What The '75 Steelers Look Like Now

There have been a lot of great football teams in the decades since the NFL was born, but it's the 1975 Steelers that was not only the best team Pittsburgh ever saw, but when it comes to teams across the league, they're up there. ESPN uses words like "dynasty" to describe them. At the time, football was heavy on the rushing game, and there's nothing wrong with that. Still, Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw led them to back-to-back Super Bowls — the first Steeler team to do it — by earning his nickname the "Blonde Bomber."

But football is, of course, a team sport, and even the best quarterback is useless when he doesn't have people around him he can count on — and it's all of those people together that made the '75 Steelers one of the best teams in NFL history. From Bradshaw and his fleet-footed receivers to the infamous Steel Curtain that made sure the opposing team wasn't going anywhere, it all came together to form poetry on the gridiron.

And that brings up a question: What happened to these guys, and where are they now?

Lynn Swann retired with a whopping four Super Bowl wins, along with more than 5,000 yards receiving, 336 receptions, and 51 touchdowns (via the Pro Football Hall of Fame). Post-retirement, he waded into the world of broadcasting, joining ABC Sports. In 2002, George W. Bush selected him to be a Member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and according to the Los Angeles Times, that was followed by a bid for governor of Pennsylvania, as the Republican candidate. (CNN says he lost to the incumbent Democrat.)

In 2016, he returned to his old love: football. That, reported the Los Angeles Times, was when USC announced Swann would be stepping in as the university's athletic director: They wrote that he would "bring the heart and soul of a Trojan to his position." 

Swann stepped down as AD in 2019, and more recently, Swann has been speaking out about his experiences not only in the sport but as a Black man playing in the 1970s. In 2021, he sat down with the National Football Foundation to talk about how things had and hadn't changed. He shared a story about how he, his brothers, and cousin went out to dinner in San Francisco to celebrate the day he was drafted by the Steelers. It ended with them all in jail (and according to Steelers Now, they would eventually win $40,000 each in a civil lawsuit.) Explaining how he moved past that, he said, "I let who I was as a person speak."

"Mean" Joe Greene got his nickname well before he got his NFL career, says Pittsburgh Magazine, and it wasn't until he filmed that iconic Coca-Cola commercial that the world realized he was only mean on the field. He's often lauded as one of the best players to ever take the field, and he was part of the Steelers' infamous Steel Curtain. 

Decades after his retirement, he's still recognized as the guy from that commercial. He told Coca-Cola that people who had once been afraid of him would now come up to him on the street, and offer him Coke and a hug. "It transformed my personal life in terms of how people looked at me. ... It means a great deal to me and to my family." Greene went on to hold a handful of coaching jobs in his retirement in 1981, including defensive line coach for the Cardinals and the Dolphins. Sports Illustrated says the 2003 season was his last as a coach, when he retired and returned to the Steelers for the next nine years, as a special assistant.

Tragically, Greene's post-retirement life has been marked with loss. In 2015, his wife Agnes passed away from breast cancer. The two had met while they were college students at the University of North Texas, and to honor her memory, Greene established the Agnes Lucille Craft Greene Memorial Scholarship, for students who had either been diagnosed with breast cancer, or had a parent or guardian with breast cancer.

Linebacker Jack Lambert once said, "We're the Pittsburgh Steelers. We're supposed to be the intimidators." And intimidate, he did — with his missing front teeth and angry snarl, it's safe to say he was the guy that no one wanted to line up against. And he backed it up, once body-slamming a Cowboy's safety for taunting one of his teammates, and making John Elway rethink his career choice. (Elway once said, "He had no teeth, and he was slobbering all over himself. I'm thinking, 'You can have your money back, just get me out of here.'")

He retired in 1984 after suffering a major injury, and while it might seem like that might translate to a wild, post-retirement life, the truth is the exact opposite. Lambert, says TribLive, has spent his retirement years with his wife and children, living on their 125-acre piece of property not far from where Three Rivers Stadium once stood. Initially spending his time as a volunteer deputy wildlife officer, he became known around town as their go-to coach for youth sports, and the guy who made sure all the playing fields were always in tip-top shape.

When Lambert made an appearance at a 2019 memorabilia signing, Steel City Insider reported that it was an incredibly rare thing. For the most part, he shuns the public spotlight and prefers the quiet life.

John Stallworth arrived in Pittsburgh in 1974, and quickly became one of their most invaluable wide receivers — he would be one of the first class inaugurated into the team's Hall of Fame. He had come a long way: According to Sports Illustrated, he had contracted a viral infection as a child, and it had left him paralyzed. It led to him having a late start in football, playing in high school and then being ignored by college teams. He's said that it "brought out a motivation in me to really extend myself," and he's continued to do that after his retirement.

Stallworth continues to put his Alabama A&M degree to good work, and as of 2022, he's one of the members of the Steelers' ownership group. He's also been wildly successful in developing his own business ventures, founding the Madison Research Corporation in 1986. (The company develops software and hardware, contracting with the U.S. government and places like the Space and Missile Defense Command's Simulation Center.) He's since sold the company (for a cool $69 million), and currently focuses on his work through the John Stallworth Foundation.

In addition to supporting various business ventures and providing scholarships to Alabama college students, he serves on the board of directors of organizations including the Crestwood Medical Center, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. J.F. Drake Technical College, and the Huntsville Botanical Garden Foundation.

Mel Blount, says CBS, was the "prototype" for the perfect cornerback, and adds that if he were to take the field against today's players, he would still dominate — even more so, according to what he had to say in 2021. Originally going undrafted, he rose to become of the best to ever play his position, even though he was also the reason for a new rule that made contact between receivers and defensive backs illegal. Blount retired in 1983, and that same year — prior to his retirement — he had already laid the groundwork for his post-NFL life with the founding of the Mel Blount Youth Home in Vidalia, Georgia.

Over the years, Blount has continued to expand his Mel Blount Youth Leadership Initiative, and it hasn't always been easy. When he first announced he was going to establish a youth center in Pennsylvania, he got the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. (It was officially opened a year later.) The camp has partnered with the Steelers for events like hosting an all-day training camp, and in 2012, they launched a girls' equestrian program.

Today's Pittsburgh Steelers are still very much involved with the program: In 2020, it was announced (via Steelers Depot) that Blount's leadership organization was going to be the recipient of grants through the team's Social Justice Grant Program. Blount remarked: "It's a tremendous honor ... [and] even more importantly, it shows how strong the Steelers family is."

This one's a little different, because "Iron" Mike Webster — the player that The Atlantic calls the best center in the NFL — died in 2002. He's still being talked about in 2021, though, and here's why he's still incredibly relevant and still anchoring an offensive line.

His post-retirement years were a slow, downward spiral, and by the time he died at the age of 50, things were so bad that he needed to use a taser on himself to fall asleep. At the time of his autopsy, pathologist Bennet Omalu already suspected they were going to find something that had been previously called "punch-drunk syndrome" when it was seen in boxers that suffered the symptoms of severe dementia after being hit so many times. No one thought it could be seen in football players, too... until Webster's untimely autopsy.

When Omalu analyzed slices of Webster's brain, he found proof of the sort of brain damage players were at risk of, and it was the kind that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. It was only diagnosed by a pathologist intrigued by Webster's bizarre behavior leading up to his death: super-gluing his teeth back in, wrapping his hands with duct tape, tasing himself into unconsciousness. Today, it's called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and in 2021, The New York Times reported that since Webster's autopsy, more than 315 players were diagnosed (all posthumously) with the condition — and it's been leading to a major conversation about the NFL and traumatic brain injuries.