Tag: Steelers

Steelers Thoughts #12 (1/18/16): House Money

Posted on by Eric

broncos

The 2015-16 Pittsburgh Steelers season was one wild ride – silly, sublime, heartbreaking, exhilarating – full of adversity and transcendence, rewards and regrets, devastating injuries and edifying teamwork, on field potential both realized and left dangling, tantalizingly unfulfilled…in other words, a football season. The clock finally struck midnight on Pittsburgh’s fairy tale playoff run at Denver’s Sports Authority Field at Mile High – one of the league’s few truly authentic and historic home field advantages – and the Steelers’ golden coach grudgingly turned back into a pumpkin, though the men remained men and not mice. I think those men left everything out there on the field. They have exceedingly little to hang their heads about today, and reason for real optimism going forward. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #12 (1/18/16): House Money” →

Steelers Thoughts #11 (11/30/15): Deep Breathing Exercises

Posted on by Eric

benland

So, Thanksgiving happened. My apologies for not sending along official season’s greetings wishes in a more timely, graceful, or obviously heartfelt manner, but real life intervened/interfered, as it does so often. Around these parts, owing in equal measure to outside influences and internal convolution, ideas tend to form and arrive on one of two schedules: preemptive or procrastination. I hope you had the finest and fullest of turkey days and experienced the very blackest of Fridays, that you had sufficient opportunity to bask in the loving glow of your family and/or friends and/or 42” television, and that all participants survived the experience with their limbs, digits, and senses of humor intact. Like most holidays, the extended Thanksgiving stopover requires from me a decent bit of driving to get from central Ohio to east Tennessee and back again. It’s a journey I’ve taken so many times now that it’s practically imprinted in my DNA, and, horror of horrors, the return trip falls, far more often than not, on Sunday afternoon. Nothing has the potential to add figurative hours of teeth-gnashing, blood vessel-popping hilarity to the several actual hours you’ve invested in returning home than listening to Pittsburgh Steeler football in real time, Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #11 (11/30/15): Deep Breathing Exercises” →

Steelers Thoughts #10 (9/28/15): (Next) Man Up

Posted on by Eric

steelers

Though I am a fairly serious sports fan, DAE as a blog treats sports structurally as a sideline rather than headline topic, and only covers two in earnest: boxing* and professional football. The former is built on the strength of individual fighters and individual events, with no true off-season to speak of, whereas the latter is mostly off-season, building to a sustained five-month crescendo of weekly hostilities that dominates each fall. Football, by turns a joyous and vicious game – often in the course of the same sixty minutes – works on such a tight, unforgiving schedule, with every game precious and important in its own right, that its fans have no choice but full commitment from the moment the first whistle is blown. I’ve often worried that doing any real justice to pro football on a non-dedicated blog would be a fool’s errand, and making a cursory review of the nine official editions of “Steelers Thoughts” so far makes me feel plenty foolish indeed. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #10 (9/28/15): (Next) Man Up” →

Steelers Thoughts #9 (8/10/15): The Not Ready for Primetime Players

Posted on by Eric

erome-bettis-steelers-hall-of-fame

We leave aside the noble, useful, stated purpose of preseason football for a moment, which is to allow a venue through which teams can effectively simulate, or at least approximate, NFL game speed and coaches have an extended opportunity to evaluate young talent in a crucible of combat ostensibly more competitive than training camp drills would be. We do this because the NFL and its member clubs comprise a cut-throat business cartel that would not only probably sell its soul for an extra 30 seconds of prime time ad revenue, it doubtless has many times over. Televised preseason football (gulp) springs from a modified carnival barker/snake oil salesman’s mentality, with the exception that instead of convincing Joe and Jill Q. American that their ho-hum lives are sadly and shoddily incomplete without the inclusion of this revolutionary new product, it is convincing folks with an authentic hole in their lives that the clearly substandard product being peddled is, in fact, a 1:1 replacement for it. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #9 (8/10/15): The Not Ready for Primetime Players” →

Miscellanity #1 (5/4/15): Notes from “Capacity Weekend”

Posted on by Eric

Buffet_New

Did you ever have one of those weekends? I’m thinking of a tightly compressed span of days that was so abnormally packed with business and interest and distractions and various things of note that it exhausted and exhilarated in essentially equal – though, in real time, constantly shifting – measure? Yeah, me neither, or at least not with any regularity, though every once in a while the worm (or is it the screw?) just turns and turns. This debut edition of DAE’s (latest) new column, “Miscellanity”, may well end up being both its first and only issue. It’s a practical matter, really. This past weekend, which featured, in Saturday, the widely touted “busiest day in sports history” since at least the last one, was such a convergence of “must see” events in several of the arenas that most interest me – Music, Football, TV, Boxing – that I could well have emerged from it having written not one but four new columns.* Continue reading “Miscellanity #1 (5/4/15): Notes from “Capacity Weekend”” →

Steelers Thoughts #8 (4/16/15): Poets, Seers, and Warrior-Kings

Posted on by Eric

steelers d

Because of the (seeming) increased importance, or at least commensurate media coverage, of the free agent period and draft, fans like me can often find themselves with a skewed subconscious understanding of the NFL off-season. With the draft a mere (albeit punishing) two weeks away and free agent activity now reduced to a trickle, it feels on many levels like the off-season is winding down when, in reality, it’s barely half done. Fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers might particularly already wish it was over, for the 2015 off-season – which, you’ll remember, began with Dick LeBeau’s emotional departure and Keith Butler’s promotion to defensive coordinator – has had a whiplash-inducing quality to it so far, with exceedingly long periods of eerie quiet suddenly punctuated not by a free agent signing, the kind of good faith reloading efforts that provide fans a moment’s excitement during the extended doldrum periods, but rather a full-blown life event, the magnitude of which might cause the recipient to update his insurance in real life. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #8 (4/16/15): Poets, Seers, and Warrior-Kings” →

Steelers Thoughts #7 (1/14/15): Off-brand Aftermarket Parts Bonanza!

Posted on by Eric

tomlin

Also known as the NFL offseason. Yes, I know meaningful games (and the Pro Bowl) are still left to be played, and I plan to at least pay lip service to this weekend’s impending conference championships and the gridiron scraps what precursed them, but let’s be real. This is a Steelers column, intended (mostly?) for Steelers fans, and for the Steelers, the offseason has already started in earnest. Because I intend for this to be my final published word on the team until well into NFL Draft run up, if not after the Draft itself, I’ll look to cover a lot here, very likely too much. My apologies in advance. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #7 (1/14/15): Off-brand Aftermarket Parts Bonanza!” →

Steelers Thoughts #6 (12/1/14): Garbage Time

Posted on by Eric

steely

The various quirks and conventions of this blog have taken root and grown in a highly organic, practically accidental way. Because I was particularly taken with a certain swatch of dialogue and decided, apropos of nothing, to quote it at the beginning of my first ever movie review – for the 2013 Superman reboot Man of Steel – the introductory dialogue capture went on to become a feature of my subsequent reviews. Because I happened to be in a serious, self-reflective and analytical headspace, with no traditional subject matter in mind, when the time came to write the blog’s twenty-fifth post, it became an instant (and self-evident) tradition for each twenty-fifth post to focus on personal matters rather than my normal geek and pop culture ephemera. I knew from the moment that I launched DAE that I would periodically write about the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have been my unquestioned favorite sports team since I first “discovered” them at the age of five. I always figured that I would write whenever the spirit moved me, although in my heartiest moments I still never imagined I could stomach analyzing sixteen games per year, not including playoffs. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #6 (12/1/14): Garbage Time” →

Steelers Thoughts #5 (10/27/14): Rare Air

Posted on by Eric

steel bee

Expectations are fickle and fragile things for sports fans. They can serve as both crutch and anchor over the course of a long season. The wise fan monitors facts on the ground closely, considers trends and opposition, and, if needs be, adjusts his or her expectations accordingly. But football fans – indeed, fans of anything worth the investment – are just not overly cerebral creatures, or at least not on Sunday. We are ruled by our hearts, and the high expectations Steelers fans took into training camp 2014 and week 1 have already been both sorely tested and somewhat reconfigured through no real action on our parts. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #5 (10/27/14): Rare Air” →

Steelers Thoughts #4 (9/29/14): Duck! Rabbit! Duck!

Posted on by Eric

I have a few points to make about yesterday’s last minute Steelers loss to the Buccaneers, and no wish to belabor any of them. Sixteen hours later, the sting is still fresh and the taste still bitter. It was one of the most frustrating losses in my recent memory, or, at any rate, has temporarily crowded out all other contenders from my personal shortlist. I certainly have no desire to detract from the performance of Tampa Bay, who were game, opportunistic, resilient, and tenacious in victory. Though Tampa played well enough to win, I also don’t think it’s homerism to suggest that, by most objective measures, the Steelers on the whole outplayed them. They moved the ball, often with ease, and for much of the game held close to a threefold advantage on Tampa in terms of yards gained. The Bucs parlayed a crippling turnover into an early lead but then seemed to succumb to our offensive pressure and relative defensive competence, before the Steelers, who have a well-established recent history of playing down to lesser competition, shot themselves in the foot late, taking it off the gas in the process. Continue reading “Steelers Thoughts #4 (9/29/14): Duck! Rabbit! Duck!” →