Football Talk Language Talk Hard Steelers Offense
By dave buzard
The Steelers organized team activities are underway down ‘nare on the South Side. I hope those activities include a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo and a Primanti’s Brothers #1. But mostly, I hope no one blows out a knee, hammy, shoulder, Achilles, pectoral, etc… while they are learning the playbook. In my mind I see the perky little woman from the Rosetta Stone TV commercials standing in front of the offense smiling sweetly as she translates plays and formations from Haley to English. Too bad she wasn’t available to convert the ancient vernacular of Joe Walton to English and then pull off the amazing feat of then making it understandable in the language of Brister. I suspect that involves a lot of grunting, writing in the dirt, and finally, slinging poo. “Aw, hell; I’m just gonna chuck it at Weegie.”
Hey not for nothing here but these guys all went to college (stop laughing!!!) and most of them even grad-je-ated (congratulations again, Ben). Oh, and by the way, IT’S FOOTBALL. There are only so many things eleven dudes on offense can do within the current rules and it still be called FOOTBALL. Some offenses call the holes from left to right; some go right to left. Sometimes Buck goes by Mike. Some gaps are numbered. Some gaps are lettered. Holy crap! Algebra is hard! But like algebra, they give you the answer (six or seven, sometimes 3, CRAP!!) and all you have to do is solve for ‘X’ or ‘Y’ by using the FOIL method. My brain is beginning to swell just thinking about this stuff and I have never had a concussion! Imagine a receiver; let’s say he’s held himself out of OTA’s and training camp. Well this receiver has just been lined up by Ed Reed (you didn’t think he was really retiring, did you) and then receiver comes back to the huddle all fuzzy in the head with a booger on his cheek for good measure. He’s not sure of his last name (it’s Wallace) and he looks at two Big Ben’s in the huddle saying something like “38 Heavy/ X option/ Blast Waggle Cross Go/ On 3”. Dang, player; now how much are you worth?
Football is not a hard game to watch and understand. It isn’t even a difficult game to play, really. It is a very difficult language to speak. It’s cryptic and silly at times but it’s the game we love and OTA’s are under way!!