Still crazy after all these years

... Rep. Jack Murtha: "There's no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area"  When the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin as their head football coach in 2007, a friend and I had a conversation about the move. "Do you think that Western Pa. fans will accept a black man as head coach of the Steelers?" my friend wrote. My answer: "Yes, as long as he wins." In his second year, his team defeated the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII for their sixth Super Bowl win. Two years later, they were back in the Super Bowl, and even if it did not result in a win, the Steelers were in two Super Bowls in Tomlin's first four years. He was the toast of the town, a "boy genius" in the eyes of the national media. Certainly, there were some dissenters, but who could argue with that record? Tomlin's change to some fans Then, the team started aging, and change was needed. The problems were on the offensive line, on the defense, prett...

... but they won four Super Bowls in six years They will forever be aligned by a special accomplishment that no coach and quarterback will probably be ever able to duplicate: Four Super Bowl wins in six years. For Terry Bradshaw, that included two MVP trophies, something that no other Steeler QB has ever been able to duplicate over the past 30 years. For Chuck Noll, the accomplishment puts him in the upper echelon of NFL football coaches, with the likes of Vince Lombardi. However, perhaps no successful coach and player ever had as rocky a personal relationship as did Chuck and Terry. The problems were caused by their prickly personalities, but Chuck, as the coach, knew that he did not handle Bradshaw well despite the Super Bowls. In fact, in a largely positive extensive Sports Illustrated profile of Noll in 1980 after winning the fourth Super Bowl, Paul Zimmerman wrote this about that relationship: "The dark side of the picture is Bradshaw." No real quarterback...

… Thin-skinned vs. thick-skinned  One thing that I admired about Chuck Noll was that he could have blown his own horn much more than he did. He could have written his own autobiography and told his story, a tale about what a great guy he was. Chuck declined to do so. Let the professional writers tell his story. Let the players take the credit for a win, do the post-game interviews. Let the players get the publicity, not the coach. Noll had a ego, but he was a laid-back guy, a person who would rather sit down with his wife Marianne and have a nice glass of wine than party on Bourbon Street. After Noll's first Super Bowl interview in 1975, the media was outraged, according to a Sports Illustrated story about Noll written by Paul Zimmerman. In it, Zimmerman said, "And when it was over, the writers were a little uneasy, because underneath the intelligence and the articulateness was the hint of something unsettling. The curled lip? A bit of disdain? Is this man really tel...

... Pinstripe Bowl should command more respect  Playing a football game in the Big Apple is an exciting event since it is the only football game played in Manhattan. That is why the Pinstripe Bowl was started a few years ago, to attract attention and show what a great city New York is. So, why then is the Pinstripe Bowl being played at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon? Today, the Pitt Panthers of the ACC face the Northwestern Wildcats of the Big Ten, but many fans of both teams will be working at that time. If the Pinstripe Bowl was intended to bring attention to the Big Apple, why did it schedule it at this ridiculous time? Oh, yes, ESPN. The network has only so many evening games because Jan. 1 is on a Sunday, and the usual college bowl extravaganza day is monopolized by the NFL in mostly throw-away games. Hence, the Panthers will have to play to a meager television audience. That is sad. Here is a team that beat the Big Ten champions, Penn State, the competitor...

American Football Conference AFC: Patriots beat Steelers -- again [Steelers get in because of Derek Carr's injury] National Football Conference NFC: Seahawks beat Cowboys [Seattle has more playoff experience than the Cowboys] Super Bowl Super Bowl Champ: Seahawks

… he can shut up critics with a Super Bowl win  Former Steeler great quarterback Terry Bradshaw unleashed a torrent of criticism last week when he said the following to Fox Sports 1 about Coach Mike Tomlin: “I don’t think he’s a great coach at all. He’s a nice coach. To me, and I’ve said this, he’s really a great cheerleader guy. I don’t know what he does. But I don’t think that he’s a great coach at all. His name never even pops in my mind when we think about great coaches in the NFL.” As a result, Bradshaw has been called a racist who has been constantly critical of black coaches and players. Others have questioned whether or not he belongs in the NFL Hall of Fame. Others have questioned whether or not he has had too many concussions. Others have agreed with him. Assessing value of a coach So, how do you assess the value of a coach? It is always subjective, but it can be based on some objective data. Using this analysis, you can find two Mike Tomlins. The first i...

When New England Patriots Coach Bill Bellichick was forced to face the media after the arrest of his tight end, Aaron Hernandez, in 2013 for murder, he talked about how the player did not reflect the Patriots' "values." The question, of course, is whether or not the Patriots actually have any "values." Bellichick said at that time more than three years ago that the Patriots "have always emphasized the need for our team and our players and our organization to represent the community the right away both on and off the field." And that is why Bellichick picked up former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Michael Floyd after he was cut by the team earlier this month for being arrested on a drunk driving charge with a blood alcohol level of .217, which is considered "extreme" under Arizona law, something that could require mandatory jail time, according to USA Today. Bellichick said that he did not know the extent of the blood alcohol level whe...

The Steelers' quest for a 2016 playoff berth comes down to an essential win over the Ravens on Sunday. Since the Ravens defeated the Steelers in Baltimore earlier this year, a win in Pittsburgh would give them the AFC North title, assuming they are victorious in week 16. However, the question is whether or not the Steelers will truly have home-field advantage in a game that is played on Christmas Day. Will the Steeler fans show up with their terrible towels a-waving, or will they put their tickets on eBay or another site and allow the dastardly Ravens' fans to gobble them up? Or, since it is Christmas, after all, the consummate family holiday, will the game be played in front of many empty seats? Certainly, tail-gating will be down, perhaps significantly, but will those die-hard Steeler fans show up for the big battle? One of my old friends from my youth wrote me from Chicago questioning whether or not the Steeler faithful will show up on Christmas. Harry Zendlock is still a...

. .. and before then The Pro Bowl nominations were announced yesterday, and while five Steelers made the team, one whom I think is deserving did not. That is linebacker Lawrence Timmons, who leads the Steelers with 98 tackles, 65 of them solo. His 98 total is about 30 more than the next person on the list, his 65 about 22 more than anyone else. Why didn't Timmons make the roster? Probably because the defense on which he plays stinks. Yes, it has been better the last few weeks since the Steelers' schedule is so weak. Yet, we all know that even if they get into the playoffs, Tom Brady will pick them apart and the Pats' defense will make Roethlisberger look like he usually does in the postseason: inept [check out the postseason numbers on pro-football-reference.com] In addition, Timmons is not one of those guys who blows his own horn. He is not a darling of the media, which is how people become stars. He is just a damn good inside linebackers. Timmons' resume Timmo...

… some major changes are necessary  The University of Pittsburgh has always had a strong academic reputation with both its undergraduate and grad schools. Its ranking in the U.S. News and World Report 2017 edition is 68. However, the university has been struggling in another extra-curricular area that is important to many Pitt alums: Athletics. The recent news out of that arena in terms of football and men's basketball has been a major concern. Men's Basketball When Coach Jamie Dixon left town earlier this year under fire from many Panther followers, many Pitt basketball fans were hoping that new Athletic Director Scott Barnes would follow an earlier script and lure a promising mid-major coach to Oakland. Someone like Ben Howland. Instead, Barnes selected Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings, a choice that Sporting News columnist Mike DeCourcy called a "comically poor decision" because "his past four seasons included only a single NCAA Tournament bid an...

… LHAC schools caved because of fears of "anti-Catholic" charges  Well, the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference (LHAC) will survive, and two of the three Catholic schools will continue to compete in the conference after a meeting yesterday. The LHAC had threatened to eliminate three of the Catholic schools from the league -- Bishop Guilfoyle, Bishop McCort, and Bishop Carroll -- but in the end, only Carroll was voted out, with the help of its two diocesan cohorts. Previously, the three Catholic schools had voted together when the league initially attempted to vote Carroll out of it earlier in the fall. Since a vote to eliminate a school must be unanimous, the attempt to eliminate the Huskies failed. Until Wednesday. At a meeting yesterday, two of the Catholic schools sabotaged the efforts of their fellow diocesan school to remain in the league and voted to eliminate Carroll from the conference. Did the change of votes on the part of BG and McCort result fr...

... The PIAA's transfer rules are a joke  Steel Valley High School captured the first state football championship in its history over the past weekend. It should be congratulated for accomplishing that goal. However, the transfer of one player, who is ranked as a four-star college recruit and is headed to Pitt, looms over this accomplishment. In short, Paris Ford, who is going to Pitt in the fall to compete for Coach Pat Narduzzi's Panthers, played in three different high schools in his four years of high school. That included his freshman season at Central Catholic High School and his sophomore and junior seasons at Seton-LaSalle High School. Both of those are private schools. Last January, Ford withdrew from Seton-LaSalle and enrolled at Steel Valley, a public school. At the time, the Seton-Lasalle principal signed the transfer papers indicating that she did not believe that the transfer was made with athletic intent. That is the major step for any transfer since ther...

... I hope not  LaMarr Woodley was one of the best defensive players in the NFL in his early years. Drafted second by the Steelers out of the University of Michigan in 2007, he recorded 11.5 sacks in 2008 when the Steelers won their sixth Super Bowl. He followed that by recording 62 tackles and 13.5 sacks in 2009 and 50 tackles and 10.0 sacks in 2010 when they reached the Super Bowl but lost to Green Bay. He was in the running for NFL Defensive Player of the Year Awards during those seasons. The 2016 Steelers would love to have someone in double-digits in sacks like Woodley -- and James Harrison -- had during those years. Woodley's downfall And then, prior to the 2011 season, Woodley signed a huge contract, a $61.5 million deal over six years. It was one of the biggest contracts ever for a defensive player. The 26-year-old player was on top of the world, his future secured, and he could not have been happier to remain in Pittsburgh. "That's something I wanted ...

The Bishop Guilfoyle High School Marauders captured their third consecutive PIAA State Class A State Championship. It is an unbelievable accomplishment as they defeated undefeated Clairton, 17-0, at Hersheypark Stadium on Friday. It was the 47th consecutive victory for Coach Justin Wheeler's squad, also an incredible accomplishment. The Post-Gazette's high school reporter Mike White noted that BG shut out a WPIAL team that averaged 46 points a game this season. "Clairton didn’t score a point in the first half for the first time in 11 years, and the Bears were shut out in a game for the first time since losing to Springdale, 28-0, in 2003," White wrote. White also noted that the BG defense held Lamont Wade, Clairton's leading athlete and the third-leading rusher in WPIAL history with 7,075 yards, to just 70 yards on 15 carries. What's next for Coach Wheeler? Will Coach Wheeler return to BG next season? A few weeks ago, I ran across a post on a s...

… his program needs to show progression Note: This originally appeared on Aug. 24 of this year. I repost it to show I was right on one major point and very wrong on others.  I am saying this as a former college football coach: Everyone should give a coach four years in which to develop his team. That is the case for James Franklin, who came into Happy Valley on a cloud but has never quote caught the fancy of the Penn State faithful. Attitude was arrogant Franklin's we're going "to dominate the state" was something that excited the Nittany Lion fans, particularly as he put together an outstanding recruiting class in his first venture in Pa. That honeymoon ended very quickly, because of some of the reasons below. Pitt fans, on the other hand, sensing vengeance, want to send Franklin's Nittany Lion team back down Route 22 toward Centre County with the Nittany Lions' proverbial tail between its legs. Game coach vs. recruiting The probl...

Bishop Guilfoyle High School's football team has already etched its name into the Pennsylvania record books over the past two seasons. Coach Justin Wheeler's Altoona aggregation has captured back-to-back PIAA state class A championships, something unusual in the state annals. Friday, the Marauders have the opportunity for a trifecta, their third title, something even more amazing when they battle Clairton in Hersheypark Stadium on Friday afternoon for the Class A title. BG is also in a unique position in that as a member of the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference (LHAC), the only team from the conference to ever win a state football title, it may no longer be a member of that league come January. On Jan. 11, the LHAC will decide whether to expel the three private Catholic schools, Guilfoyle, Bishop McCort, and Bishop Carroll, and form a new conference made up of only public schools. Most followers believe that the 12-school league will vote to form a new conference by ad...