FAN: Coaching Parents

True story coming up, I swear. Last weekend was a busy one for my volleyball team. We had a practice on Saturday, a home doubleheader on Sunday and an away game on Monday night that was pretty far away. I only have 11 girls and you need 6 to start. Without 6, you have to forfeit. Since Monday's game was so far away (about a 45 minute drive in traffic) I wanted to find out who was coming so I could persuade the others to come if I didn't have 6. I've been asking for YES/NO replies along the way since the season started. For one other game, I only had 5 YES replies, sent an email asking for more, then went to 6, then 7, then 6, then 7 and finally 8. Parents are hilarious....and nuts. Anyway, I sent an email out on Friday to the team parents saying exactly this: "I need your help on our upcoming schedule. I do not need to know if you are coming to practice on Saturday. What I do need to know is if you are planning to attend the matches on Sunday and especially Monday. If we need to forfeit I want to do it before 5 families make the drive." My Blackberry buzzed not 5 minutes later with my first response which read "Sally will be at practice on Saturday." Sigh.

FAN: CDC Thwarts Swine Flu

The CDC announced today that a foolproof method has been found to thwart Swine Flu, the dreaded H1N1 virus. Limas Sweed has been kidnapped and is being held 3 stories underground at CDC headquarters. Sweed's DNA is being taken and used against his will in a vaccine that will stop everyone from catching everything. Sweed hasn't been sick since he was 7 months old and projectile vomited his formula. He can't hold anything either. He can't catch a cold, a break or a cab. He can't hold a hand. He can't carry a tune. William Gay was mock rocking a baby? Please God don't give that baby to Limas Sweed because it will have a massive head injury within eight minutes after he drops it. You know why he's skinny, right? He drops his food. He drops weight. He drops trou... He can't hold his liquor. I think Heinz is commemorating a Bobblehead of Sweed for next home game. Don't give one to Limas, he'll drop it. This is too easy, I could do it all day. Ladies and Gentlemen....I think Ike Taylor was happy the day we drafted Limas....he knew he no longer had the worst hands on the team. Limas Sweed can't even sleep on a cot. Mother Hubbard rolls right off.

FAN: Moronic Fans

I just had an Eagles fan in my personal space acting like a 12 year old about the Steeler's 1-2 record. For heaven's sake....it's 3 games. Doesn't anybody remember 2005 or the Patriot's attempt at the perfect season? F me. Let's just cut Limas Sweed today and send a message. Please. Do it!
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FAN: Ratings Lead In

I listen to Howard Stern. I don't listen to the entire show, but I listen for 40 minutes driving in and slightly more driving home as it takes me longer in the evening. Since Conan took Jay Leno's time slot and Jay took a break before coming back in prime time - they have completely disected late night Neilson Ratings. Howard hates Jay and wants him to fail. The arguement is that even though he went from a 15 on opening night to a 4.6 last night, the show is cheap to produce and at that price it's still OK. One of the arguements on the other side is that it might be cheap, but you will never generate dvd sales from it or get syndication money. Good points, all. The one that really sticks in my craw (jaw?) is the arguement that he is losing lead-in for the local news. I'm not here to argue that maybe when dealing with local news lead-in might not be somewhat important as once the big story comes on, why change it.....but they talk about lead-in viewers like it's 1978.

I don't know about you, but I have a remote. I have pretty damn nice one too. Touch screen, runs software, controls 15 devices and knows what components to turn on and what the settings are for actions like 'Watch TV' or 'Watch DVD'. When you press an action, all the component settings change. It's like butter, but I digress. I was a very young kid when my great aunt got a tv that came with a remote. We followed a few years later. Lead-In? Are you serious. Are you telling me if your shitty show comes on after your really good show, I still might watch the shitty show? I seriously doubt it. I'm a stats geek. I would be willing to bet $1,000,000 if we could pull the data much like website analytics show "bolt rate" - we would see that the "Lead-In" effect has been in steady decline since the advent of the remote. I get it. I understand why it used to work. I was party to why it used to work. People watching TV today, at least the ones who count (the coveted 18-35 males) have the attention span of Robin Williams on a Double Gulp Diet Coke. Please with your Lead-In. People have their favorites of everything including late night news. Does anybody even watch the local news? Shows used to get a full season, sometimes two to prove their worth. Today they will be yanked after 3 or 4 episodes and there are a plethora of other new shitty shows with 8 episodes already in the can. I wonder how many people only know "plethora" because of Three Amigos? Anyway, I'm done, but I know a terrible show was crammed down my throat on every commercial break last year so I gave it a chance because it had that funny ass rich lady from Will & Grace in it....and after 6 minutes we turned the channel and never gave it a second chance. It didn't matter if Mother Hubbing Cheers was in front of it, I'm not watching a turd. Jay Leno? He's a clown anyway. Lettermen is King. Long live the King.

FAN: Success

If you can't read that, it says 4-1 which would be the record of my jv girls volleyball team after last night. It was an away game and we took the first two games of the match rendering the third game a practice. The first two games are rally scoring to 25 and they never got past 11. The parents are getting excited. The coach can barely fit is already big head through normal sized doorways. Double header on Sunday. Stay tuned.
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FAN: Joe Buck's Show Sucks

I'm a Howard Stern fan and I loved what Artie Lange did on Buck's first show. Classic, it was. He hinted that he might be on tonight so I watched it and he was not. The show, by the way, was horrible. He had three panels. One was Joe Namath, Dan Marino and John Elway. Joe Namath is still ultra cool. Elway no longer looks like a horse. He now looks like a dead horse banged Gary Busey and he is the offspring. What an ugly messed up man he is. He might be living "Everyone's All American". Marino looks like he could still play. My issue with the segment was they just sat around and sucked each other off. He has the best release ever..No..No....you could scramble....No...No.... STFU. When asked who should fill the 4th seat if they could put anyone there they all said Montana. Whatever. Marino at least took a little shot at him by saying he was blessed to play on a great team.

The next panel had Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban. Cuban I find interesting. Jones? Not so much. He's a fantasy owner not quite as much as Daniel Snyder, but still. Talk about strange looking people. Much like I figured out Elway's ancestry, I think Yoda mounted Ross Perot which lead to Jerry Jones. Weird looking little effer, isn't he? Sam thing here...you're the maverick...No...No...you lead the way...No..No...you do what you want.... Y-A-W-N

Lastly, Curt Schilling came out to announce he would not run to fill Kennedy's empty senate seat. This guy just retired? Did he gain 80 pounds since he retired? Mother Hubbard. He looks like he tkaes a spit cup into Walmart to buy his ammo. Damn. I think I would most likely side with his political views but in all the years he pitched for my team I never saw him like he presented himself tonight. I know full well he's bigger right now than Luzinski or Kruk ever were in their playing days. I saw The Bull at last year's Philly Half Marathon and he looked good....half the size of Schil.

Did I mention Buck fawns over these guys and they're the same ones that snapped his bare ass with a wet towel in the gym lockers? Pompous unfunny prick.

FAN: Kids Are Hilarious

My team had a tough assignment last night. We had to play against our own school. The only reason I'm coaching is that we had too many girls go out for JV - so it was either recruit more coaches or there would have to be tryouts and cuts. One JV team is made up of only the best 6th graders. This is the team that would exist if there was only 1 JV coach. The remaining 5th and 6th graders are graded and divided equally to the other 3 JV teams. In essence you have kids in the same classrooms on different "teams" even though all the uniforms are the same. I didn't realize going into this that the teams would have to play each other.

The two teams met at midcourt with the ref and said a prayer and and my Captain and Co-Captain stayed out for the coin toss which we lost. I had my starters in and only two reserves on the bench last night. The first girl serving for the other team tossed the ball and hit it about four feet. Nerves. First ball to start match....call it what you will. I look over and my bench is giggling which I wasn't happy about. You get a second attempt at overhand serves in JV on every girl's first turn serving. She tossed again and attempted to "punch" the ball and the result was not pretty at all. This time I looked over and my bench was laughing. As we rotated to serve I walked over and knelt down to talk to the girls. I told them it wasn't nice to laugh, just think if the girl's parents saw them, think about how you feel when you miss a serve...etc. I quickly put it out of my mind and went back to the game. It did strike me as odd about who seemed to be the
instigator. It seemed a little out of line for her. Let's call her Jane.

We won the game rather easily to push us to 3-1. After homework last night I had a coversation about the game with Still A Stroke. She correctly pointed out that their team didn't shift into any kind of 'serve receive' formation and maybe that's why we seemed to serve so well. I told her that I had to correct two of her friends on the bench and that I wasn't too happy about it. I told her they were laughing at the first server. This would be a SUPERB place to point out that Stroke is a chip off the old FAN. She has my sense of humor and affection for quick wit. Now she started laughing. Her laugh was so genuine that it made me start laughing. We were eating ice cream and I caught her in the middle of a bite and she couldn't swallow. It was a funny scene. She eventually was able to half mutter..."That's because you don't know the whole story". Wow. Ok. I can't WAIT to hear the whole story. When she finally composed herself, she told me between giggles
that the first server...."is Jane's arch enemy and yesterday on the playground she told Jane that nobody on our team could return her serve that it's that good". That's word-for-word. "Arch Enemy". Precious. I had a Lex Luther - we all did.

Satisfaction exists at all levels. If you crow, don't you almost deserve to eat crow? I'm not the church lady. I'm not going to preach to these kids about anything but volleyball. What I said to the girls on the bench was the first time I've ever said anything corrective with the exception of 'Let's Focus'. While it may not be in great taste to giggle at another's struggles in a game, I completely get where my girls were coming from. I'm a competitve BEAST. Ask Mrs. Fan, ask Stroke, ask Sis, ask Dad....heck, ask Dog. From the viewpoint I got which may or may not be 100% true (although my daughter is not known to even fib occassionally), they were just hanging out at recess doing their own thing when they were approcahed by two girls on the other team who did some trash talking. Well Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and there is Karma. This wasn't a thing between teams as my daughter went right over to one of the other girls after the game to talk like
the game never happened. This was personal....in 5th grade!

I got a good chuckle from knowing the Paul Harvey, and I realize it's a good teaching point for my next practice....I'm not going to tell them to not taunt or talk trash, I'm going to tell them the story of a girl who talked trash and then had to be embarrassed to go to school today to get whatever was coming to her today. Yes, I'm the camp counselor who will let your kids out of the cabin at night to settle any real or perceived scores.

DOG: Nuevos Fanáticos

I had an epiphany or a moment of clarity this morning while reading some on-line chatter about who to blame for the Steeler loss to the Bears yesterday. This, set against a background of Ravens, er I mean, Shitbirds fans crowing about how great they are by only giving up 450 passing yards to the Chargers.

And then it hit me, New Fans. I have criticized Shitbird fans for being among the most stupid fans in the league. But from what people were posting on blogs and message boards, many Stiller fans are just as stupid. These folks just haven't been real football fans long enough to grasp the entirety of NFL football. And it's different if you've been watching the whole league for a while but have just become a staunch devoted fan to one team too.

People who have just become fans of the Stillers or Shitbirds since the turn of the century have a lot to learn. In some cases it's understandable. Some young fans just aren't old enough to gain a perspective. But at least learn from what's happened in 2000 and beyond. In Baltimore's case, they didn't have a team to follow for 14 years. That's a whole generation of uneducated fans.

In 2000 the mighty Shitbirds went weeks and weeks without scoring a TD. The defense was good and they even won a few games but nobody thought they could be league champions without scoring TDs. As late as November 1 they were not looking good at all. Then Billick put in Trent Dilfer and the offense began to hold up part of the bargain and they scored enough to win the Super Bowl.

Trouble is, most of the people wearing purple to work on Fridays weren't following their team in 2000. Many jumped on the bandwagon only after they won a playoff game. Since then the Shitbirds have had a good many decent teams. Unfortunately for them, they have been bounced from the playoffs by the two teams they despise the most, the Stillers and the Colts. But they've gotten used to winning most of their games. And when they win they are the greatest. And when they lose they a trash that needs to be taken out, the whole bunch of them.

So now they are crowing about having the most powerful team in the NFL after two weeks. I'd rather have the best team in February. They can have the September crown.

Conversely, by winning two Super Bowls and having a number of playoff appearances and AFC title game shots, our new fans are much the same. Jesus H. Christ is the only one I haven't seen blamed for the loss at Chicago. And I'm sure there are guys who would say he could catch no better than Santonio Holmes because he has holes in both his hands! Does anybody remember last year? You know, the one where we won the Lombardi Trophy? Does anybody remember week 2 at Philadelphia where the Iggles handed us our asses on a silver platter? Things didn't look too damn good then either did they? It's September football. Tomlin himself has called it exactly that. You don't know what you've got until Thanksgiving. I've said that before and I stand by my statement.

Maybe I have been tempered by the 1-13 and 2-12 Stiller seasons of my youth but you got to take what happens in September with a grain of salt. One loss to a non-Conference opponent in September don't mean shit. It only serves to point up things to work on so the team keeps getting better. Nothing more. The Stillers are now 1-11 all-time in Chicago. No big deal. The only thing that eats at me is Tomlin's record in 4:15 games. I think it's now 0-8. That is a bit alarming. But we don't have too many 4:15 games the rest of the way so I think we'll be OK.

Anyway, all you new fans clamoring for Willie Parker to get cut and Joe Flacco for the Hall of Fame need to just STFU and watch football. You lack the historical perspective. And the only way you're going to get it is to sit back and enjoy viewing the game and study it's past. It's great to support your team but not to the extent of assholary. And right now there's just waaay too many assoholic football fans who don't know what they don't know.

FAN: Coaching Dividends

So going into the weekend, my JV Volleyball team was 1-1. One thing I noticed as I continue to learn the game myself was that the high short balls that the front row girls should be using a low risk hit on - the girls were stepping back, waiting and using bumping motions on. If they don't feel comfortable hitting it back one handed like a spike, they should at minimum use "Moose Ears" above the head and take it over like that.

I designed a drill to work on this at practice Saturday and it went over well. At our game on Sunday which we won for a 2-1 record, I only counted one time where a front row player let the ball play her instead of her taking it high.

How satisfying to see that! They are like little sponges. Another game tonight....stay tuned.
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FAN: Skippy Blows It

On a day when my Volleyball Team lead out of the gate and never looked back for their second consecutive win, the Steelers lead out of the gate and then couldn't hold on. I don't have many comments for this one. I'll throw out what I chose to remember.

Rashard Mendenhall now has one good run in his pro career. Without that run, I would screaming to end the experiment. Even on his good run he kept looking at the defender instead of just running full tilt.

Ben threw a lot of balls low today. Was it the rain?

Mendenhall's run looked like a clip from 1974 with Franco running that same play.

Holmes had three catchable balls hit the turf today....one that could have changed the outcome late. If he snares that ball, Reed doesn't have to be the goat.

I say Reed blew it, and he did today...but even if he hits one of those two, it would have only tied and they still could have lost. Think about it though - when was the last time Reed missed multiples and we lost by 3? It doesn't happen very often.

It looks like we'll be content to throw a lot of balls to our receivers at the line of scrimmage instead of running 30 times a game.

Heath Miller has no moves. Catch the ball and run North my friend. One yard is better than your Randle El impersonation. Still, he is so money.

Farrior missed a sack by being a little out of control.

Carter is thugalicious.

DOG: Who To Watch On Sunday

Here's something to watch for tomorrow during the Stillers-Bears game. The media has focused on our loss of Polamalu, the Bears loss of Urlacher, and Cutler's horrendous first game as a Chicago Bear. But I am going to give you what I believe to be the key matchups in tomorrow's game. As you may have guessed from the above photos, it involves line play which, after all, is where 90% of NFL football games are won and lost anyway.

The two Stillers to keep your eye on are 74-Willie Colon, our Right Tackle, when we're on offense, and 99-Bret Keisel, our Right Defensive End, when we're on defense.

Willie Colon will have his hands full trying to move Bears LDE Adewale Ogunleye on running plays. And he REALLY will have his work cut out for him trying to contain Ogunleye's pass rush. Ogunleye virtually lived in the Packers backfield last Sunday night. If he had spent any more time 3-4 yards behind Green Bay's line they would have started charging him rent! He beat Packer Right Tackle Allen Barbre like a rented mule. When the Packers assigned a Tight End to help Barbre, Ogunleye simply bull rushed the pair of them back into Aaron Rodgers. He was unstoppable. This cannot happen again this Sunday. Willie Colon must step up and battle Ogunleye to at least a stalemate. If a Tight End is needed to keep Ogunleye at bay, then the two of them better be able to stop him better than the Packers did. If not, it could be a very long afternoon for Mr. Roethlisberger.

On the other side of the coin, Bret Keisel needs to get his camping gear ready to stake out a hunting cabin in the Bears backfield this week. He will be facing Chicago's LG Frank Omiyale. Omiyale was putrid against the Packers and he allowed his man to get in Cutler's face so many times I'm surprised the Bear QB didn't throw 6 interceptions instead of just 4. Keisel has an opportunity to overwhelm this guy with superior athleticism. It is an opportunity Bret rarely sees. He needs to take advantage of this mismatch. It will be there for the taking because James Harrison will be eating Orlando Pace for lunch to his right while Fat Casey Hampton will consume all the Bears attention to his left. In other words Pace will need a TE to help with Harrison and the Bears center and right guard will be forced to give Casey his obligatory double team. That leaves Keisel one-on-one with a man he can and should beat.

So while the talking heads will be rehashing the same old names on the pregame talk shows. You are now armed with the information that will make you an astute football viewer for one week anyway. QBs, WRs and RBs may sell the tickets, but linemen win the games. And if these two Stiller linemen can do their jobs, next time you hear from me we'll be 2-0. HERE WE GO!

FAN: Kids and Sports

I played most sports you can think of as a kid, but only one was organized - baseball. I was a sports generalist - easily better than average at most, but far from being one of the best at anything. At recess or neighborhood games of basketball, kickball or whiffle ball I would be picked early as opposed to late, but never first at anything. Tennis became the first sport that I was really confident in and that didn't start until around 7th grade. I played SS on the company softball team in the early 90's but I haven't played in pickup sports since about 2003 when I was the QB for our neighborhood flag football games on Sunday morning. The opposing QB was a Div III college QB from LaFayette. Fun times. I've played winter tennis and was part of an indoor basketball league but those were both 8-10 years ago. Anyway, my point is that I played my fair share of sports, but I wasn't good enough to specialize in anything. I'm not sure I had the drive to as it wasn't that important to me at that age. Still A Dad can attest as he coached me one year in baseball - I couldn't hit to save my life. I had one good year at the plate and that was my last year in the minors - probably feeding off of pitchers who were a year or two younger than me. When I moved up to the majors I was back to batting once per game and typically striking out. This is where I'm heading with this story...... I hated that feeling. Who wouldn't. With all your friends and friend's parents watching it was like going to the gas chamber. For whatever reason, I just accepted it. Well, here we go, it's my once a game time to go down swinging. I had a huge habit of stepping out before swinging instead of stepping "in" to the ball. Put me in a game with my cousins with a plastic bat and ball and I was fine - better than fine. Playing neighborhood games with a tennis ball and bat you would never know I was a horrible batter in real games. I could play the field a little as a middle infielder and center fielder but I was a classic 8th spot hitter. Why I didn't work on it I'll never know. I never remember asking Still A Dad to take me out to practice hitting. Not once. Like I said, I guess I just didn't care enough.

That's too long of a setup for this story but oh well. Still A Stroke excels at swimming. She made League Individual Champs this year as the 14th seed in Breast Stroke where they take the top 16 kids for each age group in the entire 21 team league. I think there were over 130 girls in her group so for her to be 14th was really exciting. Her team has over 155 swimmers and while she isn't one of the team "super-stars", she gets a lot of recognition from the coach and other parents when she swims. She wanted something to do this year between summer and winter swimming and signed up for JV Volleyball for 5th and 6th graders. I thought it was cool because she's never held a volleyball in her life. Maybe the Olympics inspired her (the outfits inspired me!). So many girls went out this year that in order to not cut anyone they asked for more coaches so I'm now a head VB coach. I went to coaching clinics and bought a youth VB book put out by U.S. Volleyball to learn the basics.

I have 11 girls and need to start 6. Serving is the most important skill at this age because the rallies are short. You serve good, you win. Still A Stroke rated 5th of the 11 players when I made my first starting lineup of 6. She's very good at back line play. OK at front line play. Still learning to serve. Our first game was last Sunday. It is deathly quiet in the gym when you serve and everyone is watching you. Everyone in front of her either served a few in or made it close - all trying overhand. When it was her turn to serve she hit a ball that barely made it to the front row. You get a 2nd chance on your first time serving overhand in every match. I could see she was upset when she got the ball back and the second serve was worse than the first because she was so upset. I could see her fighting back the tears which made me feel really bad for her. When it was her turn to rotate out she told me she didn't feel well. As it got closer to her rotating back in I asked her what she wanted me to do. She said she didn't want to serve to put her in after the server. When she moved up one spot closer she called me over and said "I want to serve". Hmmmmm, cool. She went back in with the eye of the tiger, and promptly missed, but didn't get upset. On her next rotation she tried again underhand this time....no luck. Outside of serving she had a really good game but we lost. 0-1 for the new coach. While other girls didn't get a serve in either - it was eating away at her and for no reason because all we did was tell her how good she played.

On Monday after school she announced to me that her homework was done and she wanted to go work on her serve. I grabbed the bag of 6 balls and Mrs. Fan went as well. We worked on establishing a pattern and imagining a perfect serve as the last step before the toss. We were at the courts for 90 minutes. We had another game Wednesday. On her first serve attempt, she was in a stance to serve underhand and while that shocked me a little I let her go - it JUST MISSED clearing the net and was hit low with a lot of velocity. Some of the other girls were to the point where they could serve their limit and I knew it was bugging her (after 5 points from the same server it's a "side out" at this age). When she rotated around again I could see her going through her mental checklist - BOOM - perfect overhand serve, they return it, we return back and score. She serves overhand again - BOOM - nobody touches it. Point. She lines up again - BOOM - they get to it but can't return. Point. When she gets the ball this time she has the support of her team and the parents. She's smiling....I'm smiling.......of course she forgets her pattern and hits this one right into the net but who cares. We won and she got her mojo back.

That night Mrs. Fan and I were talking about it and we were SO proud of her tenacity. She couldn't stand it that some of the other girls could serve 5 points in a row and she couldn't. It didn't even help to point out that most of them were in 6th grade and she's only in 5th. She saw how the other girls reacted when somebody could serve a few in a row and she wanted the same treatment. It all comes down to your determination and what you're going to apply it to. I was chased by our school tennis coach to play for the team but I worked at Burger King and wanted to make money. I quit playing baseball at Pony League age because I got a paper route (again - money) but I was tired of striking out and had no desire whatsoever to practice hitting a curve ball. Once Still A Dad bought me my first PC, a TI/994a, I couldn't wait to come home and write code. There's nothing cooler as a parent than to watch your kid really like something and want to get better at it.....and then succeeding. I clearly did not have that drive at 10 years old to not strike out.

DOG: Where's The Running Game?

Many Stiller fans are scratching their heads and asking each other: Where's our vaunted running attack? Why is Willie Parker having so much trouble? Is Rashard Mendenhall really a bust? Can Mewelde Moore really be our best RB? Why is Frank Summers having so much trouble?

Then they discuss the answers: Willie Parker is washed up. FWP has never been the same since he broke his leg. Mendenhall hasn't seen enough game action yet. Mendenhall is fumble prone. Moore is a good back but he won't hold up as an every down player. The offensive line can't run block. Jim Brown couldn't gain yardage behind this line. We miss Dan Kreider. Frank The Tank has never been a blocking back and we're asking him to learn a new position on the fly. Isaac Redman did the best in pre-season why isn't he running the ball. Let DJ Johnson line up as the blocking back. And on and on it goes.

Now in truth, each of these theories has some basis in fact. The line isn't great. Parker hasn't been resigned for a reason. Nobody has confidence in Mendenhall. Summers does appear over his head. Moore may be too valuable as a 3rd down back to see action in other situations. And I'm certain Tomlin will be exploring the answer by game time Sunday.

But it seems everybody has missed one very important factor. The retirement of Dick Hoak. Hoak was RB coach for as long as I could remember when he wasn't an active Steeler. This guy coached Franco Harris, Barry Foster, Merril Hoge, Jerome Bettis, Frank Pollard, and Rocky Bleier. And finds himself 5th on the Steelers all-time rushing leaders!

Perhaps Willie Parker hasn't been the same since he broke his leg in December of 2007. But let's not forget that Dick Hoak retired just 3 weeks later! And the development of our running backs has stagnated.

This is not a criticism of current RB coach Kirby Wilson. I don't know enough about the situation to be critical. But I know one thing. We miss Dick Hoak.

FAN: Who Said These Words?

I read these words online tonight. Who said them? I'm going to cut out the fluff and just leave the meat.

On Thursday night the Steelers went from being a great defense to merely a good defense in just one play against the Titans.


People will say, "Well, they still have James Harrison and Casey Hampton and so on..." Irrelevant. Troy's really the only guy on this defense that I see as a full playmaker.


I expect to see him out on the longer side of the projected three to six weeks. If it goes longer, could they win another Super Bowl without him? I don't think so.


One more reason Pittsburgh's in trouble: these Steelers are a mediocre running team on their best day.


The running back I like least on that team is Frank Summers, the rookie fullback. He doesn't seem to understand what's going on. He's missing plenty of blocks, and that's affecting everything. That definitely has to be addressed off the field this week.


The bigger problem, though, is the offensive line. They have no continuity.


This problem isn't anything new, and I blame the coaching staff for not addressing the line in the offseason. How did they rationalize not doing anything about it? Well, they won a Super Bowl. They won't be so lucky twice in a row.

Who said all of those things?


Why your own Jerome Bettis. I only clicked on the link because of the one teaser about John Fox should be fired. I think Coach Cowher called him up and asked him to write that. I remember when Jimmy Johnson set the table for himself by boldly picking the Dolphins to win the Super Bowl the year before he took over coaching them. He wanted to make it seem like a slam dunk so people would be disappointed when they didn't and blame Don Shula.

DOG: Caption This Picture

Fan has done a "Caption This Picture" feature from time to time. And I think we should make it a regular feature.

So I'm inviting everyone who looks at this to offer their version of a caption. Even if you just comment anonymously. If we get enough responses I have some more photos to stimulate your creative spirit and sense of humor.

DOG: Who Do You Trust?

In Fan's post-Titans game review I commented that I wasn't really nervous about our opening game against a very good Titans team. And I listed Mike Tomlin as the reason.

Over Labor Day weekend I met up with some of my old buddies for a cookout/reunion of sorts. And I mentioned to those guys (Stiller fans all) that I was cautious, if not a wee bit skeptical, when we first hired Tomlin. But about 4 games into last season I began to trust him unconditionally. I also mentioned how I never completely trusted Cowher. How I thought he did just a few too many things I disagreed with to keep me from"falling in love" with his coaching.

One fellow said, "Cowher was a good coach."

To which I replied, "Well yeah, he was. You have to be a good coach to get a team to the AFC Championship game that many times with Kordell F-ing Stewart as your QB. But he's nowhere near Tomlin."

The other guys all agreed that they had a better comfort level with Tomlin than Cowher. But this one guy kept raising the issue that he liked Cowher better. At first I thought he was just giving me some shit as old buddies are known to do among each other. You know, just to "get me going" so to speak. But nope, this guy actually thought Cowher was better. Once I realized that, I let it go so the topic of conversation could move on to "Was Michael Nesmith of The Monkees a great songwriter or not." Believe it or not we had another guy disagree on that topic as well, geez.

But really, I trust Tomlin more than any coach I've ever seen in the NFL. Somehow, he just sees things the way I do. Of course that doesn't make either of us right, but I have a great comfort level in his decisions. I am even beginning to buy in to him keeping Bruce Arians as OC despite my rants on here about how Arians is the weak link and must go, blah blah blah.

I thought back to the Noll days. And I must admit that I trust Tomlin even more than I did Chuck Noll. To be fair, the first thing Noll did was cut Roy Jefferson who was only the best player on the Steeler roster. I was young and did not understand that it was absolutely the right thing to do. So I was always a bit skeptical about Noll's decisions but I rarely questioned them. Whatever he did was working. Speaking of Noll cutting Jefferson, if anybody in Denver had the good sense God gave a mule they would follow Noll's lead and cut Brandon Marshall. But they got a coach following his idol, Belimort, who is not worthy of wiping Noll's ass.

So I am here to tell you that you can relax and enjoy football on Sunday afternoons this season. We may not win them all but we will be prepared to play and you will get a 100% effort from your team. Cowher was good. But put your faith in Mike Tomlin.

And as The Monkees sing in their song (written by Neil Diamond by the way) ...

I'm A Believer!

FAN: Steelers Titans Game Thoughts

My chronological thoughts from the game:

Pop acts completely blow live. Completely. When your music is mostly over produced, why even try? I mean Fergie is fun to look at and maybe she can sing a little....but how could you tell? I would rather hear the song on the radio than watch that snooze fest. Tim McGraw wasn't any better. Blech.

What is with Al Michaels hair? His top front reminds me of me below the waist in 9th grade.

Two huge Special Teams plays in the first five plays of the game. Logan's return and Danny's punt and the cover. Long overdue.....both.

Neither Ed Reed or Bob Sanders can make the play in the backfield that Polamalu made coming from where he started from.

We wuz robbed on the Polamalu PI call. Not even close.

Holmes TD looked too easy, didn't it? Then again, so was the subsequent Titans score.

After Ryan Clark got beat he really messed up. Instead of getting under control and getting his man down on the ground, he went in all crazy and let him go and he went for another 15 easy yards.

Jesus Christ, Jay Leno overload. How on Earth can you take a 30 year old girl seriously on a commercial who says she's been waiting all summer for him to return? Really?

Willie Parker up the middle on their first 3rd and 1? WTF? Are you kidding me? You don't prove you can run up the middle on 3rd and short against the Titans with your small back. There's more.....especially on a night when you're averaging about .3 yards per rush! No way Ben called that play. The retard did.

Through three quarters, Collins is impressing me. He's the Marty Schottenheimer of quaterbacks.

I'm not sure I'm buying what the Steelers are selling about continuity on the O line. They aren't showing me much. If I was O Line, I wouldn't want to watch this game tape tomorrow.

I didn't miss John Madden. Shrug.

Mewelde Moore may want the ball more than Willie Parker and Mendenhall. Still, why do we have to prove we can run for it? How about play action or something...anything else? Please!

Hines should have had two hands on that ball.

Did you see Hines Ward kill Fuller in an OT block?

The fact that we can win that game with that pitiful excuse for a running game is amazing. They need to send the O-Line out to a bar to get into a fight. They need attitude to run the ball.

You Can't Ice A Psychopath!!!!!

FAN: Based On What?

In their annual idiotic articles, both Peter King and Don Banks of SI picked the Patriots over the Steelers as their top teams. King has the Pats beating Pittsburgh in the playoffs and Banks has a ranking list with the Pats at #1 and the Steelers at #2. Stupid and worthless as these lists are, how does one pick a team to be the best when their QB hasn't taken a meaningful snap in so long? How many defensive players did they lose? Seymour, Bruschi, Vrabel, Harrison and Seau.....gone. It makes me laugh. Could they win the Super Bowl....YES. Anybody can win the Super Bowl. Does it make sense to pick them with Brady coming off his knee and all the losses? No. King is a homer who sucks from the teet of Belimort and Banks probably sucks from the teet of King (who has a nice set of man teets I must say). Do they honestly believe they are better, right now on paper or not, than the defending Super Bowl Champions who have lost very little meaningful talent? Puhlease. Here We Go.

FAN: Ben To Crazy Woman, Suck It

I couldn't be happier that Big Ben told the crazy lady to piss off. After reading the emails, how could anyone think he was guilty of anything? I don't even know if anything else is worth commenting on.

FAN: More Big Company Nonsense

So about eight months ago I left my small company manager title and my real office with a door behind to chase bigger cash at a much bigger company with much deeper pockets. I am making much more money here to sit in a cube farm and not be "the guy" even though being "the guy"'s right hand man is as much work as being "the guy" at a smaller company. It took the new team at this place a while to put together a new SDLC and the managers and leads are now being trained on it. We learned that in order to get a project approved it has to be a money generator or a money saver. A few days later in a Change Management meeting, two projects appeared on the list - one to change everyone's Outlook signature to something standard and one to replace server names on communications about phone and service outages. Seems somebody was mad that an service interruption message was too explicit for the field. So, while major pieces of the production environment still have many issues to wade through - we're going to have resources working on those two mind blowing initiatives. It never ends.

FAN: I Ask The Jury...

I've never read anything like this before. I guarantee you, if I was anywhere near this man in Walmart when it happened, I would have knocked that mother hubbard out with one punch even though I didn't know either party. I guarantee it. What jury would convict me of anything? Seriously. Obviously this clown only did it because it was a mother alone with a child, not a father. What a giant coward! I cannot believe the audacity of some people. While it can be annoying to hear a child cry, anyone who has one or has had one knows that there are times when a 2 year old cannot control their emotions. The kid wasn't 5, she was 2! Now, let's play another game. Say it was my child and I wasn't there. I am at his house waiting for him when he comes home from the courthouse. I hope he doesn't live in a secluded area because if he does, he doesn't have long to live. I'm going to get him on the ground and continue to beat him until he's dead or until somebody pulls me off of him. And if his wife comes out and begs for his life, I'll stop for a second, explain the situation, and if she doesn't want to help me finish him off, I'll go back to beating him by myself. A stranger? A complete stranger? If her best friend's Dad ever hit her once....slapped her once.....that's a curb stompin' right there. I'm a law abiding citizen up to a point. The point is defined by precious few individuals. My world has no place for this shithead in a free society.

DOG: The Final 53

Look at last year's (badly photoshopped) team photo. Lots of guys with Super Bowl rings are going to be gone from that team just one year later.

The thing I like about Mike Tomlin that I hated about Bill Cowher is that he seems to see what I see in many many Steeler players. Tomlin will choose his roster on the side of youth thinking he can have some time to coach a player up. Whereas Cowher would keep a retread 34 year old veteran over a borderline rookie or young vet because he knew what he was getting. And that's really important as we weigh the composition of the 2009 Picksburgh Stillers. It's also part of the reason for why the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year was cut 3 times by Cowher!

So I'm going to list for you the players I would choose for our team this year. It's not a prediction of what the team will look like. It's what I would do based on what I've seen of the players.

QB (3) Roethlisberger, Batch, Dixon

RB (3) Parker, Mendenhall, Moore

FB (1) Davis

WR (5) Ward, Holmes, Sweed, Wallace, McDonald

TE (3) Miller, Spaeth, Johnson

LT (2) Starks, Hills

LG (2) Kemoeatu, Foster

C (2) Hartwig, Legursky

RG (2) Essex, Urbik

RT (2) Colon, Capizzi

Offense has 25 players

LDE (3) Smith, Hood, Kierschke

NT (2) Hampton, Hoke

RDE (2) Kiesel, Eason

LOLB (2) Woodley, Bailey

ILB (4) Farrior, Timmons, Fox, Woods

ROLB (2) J. Harrison, Frazier

CB (6) Taylor, Gay, Townsend, K. Lewis, Burnett, Raitliff

FS (1) Clark

SS (2) Polamalu, Carter

Defense has 24 players

LS(1) Warren

K (1) Reed

P (1) Sepulveda

KR (1) Logan

Special Teams has 4 players

Practice Squad:

Grisham (WR)

Harris (DL)

Redman (RB)

Shipley (OL)

Mundy (S)

Summers (FB)

B. Davis (LB) maybe

plus one other guy.

It's possible Kirschke could get cut in favor of Scott Paxson. And I'm not sure Tomlin can hide Sonny Harris on the practice squad without some other team snagging him. But otherwise I'm thinking Tomlin is going to go to war with a lineup that looks very similar to the above.

These guys have got one last game to either play their final downs in the NFL or make that list. Tomorrow night we shall see.