'Burgh's Best to Wear It, No. 63: Dermontti Dawson blazed a trail at center for Steelers

The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.

No. 63: Dermontti Dawson

From the mid-70s through the end of the century, the Pittsburgh Steelers had just two players man the center position: Mike Webster and Dermontti Dawson.

Each played the position with such skill, strength and technique that enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame was inevitable.

Dawson, though, did more than just follow in Webster’s footsteps when he moved into the starting lineup in 1989. He changed the way the middle of the offensive line was played, and that made it an easy decision for the Tribune-Review sports staff to pick Dawson as the best athlete in Pittsburgh sports history to wear No. 63.

“You never had a center pull until Dermontti Dawson,” said running back Merril Hoge, who played with Dawson for four seasons. “He revolutionized and changed how teams ran the football in the NFL. I played with Mike Webster in my first year with the Steelers, and I never thought I would be able to say someone was better than Mike Webster was at center.

“But Dermontti changed how we ran the ball.”

Where Franco Harris ran with finesse, finding seams around the edges in the 1970s, the presence of Dawson at center helped the Steelers establish a power running game under coach Bill Cowher — first with Barry Foster and Bam Morris and then with Jerome Bettis.

“The one thing that always impressed me was his ability to handle a nose tackle by himself,” Hall of Fame tackle Dan Dierdorf told Steelers.com in 2016. “The majority of centers who play the game almost always need some sort of a double-team or a rub from the guard next to them.

“The great centers, and there aren’t many of them, block the nose tackle all by themselves, and Dermontti was one of those guys.”

The Steelers drafted Dawson in the second round in 1988 out of Kentucky. With Webster still on the roster, Dawson played guard in his rookie season. In 1989, with Webster moving on to Kansas City, Dawson replaced him at center and remained there until his retirement in 2000 at age 35.

Dawson made 181 starts out of 184 games played and, in a 10-year stretch beginning in 1989, he didn’t miss a game, starting 160 in a row.

Dawson was named to the Pro Bowl in seven successive years, starting in 1992 when Cowher replaced Chuck Noll. In the final six years of that run, Dawson was a first-team All-Pro selection.

To celebrate Gold Jacket @DermonttiDawson's birthday today, we take a look back at his 2012 Enshrinement Speech. #HBD | @steelers pic.twitter.com/kfw8J2TaMz

— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) June 17, 2020

The only thing lacking in Dawson’s career was a Super Bowl championship. The Steelers were 6-7 in playoff games during his tenure and lost Super Bowl XXX to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Steelers haven’t issued Dawson’s No. 63 since his retirement, and he was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2012.

Before Dawson’s arrival, the most famous player to wear No. 63 for the Steelers was Ernie “Fats” Holmes, the fiery defensive tackle on the Steel Curtain from 1972-77. Although sacks weren’t an official statistic until 1982, the Steelers credit Holmes with 40 in his career, including a team-high 11 in 1974, the team’s first Super Bowl season.

Holmes also was known for cutting his hair in the shape of an arrowhead and for having an emotional breakdown on the Ohio Turnpike that resulted in Holmes firing shots at a police helicopter.

Pitt’s top candidate at No. 63 is defensive tackle Dave Puzzuoli, a starter on the 1981-82 teams that ranked among the best in the country defensively. Puzzuoli joined nose tackle J.C. Pelusi and tackle Bill Maas to form the Pac-Men trio that led the nation in total defense in 1981 and rank third the following season.

In the 1982 Sugar Bowl, Puzzuoli contributed to a performance in which Georgia’s Herschel Walker gained just 84 yards on 25 carries in Pitt’s 24-20 victory.

Puzzuoli played five seasons with the Cleveland Browns.

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.