Bill Cowher | Pittsburgh Steelers - Steelers.com

On December 19, 2019, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced that Bill Cowher was one of three former Steelers named as nominees for the Hall's special Centennial Class of 2020.

Bill Cowher became the 15th coach in Steelers history when he was hired on Jan. 21, 1992. He replaced Chuck Noll as the second man to hold that job since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. Dan Rooney's search for Noll's successor came down to two finalists, but he selected Cowher over Dave Wannstedt, a decision that yielded immediate dividends.

In Cowher's rookie season as coach, he took what had been a talented team that finished a disappointing 7-9 in 1991 and turned it into an 11-5 AFC Central Division champion that entered those playoffs as the AFC's No. 1 seed. In Cowher's 15 seasons as coach, the Steelers won eight division titles, made the playoffs 10 times during which they participated in 21 playoff games. Those 21 playoff games included six appearances in AFC Championship Games and two trips to the Super Bowl, in which the Steelers were 1-1. Cowher finished his career as one of only six coaches in NFL history with at least seven division titles, and he joined Paul Brown as the only coaches in history to take their teams to the playoffs in each of their first six years as coach.

A special Blue-Ribbon Panel comprised of many members of the overall Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee, Hall of Famers, coaches, football executives and several leading historians scrutinized the merits of nearly 300 candidates nominated for consideration as part of the Hall's special Centennial Class of 2020. The group of nominees has been reduced to a list of finalists, of which Cowher is one, that will be debated in a meeting in early January and voted on by the Blue-Ribbon Panel to elect the 15-member "Centennial Slate" to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.