Pittsburgh Sports Tribute

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Detroit's Love Bus

Did you know Jerome Bettis is from Detroit? Well, the young mayor who gave him the key to the city 2 years ago is now under fire for.......sending steamy text messages. The nerve. They were leaked. They are 4-6 years old. He answered "No" a while back when asked about the woman involved while he was on the stand. Sound familiar? They are high school sweethearts which is endearing (to me, who married mine) until you know that like Al Bundy, he's Married....with children. She was married at the time as well. If you are the mayor of one of the biggest cities in the country - why on God's green Earth would you email or text a mistress anything that can be used against you? Yes, she worked for him, so maybe he should have called about "business". You can at least lie about that you moron. Texts and emails are out there somewhere in the cyber world backed up and archived just waiting for the FBI to need a nugget against you. I think back to that piece of shit Scott Peterson searching Google from the house PC for tide information where Lacy's body was found. Ever hear of a library? Go to the mall and test run a Dell at the kiosk. "Can I help you sir?" the polite failed car salesman will ask. "No. No thanks. I just need to do a little research on where to drop my wife's corpse after I kill her." "Oh, ok, well by all means you picked the fastest processor here so good luck in your search." This is exactly why we need The Patriot Act. If you aren't doing anything wrong - don't sweat it. Treat email and texts like it will be posted on the lunchroom bulletin board (coming from a guy who makes fun of his boss and her boss in company email 37 times per day). I think I'm hoping to be fired though, it would make me take my job search so much more seriously.

Uninformed Writers

Who in the Hell writes for the Associated Press these days? Do they just search the internet and cut & paste snippets together that they find without doing any research? I just read this drivel off of a link on NFL.com. It's an article about this potentially being Faneca's last game as a Steeler.

I didn't make it past the first two parts before screaming "BULLSHIT" at the top of my lungs. First, and I quote:

[Few players in Pittsburgh Steelers history have performed as well in a career as Alan Faneca.]

Low-IQ-writer-say-what? Few? Meaning slightly more than a couple? Few? Twenty-Five without question and who knows how many more? I like this one even better:

[Faneca is a team-first player in a sport that has increasingly become me-first]

I think this article was turned in as an assignment for a 1st grade writing class. Are you kidding me? Wouldn't a team first player realize he's over 30, that Troy and Ben and the future of the team need to be signed before him, and if he really enjoyed it here he could stay for less money like Jerome Bettis did....twice. Players all over the league do this now. Manning and Brady have done it. If you want to win Championships, you can make the sacrifice. How much money is enough? If you love being here, put up or shut up. It's not like he didn't get his big contract. He is already on his 2nd, which at the time paid him premier player money. How many star players see a third contract with the same team? I guess if he was in charge, he'd give someone on the down side of their career $20 million dollars guaranteed. Puh-lease!

The Dump Truck Cometh

People can be so clueless. I'll help out by letting everyone in on the "dirty" little secret. I just read something somewhere where the author thought it was cool that Najeh Davenport is being called "The Dump Truck" in Pittsburgh. He likened it to Bettis being "The Bus" because of their extra large stature. Well, in some regard, yes....but Paul Harvey needs to sit this guy down on a "stool" and give him the rest of the story. Najeh was once accused of - and he accepted several hours of community service to not have it on his record - defecating in a woman's shoe in her closet while in school. Wow. Usually people get upset when they get shit on the BOTTOM of their shoes. Get it now? Poop? Dump? Dropping the kids off at the pool? Deploying the troops? Bombing the Serbs? Laying some pipe? Get it? Ah, now it makes sense. Well, to whatever degree pooping in someone's shoe makes sense. Do you think he squatted? I often wonder if he meant to hit the shoe - or if he was just pooping in the closet and he didn't care where it landed. If he was really drunk, he may have thought it was the bathroom and the light was just burned out. One night when my friends and I first started drinking - a kid thought he threw up in the toilet in the middle of the night. As it turns out, he threw up in a big decorative wicker vase! Shit happens. If I was a real sportswriter....I'd write things like "he really squirted through the line there" and "he blasted that one right up in there". When he's having a bad day? "Man is Najeh stinking up the joint today". I could go on and on...."Roethlisberger flushed out of the pocket, he looks to dump it off to Davenport". See? This is easy.

Et Tu, Bettis?

Wow. This article contains something I didn't know before, contract negotiations to extend Bill Cowher's contract were put off by....Bill Cowher. Cowher is miffed that Bettis speculated about his future on national TV. Yikes. Does thou protest too much, Bill? I think we better get prepared to go into next season with a new head coach....Mr. Russ Grimm.

Is LenDale White Our Next Bruiser?

At 6'1" 238 lbs, is LenDale White our next big back? While Willie Parker is the starter, White could easily get 10 touches this year and fill in for Bettis in short yardage situations and the occasional series. The thing is, do we need him? Well, if Duce stays healthy, no...but conventioanl wisdom says Duce won't stay healthy. Plus, we just resigned Verron Haynes. We have cap friendly contracts for both Staley and Haynes - not to mention Parker. If LenDale White is around when we pick at 32, Staley's health and how comfortable we are with it will be key. My personal opinion at this point is that Nick Mangold would look good in black and gold. My feelings are that if Chukki Okobi was ready to be our center of the future, he would be already. If he was ready to play, why can't he (in his prime years) beat out Jeff Hartings in his last year on bad knees? Our offense starts at the center position. We probably paid Okobi this year to be the backup. If Mangold is not drafted, I would think we'll go center #1 next year for sure. Anyway.....

AP Writer Makes (Wrong) ASSumption

If you haven't heard, Jermoe Bettis is going to be inducted into the Bowling Hall Of Fame as the first celebrity to have that honor. It was a bit piece on the AP wire this morning. The idiot AP writer who didn't even get mentioned - ended the piece the way a lot of pieces like this end....with a stupid fluffy paragraph intended to explain why the lovable Bus is called "The Bus". The writer said Bettis is known as "The Bus" because of his wide body and his straight ahead running style. No. No. No. No. No. The saying is "He's as big as a house", not "He's as big as a bus". The reason Jerome Bettis is called "The Bus" is because HE CARRIES PEOPLE. Ask him....he'll tell you. I've seen him say it. To paraphrase - I've heard him say they call me the bus because we both carry people. Dumb AP writer! He's probably from Seattle! Get it? People try to tackle him (see Brian Urlacher in the Bears game) and he carries them after being hit or grabbed onto. It's quite simple really.....don't you think?

Could Duckett be a better Bus than Duce?

It's an interesting thought isn't it? He's big. He's strong. He's not going to command huge dollars after Edge and Shaun Alexander get signed. He won't even command what Ahman Green will get if he gets released from Green Bay. The Steelers love big backs and Duce Staley isn't exactly Bus II. After Bam Morris and The Bus, TJ seems to fit the pants more so than Duce, who also can't seem to stay healthy. What would it take to get TJ in black and gold? Well, this is probably his last year in Atlanta as the 2007 season is voidable by TJ if he reaches certain goals in 2006 that seem easy to reach. His contract details were not disclosed, but his cap number appears to be around $1.1 million this year. If Atlanta can't get an extension done with him, or if they don't want to get one done - they may be willing to trade him rather than letting him play this year and walking in 2007. Remember, we didn't trade the world to get Bettis, maybe this could be the same type of situation. Duckett would have to be content with backing up Parker in the same manner that Jerome did - but the fans sure would embrace another wide body that can convert 3rd and 2's and TD's inside the 10. He only averaged 3.1 yards per carry this year (that would change with our line) so his stock is down.....way down. Keep an eye on this. With Duce's injury problems and his brush with trouble last month - it will be interesting to see how this pans out. If we keep Duce and he gets hurt in week 3, we may be sorry we didn't look into another big back with no health issues.