe carrying Swann off the field. This was during the 1975 AFC championship game, after Swann was nearly beheaded by Atkinson.

After seeing the picture of him being carried off the field by Mean Joe, Swann sent him a framed version and thanked him for the gesture. To which Mean Joe replied: 'Swann, I only carried you because I didnt want to waste a timeout!'

I thought this would be a Ricardo Colclough thread

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Joe Greene was definitely the cornerstone to greatness and the face of the franchise for a long time. Let's not forget the man who was fully responsible for drafting Mean Joe Greene, Chuck Noll,other than The Chief, Noll was arguably the most important PERSON in franchise history.

Joe Greene was definitely the cornerstone to greatness and the face of the franchise for a long time. Let's not forget the man who was fully responsible for drafting Mean Joe Greene, Chuck Noll,other than The Chief, Noll was arguably the most important PERSON in franchise history.

Joe Greene was definitely the cornerstone to greatness and the face of the franchise for a long time. Let's not forget the man who was fully responsible for drafting Mean Joe Greene, Chuck Noll,other than The Chief, Noll was arguably the most important PERSON in franchise history.