Jerome Bettis spent 10 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers before wrapping up his NFL career after the Super Bowl XL triumph in 2006. However, 10 years before that moment, when Bettis was playing for the St. Louis Rams, the thought of leaving the game occurred to him then because of the head coach of the franchise, Rich Brooks.
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The former NFL running back shared an in-depth tidbit about how he reached the point of early retirement eight years ago when he was asked about his complicated time with the franchise. To that end, Bettis even shed light on some lesser-known facts.
“Well, I had a situation,” Bettis said on In-Depth with Graham Bensinger. “A new coach had come in to the organization… And he asked us if we would be willing to go to training camp early so that he could implement the offense and the defense because it was totally different than what we had been used to. So we all agreed, yes, we’d all come in. Well, what he didn’t realize is that I was going through a contract dispute with the organization.
“And when training camp time came, I had to hold out because I was still playing under a rookie contract… So I held out. When I came back to the team, the coach felt as though I lied to him because I told him that I would come early to the training camp. But what he didn’t realize is that it was a contract issue had nothing to do with him and my promise to him. And so he took that as an act of defiance against him. And so we got off to a bad start in terms of how he felt about me. So at that point, he really did everything he could to really kind of sabotage my career at that point.”
Rich Brooks joined the St. Louis Rams after spending 18 years as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks. It was a jump from college football to the NFL, and with that he had certain expectations from all the Rams players, including Jerome Bettis.
But Bettis was dealing with an altogether different situation at that time. After winning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 1993 and earning Pro Bowl nods, Bettis believed he had outearned his entry-level salary (around $1.5 million annually) and demanded a contract renegotiation before his third season (1995).
However, when the Rams’ front office refused, Jerome Bettis staged a 14-day training camp holdout. But since Bettis verbally agreed to join Brooks’ training camp early yet failed to fulfill the promise, it angered the then-Rams HC. As such, he systematically minimized Bettis’ role by shifting to a pass-heavy offense that did not suit Bettis’ physical, power-running style.
“By the end of the year, I was fed up, completely fed up,” Bettis added. “And I was ready for a change. And if they weren’t going to give me the opportunity to go to another team, then I was ready to retire because the love of the game wasn’t there. And they gave me permission to just seek a trade.
“And that’s when the opportunity to come to Pittsburgh presented itself. And usually in the trade, you don’t get that opportunity. I was very fortunate in having that opportunity. And I was very fortunate that the Steelers were in need of a running back as well, so it was a perfect relationship.”
Even though Jerome Bettis pondered retirement, the Pittsburgh Steelers trade in 1996 came as a life-changing move for his career. He then spent his entire career with the Steelers before retiring after winning the Super Bowl in 2006.