The next day, Musick quoted Chuck Noll with some fairly standard coach speak — "We're trying to upgrade our football team" — before ending his column with another zinger.

"Whether the Steelers have, of course, remains to be seen," Musick wrote.

Over at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jack Sell took his own issues with what the Steelers did.

"[Noll] seemed to be drafting to his strengths rather than his weaknesses," Sell wrote on Jan. 30, later describing the members of the draft class as "on the small side as pro football players go."

My personal favorite might've been the "Steeler Sketches" on page 51 of the Jan. 30, 1974 edition of the Press, next to a JCPenney ad touting steel-belted tires on sale for $32.21. Under the section about Webster: "Faces difficult task to make team" and "[practice] squad possibility."

It was cold takes exposed before that social media account existed, proof that no matter how much we evolve as a society, listening to sports writers the day after a draft (or trade) should always be taken with a grain of salt.

"You have to remember, there was not as much coverage of the draft," Gordon told me earlier this week. "You didn't have mock drafts the way you do today, the constant coverage. The top players weren't as well-known. The public didn't have the awareness that exists today."

Dig deeper into the 1974 NFL draft, and the differences are wild.

Timing, for one.

The draft was held a little more than two weeks after Super Bowl VIII, when the Dolphins won their second consecutive championship. Months of information gathering, culminating in the NFL combine and/or top-30 visits, did not exist.

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