Kansas City Chiefs coach Todd Haley had a phone interview with Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times and noted that before Wednesday's practice with the team, he spoke to the players and brought up two surprise comeback teams -- 1989 Steelers and 1999 New York Jets. (Haley noted the '89 Steelers in Wednesday's press conference, too.)
Those Steelers finished 9-7 and finished second in the old AFC Central, clinching a playoff spot. They topped the Houston Oilers in overtime on Wildcard weekend before succumbing to the Denver Broncos, by one point, the divisional round. They went further than anyone expect, considering how they started.
Those Steelers lost in Week 1 to the Cleveland Browns, the team Marty had built, by a score of 51-0. You thought 41-7 was bad, huh?
Those Jets he talked about are an interesting story as well. That was one of the all-star coaching staffs: Charlie Weis, Bill Belichick, Romeo Crennel, Al Groh, Eric Mangini and Todd Haley.
That team didn't start out poorly, they started out catastrophically bad. 1-6 to start the season and no hope to the season, nearly mathematically eliminated from the playoffs right there. But what they did after that was interesting -- they won seven of their last nine games, including three and four-game winning streaks, to finish with a .500 record.