Archive for category Men of Steel

Fickle Finger 2024 Winner

Posted by on Monday, 20 January, 2025

Another season has come and gone, and another Baller can lay claim to superior football knowledge. The final results are in the table below. I’m only showing the “delta” tabulations – the difference between our guesses and the final result.

MWalsh26 Earl Copanut Eleven TomPaul
BillyBob
tennbob drock Estimated
Prophet
Tuskegee
_Brown
JAMESH
Steelers 4 3 1 2 0 1 4 2 0 7
Bengals 2 9 1 3 1 2 3 2 2 6
Browns 6 3 5 5 4 5 8 8 6 0
Ravens 0 12 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 9
Base 12 27 8 11 5 8 15 13 9 22
Bonus -1 -1
Total 12 27 8 11 4 8 15 13 8 22

This year, by popular request, I added a bonus point for the person who most closely predicted the Steelers’ final result, although you may be happy to know that it didn’t matter. TomPaulBillyBob and Tuskegee_Brown both accurately chose the Steelers final tally of 10 wins, but Mr. BillyBob blew everyone away by also accurately predicting the Ravens’ 12 wins, and missing out on the Bengals by only one point. With his bonus point, he pretty much lapped the field with a total score of 4. There was a three way tie for second place between Tuskegee_Brown, Copanut, and tennbob, but I think we can give the edge to Tuskegee_Brown for more accurately predicting the Steelers’ record.

Last place goes to Earl, who took a big hit for not submitting guesses for the rest of the division, but on his Steelers pick he beat out MWalsh26 and drock, with their chronic underestimation of the Power of Tomlin to pull out yet another winning season. If we’re going for last place on the Steelers prediction, we’ll have to give the edge to MWalsh26, because drock edged him out on the tiebreakers. They both correctly guessed the 2nd most receiving yards (Friermuth) and exactly divined the total touchdowns thrown (21), but drock predicted Wilson would have the most starts, while MWalsh26 went with Fields.

Dishonorable Mention goes to JAMESH, who had a ghost writer submit his usual 17-0 prediction. He finished with a score of 22, which is kinda sad, until you consider that Earl finished with 27.

May we all have better luck in 2025.

 

Celebrating 10 Years of Steel Balls!

Posted by on Sunday, 27 March, 2022

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

Pittsburgh’s Mt. Rushmore

Posted by on Wednesday, 13 May, 2020

From The Athletic

My vote was for: Lemieux, Clemente, Greene, and Palmer. Monument to be erected on the backs of Honus Wagner, Josh Gibson, and The Chief, and a statue of Crosby gazing up. While we’re at it, maybe one of Troy Polamalu leaping over top of the whole lot of them, glorious mane flying in the wind…

RIP Darryl Drake

Posted by on Sunday, 11 August, 2019

Dane Brugler on Day 3 Picks

Posted by on Saturday, 27 April, 2019

Benny Snell, picked 4-122


 

Zack Gentry, picked 5-141

 

Sutton Smith, picked 6-175

 

Isaiah Buggs, picked 6-192


 

Ulysees Gilbert, picked 6-207

 

Derwin Gray, picked 7-219


Dane Brugler on Justin Layne

Posted by on Friday, 26 April, 2019

Projected pick: #40. Actual pick #83.


Dane Brugler on Diontae Johnson

Posted by on Friday, 26 April, 2019

Projected pick: 4th round. Actual pick: #66.

Dane Brugler on Devin Bush

Posted by on Friday, 26 April, 2019

From Dane Brugler’s “2019 NFL Draft Guild” available via subscription to The Athletic, here is his view of the Steeler’s new #1 pick.

Dane rated Devin as top linebacker in the class and projected him as the #10 pick overall, exactly where the Steelers snagged him. Given the eerie accuracy of that prediction I need to give Dane’s impressive draft guide a lot of respect from here on out.

Click the items below to enlarge to a more readable size.

2nd Best QB in Steelers History is… Landry Jones??

Posted by on Friday, 25 May, 2018

Okay, I’ll give you a minute to clear the cornflakes out of your sinuses after reading that headline. Nobody in their right mind would consider Landry Jones to be among the very best quarterbacks in Steelers history.

Yet, Landry does acquit himself surprisingly well in a statistical review. For most categories he gets middling results, which frankly is already a surprise given what most thought of him in his first couple of pro campaigns. In a couple of categories he does appear among the best, and even comes out tops in one category.

Read the rest of this entry »

Juju vs Burfict Beatdown

Posted by on Sunday, 8 April, 2018

I know my fellow Ballers enjoyed the play and may also enjoy the opportunity for a signed memento from TSE.