A well-known Pittsburgh sports radio host revealed Tuesday night that former Steelers linebacker Clark Haggans, a squad member who won Super Bowl XL in 2005, passed away at 46.
The cause of deἀth is yet unknown.
Haggans spent eight of his 13 NFL seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers between 2000 and 2007.
During the 2005 season, he recorded a career-high nine sacks. On the first drive of the Steelers’ 21-10 victory in Super Bowl XL, he sacked Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.
Later, Haggans played for the Cardinals and 49ers, returning to the Super Bowl in 2012 with the San Francisco squad that won the NFC championship.
He excelled at Colorado State University, later receiving the program’s Hall of Fame induction.
One year after the Steelers selected his collegiate classmate, Joey Porter, they chose Haggans in the fifth round of the NFL Draft in 2000.
“I was happy I was drafted – and to go and see Joey there with open arms. They should have played that Reunited song,” Haggans said to Steelersnow.com in 2019.
The linebacker also recalls playing in his first NFL game on July 30, 2000, a preseason matchup against the Cowboys.
“I was star-struck seeing Troy Aikman. I used to use him on my Techno-Bowl team,” according to Haggans. “Randall Cunningham was on their team then and when they snapped the ball, I didn’t move. It all happened so fast – I just stood there grabbing my crotch.”
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The playbook was also much more significant in the pros.
“Before the pros, my coach would tell me – that dude with the ball – go get him and don’t let him score. If we had more points than the other team I was happy,” Haggans stated. “Now, I had to learn about unbalanced lines, jumbo packages, spread offenses, and two-minute offenses. It was just crazy. It wasn’t just go get the guy with the ball anymore.”
The 2005 Steelers, a squad primarily supported in the postseason by its defence, became the first team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl as a six-seed.
“A cool memory of course is winning the Super Bowl,” Haggans said in 2019. “The coolest though was that the first dude I saw when the confetti fell was Joey. We would wig out when we won the Holiday Bowl at Colorado State – that was the greatest thing to us then. Here we were winning a Super Bowl together.”
He recorded 520 tackles throughout his career, including 370 solo tackles and 46.5 sacks.
According to WXPI, Haggans is survived by his two children, Damon and Alianna.
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