Steelers Training Camp: Friday Night Lights

It was with great anticipation that my lovely niece Laura and I headed for Latrobe Memorial Stadium and Friday Night Lights. I have never been to this event, and Laura has never been to any sort of football practice. (She will perhaps, like me, learn the error of her ways in later life.)

But it was not only the practice and the atmosphere I was anticipating, because we were meeting up with Greg (of the late lamented Weiner’s Circle,) Homer J., and Ivan. They arrived considerably earlier than we did and grabbed seats on the 40 yard line. It was then only a matter of catching up as we waited for the yellow school busses to arrive from St. Vincent’s. (Yes, the players are brought in yellow school busses. I don’t believe they are specially kitted out yellow school busses either. Mike Tomlin likes to keep the guys uncomfortable and humble during camp.)

I don’t have a single note on my yellow pad from Friday night, because as great as the 40 yard line seats on the 2nd row appeared to be, in fact the majority of the reps took place in the red zone, one way and another, and it was difficult to see too much. (This explains in part why I so seldom go to games. You can actually see much better on the TV, and are more comfortable besides. If this makes me a bad fan, well, I think there are an awful lot of bad fans.)

Pittsburgh Steelers 2017 Fourth Quarter Report: Part Four

Photo via Steelers.com

By Ivan Cole

Defense

Spent some time in the last segment reminiscing about the good old days when Steelers fans thought of the offensive line as the problem children. That mantle has been passed on to the defensive secondary. So, there has been some disorientation with how things have been playing out throughout this season. How is it possible that the problem child could be among the league leaders through much of the season in the virtual blink of an eye? Conversely, why are they giving up so many big plays?

Taking that second question first: I thought there was so much distain for the bend-but- don’t-break zone driven philosophy. We wanted more man principles. Well, as they say, be careful what you ask for. They’re getting off the field quickly now. Just kidding, sort of.

Developing the Talent: Inside Linebackers Coach Jerry Olsavsky

via Steelers.com

Many of you know Jerry Olsavsky played for the Steelers. His career spanned the end of Chuck Noll’s career and the first trimester, if you will, of Bill Cowher’s stint as head coach—1989-1997.

Looking at the Steelers’ record during this time period is interesting. There are a lot of entries during these years in the slot for playoff results (in Pro Football Reference’s Franchise Encyclopedia page). There is a Wild Card loss, two Conference losses, three Divisional losses, and a partridge in a pear tree. Or, more precisely, a Super Bowl loss. I can see why Bill Cowher earned the reputation as a great regular season coach—between 1992 and 1997, Cowher’s first six years, the worst record was 9/7, and the rest were double-digit wins. But he never quite closed the deal.

What you may not know about Olsavsky’s NFL career is that he signed with one current rival and played for another—he signed with the Bengals during the post-97 offseason, and played for the Baltimore Ravens. This would be his last year in the NFL.

A Blast from the Past: Third Round Part 2

Charles LeClaire/USA Today Sports Sean Spence takes the field during his rookie training camp.

The 2012 third round pick was someone we were all pretty excited about by partway through his first training camp. Sean Spence was fast, and he was a football player. Before that, though, some of us had concerns about him. The first knock on him was his size, the second his intelligence, the third his character. All of these except possibly the first are ironic in retrospect. Here’s what I wrote immediately after he was drafted:

Mike Tomlin said in the post­-draft presser, “he encompasses a lot of football character things that we value.” But there were some concerns. Reportedly, he got a 12 on the Wonderlic, and he was suspended for one game in college for “receiving improper benefits.” The NCAA violation was already an issue with the second round pick. In Spence’s case it was not a big deal. It does, however, call into question his intelligence, which was already reeling from the blow of getting a 12 on the Wonderlic.

But how much does the Wonderlic really matter?  It is a multiple choice intelligence test given at the combine, and is used by employers. It is designed to test the capacity of prospective employees for problem­ solving and learning. A score of 20 (out of 50 questions) indicates average intelligence, correlating to an IQ of around 100.

Mike Tomlin’s Top Five Thanksgiving List

via footballnation.com

I suppose it is rather presumptuous of me to tell Mike Tomlin what he should be thankful for. My excuse is, in looking at what Mike Tomlin has to be thankful for, Steeler Nation will also have an opportunity to examine their blessings in this oh-so-challenging season. Some of them will be hard blessings, some of them may seem like small things, and some of them are foundational.

And isn’t this like the blessings we enjoy in our lives? Many, even sometimes the greatest ones, are only truly discovered in retrospect, and may not seem like blessings at all in the moment. Some are small and barely noticed until we reflect back and realize that if it weren’t for that “small” thing some much bigger things would never have happened. And some of them prove themselves to be the aspects of our lives which made all the other blessings possible.

Here’s my list. Please feel free to add to it in the comments, if you aren’t too busy sleeping on the couch.

The Pittsburgh Steelers All ‘Bust’ Team: Defense

 by Ivan Cole

If you missed Part One, let me review some of the ground rules.

‘Bust’ vs. Bust. This is an exercise in irony. So if you are expecting to see the Limas Sweed Story in this piece you will be deeply disappointed. To qualify for this team you have to be a success who is declared a failure before or during the time you are succeeding.

We in Steelers Nation are masters of this sort of thing. There are a number of ways this gets done. The criteria which will receive the greatest focus here will be:

1. declared a failure before putting on a uniform or playing a game,
2. not developing in a timely enough fashion,
3. being fragile, injured too often, having personal conduct issues that supposedly disqualifies a player from receiving our support, or
4. being declared washed up (old or otherwise done).

There will be something of a bias in favor of the Super Bowl era (some would say that everything Steelers prior to then is by definition a bust), and skewed even further toward the latter years of this period.

Part One detailed the offense and included two players and one coach who would end up in the HOF—Terry Bradshaw, Mike Webster and Chuck Noll. It also included a few others who have a pretty good shot of ending up there as well. Here we will take a look at the defense, which includes at least one HOF player among their ranks.

Great Expectations, Abundant Disappointments? Steelers Third Round Draft Picks in the 21st Century

Historically, the Pittsburgh Steelers have done quite well at identifying talent and drafting good players. Naturally there have been a number of less-than-optimal outcomes. And despite what many people think, this did not begin with the Mike Tomlin era. Troy Edwards, anyone? Or Ricardo Colclough?

In recent years the Steelers have continued to draft some fine players. But the third round, a round in which the Steelers have drafted players such as Joey Porter, Max Starks, and Hines Ward, has seemingly been less impressive in recent years.

But have the Steelers really been that good at drafting in the third round in the 21st century? Despite a few major successes, the Steelers were right around the league average during the first decade of the 21st century. The release of Dri Archer, a player for whom many had high hopes and many more felt was a wasted draft pick, has started another round of the refrain “Tomlin doesn’t know how to draft.” This in turn prompted me to look back at the Steelers third round picks since 2000. (Ward was, of course, drafted in 1998 and won’t be considered further.) 

5 Smoldering Questions On the Pittsburgh Steelers, Week 4

  Week 5 finds the Pittsburgh Steelers exactly where they were a year ago at 2-2 after a heartbreaking overtime loss the Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers have had ample time for catharsis and commiseration as they prepare to play the San Diego Chargers, but before focusing on the impending Monday Night Football matchup, Steelers Nation must first struggled with these 5 Smoldering Questions on the Steelers.

1. In the aftermath of the Steelers loss to the Ravens, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review’s Rob Rossi pointed the finger at Josh Scobee, while on Behind the Steel Curtain  PaVa Steelers Fan laid the blame squarely on Mike Tomlin’s 4^th down decision making. Which of them is right? Defend your choice.

Game Recap: Ravens at Steelers

via Post-Gazette, Peter Diana photo

Well, that was interesting. The whole experience was rather surreal, between the equipment failures (mine) and the execution failures (the Steelers’.)

I did my usual thing of setting the game to record while I did useful things, and then sat down about an hour into the recording to watch. This way I can fast-forward through the commercials, which I hate to sit through with my stomach churning. When I started to watch, on my computer—I don’t have a TV—the sound had completely disappeared from my iMac.

I called in the jumbo set, brain-wise—I asked my husband to look at it. There was no obvious reason for the problem. But if I did a reboot I would lose the part of the game that was recording while I did so. This meant I had to watch it in silence.

It’s actually very peaceful that way, except for one thing—whenever they have sideline interviews or put graphics up on the screen or whatever, you can’t tell what happened in the ensuing play. It’s very annoying, and the peaceful part was spoiled by the comments and suggestions I felt compelled to make to the unheeding producers.

But I managed to see more than enough to make me feel that a) it was pretty unrealistic to think the offense would have a lot of continuity on one walk-through practice, since you have to at least pretend like you’re going to pass from time to time, b) this defense is really on its way, and c) it’s actually pretty entertaining to just see the various Harbaugh faces, without the commentary to go with them. Happy. Sad. Happy. Mad. It’s reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss book. I was hoping to end at “sad” but alas it wasn’t to be.

Game Recap: Steelers at Rams, Pas de Trois

AP photo/Billy Hurst: The Fire Heard Around the NFL…

I write this with the sort of heavy heart I usually have when chronicling a Steelers loss. In fact, I didn’t feel this bad when they lost to the Patriots.

2015 was supposed to be the year the offense carried the defense. And make no mistake, there are still a lot of playmakers on this team. But part of the “playmakerliness”, if I may be allowed to coin a term, is predicated on the chemistry between Roethlisberger and his receivers.

It was heartening to see Bell ripping off a few good runs against a very good defensive front. And all of a sudden we might be seeing the sort of two-back look a lot of people were hoping for but Tomlin nixed. But given that everyone is going to key in on the run, it might not be a successful strategy.