Steel Balls

Yep, it’s that time to mock and be mocked. It’s that time of the year where Ballers have the chance to prove they know more than the Steelers’ brass, or at least more than other Ballers. You have up until the day before the draft to produce your predictions: have your predictions in no later than end of day Wednesday, April 27th. If you submit a mock earlier than that, you may edit the mock up until the deadline (e.g., in the event of a signing or trade that wrecks your initial mock). 

Please use the following format as a template. Any deviation from this format that causes me to have to interpret your gibberish will result in unfavorable scoring, so beware.

Identify any trades if applicable
Round (Pick) – Position, Name, School
1 (20)  – WR, Moe Howard, Harvard
2 (52)  – ILB, Larry Fine, Yale
3 (84)  – OG, Curly Howard, Stanford
4 (138) – RB, Shemp Howard, Princeton
6 (208) – NT, Joe DeRita, Brown
7 (225) – SS, Joe Besser, Penn
7 (241) – PK, Emil Sitka, Allegheny County Community College
Add up to five UFAs

This year, you may submit up to two mocks: one without any trades, and one with trades.

As in the past, you will be given one point two points for each correct name, and one point for each correct position/round combination. For UDFA selections, you will get a point only for a specific name. I may give or take other points for special predictions or egregious failures, at my sole dictatorial discretion.

I will get things kicked off with my own mocks. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen…

+2

Allow me to extend a humble thank you to the teeming hordes of miscreants who have graced this site with their boundless charm, rapier-like wit, and prescient insight into all things Steelers, for these past ten non-losing seasons.

We began this enterprise as a response to the P-G paywall, and to have a place to compare opinions and predictions, and now we are only a few weeks away from what may be a momentous NFL draft event where we can once again prove just how much more we know than the professionals.

We’ve had a lot of fun over the years, but we still have much yet to be accomplished, beginning with a jointly-enjoyed Super Bowl appearance and championship.

I poured through our user list, which numbers well over 1800 thanks largely to Russian spam bots, to try to extract a list of legitimate users. I may have deleted some that were legit, but here is my best guess at our participant list over the years. Here they are, in order of registration.

copanut
abennihana
jeffmi
steelerfan58
drock
ChicoSteelersFan
BGINTN
steelers1
MWalsh26
Tuskegee_Brown
TomPaulBillyBob
mack
tennbob
Earl
STILLERS35
craig
Steeltyke
Army01
steelerfan
JMS55
malsor
J A M E S H
EstimatedProphet
saneman
ktyoung
Clubber
cerone
BlitzBurghDude
jac
gsmaroff
floyd3421
fatxbrian
hksteelerfan
RickinLA
Black and Gold Foo
endaround
stillers_35
Steeler_in_VZ
Toadsly
Poz
Froggy
testname
sixter
bgigli
Reacher
JoeSlice
Pete
Steeler 1950
afrazier9
JimHim
Steelergill66
steelddiddy
jconroy
WritersRock
reddog
pubunchka
SteelerFanBudMan
blackanyellow
tobiathan
Fansincebubbywouldntmopup
kalel1199
kingribel
BigJ
Ravenslayer
sean.willison
Bill Strickland
davesdogs
Bill S
BiggiePops67
kedorfman
HetBob
ktalk
Stu
captainnasty86
kordellStewart
Steelers252006
dberry731
justjack1961
diamondback13
Miguelipto
sdsteel
moose
GodfatherofPittsburgh
72Steel
mikeflores16
eneg
Bilbo_shaggins80
elesher43
therealdonaldtrump
DumbCrackerDouche
Tomee4758

+1

Read: Hue Bribed to Tank Browns for Draft Position

0

It’s very popular among fans these days to question the Steelers ownership and their “old fashioned” philosophies. Yet, no other team has enjoyed their durable, long-standing success. Although there have been periods of disappointment, there have been fewer such periods than for any other team.

Here is a chart showing which NFL teams have amassed the most wins over the past 75 years:

Some other interesting charts:

• • Most wins since 1950
  • Most wins since 1960
  • Most wins since 1970
  • Most wins since 1980
  • Most wins since 1990
  • Most wins since 2000
  • Most wins since 2010

For most of us here, the 1980’s were the worst period. Even then, the Steelers eked out a winning record and finished in the middle of the pack. Not very satisfying, but other teams experience much worse low points. We may be headed for another 80’s style decade of mediocrity, but hope springs eternal. Keep the faith, Ballers.

0

You bet your sweet bippy! We are pleased to announce the 2021 Baller Prognosticator of the Year. Although this strange and stressful season is not yet over, we know that playoff results cannot change the outcome of our competition, so we can announce the winner now.

First, here is the chart of “wins”, actual versus predictions. A half-win is awarded for the tie:

And here is the “delta” chart which shows the difference between actual and predictions. Lower values are better:

Both MWalsh26 and EstimatedProphet came closest to guessing the Steelers result, missing only by a half game. (If we were not counting the tie as a half win, EstimatedProphet would be the winner on this question). So, participation trophies go to Walsh and EP, but they went on to whiff badly regarding the rest of the division.

And let’s face it – we all whiffed on the Bengals. We knew that they had the best young QB in the division but we just didn’t trust the Bengals organization to be able to get the job done, and we were wrong. Sure, the Bengals had the easiest schedule, but they also beat the tar out of the Steelers twice, and won a number of other impressive games, so we give credit where it is due.

In the end, copanut and Tuskegee_Brown tied with the best overall result of 11.5. Both of them predicted the Steelers will win a single playoff game before being bounced from the tourney,  so copanut and TB would remain tied regardless of playoff outcome.

We need to go to tie breakers to determine the winner. Because TB predicted the Steelers would get into the playoffs as a wild card team, whereas copanut predicted they would be division winners, the tie breaker goes to TB. As icing on the cake, TB had a closer guess in Steeler wins.

All hail the new champion, Tuskegee_Brown!

0

In an act of desperation, I have given up on my old hosting company and moved to a new hosting company. You should find all the expected functionality here without change. Sorry for all the hassles, folks, but hopefully our problems are behind us now. I don’t believe in jinxes.

We might consider moving the Sound Off back to the right panel rather than in its own page, or having it in both places. If you have an opinion on the subject, vote here.

[Update: opinions seem to be evenly split, so we’ll keep the full page Sound Off that gives you a broader and SFW view, while restoring Sound Off to the right panel, which gives a quick view of current activity and also is easier on mobile devices.]

[yop_poll id=”5″]

0

I must agree with abennihana about the inexplicable stupidity of NASCAR as a “sport”. However, his opening salvo of the hideous bovine with manicured backhair is somewhat unfair. After all, the NFL has produced some of the ugliest spectators in the history of sport. Out of courtesy to our readers, I’ll keep the evidence of this crime off of the home page, but read on if you have an iron stomach.

Read the rest of this entry »

+3

The Steelers use the offseason to tweak their capabilities and performance (or so we hope), and Steel Balls must do the same. As many of you know, we’ve been trying to get a handle on a couple of problems here on the site. I can report on the status of those efforts and potential impact.

1. Login problems. Up until now, it has been difficult to log in consistently to the site. I’m pretty sure that situation has been resolved, and I want to encourage you all to try logging in rather than visiting as a guest, and please report here if you have any difficulty doing that. I have logged in and out multiple times over the last couple of days without error, so my fingers are crossed.
2. High CPU usage problem. This is a problem that is invisible to users, but my hosting company has been pushing me on this for weeks and to be honest we haven’t figured out the cause. However, there is some indication that it might originate with our beloved chat system (Sound Off). As such, I will be tinkering with it over the next few days, experimenting with changes such as requiring you to log in to see and use the chat, or possibly moving it off of the home page, or maybe experimenting with a different chat system. It’s important to resolve this CPU issue because if I am forced to move to a dedicated server it’s going to cost considerably more money to host this site, and I really want to keep it free.

On another administrative issue, I have disabled public registration on the site. This is a response to the relentless deluge of spam registrations being perpetrated by bots and apparently even some humans capable of getting past the captcha code, no doubt slaves in India or the like, bartering their time as spammers in trade for a bowl of kibble. Anyway, if you need to register or re-register, send me an email and I’ll do it for you.

Your patience is appreciated.

[Update] Please note…  as part of my cleanup effort, I have reviewed and deleted approximately 500 bogus account registrations from the site. It is difficult for me to know for sure that a registration is bogus unless I recognize the username or there is something obvious to indicate that it is legitimate (like a Steeler-related avatar) rather than a registration generated by some a-hole spammer. Therefore, I almost certainly have removed a few registrations that were actually legitimate. If you fall into that category, send me an email and I will create a new registration for you. For the time being I have disabled public registrations. If anyone is curious, we currently have 76 legitimate registrations, although probably only about half of them are regular contributors.

+3

It was a well fought battle, but in the end it was Roger Goodell by a foreskin. The Harbaugh brothers finished in second place, only one point behind, following a stunning write-in campaign. The bronze medal goes to perennial tool Warren Sapp. Better luck next time, guys. Final results:

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0

Peyton whiffs the first play of maybe the last big game of his career. (Animation on next page).

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0