FAN: Rooney: "We'll Make Room"

What a quote from the platform from Dan Rooney. He was asked if there was room in the trophy case for number six. There were some great lines after the game. I watched NFL Network's wrap up show and Ben came out to join the group. When Deion Sanders brought up Warren Sapp's comment about the video camera, Ben just laughed. Warren tried to tell Ben what his angle was on that complaint and Ben said, "thats ok, now I have memories. I'll send you a copy." Good stuff. This game was like many other games this year. Relaxed at one point with a decent lead, then biting nails, then cursing and throwing, then crazy celebration followed by a little more nail biting. Wow. Santonio Holmes catch was just slightly better than Ben's throw. Slightly. The throw was crazy. When he released it I thought it could never be caught. A few random musings and then I need to hit the hay. Bruce Springstein sucked. What the heck with the ref coming out and throwing a flag? In my opinion, he hurt his street cred worse than Aerosmith did by sharing the stage with N'Sync. Worst quote of the night was from Bruce: "Step away from the Guacamole and put the chicken fingers down!" What? Anyway, Silverback got a little crazy on that one dude...what was that all about? Hartwig was quiet most of the season and on one of the biggest plays of the game he yanks a guy down. Another long play was brought back for holding and it was really far away from the play, I can't remember who or when. The Cardinal's nosetackle is a monster. I didn't like it or appreciate it when Al Michaels made reference to Mike Holmgren thinking "here we go again" or something like that when the 6th or 7th Card's penalty came in. What are the refs supposed to do, not call them? I bet by the end of the game he was wishing he never said it because we had huge calls against us as well. Stilladog hit the nail on the head early, they came out running. Fan also hit the nail on the head - for while they tried to get a running game going, it amounted to nothing. I also did a pretty damn good job of predicting the score. I picked 27-24, only 1 point off. They had no answer for Santonio on the hitch. Nada. He was beating that rookie like a rented mule. The Fitzgerald TD was a thing of beauty. Did you see the replay of how both deep safeties went to the sidelines initially? Wow. It's hard not to like the Cardinals. I don't have a shred of animosity towards them like I did the Seachikens. I think because we all like Whiz, Grimmy....Warner.... Did Warner's wife have some work done? She looks better now than she did in 1999. Money is a wonderful thing.

Christmas Comes Early As Rooneys Keep Steelers

Finally, some good news. Looks like it will be "The Steeler Way" for the foreseeable future. Thank God I can keep watching football.

Rooney Ownership Fiasco

Maybe I have this all wrong and I don't clearly understand the situation. Maybe someone out there has read more or understands the nuances better than I do surrounding the specifics. There hasn't been much made public about the pending ownership sales since last week so I may be going on old news, but it's news I find troubling. Here is what doesn't add up for me: Dan Rooney owns 16% of the team. The league would like the controlling party to own 30%. To stop someone else from running the team, Dan needs to own 51% or have 51% in his corner. Dan's first cousins, The McGinley family, owns 20% and they are not interested in selling. Fine. We're starting out with 36% in our corner to keep control of the team with Dan's 16% and his cousin's 20%. To keep the billionaire fantasy football players out of the mix, Dan needs another 15% of the shares voting in his favor. There are 4 brothers. The team is valued between $800 million and $1.2 billion, so let's call it an even billion. That means each Rooney brother's 16% is worth $160 million. Each 1% represents 10 million dollars. It is rumored that Dan offered each brother $35 million dollars for 5% of the team. That would give Dan another 20% meaning he would own 36% and The McGinleys 20% would vote for him to run the business giving him 56% voting shares. In our example of worth, 5% of the team is worth $50 million, maybe slightly more, but maybe slightly less. They all said "no". I also read that Art (The Chief) wrote each son a letter in the days leading up to his death asking them to keep control of The Steelers as a family. So, with their father's last request to keep the team under The Rooney name, they are turning down $35 million for 5% of the team under the guise that they are worried about their children and grandchildren? Ummmm, I'm not buying that for one second. This goes deeper than that. They could sell to Dan for $35 million and make the entire city breath easier - or they can put them up for public sale. Here's where it gets interesting. A lot of people are asking that we give the brothers a break, that they are trying to do what's right for them. If you ask me, it's BS considering their father's legacy and the city's infatuation with the team. The only reason they each won't sell Dan 5% is that it renders their other 11% worthless to someone who wants to control the team. Yes, it's still 11% of potentially $1.2 billion dollars of worth, but a Daniel Snyder type isn't going to spend silly money to only control 44% of the team. The way I see it, they are dangling complete control of the Steelers out to the highest bidder. If they sell 64% of the team or even 51% to any one person....and then try to rationalize it by saying The Chief would understand as they were just looking out for their own....even after reading the letters....it will do more to make me care less about sports than any other single event in my 39 years of existence. To me, that action would be screaming "payback" for things we'll never fully understand. To go against a legend's last wishes? An entire city? An entire Nation? If these people had nothing else, I still wouldn't understand but it would be easier to take.....but they are all L-O-A-D-E-D already from all of their other endeavors. Am I seeing this wrong? Do I have the facts right? The Chief goofed up by believing it would never come to this. He could have given Dan 51% of the team, but he thought he didn't have to. I would not want to be the first Rooney brother not named Dan to croak. I would not want to face an angry Chief.

The Rooney Way

Here is the best article I've read so far on the Rooney saga. I am still staying quiet while reading other opinions. It goes without saying, a little piece of all of us will die if Dan and his son are forced to lose ownership. I get sick just thinking about it. A lot of people I know from the area who are older than me rank Roberto Clemente dying as the saddest sports day they can remember. Mine would be a person not named Rooney having controlling interest of the team. Even if Dan is left in charge or his son - for how long? There is a way to run this team and that way is special and it makes all of us Steelers fans proud to be a fan. We laugh when other franchises are in trouble...knowing we have a steady captain at the helm. I have to stop.....I swear I'm going to throw up.

Two Days Of Worry

I am waiting for more news on this story to develop before I go completely off. Newer articles are saying now that he might just help Dan buy out his brothers. I can't believe a bunch of brothers, 70 year old brothers, can't accept $35 million each for their share in the Steelers. What the heck do they want? At this point in their lives, is $50 million different than $35? I'm starting to rant so I better wait until more details come out. I've always said...ALWAYS......that if the Rooney family gave up ownership and someone came in who didn't do things The Steeler Way, it could be the end of my love affair with the team. Part of the reason I love them so much is the fact that they ooze class. The first time a fantasy football owner in the mold of Dan Snyder comes here and starts to overpay aging stars from other teams to come here as free agents.....I'm done. I'll start following High School football. I swear.

Don't Speak Too Soon

The only reason Dan Rooney is coming out and saying this (too early in my opinion) is probably to help the NFL squash this story and get back to business. If I found out anything by reading Dan's book, all decisions must be for the good of the league. Plus, he was a huge backer of Goodell from the beginning of the selection process and he was the one who got to go to Goodell's room and tell him he was the new commissioner. I really hope Mr. Rooney at minimum made those statements about Spygate without being asked to.

Dan Rooney's Book

I finished reading Dan Rooney, My 75 Years With The Pittsburgh Steelers and The NFL last night. I have to admit that I enjoyed the first part of the book much more than the last. The beginning of the book told more stories of Dan and his brothers growing up under the tutelage of The Chief. It seemed like once Dan started working for the Steelers in a business capacity, the stories weren't as enlightening and they just followed a basic "..and then I" or "...and then he" approach. From my perspective, there wasn't enough new information. They relegated the decision to hire Mike Tomlin over the two incumbents to one page. I thought an entire chapter might be devoted to this. However, some meetings of the owners 20 years ago are gone over in great detail. I was impressed to learn that Dan was a standout player in high school and that he once scored 6 TDs in a game. That eclipses Al Bundy's mark by 2 for those that are counting. A lot of the information wasn't consistent in the manner in which it was presented. For example, for one of the early Super Bowl runs, each playoff game almost went through a late drive history but then for another Super Bowl run, you would just get the playoff scores. I think in the end, this guy has spent over 55 years working in the NFL....and that's after growing up with The Chief. How you can squash all of that down into less than 300 pages is going to leave a lot open for debate. I think Dan told his stories to the two ghost writers and then they sorted them out and put the book together. When he got to praising the players from certain eras, it also got a bit boring because there were so many from each and after describing one of the Steel Curtain in a single paragraph, how can the next three sound any different when you are only giving each one paragraph? It's a minor complaint, but with all the stars from the 70's, it almost seemed like you could just switch their names around because the praise was so generic. One thing that is not arguable from reading the book is that there is no love lost between The Rooneys and Al Davis. Had I been counting, there must have been at least 5-7 disparaging stories told about Al. According to Dan, he prevailed in most of the disagreements. If Al told the stories, maybe Al would prevail in most of them. Rooney doesn't have a negative thing to say about anyone minus Al Davis. He truly seems like one of the most gracious and thoughtful people on the planet. I guess in this age of pop culture and "in your face" media I was looking for a little more "Wow" factor from the book. I was looking for behind closed door stuff with Cowher during the bad years or something. The two non playoff years were summed up neatly in a page or so by saying "my confidence never wavered in Bill...." or something like that. It's vanilla for juicy details, but in retrospect, what else would you expect from a bread and butter team? The book is a good solid 7 for information, but I found the cadence and presentation of information lacking in something.

Rooney Rules

The latest article from SI writer Michael Silver ranks the NFL's current owners. Dan / Art II rank 9th this year, up from 10th last year. Last year's article infuriated me so much I sent an email (thoughtful, not attacking) and received a great reply from Mr. Silver. We've since traded emails on numerous occassions and the information that he gets is rock solid. I still think the Rooney family belongs in the top 5, but that's beside the point in this post. Although he doesn't go into any detail (I've asked for some, though) he reports that it was Dan's call to hire Mike Tomlin over Art II's vehemently disagreeing with him. Art II wanted one of the in-house guys (Grimm, Whiz) to take over. That blows up my theory of Art II sticking it to Bill Cowher by not hiring one of his staff. In the end, I think we're going to be happy with Tomlin and I respect Rooney for making the tough decision and not going with the insider. I think after the bad season they had - they needed to shake up the team and get the edge back. Grimm or Whiz would have been like a substitute teacher taking over for a year. Silver also claims Cowher leaving was all about the cheddar and that he would have stayed if offered market value. That's a tough one to swallow unless he was really more upset with Art II than anyone let on. He never seemed the type to me to leave for money since he's a Yinzer at heart, has money like Fort Knox and job security for life. Is that worth 2 million a year? I think it has more to do with Bill Cowher wanting to run the entire show - which is what he will get at his next stop, unless of course he becomes a NASCAR driver.

Steelers Caught With Pants Down!

After reviewing the free agent signings in the NFL for Wednesday and Thursday, I decided to place a call to Steelers headquarters in the 'Burgh. I asked for Kevin Colbert but he wasn't around. Seems Coach Tomlin was watching film. Dan Rooney was napping. Art II was throwing darts at a dartboard with Bill Cowher's face on it. Interesting. I asked the nice lady who answered the phone if anyone over there realized the free agent signing period began on March 2nd. She assured me it started on April 2nd and that I had nothing to worry about. They were cutting players that wanted sentimental money and devising a strategy for resigning the new core of the team. I told her that Joey Porter had already signed with the Dolphins and she said that it was just a rumor. I told her to check NFL.com and she said they all saw it, but assumed the website was hacked and the image of Joey wearing Dolphin's gear was "Photo Shopped". I asked her if they were targeting any players that would get the fans excited and she told me all about this exciting punter. I asked if I could put her on hold and get the new commissioner on the line - she agreed. The commish came on the line and informed her that the free agent signing period had indeed started almost a full week ago. Bells went off, alarms sounded, papers rustled....there was some screaming followed by some crying....followed by some screaming about crying. I heard what sounded like Coach scream "What? Is anyone left? A Punter!!!?????". In all the confusion, the office manager forgot about me so I slowly hung up the phone, happy with the fact that if they sign the punter, I'll never have to hear "You know Jim, Chris Gardocki has never had a punt blocked". I'll miss that almost as much as I miss hearing that Carlton Haselrig never went to college.

New Twist To Cowher Decision

The Rooney family has agreed to give Bill Cowher until next Tuesday to make a final decision as to if he will return for another season. Sounds good in theory. The problem is, Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm are already scheduled to have interviews with Atlanta and Arizona. If Whiz takes the Atlanta job and Grimm gets the Arizona job - then Cowher decides to walk - I will not be a happy camper. There could be a silver lining in all of this if it plays out that way - The Dog has been a fan of Mark Whipple for some time and thinks he is as good a candidate as any. I hate it that our coaching situation has turned into the kind of circus that I can't stand. I'm sure the Rooneys feel the same way.

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.

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?

Why The Rooney's Rule

The Steelers have the 16th highest average ticket price in the league. The Steelers also just won their 5th Super Bowl, the third team to do so. They are also returning most key components on offense and defense and have an excellent shot to repeat. So, season ticket holders should probably expect to get hosed this year. What a perfect time for the Rooney's to raise ticket prices to get them more in-line with the higher market teams and pad their pockets a bit. Wrong. The Steelers organization decided to raise ticket prices 0% this year. Huh? Can you imagine if the Redskins won the Super Bowl? Kansas City failed to make the playoffs and their fans got a 15.2% ticket increase to move them to 3rd highest average in the league. Wow. Mind boggling. As the popularity of the league continues to grow and waiting lists for season tickets cross 100,000 - owners are taking advantage of the time honored system of supply and demand. Some of these teams also have 90,000 seats in their stadiums. The Steelers, although playing in a brand new stadium, only have around 65,000 seats. I think they easily could have had 80,000 plus - but decided the stadium should have a view of the city - easily passing up millions of dollars per year in ticket sales. You simply cannot claim the Rooney's are only out for themselves. They really care about the fans. Click here to see the complete list of ticket prices for all teams. I don't mind that some of the lower priced teams raised prices over 10% to get more in the middle of the pack, but what on earth are the Niner's doing raising prices 10% to move into 6th place?

Super Finish Shouldn't Be Questioned

"Heard too many Seattle people grousing about the officials after the game. There were a couple of marginal calls -- the Darrell Jackson end-zone pushoff, which negated a touchdown, most notably --but Seattle did quite enough to lose the game." That was from Peter King's Monday Morning QB column onNFL.com. He is Sports Illustrated's lead NFL writer and does stuff for HBO also. In the industry, one of the biggest names and most respected people in footall media......and NOT a Steelers fan.

This is my take: I waited until I had about 6 emails from chuckleheads telling me the Steelers didn't deserve to win before I decided to fire back. Let's look again.....

When big plays HAD to be made, the Steelers made them.They had KEY 3rd down conversions. Seattle was 5 of 17. The had 3 very timely sacks when they needed them. Gardocki consistently dropped theball inside the 20 on punts. Seattle's punter did not. The Steelers nor the officials had anything to do with Seattle's inability to manage the clock at the end of the game and at the end of the first half. The Steelers nor the officials had anything to do with Seattle missing 2 FGs. Now, had Seattle done all of those things, maybe they could have won...but I still say they would not have punched the ball in the endzone. They had multiple chances to do it and couldn't. The Steelers adjusted their rushing attack at halftime and scored on the 2nd play out of the tunnel. Jeremy Stevens couldnt catch a cold in the middle of the winter. He was clearly intimidated by the hit Chris Hope put on him early in the game. In essence, the Steelers gave Seattle (the league's most potent offense) the ball twice and they still only scored 10 points. The calls? The officiating? The Big Ben TD was in. No doubt in my mind. From where the ball was in his arms, it had to cross the line. Every announcer/talking head agreed with this call....except some idiotic fans who watch 2 games a year who think it's where the ball ends up - not that the forward progress of the ball only has to break the very first speck of white paint outline to be a TD. The D-Jack catch out of bounds when his foot hit the pylon......this was explained on Sirius satellite's NFL show today to those who again do not know the rules of the game. He has to have control and have 2 feet in BEFORE the pylon becomes part of the field to him as a ball carrier. Next!

The D-Jack offensive pass interference call. This WAS ticky-tacky and didn't seem to influence the play that much...but he DID EXTEND his elbow right in front of the ref. Easy call? No. Could have went either way probably....but he DID push off even if ever-so-slightly and in slow motion it's one thing, but if you look again in realtime...you can actually see/feel the advantage gained by him propelling himself in the opposite direction. He did it...he didnt have to. If he doesn't touch him, it's still probably a TD...so I wouldn't complain about the refs, I'd complain about D-Jack himself.

Of the 2 holding calls, the ref does not know if the pass will be incomplete, a long gain or a td when he throws the flag. How on earth does the ref know a catch is going to be made at the one when he throws the flag? On the first one as Madden pointed out, the arm was hooked - holding. On the second one, I admit, I saw no holding on the guy they called it on. Doesn't mean the ref didn't see holding somewhere else. The low block on Hasselbeck? Cheap call I thought, although it is the letter of the law. Just like the tuck rule during the infamous Pats/Raiders game - it's a rule so it has to be called until the rule is changed.

What about the Jeremy Stevens "catch" when he took 3 steps and got popped and they didnt call it a catch? The people who are crying "bad calls" only to seem to be against Pittsburgh who had bad calls against them all year...BUT THEY STILL FOUND A WAY TO WIN. What about Wards' 2 drops. What about Ike Taylor's dropped pick? The Steelers had a multitude of chances also that they blew. It wasn't just Seattle. This was NOT a crisp game by either team to say the least. For Pittsburgh to have 2 picks against them, dropped passes, no offensive synch at all facing the league's MVP and best offense and to still win 21-10 proves to me that they are resilient and can still win when faced with adversity. If your QB who is averaging a passer rating of 130 in the playoffs puts up a 9-21 performance with a 23 rating and you STILL win, you did something right. As bad as a statistical game as he had....he made HUGE plays to get them there and he made HUGE plays in that game when he had to. To not cross the line and find Ward was HUGE. To run for the TD was huge. To run for a clock killing 1st down near the end of the game was huge. The block on the reverse pass was HUGE. He is a 2nd year player who will only get better. Can't believe some of the negative things some people said about him today. He had a below average game and his team still won. How many teams can survive that?

Would have been interesting if Stevens caught all those balls and they didn't have so many penalties called against them. Does that guarantee a win? NO! The game would have been different and would have been played out differently - but who knows what the result would have been? The Steelers were resilient down the stretch and all through the playoffs. To assume they would have lost if Seattle would have just (fill in the blank) is (fill in an expletive) in my estimation. You can "if" your way to the Super Bowl - but you can't win it with "if's".

Important things to wonder: Why didn't Seattle sense the gadget play after the Colts game? I told my cousin a month ago after the Colts game that the Steelers would line up the same way in a future game and instead of Randle El passing it back to Ben he would throw it because they haven't done that yet this year in that exact order. BANG! I called it. Other Steeler fans called it. Why on God's green earth didn't Holmgren know it was coming? Bettis told Parker on the sideline to stop going for the edge and to cut one up when he saw the hole. BANG! TD! Why didn't Seattle assume he would adjust? On 3rd and long in desperate situations, this supposedly AWESOME Seattle line couldn't stop Hasselbeck from getting sacked. With 6:50 remaining and knowing the Steelers are going to try to run out the clock, why couldn't they prevent the first downs?

I'm not quite sure again why some people thought they didn't do enough to win. The calls? I don't think so. Give them the D-Jack TD and they still need another one. Steeler fans could just as easily say "had Ben put ANY air under that pass near the goaline (or simply threw it away) and the score is at worst 17-3 and maybe 21-3 instead of 14-10. The game is what it is - a Super Bowl Victory for clearly the best team in the NFL right now.

Final thought: If you watched the Colts/Steelers game, you saw after the horrible call on Troy Polamalu's pick that he simply put his helmet on and ran back onto the field to line up for the next play. No complaining. He went right back to work. I think the Seachickens players couldn't do that after they thought they had been wronged. It's all about focus.