Great Season Comes to Disappointing End

As yesterday's Steelers-Broncos game entered the fourth quarter, I said to myself, "The Steelers are missing Le'Veon Bell and DeAngelo Williams a lot more than they are missing Antonio Brown today."  Of course, you know what happened shortly thereafter.  Fitzgerald Toussaint made a critical fumble as the Steelers appeared to be mounting a drive that, had it led to a touchdown, would have pretty much wrapped up the game.  

You know how in baseball, you often times might run into a well-past-his-prime pitcher, who somehow managed to beat you by, to use the hallowed cliches that I love so much, being  "crafty" and getting by on "guts and guile"?  Well, after Denver recovered that fumble, that is what Peyton Manning turned into.  Manning spent most of the game looking like a shell of his once great self, but when it counted the most, he became, well, Peyton Manning, and he delivered the goods for Denver when it counted the most.

I'm not going to give a painful recounting of the game.  If you care enough to be reading this, you already know.  I will say, though, that for the most part of this 2015 season, the Steelers delivered the goods for us fans.  We all know about the injuries that they had to overcome.  Who among us, while watching Ben Roethlisberger being carted off the field early in the season with that injured foot possibly imagined that we would be watching the team playing deep into January?  Did you think, early on, that we would be praising the work done by the Steelers defense, particularly the line and the linebackers (admittedly, help is needed in the defensive backfield)?

Speaking for myself, I will take a lot of pleasant memories from this 2015 version of the team.  They were far from perfect, but in the end, they were pretty damn good.

Football Follies

Well, there is not much to be said about that steaming road apple that the Steelers left on the turf at Whatever the Name of the Stadium in Baltimore Is.  Wow, what a mess.  The Hated Ravens surely stink this year, but they can take great satisfaction, I'm sure, in the knowledge that their TWO wins over the Steelers surely knocked their arch-rival out of the NFL Playoff picture for 2015.  This game continued a disturbing trend of the Steelers over the last few seasons of losing to teams that, record-wise, at least, are clearly inferior to them.

And while the Yinzers of Steelers Nation are screaming for Mike Tomlin's head because of his decision to eschew a field goal attempt early in the first quarter, my ire is more towards the officials and the NFL Rule Book that decreed that Antonio Brown's second quarter touchdown catch was, somehow, NOT a catch.  Mike Carey and the NFL punjabs can blather all they want about "control' of a ball, but it is all so much boosh-wa.  Brown's feet came down in bounds and he CAUGHT THE BALL!!!

However, regardless of Tomlin's decision, and the officials' ruling on Brown's catch, I doubt that either would have made a difference what with the way the Steelers played on both sides of the ball yesterday.

The Steelers can still make the playoffs, but they can't do it alone.  They will need help form other teams to do so, and that have only themselves to blame.

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On a brighter note, I look forward to watching Pitt take on Navy later this afternoon in the Military Bowl.  Navy is a ranked team, and a Pitt win victory today would put a nice cherry on top of what by almost any measure has been a successful first season for Head Coach Pat Narduzzi's Panthers.

Fingers crossed, and Let's Go Pitt!!!

Football, Baseball, and Movies

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

• The Steelers fell behind the Denver Broncos 27-10 in the first half today, and it looked like you could kiss all playoff hopes good-by.  They then proceeded to reel off 24 straight points, 21 of them in the second half, and defeated the Broncos 34-27.  It was an amazing victory, considering that a Steelers defense that resembled well-aged Swiss cheese in the first half, then came out like Vintage Steel Curtain Steelers and completely shut down the Bronco Yonkos.  Simply an amazing performance.
• And despite an inexplicable brain cramp late in the fourth quarter after the Steelers finally took the lead, all credit goes to this guy:

• Ben Roethlisberger put on yet another incredible performance teaming up with the triumvirate of Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, and Marcus Wheaton.  
• Two years ago I called Hines Ward the greatest Steelers wide receiver ever, but Antonio Brown is really pushing him for that title.
• It will soon be time for the Pittsbugh Post-Gazette to select the annual Dapper Dan Sportsman of the Year Award.  I see four viable candidates for the award this year: Gerrit Cole, Pat Narduzzi, Antonio Brown, and Ben Roethlisberger.  My vote, if I had one, goes to Big Ben.  

• Quote from my friend Dan Bonk from earlier in the week: "To this point I don't think the Pirates could have designed an off season to produce less excitement if they tried. Talk about an anti buzz."
• That about sums up an off season where the Pirates released their leading home run hitter, traded one of there most popular players, who also happens to be a good to very good player, brought in a couple of guys named Joe, still haven't found a lefty first baseman to platoon with Michael Morse, and, in a flourishing move to close out the pre-Christmas merriment, signed free agent pitcher Ryan Vogelsong.  Yep, you read that right. After a nine year sojourn, Ryan Vogelsong is back in a Pirates uniform.
• Still seeking left-handed help in the bullpen, can the returns of Zach Duke and/or Oliver Perez far behind?
• And while all this was going on, the division rival Cubs were signing John Lackey, David Price, and Jason Heyward.
• I keep telling myself that the Pirates don't have to play any games that matter until April, but the more I say it, the more it sounds like whistling while walking past a graveyard.
• Speaking of baseball, Commissioner Rob Manfred was in the news this week when he announced that he would not be lifting the lifetime ban that has been in effect since 1989 on, well, You Know Who.  I'm not going to type his name.  Good for Manfred, and if there is any doubt that the Hit King was completely clueless about his situation, it was dispelled quickly in his pathetic press conference the next day.
• Went to the movies this afternoon.  No, not to see "The Force Awakens", but rather to see this terrific little movie:

• The movie tells the wonderful story about a young Irish girl who emigrates to America, to Brooklyn, NY, in 1952.  How she adapts, finds a job, falls in love, and has to return to Ireland for family reasons is the story of this movie.  No spectacular visual effects, no violence, no Storm Troopers, no comic book heroes in this one.  Just a sweet and beautifully told story.  Mrs. Grandstander and I highly recommend it.
• It was funny walking through the lobby of the multi-plex amid the frenzied mobs of Star Wars fans.
• Christmas movies that we have watched over the last few days: "A Christmas Story", "The Family Stone", "The Gathering", and "Love Actually".  Traditions.
• On the subject of old movies, yesterday afternoon I watched Stanley Kramer's 1963 comedy "It's  Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".  A crazy, silly slapstick farce with a cast of thousands and several laugh out loud moments.  The scene where Jonathon Winters destroys a gas station run by Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang was totally ridiculous and totally hilarious.

Sunday Morning Sporting Thoughts.....

The big news in Pittsburgh sports today will be the return of this guy to the playing field:

(Photo courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers)

The Steelers managed to go 2-2 in Ben Roethlisberger's absence, which is better than many of us had hoped, to be perfectly honest.  Here's hoping that Ben won't be too rusty today as the the Steelers take on the 6-0 Cincy Bengals today in a key AFC North match-up.  Let's face it, based on that defensive performance against the Chiefs last week, the team is going to need Roethlisberger at the top of his game from here on out.

The other thing the Steelers have going for them is that today's opponent is the Cincy Bengals.  Yeah, I know that they are undefeated, but there is always the possibility that they will revert being the, well, the Cincy Bengals.

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That was a tough loss that Pitt suffered at the hands of North Carolina this past Thursday night.  North Carolina was clearly a better team than Pitt, so that 26-19 result was probably a just one.  Still, one can look at how Pitt made adjustments and played a better second half.  The coaches seem to know what to do to make in-game adjustments, and the players are clearly buying into it.  That's a good sign.  Also, one wonders what might have been had two UNC fumbles been recovered by Pitt when they occurred, but they weren't, so it's time to move on.

Pitt now faces two straight games where they figure to be underdogs, home with Notre Dame and at Duke, before finishing up with home games with Louisville and Miami.  would be nice to see the Panthers split those remaining games and end up at 8-4 (and what Pitt fan would not have signed on for that at the beginning of the year?), but it's not going to be easy.  Still, I wouldn't discount what this team might be able to do in these remaining four games.

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Speaking of college football, let me highly recommend this book to you:

Check out the subtitle: "A Journey Through the Big Money Culture of College Football."  There's nothing in here that any serious fan didn't know or at least suspect, but Gilbert Gaul, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, has put together a well researched and well written book about this topic. Delving into this topic oft-times makes you want to take a shower, but as I have stated before, I buy the tickets, and I watch the games on TV, so I am a part of the problem, too.

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So, Steven Matz did his job last night, as did Michael Conforto, and the New York Mets were five outs away from evening the World Series at two game apiece.  What followed is what makes baseball such a great game: two Tyler Clippard walks, a Daniel Murphy error, and a seeing-eye single by Salvador Perez, and BOOM!, the Royals are now firmly in control of this Series after a 5-3 win has given them a three games to one advantage over the Mets.  You can't take a knee in baseball.  You've got to get all twenty-seven outs.

Too bad for the Mets, but good for the Royals, who are clearly the better team insofar as the everyday eight man lineup is concerned.  Still, the Mets send Matt Harvey to the mound and momentum is the next game's stating pitcher blah blah blah, so we'll see.  Other teams have overcome being down 3-1, but the Mets are clearly rolling that rock uphill right now.

And by the way, while most of the country was probably watching the Notre Dame-Temple football game last night, they really missed a pretty darn good baseball game, even if you had to listen to Harold Reynolds in the broadcast booth.  Man, he's bad.  And on the subject of the announcers, I was pre-disposed to not like Alex Rodriguez as an analyst, but in the in-game spots that he has done, he has been pretty good.  He is well prepared and at times he seems to want to force every factoid that he has into his comments, but, all in all, I've enjoyed what he's had to say.

Romancing the Jones

Quite a big football weekend here in Pittsburgh, but let's start out with what might have been the biggest surprise of the season thus far.

STEELERS 25 - CARDINALS 13

That the Steelers defeated the Cardinals yesterday was surprise enough.  That they did it behind the quarterbacking of Landry Jones was downright amazing.  You know the story by now: an ineffective Mike Vick was injured in the third quarter, replaced by Jones, playing in his very first regular season action after three years as the third team QB, who then proceeded to lead the Steelers on two field goal and two touchdown drives, and a 25-13 win over the favored Arizona Cardinals.  To say that this was shocking is an understatement, but the Ben-less Steelers now sit at 4-2.  Amazing.

Some observations:

• It was thought by many, including Yours Truly, that the defense of the Steelers would be its undoing in 2015, but, amazingly, the defense has played surprisingly well.  True, they did surrender about a zillion yards to Carson Palmer and the Cardinals offense, but all that the Cards could do with those zillion yards was score one TD and two FG's.
• And it needs to be noted that coming into this game, the Cardinal's 38 ppg scoring average was the highest in the NFL.
• Forcing four turnovers can have that effect on a team.
• Speaking of turnovers, the Steelers have forced eleven of them in six games thus far.  In all of 2014, they only produced 21 of them.
• Antonio Brown needs to shut up, stop hectoring his QB on the sidelines, and be more concerned with how his team can win a ballgame, as opposed to how he can pad his stats.
• The Steelers threw only seven passes in the first half with Vick at quarterback.  Have Vick's skills as a QB eroded to such a degree that the Steelers cannot trust him to open it up and pass freely?  If so, why did they sign him as a back-up QB in the first place?
• I didn't listen to any of the post-game call-in shows, but tell me, how long did it take for some Yinzer to call in and suggest that the Steelers now trade Ben Roethlisberger, while his value is high, and install Jones as the #1 QB?  I'll bet it didn't take more than thirty minutes.
• Kuddos to Facebook friend Dave Glass for being the first to observe that we might have seen the "Wally Pipp-ing" of Michael Vick yesterday by Landry Jones.
• While legions of Steelers loyalists probably hated it, I kind of got a kick out of Troy Aikman verbally slipping and referring to the Steelers QB as "Tom Landry".  Perfectly understandable mistake.
• Speaking of Aikman, that Miller Lite commercial of him buying beer at the convenience store is quite good.

But let's not allow that Steelers win to overshadow this one...

PITT 31 - GEORGIA TECH 28

In the excitement of an unexpected Steelers win, let's not lose sight of what I feel to be a really, really nice win for the Pitt Panthers on the road against Georgia Tech on Saturday.  It was wildly entertaining game, that was eventually decided by Chris Blewitt's 56 yard field goal, the longest field goal in Pitt history (that that, Freddy Cox!).  Memories of the beatdown that Tech put on Pitt at Heinz field last year (and really, the beat down that Pitt put on itself in that game with those six fumbles), made this one especially sweet.

What I liked best about this game was this.  With the score 21-21 at the half, and Tech scoring on and making big plays against Pitt, Pat Narduzzi gave the usual coach-speak blather to the on field reporter about how "we need to make some adjustments on defense", and guess what?  Pitt really DID make those adjustments, and held Tech to only seven points in the second half.  Seeing something like that really happening before your eyes is really encouraging if you are  a PItt fan.

So, Pitt now sits at 5-1 and has cracked the Top 25 for the first time since 2010.  The schedule is going to start to get tougher with Syracuse on the road, and then North Carolina and Notre Dame at Heinz Field in the next there weeks, but it is hard not to start getting excited about we are seeing out of Pat Narduzzi and his Panthers this season.

As I said, a nice weekend for Pittsburgh football fans, although the Penn State and West Virginia fans in the tri-state area can't be real pleased about how their favorite teams fared this weekend.  I'll just let it go at that.

Ravens 23 - Steelers 20; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well, if you care at all about it, you already know what happened at Heinz Field last night, so let's just break it down as follows:

The Good

• The Steelers defense was going to be the downfall of the team this year, everybody said, but since being torched by Brady and the Pats in Week 1, that unit has turned in three very respectful performances.   Granted, the 49'ers, Rams, and Ravens may turn out to be bad teams, but you can only play the teams the schedule puts out in front of you.
• Le'Veon Bell is back and appears to be as good or better than ever.
• At least it didn't rain and turn the Heinz Field turf into a quagmire that would have been an embarrassment on national television.

The Bad

• The offensive playbook seemed to have been dumbed-down for new QB Mike Vick, but why?  It seemed like the Steelers were afraid to let Vick even try to throw down field.  As a result, we got a lot of screen passes that gained six yards in third-and-eight-type situations.  Is it because....
• ...Vick just isn't any good anymore?  Time was, Vick was an all-pro QB who could run, and, just as importantly, sling the ball all over the place.  Vick is only two years older than Ben Roethlisberger, and three years younger than Tom Brady, so I am guessing that there ability is still in there, so the Steelers offensive game planners may need to let him loosen up a bit.  
• Or, perhaps I'm wrong on that, and Vick really is over the hill, in which case, that Big Ben injury really is going to take down this whole season for the Steelers.

The Ugly

• Do I really have to say it?  All I'm thinking is that Kevin Colbert has been on the phone all day looking up out of work place kickers.
• Because of Josh Scobee's performance, I will NOT criticize Mike Tomlin for going for first down in the overtime.  I wouldn't have either.  
• If I will be critical of Tomlin, it will be for attempting a FG on fourth and four near the end of regulation after Scobee missed a FG attempt earlier.  (A) The Steelers might have made the first down, which would have clinched the game, (B) even if they didn't make it, it would have bled some time off the clock, and (C) it would have caused Baltimore to start seven yards deeper than they did after the missed FG; those yards could have made a big difference.

I will close it out with this meme seen on Facebook this morning, which I thought was pretty funny: