Steel Balls

Hey, we’ve been asking that question all year, as it seems the Steelers can shine one week and stink the next.  But perhaps it’s time to give credit where it’s due. Through 15 games, the Steelers have never had a losing streak longer than one game. Meanwhile they’ve had two 3-game winning streaks and with a final victory over Cincinnati they could push the current streak to 4 games. They are 7-2 in their last 9 games and have had only one truly putrid performance in that span, versus the Jets.

Although this more stable and positive period has more or less coincided with the resurrection of James Harrison, perhaps greater credit goes to the solidification of the offense and stabilization of what had been a horrid defense (and now is approaching sort of average). The biggest variable during this period has been the play of Ben Roethlisberger.. In their current configuration, the fate of this team is tightly tied to Ben’s performance. If he is hot in the playoffs, they can have a good run.

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JFS Shows Cleveland He Thinks They’re #1

Fresh off his epic demolition of the Cleveland Browns in his NFL starting debut, Johnny Manziel was reminded about his famous draft day text message to the Browns. As it was widely reported in the press at the time, Manziel had sent a text to the Browns asking them to draft him. The message said ‘I wish you guys would come get me. Hurry up and draft me because I want to be there. I want to wreck this league together.’ Following the Bengals game, Manziel was asked to clarify what he could have possibly meant given his evident inability to play in the big leagues much less wreck it. Luckily, Manziel was able to provide some real insight.

According to Johnny, he was increasingly astonished that he was falling down the draft board as he was convinced someone would be stupid enough to draft him with the #1 pick, or at least in the top five. After all, he reasoned, the Heisman committee was silly enough to name him the most awesome player in all college ball.

When Manziel slipped by the Browns’ first of two first round picks, he was more than dismayed – initially he was angry. He felt that a team as routinely woeful as the Browns surely couldn’t afford to be so dismissive of Johnny Football. However as the day progressed and team after team bypassed him, Manziel came to realize the deeper truth of the Browns’ strategy. Surely, he realized, no team could blow so many high level picks year after year as the Browns, purely through bad luck or incompetence. He figured that clearly the whole farce was a cleverly concocted way to enrich the leaders of the Browns organization at the expense of loyal, diehard Browns fans who inexplicably pour millions of dollars into the team coffers annually despite a record-shattering lack of results.

“I decided that if I couldn’t be a real NFL quarterback for a real NFL team, then I wanted to be part of this scam being perpetrated in Cleveland,” Johnny explained, “so as we were getting closer to the next Browns selection I texted (Cleveland quarterbacks coach) Dowell Loggains asking him to please draft me so that we could ‘wreck Believeland together’. But somehow the danged autocorrect kicked in and changed it to ‘wreck this league together’. Go figure.” But Johnny remains philosophical. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. I got what I wanted – lots of attention, lots of money, and an endless stream of babes totally lacking in taste and self respect.”

Asked if he thought he should start again next week, Manziel said, “Sure, why not? It’s almost mandated by the Factory of Sadness Franchise Handbook.”

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Not that it matters at this point, but NFL.com has the Steelers currently at 8th seed. I’m pretty sure it should be 5th.

Aside from the first place Colts, there are five teams tied at 7-4: Steelers, Ravens, Browns, Chiefs, Chargers. These five teams are vying for two wild card berths. When there are three or more tied teams from two or more divisions, the following tiebreakers apply:

1. Apply division tie breaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tie breaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants.In the division tiebreaker, the Steelers and Browns are both 2-2, ahead of the Ravens who are 2-3. The next tiebreaker is common opponents. Against common opponents, the Steelers are 5-3 while the Browns are 3-4, so Steelers should be the top wildcard contender in the North division.
2. Head-to-head sweep. (Applicable only if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others.)n/a
3. Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.The Steelers conference record is 6-3. The Chiefs and Chargers are both 5-3. The Steelers are 5th seed on this basis. The sixth seed would go to the Chiefs who are 1-0 against the Chargers in head to head meetings, although the Chargers have the better division record, and both have better conference records than the Ravens or Browns.

   The rest of the tiebreakers are listed below but shouldn’t matter at the current point in time.

4. Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games, minimum of four.
5. Strength of victory.
6. Strength of schedule.
7. Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed.
8. Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed.
9. Best net points in conference games.
10. Best net points in all games.
11. Best net touchdowns in all games.
12. Coin toss

In head to head competition, the Browns and Ravens are split. In division records, the Browns are 2-2 vs Ravens 2-3. As such, I get the seedings this way:

1. Patriots
2. Broncos
3. Bengals
4. Colts
5. Steelers
6. Chiefs
7. Chargers
8. Browns
9. Ravens

No doubt I’m missing some subtle point of the arcane tiebreaking rules, but until someone corrects me I’m sticking to this analysis for what it’s worth, which is, as previously stated, absolutely nothing.

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Suggs – verb, infinitive form “to sugg”

1. To fail badly as a human being. “Ray Lewis suggs because he is an unrepentant murder accomplice.”

2. To be the victim of failed human beings. “It really suggs to be a receiver for Unibrow.”

3. To take a cheap shot or to cheat at something. “Harbaugh sobbed when Upshaw sugged Ben and got flagged.”

4. Anything associated with purple spandex. “Ravens sugg badly.”

5. To act like a horse’s ass but have the face of a jackass. (See picture above).

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Here are mine. Add yours in comments.

• Deebo sacking Flacco twice; makes Mean Joe proud.
• Ben’s six TDs and breaking a record and a million Baltimore hearts.
• Humiliation on the face of Hairball.
• Hairball whining having no effect on the refs for a change.
• Ben taking hits and getting better.
• Flacco taking hits and getting worse.
• Brad Wing as a better QB prospect than Landry Jones.
• Martavis Bryant performance evolving from surprise to expected.
• News clipping makes its way from Pittsburgh Press to NBC via Steel Balls.
• Al Michaels quote, “James Harrison is the AARP Player of the Week”.

I know there are many more, so let’s hear yours….

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According to Twitter, this map shows the distribution of Steelers followers across the United States.

While any claim to “America’s Team” is up for debate, as the following maps show, the Steelers are clearly the team of the AFC North at least.

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If evidence were needed to demonstrate that the Steelers’ biggest opponent is themselves, we might look no further than at their abysmal performance in penalties. As of today, the Steelers are by far the most penalized team in the NFL, with 51 penalties. This is more than double the penalty count of nine other teams. The Steelers have more penalties than Cincinnati (22) and Baltimore (21) combined. They have amassed 437 penalty yards, second behind only the Patriots (466).  The Steelers lead in penalties per game (10.2) while the Ravens have the fewest penalties per game (4.2).

Most egregious, the Steelers lead the league in Face Mask penalties with 6, which is 714% more than the league average of 0.84, and Illegal Block in the Back with 4, some 425% above the league average of 0.94. All of the Face Mask penalties have been the 15 yard variety.

We can also combine three other penalty types, Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Taunting, and Unnecessary Roughness, as three “bad boy” categories. Combined, the Steelers have 7 such penalties compared to a league average of 2.44.

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