Tale Of Two Cities

The three pictures with a sprinkling of fans were taken off the Colts website showing pictures of their celebration parade. Their own website sites about 40,000 fans attended. The three pictures full of yellow are off of the Steelers website from the Super Bowl XL parade last year. There are about 10 references on Google estimating the crowd to be over 250,000 people as the entire city shut down. I'm not sure what my point is other to say when Manning thanked the crowd for being the best fans in the league, he didn't do nearly as much homework researching that as he did the Bear's defense. Also, from every account I read and from the noise levels at the game and listening to the announcers - the crowd was about 70-30 Bears fans. I'm not ragging on the Colts, I'm just using them as a yardstick to see how football crazy Pittsburgh really is. Still A Dad taped the parade and mailed it to me last year and I have to say - from every angle I saw and from every aerial shot - that parade was jam packed more than 10 people deep every step of the way. Thanks to Still A South for sending this in. The Steeler's website has video of the parade as well if you've never seen it. I linked to some video highlites last March that a friend of a friend took.

Football Parity Gods Got Our Number

Well, this year is turning out to be pretty interesting. They really seemed poised to me to make a strong run for a title repeat. The defense is pretty much intact and the offense is only missing Bettis. The return game did miss Randel El over the first 3 weeks, but hopefully Willie Reid will put an end to that. Ben knocked a lot of rust off this week, so hopefully he's back on track. The scheduling Gods are just as much to blame as anyone as we've faced some pretty good teams so far without getting the benefit of a cupcake game. However, there is no excuse for losing to someone starting their 5th game at QB in my opinion. The fact that LeBeau couldn't get more pressure on Rivers is either bad game planning or superb pickups by their blitz blocking schemes. I'm not sure which it was at this point. I know Willie Parker will be seeing Jamal Williams in his sleep for a few nights. This game was different than the Bengals game but in some aspects it was the same. It was another game that we seemed to have in hand, and then it just got away. The coverage Townsend supplied on the TD was perfect. It was just a perfect pass from Rivers. My thoughts here are scattered because I'm trying to remember everything that caught my attention - but I wasn't happy with a few things. The trick play early in the game on the punt was atrocious. In a game that you know is going to be a defensive struggle, I don't know how you pass up the opportunity to pin them deep in their own territory. Not only that - the play looked idiotic and sandlot - not like most of their trick plays. On the flea-flicker, I can't believe Ben chose to let that one fly. Holmes was obviously covered, double covered in fact. His only other option there was to throw it too far so if Holmes didn't outrun them while the ball was in the air - it would fall incomplete. Davenport seemed to have some early success but was then yanked after one failed run. The pass rush got to Rivers when they called it early. When it stopped getting to him (or stopped being called) he carved them up which is why they lost this game. We have some real talent in our defensive backfield and to get torched by Eric Parker and whoever the heck the other clown is IS HORRIBLE! I saw Troy overrun several pursuits. Who knows what else I can't remember, I'm just a tad disgusted. I guess the football gods have said - "well, you had your fun last year...now it's someone else's turn." Yeah, you can stomp your feet and complain loudly and not be happy at all that they're 1-3, but just think how many teams have never sniffed a Super Bowl win or even appeared in one and it kind of puts it all in perspective for me. I got to enjoy a Super Bowl win and one the greatest runs through the playoffs off all-time. I don't need to be greedy......but geez, if they're going to miss the playoffs, it would be nice to miss at 10-6 instead of 6-10. Seems like the only shot we have now depends on us sweeping the Ravens and beating the Bengals in Cincinnati. There is little room for error and 3 more losses will eliminate us. Basically we have to finish 10-2 which isn't unheard of, but putting two 5-1 streaks together seems like a longshot right now. I wish since Ben had such a bad offseason and the appendectomy that he could have got his feet wet against the Titans, the Browns or the Niners. That's why repeating is so hard. If Cowher is considering retirement, it will be much easier to do with half the city calling for his job anyway. It could also embolden him to stay. Stay Tuned.

Steeler Season DVD

I finally got to see the Steeler DVD that goes through the entire 2005 season. Actually, I can't believe I haven't bought it yet. Maybe I'll do that this weekend. It's superb. The game capsules are exactly what you would expect. Hard hits, good catches and lots of sideline banter. For only being in his second year - Ben takes command and talks to the guys well on the sideline. It seems a bit odd to hear Coach Cowher call Porter by his nickname "Peezy", but he is a player's coach. I can't wait to see how he coaches the sideline this year with his group of veterans. When they went south in 1998 he was blamed a tad for giving the vets too much leeway. I hope he keeps a strong hand this year. Best highlight in the entire dvd? The Bears game! Snow flying, breath showing, Bettis running over Brian Urlacher....I want the season to start tomorrow!!

Bon Jovi To Help Celebrate Super Bowl?

What? Bon Jovi is one of those bands that is an "area" band. I don't mean to suggest they are only popular in one area as they are definitely a worldwide success. What I am suggesting is that they are closely related to the New Jersey area. They are tighter with New Jersey than Nirvana was with Seattle. Bon Jovi himself co-owns the Philadelphia arena league team with Ron Jaworski, former QB of the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm just very confused as to why Bon Jovi was chosen to help Pittsburgh celebrate. Why not choose a local favorite to headline or at the very least a celebrity Steelers fan? Hank Williams Jr. has ties to the West Virginia area and is a HUGE Steelers fan. He would probably do it for free! P. Diddy was a huge Steeler fan growing up. Kid Rock was at the Steelers party after the Super Bowl. I have nothing against Bon Jovi as I enjoyed some of their earlier work. However, they were never one of my favorite bands and I always preferred guitarist Ritchie Sambora's gritty voice over Bon Jovi's. I just think if you are planning a celebration in Pittsburgh - Donnie Iris or Joe Greshecky may have been a better choice. Let's be real....it doesn't matter if my band is playing or if U2 is playing....the place is going to be sold out because it's about the Steelers...not the band. Nuff said. Now, who chose the band? Was it the NFL or did the Rooneys have something to do with it? For anyone who still thinks Bon Jovi isn't a bad choice, read this. Now how can they help celebrate the Steelers? If they show up wearing Steeler jerseys - I'll turn off the TV set. If you are a passionate Giant's fan, how on earth can you go sing and perform for 60,000 plus Steeler fans? You can't explain that to me.

It's Not The Steeler Way

Dan Rooney has already let the cat out of the bag as to how the Steelers will self-congratulate themselves when the season opens at Heinz field this fall. In front of the entire nation for the opening game of the season, they will do what is almost unheard of these days....nothing. That's right. They will do nothing. They may make an announcement over the PA system or something like that - but don't expect fireworks and banners falling from the sky like last year. "It's a big game, and it's a great way to open up, back on NBC, but no, we don't do the banner thing,'' Rooney said. Huh? What? No rubbing it in to the rest of the teams watchng from home? "No, we don't do things like that,'' he said. "We gave them all rings, and we have a trophy for winning that game.'' Wow. What an approach. Just one more reason to love this team. Can you imagine if Daniel Snyder, Jerry Jones or Jeffrey Lurie had the national spotlight on themselves that Thursday evening? Rooney just oozes class. It's too bad some of it doesn't drip onto the heads of some of the other owners.

Mike is STILL Blubbering.....

Gosh darnit, Mike, it's been close to 2 months since your inept team lost the Super Bowl with sloppy play and worse coaching. Can you please give the fans of the NFL a break and let them enjoy the free agency period and draft analysis without reading every day in the sports pages how you are still angry at the officiating in the Super Bowl. We get it. Ok? We get it. Really! Your comments right after the Super Bowl painted you as a passionate guy who was still a little hotheaded. Your comments now read as quite borish and what we've come to expect. The fact that you didn't get fined for your comments is still unbelievable to me. Even though Tags explained it away - you are still pretty lucky you didn't lose somewhere between 30-50k for your remarks. If you were half the man you say you are (well, for one your wife would be happy because then you'd only weigh about 2 bills) you should realize the commissioner showed you mercy and donate that money to charity. I'm sure there is a "Save The Walrus" campaign somewhere you can donate to. Call Paul McCartney as he probably has the number speed dialed on his cell phone. The head of officiating Mike Peoria sat with the owners at the meetings last week and AGAIN explained why every single call (with the exception of the tackle Hasselbeck made) was legit and you STILL want to whine about it. In retrospect, what would be interesting to hear from your blowhole (yes, I know, it's whales that have blowholes - but I like the way it sounded here) would be an explanation to the poor clock management your entire team showed near the end of the 2nd and 4th quarters. That's poor coaching. You were in so many blowouts this year you probably neglected to coach these situations. Nobody likes a whiner, especially in professional sports. If you remember just a few short years ago, the Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs on a field goal by the Titans in which they were allowed to kick it again after a miss because of a running into the kicker penalty. Our guy DeWayne Washington just GRAZED the kicker - who went down in an Oscar-worthy heap admitting on ESPN later that night that he was acting - and it cost us a legitimate shot at the Championship that year. Much like your comments right after the game, Cowher ran up to the official screaming "You cost us the game..." or something very close to that as I remember reading his lips. Here's the difference between you and Bill Cowher: a few days later after the emotion of the moment was over - Cowher apologized to the league, the official, his fans, the organization and said something to the effect of the officials followed the rules as they are written. He wasn't crying to the press 2 months later like a little girl with a skinned knee. Grow up, Mike. Until last year I thought maybe your earlier Super Bowl experience hinged on Brett Favre in his prime and had nothing to do with you. Seattle has been inconsistent since you've been there. You somewhat proved me wrong, but how are you now going to change the perception of NFL fans everywhere that you are a nothing more than a huge (and I mean huge) whiner? I'd start with an apology.

The Roosnine Chapel

Ahhhhh. I finally put the finishing touches on my Rooney Lisa this past weekend. It was a good relaxing project after my travel schedule died down a bit. The day after the Super Bowl I had a business trip to Boston. I picked up the 2 Philadelphia papers, my local suburban paper, The USA Today, The New York tabloid and a paper from my hotel in Boston. Add those to the 3 Sports Illustrated covers plus the commemorative SI issue and it gave me a bunch of stuff I didn't want to store in a box! My wife is an avid scrapbooker so I asked for her advice. Usually the way I mount my autographs is an extension of my personality - they are all symmetric and neatly spaced. To mount everything I had from SBXL would have taken 3 poster sized frames if I did it that way and I didn't have the space. I decided to just make an abstract kind of deal out of everything I had. The glare in the middle is from the Commemorative issue - it's the trophy being kissed by Joey Porter. I just cut out the trophy but if you look at it closely, you can see him in it. Well, I guess I now own a one-of-a-kind piece of Steeler art work. Anyone want to make me an offfer for it?

Thoughts From The Super Bowl Parade

My dad was good enough to tape the Steelers Super Bowl parade for me and I watched it over the last 2 nights. Why 2 nights? It's 2 hours and thirty minutes long! The crowd was amazing. At some points the cars could barely get through. It was cold and it looked like it was sleeting. I'm not sure if the fans would have turned out and stayed like that in most other cities. Steeler fans really set themselves apart from the rest of the league this year in a ton of indicators. The first thing I read was that the Steelers lead NFL merchandise purchases for the 2005 season. Also, so far in 2006, the sales of Super Bowl items are up 500% over last year's winners, the Patriots in the same timeframe. The Steelers also had the top honor of "most watched" NFL team this year (and last year) in their home viewing area - meaning within a certain mileage limit, what percentage of TVs were tuned into the game. Finally, this year's Super Bowl was the 2nd most watched program in the history of television. Only the last episode of M*A*S*H had more viewers. Not sure if it was the granola eating Seahawk's fans that drove the number up? The next highest rated Super Bowl was Super Bowl XXX, again being lead by Steeler Nation. Total viewers who watched the entire game was up over 5% this year from the Eagles-Patriots game of last year. Who Dey? We Dey! Back to the parade thoughts:

* Randle El was having the best time of any player I saw. I hope he remembers that when he's signing his fat contract with the Bears or Eagles.

* For some unknown reason, the local ABC channel went with a 2 window viewing area for most of the broadcast with the one window showing the commentators. If there's one thing I hate, It's local TV people acting like celebrities. I didn't want to hear these people, let alone see them.

* A reporter went up to Randle El and called him "Willie". Randle El said "Who are you talking to?" and the guy replied something to the effect of "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot." Yes, you are.

* Most players got to say something at the microphone and the director of the program decided to only show a handful of them. I could hear some players on the podium while stupid Sally Wiggins is talking over them saying "I think I see another car coming with players on it.......". SHUT UP!

* Joey Porter is no doubt the emotional leader of this team. No Doubt.

* Bill Cowher should never ever chant "Who Dey? We Dey". He looked like the whitest man in American on the podium doing that. Stop it.

* Jeff Reed is one interesting character to say the least. Nice hair.

* My biggest impression? The Rooneys. Dan said 5 words and Art II said about 10 and then they stepped into the background. I didn't even see Kevin Colbert take the microphone. I just sat there thinking - if this was Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder or Jeffrie Lurie - I bet they'd be standing at the mike hogging as much camera time as humanly possible. Thats not the Rooneys. Thats one of the reasons I love this team so much.

HBO Crew Buries Officiating Conspiracy

I caught this week's edition of HBO's Inside the NFL last night. They did a superb job of talking about the supposed "bad calls" in the Super Bowl. They started the program off by numbering the bad calls, showing each in slow motion and then dissecting exactly what happened on each play while giving their own opinions of whether they thought the call was good or bad. For those of you who don't know, the show is hosted by Bob Costas and the panel includes Dan Marino, Cris Collinsworth and Cris Carter. I've beaten these calls to death and I don't want to go through each one again, but the only one they all agreed was a bad call was the low block by Matt Hasselbeck. On the holding call to Locklear against Haggans, they split 2-2. On the other 3 suspect calls, all 4 agreed the refs made the right calls. Furthermore, the NFL released a statement saying they thought the officiating was on the money. Remember, it was just 3 short weeks ago that the NFL released a statement saying the Troy Polamalu interception should not have been overturned. The NFL will speak out when it feels a bad call was made.

Watching this show gave me a tad more insight into the game. It allowed me to see what Matt Hasselbeck saw when he threw the pick to Ike Taylor. Joey Porter had a relatively quiet game with the exception of making a pursuit tackle on Shawn Alexander that saved big yardage. I think he finished with 3 tackles. However, Seattle game planned for him so thats good in a way because it freed up other players to make plays. Since the Steeler rushers and blitzes had trouble getting to Hasselbeck who was going with 3 step drops and quick passes - LeBeau started rushing 3 and dropping 8 into coverage late in the game. On the pick, it looked like the ball just floated from most of the angles I saw, but the HBO show clearly pointed out that it was Joey Porter that caused the pick. He was at the line of scrimmage and then he drifted back into a zone to take the passing lane away from Hasselbeck. Not expecting to see Porter there, he had to float the ball over Porter to drop it in to his man. He put too much on it and it was picked by Taylor after sailing over the intended receivers head. Porter didn't get credit for that and it was a beautiful call by LeBeau.

One of the other things brought to light was that Hines Ward pushed off on one of his catches as well. Can't remember the exact play, but it may have been the shoestring catch. Collinsworth asked him about it in an interview and I think Hines explained that he didn't extend his arm - but he had a huge smile on his face while explaining the play.

All in all it was a good show. I especially liked how they stopped the Roethlisberger TD and drew a red line where the plane of the endzone started. This should have been on the front page of every newspaper's sports page on Monday as it was a really good look at where the ball was. Madden should have asked for the replay to be stopped so he could draw on the screen while the game was in progress. I still feel that the calls were like any other game and everything was simply magnified by the media throng and all of the casual fans watching who don't really know the rules of football. Just my two cents.

Upon Further Review

I rewatched Super Bowl XL last night on NFL Network's Game of the Week. It's sort of the Reader's Digest version which is edited down to 60 minutes of slow motion, Harry Kalas voice-overed clips. It was very entertaining to say the least because Bill Cowher was miked-up and hilarious. In no particular order, here are the things that stood out to me seeing the game for the second time:

D-Jack's pushoff looked worse when I saw the angle from further away and you could actually see Hope's knees react to the pressure. He actually "jumped" backwards about 6 inches. Since this all happened right in front of the ref, he simply had to call it. No doubt.

Ben's "phantom TD" as some people are calling it was most definitely a TD. What's funny is that he was telling people on the sidelines that he didn't think he got it in. Troy Polamalu went up to Coach Cowher and asked him if he wanted him to take it over the top (if they went for it on 4th down). I wonder if that's something they practiced?

Jeremy Stevens absolutely caught and made a football move before losing the football early in the game.

Bill Cowher screamed "CLOCK!!" about 15 times in a row late in the game when the officials failed to run the clock after resetting the ball after Townsend's sack. He looked like he needed to be medicated at that point. It made me laugh out loud. He did thatnk Bill Leavy after 6 seconds were put back on even though he asked for 10.

Someone on Seattle's sideline called Joey Porter a bleepity bleep coward in the third quarter pointing out that he was quiet the entire first half and was now talking smalck once they were up 14-3. I couldn't identify the player but he was a large white man leading me to believe that it was an offensive linemen.

Cowher asked Whiz (Ken Whisenhunt) for a gadget play to get something going and Whiz complied by calling the reverse to Hines Ward that went for about 15 yards and did get something started.

The people complaining about the bad call on Hasselbeck's "block"/tackle (which in truth was a bad call) seem to forget that the reverse pass TD came shortly after that and it would have scored a TD from wherever they ran it. Those penalty yards were almost meaningless.

Antwaan Randle El made a hell of a play when he chased down Herndon after the interception near the endzone. He may have scored had Antwaan not chased him down. Much like the Champ Bailey pick in the Broncos/Patriots game - i cannot believe the blockers in these situations don't look around for people to hit. Randle El went around 2 people to get to Herndon and if either of them had turned and looked, they would have seen him and picked him off. Lucky for us I guess.

Hines Ward's non TD catch was CLEARLY more catchable than I had originally thought. They didn't show enough replays of this, but he really should have caught that ball. Thats another thing you can add to the long list of things Seattle fans don't want to remember. It could have very easily been 14-3 at the half.

Willie Parker may have a Shawn Alexander type season next year. Think about it, he got 1,200 yards and they were pretty quiet. Imagine him getting 20-25 touches per game. 2 Seattle defenders could have stopped that play but they both underestimated his speed. One was slow to the HUGE hole created by Alan Faneca and the other (Pruitt I think) took a poor angle once he was through the hole. Much like the Colts, the Steelers may force defenses to play mostly base sets next year if they can't guess what's coming at them.