Once upon a time, Kordell Stewart was the most unique player in the NFL.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback was a notable name during the late 90s and early 2000s due to his dual-threat abilities. At the peak of his career, Stewart was a Pro Bowl quarterback who led the Steelers to two AFC Championship Games in his five full seasons as the starting quarterback (1997-2001). He was also notable because of his ability to play multiple positions — quarterback, receiver, running back — which garnered him the nickname “Slash.”
Yet, despite the fact he was a winning quarterback during his Steelers tenure — no quarterback won more games under Bill Cowher as the head coach — he never received the full praise and respect that he deserved. His new documentary on HBO Max titled “Slash & Burn” documents the off-the-field challenges that Stewart had to deal with when it came to fans due to his race and due to made-up rumors regarding his sexual orientation.
“When you watch the game today, it’s what I did back then,” said Stewart in a one-on-one interview with Heavy Sports. “When you allow yourself to get engulfed to what you see, and see number one picks being taken overall, top five picks, guys that play the game that either look like me or play like me, there’s a tremendous amount of significance in that time and era of things that I did do in Pittsburgh.
“Playing wide receiver, being told I was the best wide receiver on the field, to could have been a potential Hall of Famer, to then having the galls and the audacity, if you will, to say I would like to compete for the starting job, and then end up winning that job,” Stewart continued. “And then in the first year starting as a quarterback, you go to an AFC Championship Game in your very first season as a quarterback. We can arguably say that’s never been done in the history of the game.”
Kordell Stewart on Detailing With Made-Up Rumors as Steelers QB
The off-the-field rumors stemmed from a made-up incident regarding a sexual act at a public park involving Stewart, later found out to be falsely made by a police officer in the area of Pittsburgh. Stewart was never involved in any legal trouble in his NFL career and actually was 48-34 as a starting quarterback during his NFL career.
The 54-year-old Stewart detailed how difficult it was to navigate those challenges while remaining headstrong as the face and franchise quarterback of one of the NFL’s most historic franchises in the Steelers.
“To then the rumors that came out of nowhere, out of left field, something that never ever happened,” said Stewart. “I think when you look at the body of work that I did, it was so good. People today have no choice but to really press reset and reevaluate that. To also identify the road traveled in the journey and the adversity, having to endure all of the stuff that was talked about to try to take me off my spot, to kind of recalibrating how a locker room looks at their starting quarterback with those rumors, to how the fan base, the organization, people in general, that stuff ran amok. We didn’t have social media, we didn’t have the Google search engine, and this stuff ran like wildfire, bro.”
The former Pro Bowl quarterback went into heavy detail with what it was like dealing with the scrutiny of being the starting quarterback of the Steelers in that time period.
“That had more of an attraction in the city than anything,” said Stewart of the false rumors regarding his sexual orientation. “The steam that everybody saw coming from the city, which was hat was the hot topic, right? But down in the ingredients of with the steam, that wasn’t the food down there though. That was the buffoonery, that was the foolishness, if you will. Those are the lies, the slurs really was racist sentiments. Whatever you choose to articulate, that was totally opposite of what we were trying to get done, yes, there were a lot of that in there. It was a pile of gumbo and foolishness and dumb BS.
“But that wasn’t the totality of my career in Pittsburgh,” Stewart continued. “That was a small, intricate part, and I think an important part to really show you the ebbs and flows of my career and how I most importantly handled myself in the midst of it. No normal man could have handled that the way I did, and the way I had no choice but to handle it because my style, an African American man with that type of talent, we don’t stay as a quarterback for a long time. So in order for me to be able to process everything, I had to stay focused and dialed in. I couldn’t get sidestepped and get off my spot and allow that energy and that sentiment to cause me to not have a chance to be on the field.”
Kordell Stewart on His Legacy as Steelers Starting QB
Stewart said he was pleased with how the documentary came out and said how now is the perfect time to come out with this story nearly 25 years after his Steelers career ended. The former quarterback also wrote a lengthy feature on The Players Tribune back in 2021 about the false rumors and allegations made against him during his NFL career.
He said the biggest thing he wants people to take away from this documentary is how to deal with adversity and why resilience is key. Stewart acknowledges that people have a better appreciation for his skill set on the field now than they probably did when he played.
“I would think so,” said Stewart of fans having a better appreciation for him as a player. “I think that’s why this documentary probably happened because the level of appreciation from NFL Films and also HBO saying that there’s a story to be told here through our Zoom calls and our conversations about it, I think they’ve proven that they believe in it and they appreciate it. I think this documentary should help. Because if you don’t tell the story, it’s going to be turned on deaf and blind ears respectfully. And the worst thing could have happened was to not have a documentary to tell a story on this, and when you get a chance to press a reset button, to revisit this again, I think to do that, it gives me a shot.
“You’ll never have a chance to see this again — I just really don’t think you’ll ever see it again,” Stewart continued. “You’ll never see a a franchise quarterback standing in the slot playing wide receiver against arguably some of the greatest defensive backs in the history of the game, also at a time where the game was 10 times more physical than it is today, and to go across the middle to catch a ball from Neil O’Donnell and Mike Tomczak to then sit on the center and call plays and checks and run two minute, one minute, four minute offense and take us to conference championships over five years with four different coordinators, I don’t know, you tell me.”
Kordell Stewart on Adversity He Faced as Steelers’ Starting QB, Details His New Documentary