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″]
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.
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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.
- 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.
- 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.
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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Peyton whiffs the first play of maybe the last big game of his career. (Animation on next page).
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As I’ve said before, I’m pretty much always wrong about the draft from top to bottom. Then again the experts are usually wrong too, so what the hell.
This isn’t so much a mock draft as a list of the kinds of picks I’d like to see in the first four rounds. Bear in mind that I haven’t watched tape and am going only by various descriptions I’ve seen on these prospects. Also, I’m not taking character issues into consideration because I haven’t seen a lot of insight in that regard.
In subsequent rounds, I’d stock up on best available DL, LB, CB, and S prospects. I’d be tempted to spend one of those late round picks on a top punter.
I know the nose tackle is further down than some would like, but I think there has to be a realization that the team will have to live with its current NT situation for a year or two until someone big can be developed. McCullers is a mammoth human specimen that could be that guy in 2015. Here is his analysis from CBS Sports:
STRENGTHS: Despite his inexperience, McCullers’ size and ability to disrupt things from the middle often made him the focus of an opponent’s blocking scheme. Has been double-teamed on most snaps and has even seen triple-team blocks often. Despite the attention, McCullers’ size and strength make him tough to move in the running game. He plays with better leverage than one might expect given his frame, holding up well inside and sliding off blockers to handle two-gap responsibilities when playing the 3-4 nose guard. He was equally impressive against the run when Tennessee switched to a four-man front in 2012.
WEAKNESSES: While McCullers’ is tough against the run, he offers little in terms of a pass rush. He certainly has the strength to simply push opponents into the pocket but possesses below average foot-quickness and lateral agility.
I would also try to supplement this with a decent FS and/ or CB from free agency, if available.
There you have it. Blast away.
BIGINTN asked, “COPA Can you create a space for us to list our “special” players in the draft and who we would pick if they are available at #15? It sure looks like there could be an impact player available that also fills an immediate need”.
Ask and you shall receive.
You can comment on this thread to highlight your faves. Sometime closer to the draft we can gather up final predictions.
Sorry guys… we’re working on it. Please check back later.
If you’re curious, apparently our site was under automated attack and so the hosting company shut down part of it. Getting them to bring it back up is taking longer than I would like.
Meantime, post comments here.
I’m no expert on the draft. In fact, I’m pretty much always wrong. I don’t follow college football very closely and pay little attention to these issues until the draft rolls around. In other words, at best my opinion is a gnat’s eyelash away from completely worthless. But that won’t stop me from posting an article on the subject anyway.
Based on history, my expectation is that the Steelers will effectively position themselves with pre-draft signings in order to avoid having to pick a particular position, and thus will be able to pick best available player from a pool of several positions of need. It seems clear that the majority of their picks should be for defense because they have so many areas to improve on that side of the ball, but even so the first pick could go either way. My guess is they will take the best available player from TE, WR, CB, OLB, and possibly DL.
I thought it would be fun to look at who might be there at spot 15 from among that subset of positions. For this exercise, I like to use WalterFootball.com as they do a pretty nice job of living and breathing this stuff year round. They usually summarize players in each category by indicating which round they feel the player will fall. If they feel the player will fall in the early part of the first round, they will indicate that the player is likely a “top 20” pick, for example. For our purposes we can consider players listed as likely first round, or as likely top 20, but of course it’s possible or even probably that one or more “likely top 10” picks will fall to the Steelers, as this seems to happen annually.
I’m only providing a partial snapshot of the information from WalterFootball.com. If you want to read more about these players, go directly to that site.
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