The Knives Are Out

With the conclusion of the NFL exhibition season and the opening of the college football season, the knives came out this morning and are carving up the two Head Coaches here in town.

First Mike Tomlin. The injury to Byron Leftwich in the final game is apparently the Coach's fault. Not sure how Tomlin could have prevented it, but I guess that is another question. Now the Steelers are faced with choosing between Dennis Dixon and Charlie Batch. More to the point, Coach Mike is being faulted for how he apportioned the "reps" among his four QB's during training camp. ("Reps" now being the most overused term in sports these days.) He gave Ben too many reps; he didn't give Batch any reps at all; he didn't get it right in allotting reps between Leftwich and Dixon. Any way you look at it, Tomlin totally mucked up the whole deal and he probably should be fired because of it. OK, that's an extreme position, but I guarantee that someone will call a talk show today and make that suggestion. As for me, I tend to think that Mike Tomlin knows more about these things than any of the people who pontificate on such things, so I will trust that he makes the right choice. Does this mean that he will? Of course not. It may well be that he mishandled the whole QB deal, but I suggest that we see how it plays out.

Having said that, I will offer my two cents worth on the topic. If you think you have a team that can make a run at the playoffs and a Super Bowl, then you need to go with your best option of treading water until Roethlisberger gets back, and that option would be the experienced option, which is Charlie Batch, and hope you can go 3-1 0r 2-2 during Ben's absence.

By the way, if you really want to lay blame on this whole situation, you might want to start with Roethlisberger. His choices, decisions, and actions last spring in Georgia is what brought about this whole deal.

Also, the Steelers will apparently need a third warm body to play QB in practices now that the team is, apparently, down to two QB's for at least the first four weeks. I would suggest that calls go out to the following guys to report to the South Side for candidates for this important position:
Kordell Stewart, Tommy Maddox, Terry Hanratty, Terry Bradshaw, Kent Nix, Jim Miller, Bob Leahy, Bobby Layne, and Ed Brown, even though the last two guys are dead.

Now, the Pitt loss to Utah. The Dave Wannstadt haters will be out in force today. Now, while I am a football fan, I am not a football coach, and I would no idea how to be one, BUT I will ask a question: When it became apparent that Utah was, if not stopping, but at least containing, Dion Lewis, why did it take until the fourth quarter to start opening up the passing game? For three quarters, I was wondering why was Tino Sunseri playing QB if the coaches obviously didn't want him to throw the football, even with one of the best wide receivers in the nation lining up for you? As the fourth quarter showed, Sunseri can throw so it looks like he will be okay in there.

For all of that, Pitt did stage a nice comeback, and forced a ranked team into OT on the road. I don't think that a 24-21 loss to Utah in the first game of the season spell disaster for the Panthers. The prize for them will be winning the Big East.

Finally, some rule should be put in place to prevent coaches from calling times out just as ball is about to be snapped for a field goal attempt. Why don't we all just concede that football coaches are the smartest people on earth so that they no longer need to do such aggravating things to demonstrate it to us.