Still crazy after all these years

… should they ban beer commercials? Market analysts have noted that the Super Bowl ads that are supposed to generate tremendous amounts of revenue for the entertainment organization that provides them were not selling at a great pace for this Super Bowl. Fortune magazine noted that while Fox indicated that 90 percent of the ads were sold out in early December, that usually takes place by September or October, at the latest. Fortune noted, "To have more than a dozen spots available in December suggests that companies are not rushing to advertise." GNC rejection Now, the NFL has rejected an ad less than a week before the game. The NFL certainly has the right to reject ads, but generally, that takes place only when there is a controversy of some kind about the commercial. I have concerns about this for a number of reasons: Why the rejection took place. Why the company was not informed that it could not advertise until it had expended a great deal o...

… is he right?  Last week, I noted that the Steelers should try to trade top receiver Antonio Brown to the Cleveland Browns for their number 1 pick in the 2017 draft. And then draft a QB. Some questioned my sanity. Now, they may be questioning that of Post-Gazette columnist Ron Cook, who also proposes that they trade Brown, albeit for a different rationale. In short, Cook argues that Brown has worn out his welcome with the Steelers and that they cannot afford him under the salary cap. "But the salary-cap issue with Brown is an even bigger concern. The Steelers are going to have to pay big money to keep Le’Veon Bell, presumably by putting their franchise tag on him for next season. They also need to invest heavily in Stephon Tuitt, whose contract expires after next season. I just can’t justify giving a receiver quarterback-like money or even running back-like money. I don’t care how good he is," according to postgazette.com. Brown is in the last year of his contract,...

… he "guaranteed" the win  As a young boy, Joe Namath grew up far from the glitz and glamour of Broadway. The name "Broadway Joe" did not become fashionable until later, a few years after he led his Beaver Falls teammates to the WPIAL crown in 1960. But, just eight years after that triumph, Joe reached the highest pinnacle of his football career when he engineered the greatest upset in Super Bowl history, elevating the American Football League to parity with the National Football League and leading to the eventual merger. That 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts still ranks as one of the greatest games ever played by an underdog. Early years rugged Life was tough in Beaver Falls, a hard-nosed community in Western Pa., located close to the border with Ohio. It was a far cry from the days of the mink coats that Broadway Joe started to wear after he became an icon. His dad was a steelworker, his mother a homemaker, but they divorced and Joe lived with h...

… sad part for Pitt is that Stallings is not going away soon  At one time in the not so distant past, students at Pitt could not wait for a men's basketball game at the Petersen Events Center. They yearned to be on ESPN and compare themselves to the Cameron Crazies at Duke as they cheered on their Panthers. No longer. Today, as the Panthers prepare to face Clemson, the team that is mired in last place in the ACC at 1-6, and is tied with Pitt, Panther Coach Kevin Stallings has his problems. In fact, just a few days ago, the Panthers lost an ACC game to nationally-ranked Louisville by the largest margin in more than a century of Pitt basketball [106-51]. It was the worst loss ever for the Panthers at the Pete, after just establishing that record against Miami a week earlier [72-46]. What made the 55-point loss even worse was that the Panthers lost to Louisville by just five points earlier in January. Publicly lambasted his players However, the loss on Jan. 24 came...

… exactly what video did Zappala and his staff see?  Pittsburgh police have argued that the charges against Pittsburgh Steeler Coach Joey Porter should never have been dismissed by the Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala because the video of the event proves their case. Now, the Citizen Police Review Board (CPRB), an independent, outside organization that investigates possible abuses by the police, agrees with the police contention. While the tapes of the event and arrest have not yet been released because the case is still in the criminal court system, CPRB Executive Director Elizabeth Pittinger was able to view the video, and the Post-Gazette said this about what she said at their Tuesday night meeting. “It’s quite evident that what was contained in the probable cause affidavit submitted by Officer [Paul] Abel was consistent with what I observed in the video,” she said according to the PG. The Newspaper reported that "Ms. Pittinger said the video sho...

... just more drama  Ben is really mad at Todd. Antonio is mad at Ben. Ben is also mad at Artie II. Antionio is made at all his teammates. Ben is mad at Mike. Antonio is mad at Mike, too. Ben is mad at the media. Antonio is mad at the media, too. Ben is so mad that he is threatening to take his ball and go home. Mike is threatening to trade Antonio. Yes, after a humiliating loss to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, raising Tom Brady's record over the Steelers to 10-2, everyone is upset, particularly the biggest salaried people who are paid to avoid such embarrassments. Now, Ben is hammering Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley for his play-calling despite the fact that he has prospered under his system, putting up the best numbers of his career -- up to this year. Ben is still mad at Art Rooney II for firing his buddy, former OC Bruce Arians, despite not having great passing numbers during those years. Antonio is upset with Ben because Ben missed him wide open...

... did not happen after Super Bowl XL  As a former football coach and player, I learned that one of the most important aspects of being a teammate is accepting the mistakes of one player as a mistake that had to be shared by the team. In short, if the special teams allow the opponent to block a punt, everyone on the team has to accept the error as part of their effort. They do not have to like it, but they should not rip the efforts of the other players who made the mistake. In short, the offense should not rip the defense, the line should not rip the backs, the receivers should not rip the quarterback, and so on. Steelers That happened after the Steelers game on Sunday when quarterback Ben Roethlisberger criticized his receivers for dropping passes. He should have been upset with them because those mistakes hurt the team effort, though everyone else was making mistakes, too. Roethlisberger said, "It’s a little frustrating. We talk about how sometime...

Super Bowls: 6, 4 wins -- 8, 6 wins Coaches in Super Bowl: Bellichick 4 wins, Noll 4 wins, Tomlin 1 win Ethics: 0-very high Game Score: 36-17 Touchdowns: 3-2 Passing: 374-314 Interceptions by: 1-0 QB rating: 127-83 Dropped passes: 1-5 Sacks by: 4-2 Top receivers: Hogan 9 for 180, 20/catch, 2 TDs Brown: 7 for 77, 11/catch, 0 TDs Tidbits Brady vs. Steelers:  10-2 Brady vs. Roethlisberger: 6-2 Tomlin's D vs. Brady: 0 interceptions, 6 games "In six games in his career against the Tomlin-led Steelers, Brady has 1,889 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, and no interceptions." USA Today

In football, the team with the better talent usually wins. That was the case Sunday in the Steelers' loss to the Patriots. The Patriots are the best team in the AFC, as difficult as that may be to admit. The two best teams in the NFL are in the Super Bowl. I said during the week that for the Steelers to win, Ben Roethlisberger had to take over the game at the outset and prove that he belongs in the same class as Tom Brady. He did not. I said that the defense had to play their best game of the season. They did not. I said that the Steelers had to play mistake-free football. They did not. That is what happens when a team with less talent plays a team with more. One stat was telling. Roethlisberger finished with a QB rating of 83, while Brady's was 127. That sort of tells the whole story. Other factors You can argue that the Steelers would have won with Le'Veon Bell, but that probably did not matter. You can argue that the Steelers coaches were outsmarted by the Patriots...

In the 1970s, my brother and I attended a Pittsburgh Steelers game against the Cincinnati Bengals. I think that the season was 1977 based on the final score, but I am not certain. Here is what I do remember -- clearly. The starting time was pushed back to 4 p.m. to give them a national audience, so it was a big game. At that time, they had few 4 p.m. games. At that point, the Steelers had already won two Super Bowls, so the roots of Steeler Nation had started to take hold. Event that precipitated this However, in this game, Terry Bradshaw was sacked and lay motionless on the turf. Three Rivers Stadium was suddenly hushed. Except for a group of three or four rowdy Steeler "fans." These guys jumped up and down and cheered when Bradshaw went down. They continued as he lay motionless on the turf. My brother and I -- along with many Steeler fans in that area of the stadium -- were appalled. How could true Steeler fans be cheering an injury to the QB who had led us...

... and Ben has to make them pay for that  The New England Patriots ride into the AFC Championship Game in their home stadium tomorrow on an eight-game winning streak. However, as many writers have noted over the past week, their defense has played against only one top quarterback. That was Russell Wilson of Seattle, who led the Seahawks to a 31-24 victory over the Pats in Foxboro in October. The Patriots defense is ranked first in the NFL in scoring defense, but the lack of a victory against a top QB leaves a question mark in the minds of many people. Here is the list of QBs they have faced during that winning streak with their QB ratings in the game beside it. Colin Kaepernick, 49ers, 90.7 Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jets, 69.6 Jared Goff, Rams, 63.6 Joe Flacco, Ravens, 83.5 Trevor Siemian, Broncos, 84.6 Bryce Petty, Jets, 60.0 Matt Moore, Dolphins, 105.6 Brock Osweiler, Texans, 72.2 SB Nation  In addition, remember that the Pats faced Landry Jones, not Ben...

... serves as inspiration for young defense  James Harrison knows the drill: Big Brother is watching you. In this case, Big Brother is Roger Goodell, the most unpopular and corrupt NFL commissioner in history [see previous Deflategate/Spygate stories]. He will not see the Steeler-Patriots AFC Championship game on Sunday because he is afraid of the abuse that he will take from Patriots fans who are upset over Deflategate. Still, it must really gall him that a player who called him a crook last year is a topic of one of the key media narratives prior to the game. That player is none other that Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker James Harrison, a 38-year-old who battled Goodell last year over allegations that he was taking peformance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Harrison was clean, but it did not matter to Goodell. Anyone who calls the dictator a "crook" should be eliminated in some way, Goodell thought. Did not work that way. Harrison key to defensive resurgence The...

... Steelers desperately need an elite game from Ben Ben Roethlisberger has said a few times that he does not think that he is in the same class as Tom Brady. He said that last September, according to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN: "Tom's the greatest in the world, and I mean that," Roethlisberger said about Brady. Yesterday, he said somewhat the same thing, albeit a little more reserved. When asked about playing the Patriots, he called them the "gold standard." “They’re the best in the world, they’re the gold standard if you will, so you want to have that opportunity to go play the best. It’ll be an awesome challenge for us,” Roethlisberger said, according to the Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette. In a follow-up question, Bouchette said that Roethlisberger was asked if he was in the same class as Brady. "Not yet. Look at all the Super Bowls he has." Note there that he limited it with "not yet." That is very important because he is revealing in his m...

... he was part of the problem, should keep his mouth shut  Why Bill Cowher decided that he had to talk about Spygate this week is beyond me. It was probably because CBS is televising the Sunday game between the Patriots and the Steelers and they need some story lines to try and catch ESPN. What Cowher said was that two of his teams, in 2002 and 2005, lost their AFC Championship games to the Patriots fair and square, not because New England stole Steeler signals [for seven years]. I agree with him to a point. First, Cowher had a terrible record as a post-season coach, losing four out of five AFC championship games on the Steelers own turf. One of them was the 2001 team that was a huge favorite and the players then went on a adolescent-type of spree in which they released their own rap video. They lost that game to the Patriots, 24-17, primarily because of a blocked field goal and a returned punt for a TD. Special teams mistakes reflect on the preparation of the team fo...

... data uses fumble and weather rates to find unbelievable change for Patriots  The Deflategate scandal erupted in 2014, leading to the eventual suspension of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for four games this season. What happened was that the Patriots deflated footballs so that they would have a better chance of completing passes, particularly in the cold weather. While the Patriots and Coach Bill Bellichick denied any nefarious involvement, they are the Patriots. Everyone knows that he pushes the envelope to the extreme on every possible occasion. They fought the NFL through the courts until they lost one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, when they finally quit. Brady was forced to take his four-game suspension as a result. Study about fumbles However, an engineer has demonstrated how advanced analytics and metrics can be used in the analysis of football. He noted that an unusual thing occurred in the NFL with the Patriots starting in 2007. He analyzed two as...

… but Bellichick harboring a murderer like Aaron Hernandez is worse than Brown's video  Ask any football player: What is said in the locker room between a coach and his team is personal, intended only for those special people on that team. That is why what Antonio Brown did in placing Coach Mike Tomlin's post-game talk after the Kansas City victory on Facebook live was such an egregious mistake. At his press conference today, Tomlin called Brown's action "foolish," "selfish," and "inconsiderate," according to the Post-Gazette. It embarrassed the coach and the franchise, and it gave the New England Patriots a stage on which to say that they are better -- character-wise -- than the Steelers. No doubt, many Steeler fans loved the video. Even more Patriot-haters, and they are legion, felt the same way. Yet, it was sleazy and really hurt the Steelers in their quest to take down the Patriots. Roethlisberger on the locker room ...

… in the first and second rounds  Being the general manager of an NFL franchise can be a thankless job. After all, everybody out there can tell you who to draft or who to re-sign or trade for -- the world, it seems, has many free player personnel advisers out there. Then there are jerks who constantly say year-after-year that the team needs a corner, so why not draft one in the first round. Okay, I plead guilty to having done that for five or six years. I am certain that Kevin Colbert does not read my blog because he has ignored my advice for so long. Then, in 2016. I read that Colbert and head Coach Mike Tomlin personally went to the University of Houston to see William Jackson III, a corner, work out. They loved him. Then, on draft day, Jackson was selected one pick before the Steelers by the nasty Bengals. They did this once previously, so there was a history. That left Colbert in a quandary. Draft Artie Burns from the University of Miami who was ranked as a second rounde...