This poll is a little longer than some others, and for good reason. The run up to this game was all about the Steelers breaking the curse of losing AFC Championship games at home. Curse broken. Ben hooked up with Santonio Holmes off of a broken play for a 66-yard touchdown and the defense took care of business. AFC Champs.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
2009 NCAA Tournament Challenge
It's that wonderful time of year again.
Everyone have their brackets ready?
So why not enter in another one and see how your college basketball knowledge stacks up against us!
Hey, we run a football blog, we're not going to claim to be experts, but it'll be fun!
If you're interested, go HERE
Group ID: 168535
Password: pittsburgh
If you're looking for a good bracket to print, we recommend the ESPN one, as it is the only one we've come across with teams records as well as the locations of each game.
Everyone have their brackets ready?
So why not enter in another one and see how your college basketball knowledge stacks up against us!
Hey, we run a football blog, we're not going to claim to be experts, but it'll be fun!
If you're interested, go HERE
Group ID: 168535
Password: pittsburgh
If you're looking for a good bracket to print, we recommend the ESPN one, as it is the only one we've come across with teams records as well as the locations of each game.
Free Agency: The Latest
After Marvel Smith went down in the Jacksonville game last year, the Steelers lost two of their next four, including a poor showing by the O-line against the Giants front four. Then again, what O-line in the league looks good against the Giants front four? But with the game against the Chargers the line hit their stride, and continued with some stellar play in the Bengals game, not allowing a sack to the woeful Bungles. After the loss to the Giants, the Steelers lost one game the rest of the year as the line of Starks-Kemoeatu-Hartwig-Simmons-Colon came into their own as a unit. I like the prospect of having them back next year and am excited to see what they can do.
Apparently, New England thinks it's 2001. They have signed Joey Galloway, Fred Taylor, Leigh Bodden, and Shawn Springs. Typical of New England over the past few years though, they have signed old talent that they are hoping to get one good year out of to make a run for the Super Bowl. This is one of the main reasons why the Patriots have experienced "down" years when their old talent has either backfired on them (as it has done with their linebacking corps) or have all moved on. I'll be very surprised if New England runs the ball more than 10 times per game next season. With Brady back and Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Joey Galloway, and Greg Lewis...the Pats might as well just hire Mike Leach to be their offensive coordinator. Really though, why even put Brady under center? You know he's going to throw. Just run the spread.
By the way, with TO in Buffalo now, is there a stadium in Foxboro or Buffalo big enough to contain the combined egos of TO, Randy Moss, Bill Belicheat, and Joey Galloway?
Ego Bowl I and Ego Bowl II coming this fall.
By the way, with TO in Buffalo now, is there a stadium in Foxboro or Buffalo big enough to contain the combined egos of TO, Randy Moss, Bill Belicheat, and Joey Galloway?
Ego Bowl I and Ego Bowl II coming this fall.
Seattle traded linebacker Julian Peterson to Detroit for DE Cory Redding. What does this mean?
Detroit will NOT be taking Aaron Curry with the #1 overall pick.
Count on it.
If any mock drafts tell you otherwise, stop reading.
With the trade though, Seattle becomes a prime possibility for Curry to land. That is, unless they get a really good trade offer from someone looking to move up to take Mark Sanchez.
Speaking of which, we'll probably be throwing together a mock draft sometime soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
Count on it.
If any mock drafts tell you otherwise, stop reading.
With the trade though, Seattle becomes a prime possibility for Curry to land. That is, unless they get a really good trade offer from someone looking to move up to take Mark Sanchez.
Speaking of which, we'll probably be throwing together a mock draft sometime soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
Picture of the Year: Chargers Playoff Game
Everything leading up to this game was about Ben Roethlisberger and his concussion and if he would be capable of playing. Things looked glum after the Chargers connected on a deep pass on their first drive to take the lead. But after that, it was all Pittsburgh. With Baltimore beating Tennessee the day before, our attention turned to Round Three with the Death Eaters in the AFC Championship Game.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Picture of the Year: Browns Game in Pittsburgh
And we have come to the end of the regular season. At the beginning of the year, everyone circled this game against the Browns as one that could decide the division. But then the Browns remembered they were from Cleveland and proceeded to go 4-11 before this matchup. Additionally, the Browns once-potent offense forgot how to put points on the board, not scoring a touchdown since mid-November. The Steelers #1 ranked defense was up to the task, keeping Cleveland off the board and capping the game off with a pick-six by Tyrone Carter.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Picture of the Year: Titans Game
This game was like Heroes. It started out promising, then just went straight downhill. Too many early mistakes that cost us points and mental breakdowns we couldn't recover from.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Picture of the Year: Ravens Game in Baltimore
007 wins it again. We won the division. Holmes made a sick catch. I really don't have any doubts as to which picture wins this one. But in the interest of fairness, I'm putting up the poll anyways.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Picture of the Year: Cowboys Game
The Steelers played terrible for 54 minutes, then decided to show up for the last 6 of this game. And it's a good thing they did. In what will be remembered as one of the best games of the year, 007 led a drive that culminated with a touchdown pass to Heath Miller shortly after the two-minute warning. Out of the kickoff, the Steelers elected to use their timeouts on defense to try and get the ball back, but it didn't matter, because Deshea Townsend came up with the biggest interception of the year, which may have single-handedly torn apart the Cowboys season and locker room.
Of course, we can't forget that the pick-six came after Renegade.
Of course, we can't forget that the pick-six came after Renegade.
Ian's College Football Playoff Proposal
In response to the Mountain West's proposal for an 8-team playoff (rather than the current bowl system) to determine the national champion, here's my latest proposal on how to fix college football. This idea came out of a conversation I had with a friend of mine from high school, so this is mainly his idea, but with a few of my thoughts intermixed.
This idea works perfectly with my Mid-Major Play-in Game proposal.
This system has a few different prongs (both of which are equally improbable because of the issue of money in the bowl system and that teams make from having extra home games against crappy teams).
Part I: 8 Team Playoff
The Bowl system already takes almost 3 weeks (19 days last year from Dec 20-Jan 8), so having an 8-team playoff really wouldn't be that hard, because each round would be each weekend of Bowl season.
To determine the 8 teams, the 6 major conference champions would get automatic bids as they do now in the BCS, plus the winner of my Mid-Major Championship Game would make 7. From there, the next highest ranked team in the BCS Standings would fill out the bracket and be seeded as the #8 team, regardless of their BCS ranking. Now, I know this could be controversial, but so is picking the "top two" like they do currently. And there is a BIG difference between debating over whether or not a team deserved to be the 65th team in the NCAA Tournament or the 8th team in a football playoff and picking one team to play for the national championship and excluding everyone else. In the former instances, the last teams in still have to play their way to the championship whereas in the later instance the teams chosen are the only two with a chance to win the title in a one-game scenario.
The hosting sites for the first round would still be the four major bowls (Sugar, Orange, Rose, Fiesta). Since the Rose Bowl has a longstanding tradition of having the Pac-10 and Big 10 Champs play, they could still have that game and it would be exempt from the seeding in the rest of the bracket. The other 3 games could rotate hosting the #1 seed in the first round in 3-year cycles. Teams would be seeded by BCS Standings.
So, this past year, here is how it would have looked:
Seeds:
1. Oklahoma (Big XII Champ, BCS #1)
2. Florida (SEC Champ, BCS #2)
3. USC (Pac 10 Champ, BCS #4)
4. Utah (presumed winner of Mid-Major Championship game over Boise St, BCS #6)
5. Penn St (Big 10 Champ, BCS #8)
6. Cincinnati (Big East Champ, BCS #12)
7. Virginia Tech (ACC Champ, BCS #19)
8. Texas (at-large bid, BCS #3)
From there, the Big 10 and Pac 10 champ automatically go to the Rose Bowl, regardless of seed.
Rose Bowl: 3. USC v. 5. Penn St
Then, the highest-seeded team is matched up with the at-large team at the bowl site geographically closest to the highest seeded team.
Fiesta Bowl: 1. Oklahoma v. 8. Texas
The same applies for the other two teams.
Orange Bowl: 2. Florida v. 7. Virginia Tech
Sugar Bowl: 4. Utah v. 6. Cincinnati
After the first round games were played, the teams would be reseeded so that the highest BCS-ranked team advancing plays the lowest BCS-ranked team advancing. These games would be played at, say, the newly rennovated Cotton Bowl and the Capital One Bowl.
(For this example, I assumed that Oklahoma beat Texas in the rematch)
Cotton Bowl: Florida v. USC
Capital One Bowl: Oklahoma v. Utah
The winner of these two games would play in the championship game, which could be hosted by the "Big 3" (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta) in rotation.
For the record, here's what the semi-finals would have looked like if Texas had beaten Oklahoma:
Cotton Bowl: Texas v. USC
Capital One Bowl: Florida v. Utah
Part II: Shortening the Season
Now, I realize this is just me being idealistic and that it would be very, very hard to shorten the season, but let's just suspend the money factor for a moment and assume that the season be shortened. My proposal? Shorten the season to 10 or 11 games. This will differ by conferences based on the number of teams in each conference. Most conferences play 8 conference games currently, while the Pac-10 plays 9 (each team plays every other team). The basic proposal here is to cut out one non-conference game so that each team only has two non-conference games.
Really, what is the point of Penn State playing Coastal Carolina or Ohio State playing Youngstown State besides money? Nothing.
Under my proposal, these games will be eliminated. To ensure this, two rules will be needed.
First: Every "Big Six Conference" team (teams from the Big 10, Big 12, Big East, ACC, SEC, Pac 10) MUST play one out of conference game against a team from another Big Six Conference. Currently, there are 65 teams in the Big Six conferences, plus Notre Dame would make 66.
This would create a situation where the 65 teams from "Major Conferences" plus Notre Dame all had one game against each other on the schedule. The 54 teams from Mid-Major (for lack of a better term) Conferences would also get one game against another Mid-Major team.
Second: Major Conference teams will be allowed one non-conference game against Mid-Major schools. Obviously there would be details that would have to be worked out here because there are only 54 Mid-Major schools and there are 66 Major Conference schools. The way I forsee it, the independent schools would be exempt from the requirements (except Notre Dame, which I will address in a moment) and the schedules of the independent schools could be used to fill out the scheduling gap created here.
Teams that are traditional rivals of Notre Dame will be permitted to play the Fighting Irish as their second non-conference game. The game against Notre Dame will NOT count as their game against a Major Conference school. These teams include: Michigan, Michigan St, Boston College, USC, Purdue, Stanford. One team per season that is not listed (aka a team that is not a rival of Notre Dame) may count their game against the Irish as their Major Conference opponent.
So how would this system work?
With each team playing one legit opponent per year, the BCS would better be able to compute the relative strengths of conferences (particularly since mid-major conferences all have games against major conferences as well). This would also prevent teams from having a non-conference schedule like Texas Tech had last year (Eastern Washington, Nevada, SMU, UMass). What a joke of a schedule. Wouldn't you rather see Texas Tech play Cal...or Auburn...or Wisconsin? I know I would.
So a team's schedule would have this basic look:
Major Conference Opponent
Mid-Major Conference Opponent
8-9 Conference Games
The Big XII, ACC, and SEC would be permitted to keep their championship games, which would still take place on Thanksgiving.
The shorter season would also work well in conjunction with the longer Bowl Season. Though there are a lot of worthless bowls (honestly, do we need 3 Bowl games played in Jacksonville?), for now the Bowl season would only be shortened by two games (the Cotton Bowl and Capital One Bowl would be gone, since they are the semi-finals in the tournament). The rest of the bowls could remain in place so that teams not making the post-season Tournament could still participate in a post-season game.
This idea works perfectly with my Mid-Major Play-in Game proposal.
This system has a few different prongs (both of which are equally improbable because of the issue of money in the bowl system and that teams make from having extra home games against crappy teams).
Part I: 8 Team Playoff
The Bowl system already takes almost 3 weeks (19 days last year from Dec 20-Jan 8), so having an 8-team playoff really wouldn't be that hard, because each round would be each weekend of Bowl season.
To determine the 8 teams, the 6 major conference champions would get automatic bids as they do now in the BCS, plus the winner of my Mid-Major Championship Game would make 7. From there, the next highest ranked team in the BCS Standings would fill out the bracket and be seeded as the #8 team, regardless of their BCS ranking. Now, I know this could be controversial, but so is picking the "top two" like they do currently. And there is a BIG difference between debating over whether or not a team deserved to be the 65th team in the NCAA Tournament or the 8th team in a football playoff and picking one team to play for the national championship and excluding everyone else. In the former instances, the last teams in still have to play their way to the championship whereas in the later instance the teams chosen are the only two with a chance to win the title in a one-game scenario.
The hosting sites for the first round would still be the four major bowls (Sugar, Orange, Rose, Fiesta). Since the Rose Bowl has a longstanding tradition of having the Pac-10 and Big 10 Champs play, they could still have that game and it would be exempt from the seeding in the rest of the bracket. The other 3 games could rotate hosting the #1 seed in the first round in 3-year cycles. Teams would be seeded by BCS Standings.
So, this past year, here is how it would have looked:
Seeds:
1. Oklahoma (Big XII Champ, BCS #1)
2. Florida (SEC Champ, BCS #2)
3. USC (Pac 10 Champ, BCS #4)
4. Utah (presumed winner of Mid-Major Championship game over Boise St, BCS #6)
5. Penn St (Big 10 Champ, BCS #8)
6. Cincinnati (Big East Champ, BCS #12)
7. Virginia Tech (ACC Champ, BCS #19)
8. Texas (at-large bid, BCS #3)
From there, the Big 10 and Pac 10 champ automatically go to the Rose Bowl, regardless of seed.
Rose Bowl: 3. USC v. 5. Penn St
Then, the highest-seeded team is matched up with the at-large team at the bowl site geographically closest to the highest seeded team.
Fiesta Bowl: 1. Oklahoma v. 8. Texas
The same applies for the other two teams.
Orange Bowl: 2. Florida v. 7. Virginia Tech
Sugar Bowl: 4. Utah v. 6. Cincinnati
After the first round games were played, the teams would be reseeded so that the highest BCS-ranked team advancing plays the lowest BCS-ranked team advancing. These games would be played at, say, the newly rennovated Cotton Bowl and the Capital One Bowl.
(For this example, I assumed that Oklahoma beat Texas in the rematch)
Cotton Bowl: Florida v. USC
Capital One Bowl: Oklahoma v. Utah
The winner of these two games would play in the championship game, which could be hosted by the "Big 3" (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta) in rotation.
For the record, here's what the semi-finals would have looked like if Texas had beaten Oklahoma:
Cotton Bowl: Texas v. USC
Capital One Bowl: Florida v. Utah
Part II: Shortening the Season
Now, I realize this is just me being idealistic and that it would be very, very hard to shorten the season, but let's just suspend the money factor for a moment and assume that the season be shortened. My proposal? Shorten the season to 10 or 11 games. This will differ by conferences based on the number of teams in each conference. Most conferences play 8 conference games currently, while the Pac-10 plays 9 (each team plays every other team). The basic proposal here is to cut out one non-conference game so that each team only has two non-conference games.
Really, what is the point of Penn State playing Coastal Carolina or Ohio State playing Youngstown State besides money? Nothing.
Under my proposal, these games will be eliminated. To ensure this, two rules will be needed.
First: Every "Big Six Conference" team (teams from the Big 10, Big 12, Big East, ACC, SEC, Pac 10) MUST play one out of conference game against a team from another Big Six Conference. Currently, there are 65 teams in the Big Six conferences, plus Notre Dame would make 66.
This would create a situation where the 65 teams from "Major Conferences" plus Notre Dame all had one game against each other on the schedule. The 54 teams from Mid-Major (for lack of a better term) Conferences would also get one game against another Mid-Major team.
Second: Major Conference teams will be allowed one non-conference game against Mid-Major schools. Obviously there would be details that would have to be worked out here because there are only 54 Mid-Major schools and there are 66 Major Conference schools. The way I forsee it, the independent schools would be exempt from the requirements (except Notre Dame, which I will address in a moment) and the schedules of the independent schools could be used to fill out the scheduling gap created here.
Teams that are traditional rivals of Notre Dame will be permitted to play the Fighting Irish as their second non-conference game. The game against Notre Dame will NOT count as their game against a Major Conference school. These teams include: Michigan, Michigan St, Boston College, USC, Purdue, Stanford. One team per season that is not listed (aka a team that is not a rival of Notre Dame) may count their game against the Irish as their Major Conference opponent.
So how would this system work?
With each team playing one legit opponent per year, the BCS would better be able to compute the relative strengths of conferences (particularly since mid-major conferences all have games against major conferences as well). This would also prevent teams from having a non-conference schedule like Texas Tech had last year (Eastern Washington, Nevada, SMU, UMass). What a joke of a schedule. Wouldn't you rather see Texas Tech play Cal...or Auburn...or Wisconsin? I know I would.
So a team's schedule would have this basic look:
Major Conference Opponent
Mid-Major Conference Opponent
8-9 Conference Games
The Big XII, ACC, and SEC would be permitted to keep their championship games, which would still take place on Thanksgiving.
The shorter season would also work well in conjunction with the longer Bowl Season. Though there are a lot of worthless bowls (honestly, do we need 3 Bowl games played in Jacksonville?), for now the Bowl season would only be shortened by two games (the Cotton Bowl and Capital One Bowl would be gone, since they are the semi-finals in the tournament). The rest of the bowls could remain in place so that teams not making the post-season Tournament could still participate in a post-season game.
Picture of the Year: Patriots Game
This was a revenge game, no doubt about it. We went up there last year and got rocked by New England's offense, and Cassel was coming off two huge games. All the media hype was that he was the next Tom Brady and would pick the Steelers defense apart. Enter Defensive Player of the Year James Harrison.
Five turnovers in five possessions. WOOOOOOOOOOO
Five turnovers in five possessions. WOOOOOOOOOOO
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