Steelers Stars of Yesterday

We love to take time and remember players that made a difference. It is great when that player is one that many of us witnessed playing. Today's subject is Louis Lipps.

May 1, 1984 - As the last Super -70s Steelers were hanging up their NFL careers, Pittsburgh's front office was scrambling to figure out how to rebuild the team. The Steelers had won the AFC North Division with a respectable 10-6 record. One glaring hole was the offensive production and scoring. 1983 was pretty dismal in both areas; the Black and Gold could account for only 355 points scored in 16 games the previous season or 22.19 points per game. The offense for the year was ranked 14th out of the 28 NFL franchises in '83.

Future Hall of Famer, and four-time Super Bowl winning Quarterback, Terry Bradshaw was still with the team but could only play in one game due to injury, so the team relied on Cliff Stoudt and a backup, Mark Malone, to quarterback the offense. Stoudt threw for just over 2550 yards, and Malone and Bradshaw combined for 200 yards through the air. A 33-year-old Franco Harris etched out another 1000-yard season while backups Frank Pollard and Walter Ambercrombie also showed promise. The offense of Coordinator Tom Moore was extremely run-oriented.

The leading receiver for Pittsburgh in 1983 was Calvin Sweeney with 577 yards, followed by Tight End Bennie Cunningham with 442 yards. It was an injury-plagued year for Hall of Fame Wide Out John Stalworth, who managed to play in only four games to catch eight passes for 100 yards. Greg Hawthorne added another 300 yards receiving. The bottom line was that the Steelers needed to produce a better passing game to stay competitive, and the 1984 Draft was where they could accomplish that. There were some promising collegiate WRs ready to join the NFL like Irving Fryar (Nebraska), Kenny Jackson (Penn State), and Clyde Duncan (Tennessee). They did not have a selection until the 23rd overall pick though so they may have to dig a bit deeper that the so-called obvious big names available.

Besides the other 27 NFL teams, the Steelers faced another form of competition for talent that offseason...the original United States Football League (USFL).

Now the question was who to draft, it would certainly have to be a stud receiver one would think. Fryar went off the board to New England with the first pick, Jackson and Duncan soon followed suit to other teams picking ahead of Pittsburgh. All of the obvious choices at wide out appeared to be gone. But wait a second, you are not talking about just any franchise. The Steelers' scouting department was well known for sifting through the smaller schools to find talent, especially in the Southern States. The breaks for the Steelers were already starting ahead of the Draft.

The USFL's New Orleans Breakers relinquished their territorial rights, for whatever that was worth, to a young man from Southern Mississippi, name Louis Lipps. In Lipps final two seasons with the Southern Miss Golden Eagles he ammassed 80 catches for 1268 yards and 7 touchdowns, and 63 punt returns for 740 yards and 1 touchdown. Lipps would be the choice of the Steelers withthe 23rd overall selection in the 1984 NFL Draft.

Louis Lipps 1984 Draft 02 May 1984, Wed Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
 

 The Steelers made one of the most brilliant draft selections in the 1980s with the selection of Louis Lipps. Veteran John Stallworth took the Southern Miss product under his wings and showed him the onfield and off-field ropes of being an NFL Wide Receiver. In the opening game of his rookie year, Lipps burned the highly touted and veteran Kansas City Chiefs secondary. It was not an illusion either, as he completed the 1984 season with 45 catches for 860 yards, or just over 19 yards per catch, and scored 11 total touchdowns. Number 83 was also voted to both the AFC All-Pro and Pro Bowl teams that year as the kick returner when he led the NFL with 656 punt return yards. After just one game and one year Steelers Nation was happy about a rookie play maker.

Louis Lipps was off to a great start as a wide receiver and a returner.

Louis continued to play well after year one too. Lipps was at the top or near the top of the team in receptions between 1988-91. The Southern Miss product tied for the lead with Merril Hoge in 1988 and then led the team in receiving three times (1989, 1990, 1991). At the time of this writing in 2023, he is in fifth place all-time for the Steelers franchise with his 358 receptions and fifth in receiving yards with 6,018. Here are Louis Lipps career stats per Pro-Football-Reference.

Here is some more on this football legend from a great source for Steelers information. Can you imagine what this guy could have done with the Steelers either ten years earlier or a decade later even?

Louis Lipps

Born August 9, 1962, in New Orleans, LA, was legendary Southern Mississippi Receiver Louis Lipps. Lipps was drafted number 23 overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1984 NFL Draft. He played his eighth and final NFL season as a member of the New Orleans Saints.

More Information

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Special thanks to Steelers.com. NFL.com, Newspapers.com, and Pro-Football-Reference.com. We could not talk about the game we love with out them!