Pittsburgh Peculiarities, Part One

Photo via Steelers.com

By Ivan Cole

It’s Bonus Week! You get a dose of reality from Ivan to mitigate my (partially) fictitious JuJu adventures…

Some additional observations at the halfway point of the 2017 season

Are the Steelers particularly vulnerable to ‘Trap’ games? Let’s examine the underlying assumption here.

In thinking this, we are essentially declaring that certain opponents cannot possibly win a contest against Pittsburgh unless the Steelers screw up and underperform. It must be and can only be that the Steelers play down to the level of their opponent, rather than the opponent, though objectively weaker, is capable of elevating their efforts to be competitive with an otherwise superior group.

Knowing What We Don’t Know, Part 5: Coaching in the Fog of War

Kelly L. Cox, USA Today

By Ivan Cole

I once took over the head coaching duties of a girls basketball team that had been winless the previous year and guided them to an undefeated season and a state championship. This was accomplished despite my being saddled with a considerable set of handicaps.

I had solid experience coaching football, and had been a basketball assistant, but I had never played the game at an organized competitive level myself and had never led a team.

Some of the preparation and developmental principles are transferable across sports. This fact, along with deep study of great coaches such as John Wooden and Morgan Wooten, and being open to the insight of the other strong coaches I knew, helped. No team was better prepared than we were.

Knowing What We Don’t Know, Part 4: More on Mike Tomlin and Coaching in the NFL

Fred Vuich/AP Photo

By Ivan Cole

On Christmas Day 2016, the Baltimore Ravens were eliminated from both the possibility of earning the AFC North championship and a spot in the playoffs when Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown combined for a game winning touchdown with nine seconds left to play.

In the days following the game, some Ravens fans directed their ire at head coach John Harbaugh and his staff, asserting that the group should be terminated, for, among other crimes, poor clock management. Sound familiar?

Knowing What We Don’t Know, Part Two: The Rooneys and Race Relations in the NFL

Bill Nunn, Jackie Robinson, and others: Teenie Harris photograph, via Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh website

By Ivan Cole

I want to thank Hombre for being a source of inspiration for Part One of this series. His first question in the latest 5 Smoldering Questions provides the launch point for Parts Two and Three:

Which of these key Dan Rooney decisions do you think was most consequential to the Steelers present day AND future legacy?

• a) Listening to Bill Nunn’s complaints about how the franchise dealt with African American reporters and then convincing him to join the Steelers scouting department.
• b) Hiring Chuck Noll.
• c) Firing his brother Art Rooney Jr.
• d) Choosing Bill Cowher over Tom Donahoe and replacing the latter with Kevin 
Colbert.
• e) Hiring Mike Tomlin (or acquiescing to Art II decision to hire Tomlin)
• f) Accepting the ambassadorship to Ireland and giving up control of the team.

I cheated and chose both a) and b) as most important, making the argument that to do justice to either demanded that their linkage be acknowledged. I feel that the Rooney (Dan and Art Sr.)/Noll/Nunn collaboration was in the same neighborhood of significance as Branch Rickey/Jackie Robinson, Paul Brown/Bill Willis, Marion Motley, and a handful of other collaborators whose actions resulted in significant transformation, not only in the supposedly trivial domain of sport, but also with significant spillover into the larger society.

5 Smoldering Questions on the Steelers’ Free Agency

by Hombre de Acero

With NFL Free Agency about to begin its third week the 2017 off season is fully underway. And for the Steelers it’s business as usual, greatly to the chagrin of much of the franchise’s fan base. Nonetheless, there’s been enough activity thus far to give this corner of Steelers Nation 5 Smoldering Questions to struggle with before our focus firmly shifts to the 2017 NFL Draft.

Fifth Quarter Report: 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers, Part One

by Ivan Cole

Steelers Nation

In August 2015, I spent a delightful day indulging in a Pittsburgh sports feast with Rebecca. We spent the afternoon attending Steelers training camp in Latrobe, and then the evening taking in a Pittsburgh Pirates game at PNC Park.

One of many things that struck me that day was the difference in mood at the respective venues.

First Take on the End of the 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers Season

via Steelers.com

by Ivan Cole

“I am on record as stating that the standard for success for this particular collection of talent is to make it to the Conference Championship Game. Don’t get me wrong, I will be as disappointed as anyone if the team falls short after traveling so far. Nor am I attempting to inoculate the reader against failure as well. However, I would suggest that we be mindful that given the relative lack of experience in these matters, a winning performance would be a step beyond teams from the 70s and the last decade who needed multiple tries before claiming the ultimate prize.”

This is what I wrote in my last posting, and I am not backing off any of it. The reader may be wondering how I can be such a bleeding-heart optimist considering the events of the last few days. It’s a fair question, so this will be a multiple part post mortem. In the following segments (we have plenty of time on our hands now) I will give my take on where the team is in the larger journey.

“Chuck Noll, His Life’s Work:” Michael MacCambridge unlocks the riddle of Chuck Noll

via 250 Words

by Homer J.

If someone asks what you want for Christmas, might I suggest you tell them, Michael MacCambridge’s “Chuck Noll, His Life’s Work.” It is, hands down, the most literate and most enlightening sports biography I’ve ever read. 

The finest man we never knew

Chuck Noll was the best coach, and perhaps the finest man that we never knew. Had Churchill ever met Noll, he might have described him as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But, as Churchill would then speculate, perhaps that was a key.

Thoughts from the Missing in Action: Steelers vs. Colts

by Ivan Cole

I have been able, mostly holding my head in my hands, to watch the games over the past month, but haven’t been paying attention to much else. But it probably doesn’t require much imagination to get a sense of the topics, tone and tenor of what the conversation has been like in the Steelers community recently. Through semi-fresh eyes, here are some observations coming off Thanksgiving Week’s action.

Chuck Noll Foundation for Brain Injury Research to Open in Pittsburgh

This site isn’t, I trust, your first stop for breaking news, because you’re bound to be disappointed, except perhaps on April 1st, when we often carry stories no one else has. And there is a pretty good reason for that, too.

And this is scarcely a breaking news story either, because the Steelers announced it late yesterday morning. But I’m going to comment on it anyhow, because it is just one instance of the many reasons I love being a Steeler fan.