Tag: Steelers

Steelers Thoughts #21 (7/6/25): Some Assembly Required

Posted on by Eric

Few, if any, organizations in the National Football League are as synonymous with the notion of “tradition” as the Pittsburgh Steelers. This, in recent years, is to me as much a media creation as anything actually proffered by the team itself, but old habits die hard. The salient points – three coaches in 55 years, four Super Bowl victories in six years in the 1970s, another should’ve been three in five years in the 2000s (merely two in practice), 21 consecutive non-losing seasons and counting, five consecutive playoff losses and counting – have been dusted off and recited so often they’ve since been reduced to lazy shorthand, and though the think pieces still practically write themselves, there’s much more to be distilled and dissected than is immediately evident. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #21 (7/6/25): Some Assembly Required” →

Steelers Thoughts #20 (11/25/21): Wish You were(n’t) here

Posted on by Eric

Pittsburgh Steelers single-game tickets went on sale some time back in May – I refuse to research the exact date, but it was, at any rate, a different time/world – right around the time Americans everywhere were predictably overreacting to the news that widespread vaccine distribution was primed to deliver unto us something approaching normalcy after well over a year of communal plague. We now know how that all played out. Only a little over half of eligible Americans took said vaccine while the remaining late-adopters couched their decisions in terms of personal freedom over public health and safety. Having prioritized my own faith in science and common sense over my knowledge of contrarian human nature, I sat, dumbfounded, and bore witless witness. Whichever side of the fence you reside, the intervening months have surely brought their challenges, so I won’t belabor shopworn arguments any further (except perhaps in an aside).* My own overreaction manifested in perhaps the only way possible for an inveterate concert freak who’d barely left the house in fifteen months. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #20 (11/25/21): Wish You were(n’t) here” →

Steelers Thoughts #19 (9/21/20): Mid-Preseason Form

Posted on by Eric

Remember the XFL? Boy, those were the days, weren’t they? Authentic, post-Super Bowl winter football played with some semblance of competence and professionalism. A reasonably cool way for a decompressing sports fan to occupy their Saturday, one you could even admit to watching with a minimum of rationalization necessary. Everything was fresh and new and full of possibility, back before reality blew a Covid-sized hole in the world in mid-February and our collective sanity and security began gushing out as if from a breached dam. The XFL was the football world’s first Coronavirus casualty, followed in no particular order by NFL rookie camp, voluntary camp, team conditioning activities, and capital-T Training camp, the Hall of Fame Game, the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, full college seasons across the board, the Pac 12 season outright, the Big Ten season outright (later redacted, fingers still crossed), both my fantasy football leagues (I’m only the least bit somber about losing one of them), and, finally, the NFL Preseason. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #19 (9/21/20): Mid-Preseason Form” →

Steelers Thoughts #18 (8/6/2019): The Abyss Stares Back

Posted on by Eric

All eyes across the National Football League and associated media are fixated on the Cleveland Browns as training camp 2019 kicks off, and it’s not difficult to deduce that a good number of players for and supporters of their ancient blood rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, greatly prefer it that way. These last two seasons in Pittsburgh have been erratic to the point of bloodletting, hair-ripping frustration, and not because Steelers fans have become overly conditioned to success and, as a consequence, deficient in perspective and possessed of unrealistic expectations. Well, not just because of that. The 2019 Steelers are yesterday’s news, goes today’s conventional wisdom. They had their chances, and recently, and blew them all. They had mind-blowing potential and squandered it. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #18 (8/6/2019): The Abyss Stares Back” →

Miscellanity #2 (5/2/19): The Revenge of “Capacity Weekend”

Posted on by Eric

miscellanity 2

Of all the ideas for which I’ve sent up trial balloons over the five years and counting of darkadaptedeye.org – such as “Musings Deathmatch”, where I compare and contrast different versions of the same property (essentially an original vs. reboot firing range), or “Pilot to Bombardier”, where I review TV pilots three at a time in an attempt to determine whether or not to tackle the series proper – the one I most hoped would turn into a recurring item was always “Miscellanity”. Structured as a potpourri of snap reactions to an unreasonable number of pop culture, concerts, and/or sporting events dropping or landing or taking place within a limited time window, usually the course of a single weekend, “Miscellanity” posts are quick hitter compilations (for this blog anyway) – comparatively fast to write (though not this time), theoretically fun to read (knock on wood) – not necessarily designed to induce whiplash, though the risk is always present. They are also indicative of a life well-lived for a goof like me, Continue reading “Miscellanity #2 (5/2/19): The Revenge of “Capacity Weekend”” →

Steelers Thoughts #17 (12/4/2018): Bad Acid Reflux (Redux)

Posted on by Eric
watt

In the privacy of my home, or a friend’s, or the relative safety of a Steeler bar or especially rowdy corner table, believe you me, I’ll gladly rag on your team, and your players, and your fanbase, and your ownership, your stupid, overrated city, and adorable but misplaced civic pride – and the refs (especially the refs) – until they are all bleeding like sieves from multiple metaphorical wounds. No enemy is technically within earshot and so, in my view, no one technically gets hurt. I fully expect and endorse the same treatment from opposing fans, so long as I’m not around to hear that either. Convenient, no? Venting one’s spleen in a controlled, friendly environment can be terribly therapeutic. I wish it wasn’t strictly necessary, of course, but outside of vicarious onfield accomplishments – which, let’s face it, are fleeting and never, ever a given – it’s just about the only solace to be reliably found in sports. There is a very good reason that I keep my in-person trash talking to a bare minimum, however… or, rather, two. One – I’m not convinced it’s always harmless fun, nor am I without shame. I have evolved over almost forty years as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan into an anthropomorphic cauldron of bubbling hatred, wrapped in decorative black and yellow ribbon and exceedingly thin skin. As we share a perhaps overly emotional bond to a merciless game, I can’t trust you to be 100% civil and maintain perspective face-to-face any more than I do myself. I’ll certainly buy you a beer after, and we can maybe talk about something less divisive and triggering, like politics.

Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #17 (12/4/2018): Bad Acid Reflux (Redux)” →

Steelers Thoughts #16 (7/19/18): The Ring of Distant Bells

Posted on by Eric

NFL: Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers

I can, thankfully, only imagine the tedium with which dedicated sports beat reporters fill their offseasons. Freed from the strictures of working at a more traditional, or even outwardly identifiable, sports website, I wile away those same days in a barely distracted haze, neither slave to their all-consuming 24-hour news cycles nor subject to their unquenchable thirst for reckless speculation and calorie-free commentary. At certain points of the journey, however, as forks in the road come into view, I can still rouse myself and adopt more or less the same passionate guise in week three of July that I’ll wear in week ten of the regular season. As the Steelers zero in on the commencement of another training camp in picturesque Latrobe, Pennsylvania, their biggest lingering distraction has finally been sorted out, for better or worse Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #16 (7/19/18): The Ring of Distant Bells” →

Steelers Thoughts #15 (1/26/18): Trust in/and “The Process”

Posted on by Eric

Pro Bowlers

As this writing begins, Mike Tomlin, his remaining coaching staff, and an impressive total of nine imminently deserving Pittsburgh Steelers players are themselves getting to work with Pro Bowl preparations in Orlando, Florida. Depending on their individual levels of competitive and team spirit, self-belief, and self-respect, this year-end award might not constitute for them the worry-free holiday, getting paid one last time to play a kid’s game, that it likely will for the majority of their peers. Nor should it. The 2017 Pittsburgh Steelers had big dreams and lofty goals, the sort for which only one final destination, or result while there engaged, will suffice. Falling short yet again with this level of overall talent and seeming resolve should provide a personal reckoning to every person in the organization, and, for all I know, has. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #15 (1/26/18): Trust in/and “The Process”” →

Steelers Thoughts #14 (1/24/17): Kryptonite Burns/Red Sun Poisoning

Posted on by Eric

Pittsburgh Steelers v New England Patriots

After a charmed, inspiring, dependably hardscrabble nine-game winning streak that might as well have paired with Oscar-winning Jerry Goldsmith accompaniment and protective detail from a coterie of animated Disney mice, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ gilded royal coach turned back into a pumpkin Sunday night in the manner and place it has so many times over the years, against the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game. Before a justifiably frenzied crowd of 66,000 jolly Affleckian sub-townies, Boston chowderheads, Revolutionary War reenactors, and other loveable regional stereotypes, the Steelers’ resurgent, frankly overachieving defense picked an auspicious occasion and opponent on/against which to revert to general ineffectiveness, and its offense could not make up the difference. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #14 (1/24/17): Kryptonite Burns/Red Sun Poisoning” →

Steelers Thoughts #13 (3/23/16): Runaway Baggage Carousel!

Posted on by Eric

coaches

Comedy gold is minable from all corners of the internet at any given time. For instance, I got a chuckle yesterday upon closer inspection of a picture taken Monday at the ongoing NFL Owner’s Meetings in Boca Raton, which assembled 7/8 of the league’s current head coaching fraternity into a canned moment suitable to be immortalized and treasured just shy of forever. I’m ashamed to admit I only fully recognized thirteen of the twenty-eight commandantes in this class picture, including three from the Steelers’ home division*. Jeff Fisher and John Fox canoodled like (only) momentarily interrupted drinking buddies. Rex Ryan looked like he desperately wanted to sell you something from the Bills’ Pro Shop. Bruce Arians looked like he was late for his tee time. Ron Rivera looked like a guy whose team just went to the Super Bowl, though, oddly enough, not as much as did beaming Bengals coach Marvin Lewis, whose team I’m utterly, earthshakingly certain did not. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #13 (3/23/16): Runaway Baggage Carousel!” →