NFL Playoffs - Grandstander Confidence Rankings

The Steelers season came to a merciful end with that 28-10 shellacking that the Ravens junior varsity laid on Rooney U yesterday afternoon.  The game wasn't as close as the score indicated.  Just as well that the dominoes didn't fall the way they needed to to get the Steelers into the Playoffs.  Had they made it, the mighty forces of Duck Hodges and Company would have had to travel to Foxboro next week to play the Patriots, and we all know how THAT always turns out.  In the end, sometimes you just have to shoot the horse to put it out of its misery, and that is exactly what John Harbaugh and has crew did to the Steelers last evening.

A more thorough post-mortem of the 2019 Steelers will appear in this space in the days ahead.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.  In the meantime, all of you who anxiously awaited the weekly unveiling of the Grandstander Power Rankings (GPR)  throughout the season are now about to be treated to subjected to the Grandstander Confidence Rankings (GCR) of the twelve teams set to tee it up in the NFL Playoffs.  Here you go.....

1. Ravens.  Here is a fun fact:  The Baltimore Orioles have lost a game more recently that the Baltimore Ravens.  This team has been unbeatable since October, and Lamar Jackson seems unstoppable.  On to Miami on February 2.
2. Chiefs.  One can only hope for a Jackson-Mahomes match up in the AFC Championship game.  That should be an amazing game.
3. Saints.  Drew Brees on a role.  But for a horrendous non-call in last year's NFC Championship, the Saints may well have won the Super Bowl last year.  They will be playing in it this year.
4. 49'ers.  But for  a James Conner fumble in Week 3, the Steelers would have beaten this team, so I have some reservations, but they have held strong all season long.
5. Packers. This  is a team that hasn't gotten a lot of respect all season, yet here they are, a division champ with a first round bye.  And Aaron Rodgers.
6. Seahawks.  Russell Wilson carved the Steelers up in week 2 like a Thanksgiving turkey, and their overtime win in Week 8 over the 49'ers on MNF might have been the most entertaining game of the season.  I have been bullish on this team all season long, but injuries have caused some stumbles in the closing weeks of the regular season.
7. Patriots.  All season long we have been hearing how this Pats team isn't very good, Tom Brady is a shell of his former self, and the Pats Dynasty is done.  Somehow, they've managed to eek out a 12-4 record and a division title, and only a mystifying loss to Miami yesterday prevented them from securing a first round bye.  Maybe that really aren't what they used to be, but I'm still going to have to see somebody kick them out before I'll bet against them.
8. Bills. Perhaps the surprise team of the year.  A very strong defense will make them a tough team to play in the Playoffs.
9. Vikings.  Gotta be honest here.  I don't have much to say here.  I don't believe that I saw this team play all year, but they went down to the last weekend in the race for the NFC North title, so here they are.
10. Texans.  Deshaun Watson at QB makes these guys exciting to watch.
11. Titans.  It took until Week 17 for these guys to beat out the Steelers for the final playoff spot, so how much faith can you have in them?  Will Ryan Tannehill continue what he has done since being named starting QB?
12. Eagles. The NFC East race this year may have been one of the weakest in recent memory in the NFL.  The Eagles were pretty much dead midway through the season until a complete collapse by the Cowboys allowed 9-7 Philly grab the division title.

The Wildcard Weekend match ups are as follows:

• Bills vs. Texans
• Titans vs. Patriots
• Vikings vs. Saints
• Seahawks vs. Eagles

I'll wait until later in the week to make my predictions, but at first blush I would say that the best looking game of the weekend will be the Vikes-Saints on Sunday afternoon.

Can't wait to get started.

Jets 16 - Steelers 10

Random thoughts on the Steelers woeful loss yesterday to the Woeful Jets......

• That loss effectively ended the Steelers hopes of making the playoffs in 2019.  Yeah, I know that they can still get there, but too many things have to happen for them to nail down that last wild card spot, beginning with them beating the Ravens next week, and do you really think that THAT is going to happen?
• Given the state of the Steelers offense, I'm almost - almost! - glad that they won't be in the Playoffs.  That wasn't going to lead to a pretty ending.

• The Devlin "Duck" Hodges story was a fun one to follow as he was somehow leading the Steelers to victories, but, as I knew was going to happen, the League caught up with the Duck beginning with the Bills last week and continuing with the Jets yesterday.  When you watched Hodges play, you just knew that he just wasn't that good, and now the chickens, or in this case, the ducks, have come home to roost.
• Still, Hodges has some stories to tell for the rest of his life.  There are not a whole lot of people in the universe who have played quarterback and won games in the National Football League, so good for him.
• If you spent a lot of money, or even a little bit of money, on the goofy duck hats and duck suits to sit in the stands at Heinz Field so you can get in television, how silly do you feel today?

• One thing that that game proved to me yesterday was that it is way too early to give up on Mason Rudolph becoming a good NFL quarterback, and possibly even an eventual replacement for Ben Roethlisberger. That pass to Diontae Johnson for a touchdown yesterday was a thing of beauty, and one that Hodges on his best day could not have made.
• I have written many times of James Conner in this Blog.  He is a talented football player, and his story is an inspirational one.  He will always be one of my favorite Pittsburgh athletes, but he has shown that he is unable to stay on the field because of his propensity to injury.  Durability as a skill every bit as much as speed or the ability to catch a pass, and Conner just doesn't have it.  One wonders if all of the chemo and radiation treatments that he had endure five years ago have contributed to his being so susceptible to injury.
• As a result, one of the Steelers top needs in the off season will be drafting or signing a reliable and good running back.
• I wonder what the NFL record is for completed passes that resulted in gains of five yards or less.  Surely, these '19 Steelers have to be challenging for that record.
• After that awful 1-4 start, the Steelers proceeded to win seven of their next eight games  and that made it exciting for a while before reality struck these past two weeks.  In retrospect, however, the Steelers season really ended for all practical purposes at this moment in Week 2 against Seattle when Big Ben went into the locker room in the second quarter with the elbow injury that would end his season.

Because tonight's MNF game between the Packers and Vikings is a game of consequence, the release of the Grandstander Power Rankings will be delayed until tomorrow.

Week 15 GPR and a Ruptured Duck

The Grandstander Power Rankings (GPR) if the NFL Did It Like College Football for Week 15:

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

Knocking at the door.....49'ers, Bills, Packers, Patriots, Vikings.

A bad loss to the Falcons knock the Niners out of the Top Four this week.

There will be one more Top Four GPR following Week 16.  At the conclusion of week 17, the GPR will be replaced  by the GCR, Grandstander Confidence Rankings, wherein all NFL Playoff teams will be ranked from Most Confident, #1, through Least Confident, #12.  The GCR will then be updated following each Playoff round leading up to the Super Bowl.

Bet you can't wait for that, huh?

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Speaking of bad losses, the Steelers 17-10 loss to the Bills on Sunday night was as inevitable as it was disappointing.  Let's face it, the Steelers offense has been doing it with mirrors ever since Ben Roethlisberger (and James Connor and JuJu Smith-Shuster and have I left anyone else out?) have gone down to injuries.  The Devlin "Duck" Hodges story has been a fun one to watch over the last month, but, really, who didn't see that a game like that four interception disaster of Sunday night was due to happen sooner rather than later? There was reason that thirty-two NFL teams didn't draft Duck Hodges.

So now the Who-Should-Play-QB game rears it's head again.   93.7 The Fan is conducting a "Who Should Start Against The Jets, Mason or Duck" poll on Facebook.  Ain't that fun?

Speaking of the Buffalo Bills, they are no fluke.  They came to the attention of most people with that Thanksgiving Day win over Dallas, and that prime time win over the Steelers on Sunday proved that they are a team with whom to be reckoned.  Josh Allen is not a Top Tier quarterback, not yet, anyway, but he is good enough when playing on a team with a Top Tier defense, which the Bills have, to assure that whatever team draws Buffalo in the Playoffs is going to have its hands full.

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Regardless the eventual fate of the 2019 Steelers - and they can still make the Playoffs - one of the most fun things to watch about this year's Steelers has been the play of OLB T.J. Watt.  The Steelers have one of the best defenses in the entire league, and he has been its best player.  He has been a true force on defense, and he is in the discussion for Defensive Player of the Year in the entire NFL.  I can't imagine anyone else as the team's MVP for 2019.

Steelers 20 - Browns 13

In professional sports, all wins and losses count the same in the standings, statistically speaking.  Emotionally, however, it's a different story, and some wins are way, way sweeter than others.  The Steelers 20-13 win over the Browns yesterday was one of those, and we all know the reasons why.  To wit....

• It was the Browns, and it's always great to beat the heated rival from Cleveland.
• Those same Browns acted unbelievable chesty after their 21-7 win against the Steelers two weeks ago, so how great was it to see them humbled by the guy who, when training camp began, was the Steelers undrafted, free agent, training-camp-arm fourth string quarterback?
• The manner in which the Browns owners (Dee Haslam wearing that Myles Garrett stocking cap at last week's game), head coach (Freddie "The Buffoon" Kitchens wearing a "Pittsburgh Started It" t-shirt out in public, and at the Mr. Rogers movie with his family, no less), players (Garrett deciding eight days after the fact that, yeah, Mason Rudolph used a racial slur against him), and fans (the Mason Rudolph pinata in the parking lot last week), it all added up to making the Steelers comeback from a 0-10 deficit and sticking it to that team and all of those folks just so, so sweet
• (Browns owner Jimmy Haslam - Dee is his wife - was at one time a minority owner of the Steelers.  He obviously never learned anything about how to act graciously or how to effectively run a football team in those years that he was hanging around the Steelers' offices on the South Side.)

So the Steelers now sit at 7-5 and hold the sixth and final AFC Playoff spot "if the season ended today."  This is an almost unbelievable state of affairs given all of the circumstances that have surrounded the team this year, first and foremost being the loss of their bound-for-the-HOF quarterback at halftime of the second game of the season.  The Tomlin Haters, inexplicably, are still out there, but he has as strong a case to make for Coach of the Year as any other HC in the NFL this season.

And that fourth string quarterback?  

 Duck Hodges

Devlin "Duck" Hodges has now started two games and won them both.  He also came in relief in another one and pulled victory from the jaws of defeat last week in Cincinnati.  He has now developed a full scale cult following here amongst Steelers fans.  A colorful nickname and an underdog back story can do the for you.  I admit that I had no expectations for neither the team nor Hodges going into that one yesterday, which made the results all the more satisfying.

Of course, the season does not end today, so, what lies ahead for Rooney U?

•  @ Cardinals.  The Steelers should be favored in this one and should come away with a Win.
• Bills @ home.  The Bills are now 9-3 and had a coming out party on national TV against the Cowboys on Thursday.  When the schedule was released in April, this looked like a sure W, but now so much now.  Two terrific defenses going against each other.  Either team could win this one, but the final score might be 10-7 or 9-6.  Bet the "Under" on this one.
• @ Jets.  The Jets stink.  They lost to the Bengals yesterday, for God's sake.  This should be a W.
• @ Ravens.  Unless John Harbaugh decides to rest all his starters for the playoffs, the Steelers aren't going to beat Baltimore.  In fact, the Ravens could very well run the table right up to the Super Bowl in Miami in February.

The Steelers could, conceivably come out of this season at 9-7 or 10-6 and be playing in the Post-Season.  Would you have bet on that when they were at 1-4 with Big Ben out for the season?

Browns 21 - Steelers 7

Not quite 48 hours have passed since the that El Stinko of a Steelers loss to the Browns on Thursday night.  The game itself and its results have been overshadowed by they ugly scene between Myles Garrett and Mason Rudolph that you see above that took place with :08 remaining in the game.  Is there really any further need to elaborate on it and the suspensions that followed in its wake?  The entire affair was best summarized by my pal Dan who said that if the preceding Monday Night game between Seattle and San Francisco embodied all that there is to love about the NFL, the scene at the end of the game on Cleveland on Thursday embodied all that there is to dislike about the NFL.

As to the game itself, it exposed the weaknesses and difficulties facing your 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers, namely....

• Playing with a (essentially) rookie quarterback in Mason Rudolph, who definitely had his worst game as a Steeler. Do you give up on him?  Absolutely not, but becoming a star, or even a very good QB in the NFL is a process, and, except in rare instances, it doesn't happen overnight.
• No running game.  James Conner, after missing two games, reinjured his shoulder and was gone in the first quarter.  Other injuries at the position have reduced the Steelers to playing someone named Tony Brooks-James, who was out of the League three weeks ago.
• Injuries to wide receivers.  Both JuJu Smith-Shuster and Dionte Johnson left the game with concussions, and Rudolph was left having to throw to James Holton and Tevon Jones, another guy who was out of work just two weeks ago.

It was a real mess on Thursday, but are the Steelers done for the season?  Well, unless they can overcome the three bullet point listed above, I suppose so, BUT they are still 5-5 and face the Bengals and the Browns  in the next two weeks.  If they can take care of business in those games and sit at 7-5, who the hell knows where it might lead?  And by the way, I can't wait for that rematch with the Browns, who, despite wins over the Ravens and Steelers this year, are still a bad team.

However, they have to get healthy and they have to be able to run the ball, otherwise, well, you can see where this will all end up.

Steelers 17 - Rams 12

The Steelers beat the Los Angeles Rams (you know, the team that played in the Super Bowl last year) yesterday, 17-12.  The win was attributable in large part to a defensive effort that can be placed on the same page with some of the great performances of the Steelers' Steel Curtain past.

Need I remind you that the Steelers sat at 1-4 a little over a month ago and nobody foresaw that team playing with a back-up quarterback and no running game to speak of would be in such a position five weeks later.  History may well point out that the key to this turnaround came after Week Two when GM Kevin Colbert traded next year's first round draft choice to Miami for second year safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (seen above scoring a touchdown yesterday off of a fumble recovery).  Since then, Fitzpatrick had four interceptions and has scored two touchdowns.  His interception at the end of the game yesterday sealed the victory for the Steelers.  Since his arrival, he has drawn comparisons to Steelers icons Rod Woodson and Troy Polomalu.  He is a legitimate candidate for Defensive Player of the Year in the NFL.

In that same discussion is linebacker T.J. Watt.

Watt's play has been nothing short of astounding with sacks and forced fumbles and the constant pressure he applies to opposing teams quarterbacks.  If I had to vote for a Steelers MVP at this point in the season, it would be a coin-toss decision between Watt and Fitzpatrick.

On the other side of the ball, Mason Rudolph is not making us forget Ben Roethlisberger, not yet anyway, but he does seem to be getting better, and a competent game manager is what the Steelers need most at this point, and Rudolph is filling the bill.  It would help if he had a decent running game (please get healthy, James Conner) and receivers who wouldn't drop passes (four key drops yesterday).  Rudolph did look pretty good during that eight minute fourth quarter drive that led to a field goal yesterday.

Looking ahead, the Steelers could conceivably be favored in their next six games - @ Browns, @ Bengals, Browns, @ Cardinals, Bills, @Jets - leading up to the season finale against the Ravens in Baltimore.  It is unlikely that they will win all six of them and sit at  11-4 on that final Sunday, but would you be surprised to see them at 9-6 and in the hunt for a playoff spot at that point?  Unlike Steelers fans, though, the coaches and players seem to have adopted one-game-at-a-time approach, which is what you they really have to do.

One thing is for sure, though, is that the Steelers have turned this into a very interesting season, and, as I said, who saw that coming after that OT loss to Baltimore on October 6?

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The Steelers honored their past this weekend by celebrating "Steelers Alumni Weekend".  The celebration produced this very interesting team photo.

The Steelers are always looking forward in their approach to winning in the NFL, but it is nice that they celebrate and honor their past as well.  This picture sure denotes the passage of time, but it brings back a lot of great memories, too.

Sports Happenings on Pittsburgh's North Shore

What a few days it has been on the Pittsburgh sports scene, and where do I even begin?  

Let's start with last night's Steelers 27-14 win over the awful Miami Dolphins.

When I got home from the Caring Place last night and turned on the TV, it was early in the second quarter, the Steelers were down 0-14, and Mason Rudolph was standing in his own end zone to take the snap from center.  Things looked grim indeed.  Well, you know what happened next.  The Steelers drove the field and kicked a FG to make it 3-14, and then proceeded to score 24 more unanswered points to win the game 27-14.  Obviously, my presence in front to the tube cheering them on made all the difference.  I will try not to miss any more action in future games.

Mason Rudolph in action last night

Rudolph, playing for the first time since October 10, looked horrible at the start, then he shook off the rust, and performed admirably, I thought, in leading the team over the last two and one half quarters of the game.  He was helped by a strong game from James Conner, and great play from WRs Diontae Johnson and JuJu Smith-Shuster.  Rudolph is still very much a developing work-in-progress, but I see some good things there and am encouraged by how he has performed thus far.

Now the Dolphins, as I said, are truly awful, so a win over them must be kept in context, and at 3-4, the Steelers season thus far has been nothing to brag about, but I take joy in at least these two facts:

1. The Steelers are one game AHEAD of the 2-5 Cleve Brownies in the standings.  You know, the Browns who were everybody's trendy pre-season pick to storm their way to the Super Bowl.
2. Browns cinch-for-the-HOF QB Baker Mayfield has thrown six TD passes thus far this season.  Mason Rudolph has thrown seven.

The season is only half over, and the Steelers and Browns have yet to play each other, so things can certainly change, but for now, at least, those two facts are just delightful.

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The bigger sports news this week, though, has been made by the Pirates. Last week, team president Frank Coonelly and the team agreed to part company. Yesterday, GM Neal Huntington was fired, and Bob Nutting introduced Travis Williams, an executive with the NHL Islanders for the last eight years, and more importantly, a native Pittsburgh who had served for many years as Chief Operating Officer for the Penguins, as the new President of the team.  Nutting, himself, actually met and spoke with the press on the occasion for the first time since Spring Training.

Travis Williams

In the end, Nutting did what Pirates fans had been screaming for - he cleaned house.  Since the end of the season, the manager, general manager, and team president have all been given their walking papers.  The so called "best management team in baseball" is no more.  Nutting also talked the talk and said what many fans have been saying....why haven't we drafted and developed players like other teams have, and why are our players suddenly performing so much better when they go to other teams?  He also tap-danced around questions about payroll and spending money, so we will wait and see if these changes will, in the end, really mean anything.  As one sports writer has said, he did what needed to be done insofar as cleaning house, so he deserves the benefit of the doubt and a fresh start - for now.

Travis Williams certainly brings a good resume as a sports executive to the job. He's not a baseball guy, but the team president doesn't really have to know who should be called upon to get Cody Bellinger or Christian Yelich out with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth.  That's for the GM and the manager and the "baseball people" to figure out.  Williams first order of business will be a huge one: hiring the next GM to steer the ship in the days and years ahead.

One quote from Williams presser yesterday struck me.  Before taking the job, he asked Nutting if he was willing to do "whatever it took" to do things right and win and contend consistently, and Nutting assured him that he would.  Seems that I heard the same quotes from Coonelly and Huntington when they were hired in 2007 and from Hurdle when he was hired in 2011.

Like I said, we'll see.

A word about Frank Coonelly.

Full disclosure: Back in 2009, when I was working for Highmark, I met Frank Coonelly, and we became friends. He is a charming and engaging guy. He never forgets a name or a face once he meets you.  Marilyn and I would run into him at the ballpark, at spring training in Bradenton one year, or even just around town, like at a PNC Bank ATM machine, or the Ace Hardware in Wexford (true stories!), and he always  would take time to chat and engage with you.  Every year in November, I would have lunch with him, and I considered him a personal friend.  Often times at those lunches, the state of the Pirates was the least of what we talked about.  I never wrote about what we discussed during those lunches, and I was always reluctant to be critical of him in all of the many posts I've written about the Pirates over the years.  Hey, I never claimed to be Woodward and Bernstein when I write this blog!

So, as I mentioned to a pal on Facebook when the news of Frank's departure became known last week, I take no joy in this.  I look at it as a friend of mine losing his job, and I feel bad about that.  Not that we need hold a benefit for him.  He will bounce back from this, and I know that he will land in a good spot for him and his family.

Maybe Frank's departure and Williams' hiring will work well for the Pirates.  As a fan, I hope that it absolutely does mean good things for the team, but I am sorry that a friend of mine, Frank Coonelly, will no longer be a part of the process.  I wish him well, whatever he does.

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And while we are talking about sports on the North Shore, how about the Pitt Panthers spitting the bit last Saturday against a not-great Miami team?  After winning five straight games and sitting at 5-2, there was talk that it was certainly possible for Pitt to win their remaining five games, finish at 10-2, maybe getting to the ACC Championship game, and getting a really nice Bowl game for their efforts.  

Then they fail to put the ball in the end zone and lose 16-12 to Miami.  They are now 5-3 with four games left.  They could win all four of them.  A case can be made for that.  It is also possible that they could go 1-3 in those games.  I doubt that they'll lose all four of them, but I wouldn't be totally shocked if that happened either.

As Dan said when we left Heinz Field on Saturday, "I've followed Pitt all my life.  I'm used to this." 

Steelers 27 - Bengals 3

The Grandstander is about to take a brief hiatus and will be off the grid for a couple of weeks, but before I take this leave of absence, a couple of comments, mainly about the Steelers 27-3 trouncing of the Cincinnati Bengals last night.

1. After the bad taste in the mouths of the Steelers and their fans, nothing, and I mean nothing, can serve to cure all ills than having the Bengals pop up on your schedule.   Death, taxes, and unbelievably bad performances by the Cincy Bengals - the three certainties in life.
2. We still can't be sure of what kind of team the Steelers are in 2019, but we know for sure that the Bengals stink to high heaven.  It got to the point where I almost - almost! - felt sorry from Andy Dalton last night.
3. Marvin Lewis, Pacman Jones, and Vontaze Burfict (and are you surprised to see how HE made the news this weekend?) may be gone, but the Bungles still managed to commit two personal fouls in one of the late drives that  the Steelers were having late in the game.  
4. The Steelers designed a very conservative offensive attack last night, short passes to running backs and frequent use of a wildcat formation.  It was very effective against the Bengals, but I'd like to see the coaching staff have a little more confidence in Mason Rudolph and his ability to throw down field.  However, I concede that Mike Tomlin and his staff are far smarter than I am in such matters.

Now to the Pirates.  Jason Mackey had an interesting story in the Post-Gazette this morning about why the Pirates job just may not be one that will attract the best and brightest of either new or old managerial talent.  If you missed it, here it is:

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2019/09/30/Pirates-manager-search-Neal-Huntington-Clint-Hurdle-firing-new-guy/stories/201909300128

It's kind of depressing to read, actually.  It leads me to believe that the job will end up going to either Jeff Bannister or Tom Prince, two life long Pirate "organization men" who are already on the payroll, will come cheap, and will probably agree to cut Neal Huntington's lawn and wash Bob Nutting's car if they could get the job.  (Come to think of it, GMNH is probably already washing Nutting's car, which is probably how he was able to keep his job.)  

In a story published online later this afternoon, Mackey had another story where he interviewed an ex-Pirate who expressed an interest in the job: former catcher Jason Kendall.  

Kendall was a good and sometimes excellent  player for the Bucs in the nine year era that spanned Three Rivers Stadium and PNC Park.  He was also reported to be a clubhouse malcontent and a bully to younger players on the team, and he was known to greet newcomers to the team in the clubhouse by saying "Welcome to Hell."  Yeah, hiring him would present a PR "challenge" to the team, but it would be in keeping with the Pirates ability to continue to screw up a one car funeral.

Still, my money is on one of the two current in house guys, Bannister or Prince.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

Okay, that will do it for the immediate future.  I shall catch up with you all once again in another ten or twelve days or so.  Perhaps my next missive to you will involve a revitalized Pittsburgh Steelers team and a new manager for the Pirates. Or maybe an Absent Friend.  It's been awhile since we've honored one of those.

Later.....

What A Week On The North Shore

Real Life Stuff has kept me away from the keyboard this past week, but before another sports weekend commences, I feel compelled to comment upon the Pittsburgh Sports Week that has just concluded.

The Steelers took a 0-1 record into their home opener against Seattle where they proceeded to serve themselves up as a tasty meal, dessert included, for the Seahawks' Russell Wilson.  More significant to the season than this 28-26 loss, however, was this scene:

Late in the second quarter, Ben Roethlisberger took himself into the Steelers clubhouse to have an injured elbow looked at.  The next day we learned that this was far more than one of the usual run of the mill dings that football players suffer through the course of the season.  The injury would require surgery that will end the season for Big Ben.  

And so the Mason Rudolph Era begins for the Steelers.

Rudolph was drafted in the third round in 2018 as the heir apparent for Roethlisberger.  I'm sure that no one expected or wanted this Era to begin this soon, but here we are.  He acquitted himself fairly well in relief last week (2 TDs and one INT that wasn't his fault), but now he becomes the Steelers starting quarterback.  He set records at Oklahoma State, went toe-to-toe with Baker Mayfield while there, and for two seasons in a row, we in Pittsburgh watched him thoroughly dismantle the Pitt Panthers.  Granted, the Big XII and Pitt aren't the NFL, but the pedigree seems to be there, as do the physical tools.  We'll see what happens.

Rather than bemoaning the loss of their best player and their 0-2 record, the Steelers refused to throw in the towel on the season, and, in fact, doubled down by making a significant trade:  2020's first round draft choice to Miami for second year safety Minkuh Fitzpatrick.  The Steelers addressed what they felt to be a significant need in an effort to get better on defense.  Good for them, and as is the case with their new starting QB, we shall see where it takes them.

We shall also see what this portends for the future of Ben Roethlisberger.  He will be 38 years old when the 2020 season rolls around.  If Rudolph lights it up for the remainder of the year, will Ben automatically be given back his starter's roll?  Will the Steelers even want to do that?  Will future HOF'er Big Ben want to put himself in the position of competing for a job with Rudolph next year?  All the sorts of questions that will guarantee that the popular Pittsburgh soap opera "As The Steelers Turn" will continue into next season.

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Meanwhile, at the other end of General Robinson Street, the Pirates came home from a series in Chicago where they surrendered 47 runs in three games while losing three straight to the Cubs.  It was an historical humiliation.  Things only got worse on Tuesday with the news of Felipe Vazquez' arrest on the horrific charges of sexual misconduct with a thirteen year old girl.  I'm not going to comment on that, because, honestly, what can you say?

No one on the Pirates or in Pirates management can be faulted for the acts Vazquez has been alleged of committing, but it is just one more awful happening to a season that has been marred by awful play on the field and awful blunders on the part of team management.  As Chuck Noll might have put it, the Pirates' problems are many, and they are great, and I seriously doubt that this team and its current management are capable of even addressing these problems, let alone fixing them.

Since Vazquez' arrest, the Pirates have lost four more straight games.  Yet another seven game losing streak.  I don't know what the record is for seven game losing streaks for a team in a season, but this years' Buccos are surely in the hunt for setting it.

Next weekend the team will be honoring Steve Blass, who will be announcing his final games in the Bucs' broadcasting booth.  However you may feel about Blass as an announcer - and, yes, we have all heard his many stories many, many, and perhaps too many times - he has served the Pirates honorably and well as player, World Series star, broadcaster, and good will ambassador for sixty years.  He sure as hell did not deserve a final season like this one.

********

Coming up this weekend:

• The Pirates begin the last eight games of a season that cannot possibly end soon enough
• The Pitt Panthers, and, yeah, I didn't even address that 17-10 loss to Penn State and HCPN's questionable in game decisions - take on Central Florida at Heinz Field.  It might not be pretty for the home team.
• The Steelers and their second year QB travel the San Francisco to take on the surprisingly 2-0 49er's.  Again, it might not be pretty for Rooney U.

The Steelers Get Humiliated....and Some Pirates News!

A familiar sight - 

Donte Moncrief flat on the ground 

after failing to catch yet another pass 

against New England last night.

There is not much that can be said about that 33-3 humiliation that the New England Patriots laid on the Steelers last night.  Professional sports can be astounding in the sense that a team can point to a single occurrence - in this case, the Steelers season opener against the Pats - prepare for it for months, and then come out so flat and listless that it appears that they had no interest in playing at all, and are never in the game from the opening kick/pitch/tip-off.  This happens a lot in sports, and it always just astounds me when it does.  As one of the oldest cliches in the book says, that's why you play the games.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll just recap some comments that I made on The Facebook last night while watching the game:

• If the Steelers of the Tomlin/Roethlisberger ever played a worse game than last night, I cannot remember it.
• Based on what we saw last night, I would guess  that opposing teams defensive coordinators will game plan against the Steelers as follows:  "Let them throw to Donte Moncrief and Ryan Switzer all game long, and we'll take our chances."
• It was early in the second quarter, and I felt like I was watching  Pirates game.
• I cannot come up with a single solitary positive thought or comment on the Steelers performance last night.
• As a Steelers fan, one of the worst aspects of the ass-kicking they received from New England is that it will lessen the opportunity to gloat about the Browns and the ass-kicking that THEY received at the hands of the Titans yesterday.
• How about old goat Bob Kraft down there on the field pre-game parading that Lombardi Trophy.  The guy has absolutely no sense of shame does he?
• On the bright side, this week's episode of Pittsburgh Dad should be positively epic!

Oh, and speaking of the Pirates, lost amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Steelers debacle, this headline was buried at the bottom of Page 8 of the Post-Gazette sports pages this morning:

FEW CHANGES EXPECTED FOR 2020 SEASON

Some quotes from the story written by Jason Mackey:

"The way general manager Neal Huntington put it Sunday, It doesn't sound as if there will be many changes to the Pirates for next season."

And...

"Huntington's comments painted the picture that, unless something dramatic happens here, the Pirates might be coming back with pretty close to this existing group."

As is the case for last night's Steelers game, I can't quite find the words to respond to THAT either.  Those comments  ought to help sell a lot of season tickets this coming off season.

Sunday Morning Quick Hits.....

Pitt gets into the win column with a (as Myron Cope used to put it) desultory 20-10 win over Ohio University.  A win is a win, and Pitt surely needed one as they figure to be big underdogs the next two weeks.  However, on the entertainment meter, that game yesterday at Heinz Field scored pretty low.

On the plus side, the Ohio University marching band, The Marching 110, was terrific!  Really.

*******

One of the reasons for that could be due to the fact that the Pitt game was totally hijacked by the news, delivered via social media on everybody's cell phones, of the release by the Oakland Raiders of that well known Steelers former WR, Antonio BrowNarcissist. That news completely inundated the crowd at Heinz Field and completely sucked all of the air out of the game being contested between Pitt and OU on the field. 

It was, everyone agreed, a completely remarkable turn of events.

********

But however crazy those turn of events were, they were, incredibly, topped only a few hours later when now free agent BrowNarcissist was signed by none other than the New England Patriots. 

I don't want to go all Oliver Stone here, but it stretches all credulity to think that there WASN'T any tampering and hinky doings going on behind he scenes among BrowNarcissist, his sleazy agent, Drew Rosenhaus, and, of course, the evil empire of Bob "Happy Endings" Kraft and Bill Belichick.  Surely the Commissioner's Office needs to look into the machinations that went into this farce.

And now tomorrow's highly anticipated nationally televised Sunday Night opener between the Steelers and the Patriots will be hijacked by constant close-ups of BrowNarcissist standing on the New England sidelines with all of his new best buds on the Patriots.  It'll be sickening.  

Of course, if the Steelers can only manage to beat the Patriots......well, how sweet would THAT be?

We're Ready for Some Football!

With a baseball season that has been the dumper, Pittsburgh-wise, for over six weeks, and after a weekend that force fed us college football games over a five day weekend and included a turd-in-the-punchbowl performance by the Pitt Panthers, we can all look forward to the debut this week of the lead dog in all of American professional sports (and yes, I am lumping big time college football and basketball as "professional"), the (imagine a Howard Cosellian voice here) National...Football...League.

Or maybe just listen to this....

In any event, the NFL opens its 100th season....

...this coming Thursday night with the Packers and Bears rivalry, and, more importantly from a local standpoint, on Sunday night when the Steelers take on the Patriots in Foxboro.  One can only hope that that game brings us scenes like this....

...which will lead to a sour puss scene like this....

But more on the Steelers in a minute.

This season I will be making weekly posts of the Grandstander Power Rankings (GPR) for the NFL.  This will rank the top four NFL teams in the same fashion that college football ranks its Top Four every week leading up to the College Football Playoffs.   I did this on Facebook last year to an underwhelming reception, so I figure that perhaps doing it in this space will lend it a bit more gravitas.  Who knows?

Anyway, I don't intend to release the initial GPR  until at least four weeks into the NFL season, so you will have to remain on the edge of your seats until then.  However, I  just can't resist giving it a bit of a go right now, so, herewith, The Pre-Season NFL GPR:

1. PATRIOTS. Yep, gotta go with Coach Bill and the Golden Boy until  someone proves to be better or they show some signs of slippage.  However, no matter how the team does on the field, the big question is....Will owner Bob Kraft still be able to manage a Happy Ending for himself every week?
2. CHIEFS. They have Patrick Mahomes.  What more can I say?
3. RAMS.  When last seen, the Rams and especially their young QB Jerrod Goff looked totally outmatched in the Super Bowl by the Patriots, but note this:  They WERE playing in the Super Bowl, and thirty other teams were not, so I still like them going not the season.
4. BEARS.  Strong defense and a dynamic young QB in Mitch Trubisky.  They're as good as any other team to place in here as the season begins.  In all honesty, though, I hope that they do not stay here throughout the season because if they do, Michael Wilbon will be positively insufferable.

Teams knocking on the door to crack the Top Four.....Chargers, Saints, Steelers, and Vikings.

From those eight teams, at least one of the Super Bowl participants will emerge.  You heard it here first.

Now, as to the local squad, I am very optimistic about the Steelers as they head into the season.  The distractions that totally overtook this team last season - and I don't have to mention their names, do I? - are gone.  The coaches and the players seem totally focused on one goal this season, and a real sense of TEAM seems to have permeated the team throughout training camp and the exhibition season.   And to whatever extent you can place your projections on exhibition games, the team, particularly the defense, seems to be better  going into 2019 the they were when they ended 2018.

I'll make no predictions of a Super Bowl win for the Steelers, although did place a $10 bet at 22-1 odds on them to do just that at the Rivers a few weeks ago, but I will predict this:  The Pittsburgh Steelers will win the AFC North Division championship this year.  

You know what that means, right? It means that the Cleveland Browns, the trendy and fashionable pick to win, not only their division, but to go all the way to the Super Bowl, will still finish the season looking up at the Steelers.  I grant that they are no longer the 1-31 team of 2016-17, and that they do have talent, but until I actually see them do it, see them beat teams, and beat the Steelers of Tomlin and Roethlisberger in particular, I am not ready to throw  full belief into them.  Baker Mayfield is an intriguing talent, but he ain't Otto Graham, and maybe not even Brian Sipe, just yet.

And speaking of the Browns, how would you like to be their first year coach Freddie Kitchens?  The hype is so great for them and the expectations are so high, if they don't come out and go 14-2, that goofball owner Jimmy Haslam, not to mention the rabid denizens of the Dawg Pound, will probably want him tarred and feathered and run into Lake Erie on a rail.  Talk about pressure.  I grant you that, unlike in past years, the Steelers can't just pencil in a 2-0 record against the Browns this year, but just how delicious will it be to watch the reaction in Cleveland if the Browns still manage to lose twice to the Steelers this year?

Speaking of wagers, my Maine resident and New England Patriot fan cousin, Jan Spencer and I have renewed our friendly wager on this week's Steelers-Pats game.  Look for a picture late Sunday night or early Monday morning on Facebook when one of us has to pay off on the bet.  Just to begin on a good note, here was Jan shortly after the Steelers 17-10 win over New England last December:

She did have the last laugh when the Super Bowl confetti fell, though.

It all starts on Thursday night, and I can't wait.

#herewegoSteelersherewego