Some Football Thoughts......

Some pigskin thoughts....

• The Steelers season came to a practical end with that loss to the Dolphins on Sunday, although the NFL PR machine will still churn out the fact that they are still mathematically in the hunt.  
• The Steelers of 2013 are most certainly not a very good team, but you can't say that their games have not been entertaining.  You've got to give them credit for that.
• In trying to find some positives, I will say that Le'Veon Bell looks like he will be a good to quite good NFL running back, that Cameron Heyward is starting to look like he was worth that first round pick, and that Ben Roethlisberger remains an elite NFL quarterback.
• In the comments made by readers to Bob Smizik's blog post following Sunday's game, a reader stated that he "will never forgive" Antonio Brown for stepping out of bounds on that final wacky play of the game.  I feel sorry for a person like that.  He must have a pretty empty life.
• In the beginning of the season, I said that the Steelers would be somewhere in the range of a 7-9 to 9-7 team.  At 5-8 with three to play against the Bengals, Packers and Browns, I'm thinking 7-9 would be an achievement at this point.
• End zone dances and celebrations after touchdowns by players don't usually bother me, but I can do without the histrionics after a routine first down.
• Pitt is going to the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl in Detroit on December 26 against Bowling Green.  It's easy to make fun of this, but what the hell?  As friend John Kraemer noted recently on the Facebook W. PA Football Huddle page, since the only "meaningful" bowl game will be the BCS Title game between Auburn and Florida State, then every other bowl game played, even the biggies on New Year's Day, are every bit as "meaningless" as is Pitt's contest with BG.  So enjoy the game if you are so inclined.  No one is forcing anyone to watch a single one of these contests.
• However, spare me the rhetoric of the importance of the extra fifteen practice sessions that schools gain by playing in a Bowl Game.  This will be the sixth year in a row that Pitt has had these fifteen extra practices and they have enabled them to put together two back-to-back 6-6 seasons.
• When I was a high school student, the Catholic High Schools did not belong to the WPIAL or PIAA.  They competed in a Catholic League.  Well, the number of Catholic Schools have diminished, and schools such as one time fierce rivals Central Catholic and North Catholic compete on different levels in the WPIAL and do not play each other any more.  I think that that is a shame, but I know that I am in the minority on that.  In any event, both Central and North will be playing for State Championship football titles this weekend in Hershey, so good luck to them both.  It allows some of us old-timers to reflect upon the old days of the Catholic League.