The Week 13 GPR , plus Pirates and Pitt Thoughts

As you have all no doubt been on the edge of your seats awaiting this, here are the Grandstander Power Rankings for the NFL after Week #13:

1. Ravens
2. Seahawks
3. Saints
4. 49'ers

Knocking at the door....Bills, Chiefs, Packers, Patriots, Vikings.

No change in the Top Four teams from last week, but the Saints and 49'ers swapped places.  I wanted to put the Steelers as a team "knocking at the door", but I'm just not ready to do that quite yet.  If I was going on defense alone, they might be in the Top Four.

My pal John Frissora has his FGE top four as follows:

1. Saints
2. Ravens
3. Seahawks
4. Patriots

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The Pittsburgh Pirates were in the news last week with the announcement that Derek Shelton will be their new manager.

In a manner that was so typically Pirates-like, they made this announcement on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving when most people, if they were thinking about sports at all, they were thinking about football, and they did it via a press release, and Shelton wasn't even here in town for the announcement.  

Way to get the maximum publicity bang for the buck, Bucs.  Why didn't they just wait until Christmas morning to make the announcement?

Shelton will be formally introduced to the media and to Pittsburgh at a presser on Wednesday (tomorrow) of this week.

Shelton spent the last two years as bench coach of the Twins and, prior to that, was the hitting coach of the Rays for several years.  He combines, according to the press release, both old school baseball knowledge and familiarity with new age analytics/metrics 21st century baseball acumen.  Personally, I am glad the the Pirates went outside of the box and brought in a new face and not some retread who has been hired-and-fired by several teams (Jeff Bannister, e.g.).  Is he the right guy for the Pirates?  Who knows?  

The former Best Management Team In Baseball has now been overhauled and replaced and the BMTIB 2.0 (Williams, Cherington, Shelton) is now on board, but Bob Nutting is still the guy steering the ship and controlling the purse strings.  One thing that the Nutting Administration has done is make me a complete and total cynic when it comes to the performance of the Pirates.  I hate that this is what they have turned me into, but there you are.  I hope, I really, really hope for good things ahead for the Pirates, but I am no longer accepting anything from 115 Federal Street on blind faith.  They've got to show it to me.

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Pitt ended it's 2019 football season by laying two colossal eggs, a 28-0 did-they-even-show-up? loss at Virginia Tech (when a chance for the division title was still there) and a 26-19 loss to Boston College at home on Senior Day. They finish the season at 7-5 with some nondescript to-be-announced bowl game ahead of them.

This is the year-by-year W-L record for Pitt in the Pat Narduzzi Era...8-5, 8-5, 5-7, 7-7, 7-5 = 35-29 (.555).  In ACC play, they have fared slightly better under HCPN...6-2, 5-3, 3-5, 6-3, 4-4 = 24-17 (.585).  

They have won more games than they have lost, they have more often than not put an entertaining product on the field, and there was that ACC Championship game appearance last year, but... Yes, there is always a "but", and it was posed by Joe Starkey and Ron Cook on The Fan yesterday, and that is..."Has the Pitt program improved or moved forward under the HCPN regime?"

I guess it all comes down to what you want your University and its athletic teams to be.   I wonder if even the staunchest Panthers Fanatic out there would like his or her University to surrender its soul to the likes of Nick Saben or Urban Meyer and all that that entails just to have a string of double digit wins seasons.  Be careful what you wish for.

And bring on the Mienecke Car Care Pizza Pizza Weedeater Bowl!