After spending way too much time talking about kickers, let’s talk about real athletes.

With the exception of the sissies who boot the pigskin, football players are the toughest athletes in all of sports.   Let’s use concussions for example. Justin Morneau was concussed in July and couldn’t return for his team’s playoff run in mid-October.  Of course, everybody knows baseball players are a soft bunch of overpaid ball-scratchers.  Hockey players are tough but Pittsburgh fans may remember last season when Matt Cooke wiped out the Bruins’ Marc Savard with a beautiful (and clean) body check.  Savard missed almost two months of action and was still cry-babying about post-concussion “symptoms” this season.

Meanwhile, football players who are concussed almost always return a week later.  Except Hines Ward.  He wanted to return in the same game.

Yes, in Mike Tomlin‘s weekly pack of lies/press conference, admitted Hines suffered a concussion in that debacle against the Patriots.  As I surmised, they told him it was a “neck sprain” just to placate the proud and stubborn receiver.  I applaud the Pittsburgh Steelers for doing right by their players.

Hines is, without a doubt, one of the toughest men to ever wear the Black and Gold. For those of you who know your Steelers history, that’s saying a lot.  This man sprained his MCL in the AFC Championship game, an injury which would shelve an ordinary player for almost an entire season, and returned to play just two weeks later.  Given the physical manner in which he plays, I’m sure Hines has had his share of injuries over the years but he’s never whines, complained, or made excuses like our Drama Queen behind center.

I empathize with people who’ve suffered a concussion.  Mostly because I have personal experience with that particular issue.  While attending CMU, I was once concussed in an intra-mural floor hockey game gone horribly awry.  Don’t think I’ve forgotten your goonish behavior, Tina DiCapula.

However, I do find the NFL’s current concussion-craze to be a bit overzealous.  Mike Tomlin’s comment that, “Sometimes, you’ve got to protect the extreme competitors from themselves, and Hines is that.  We love and respect him for that, but we had to act in his best interests.” bothers me.  These are grown men who should be permitted to make their own choices. Doctors don’t strap you down”in your best interests” and stick needles in your ass without your consent.  Why should the NFL, Tomlin, or anybody else force Hines out of a game by lying to him?

On the flip side, Hines also said some things which worry me.   I’ve always felt Hines was one of the smartest players on the team, perhaps a future Senator or Congressman.  However, when he says, “Until I get a defined answer with all of the stats of guys having injuries post-career, I won’t worry about it.” that worries me. Um, talk to Merril Hoge about the effects of repeated concussions.  Or talk to Mike Webster and Justin Strzelczyk.

Oh wait, you can’t…  ‘Cause they’re dead.

The good news is Hines has passed all his post-concussion tests and is cleared to play on Sunday.  Although his cavalier attitude suggests there is still a ways to go as far as educating players on the dangers of concussions.  Although, really, the Ginger Dictator has nobody to blame but himself if players don’t take the issue seriously.  After all, this putz drops the hammer on James Harrison for playing clean hard football but doesn’t fine absolutely filthy dirty players like Kurt Coleman (who knocked out Austin Collie) or James Sanders (who cheapshoted Hines).  Until there is a clear and defined set of rules for all concerned, these situations are going to continue to occur.  Let’s just hope everybody gets on board before it’s too late.

William Clay Ford.  Mike Brown.  The Crypt Keeper Al Davis.  Daniel Snyder.  Jerry Jones.

What do these men have in common?

If you answered, “They should be locked in a shed because they’re a bunch of tools.” good job.  You win a cookie.   And not just any ordinary cookie.   A Louis Lipps’ Lipp-Smacker cookie.  Of course, I’ve been keeping that box in my Steeler Room since approximately 1988 so you might not want to actually eat it.  I leave the decision up to you.

The other correct answer to my original question is they’re all NFL owners.   And that is what I want to write about this week.  As fun as it is to talk smack about other cities and their pitiful teams, I would be negligent if I didn’t talk about a major situation happening with the Pittsburgh Steelers which reached a turning point last week.

The Rooney family rejected a $550 million dollar offer from New York billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller.  A recent article by Forbes Magazine assessed the value of the franchise at around $1 billion dollars.  Druckenmiller, chairmen of Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Capital Management, is worth around $4.5 billion, give or take a billion depending on how deeply the stock market crashes that day, so he wasn’t trying to be cheap.  For one, those valuations are based on paper and not real-life assets.  And secondly, he was only going to be buying a majority (about 75%) interest in the team, not the entire thing outright.

The Rooney Brothers are idiots.   This was about as perfect an opportunity to sell the team as they’re ever going to get.  The NFL wants the team’s ownership to be concentrated into fewer hands.  As most of the brothers have nothing to do with the football business, this was a chance for them to get out and turn a nice tidy profit at the same time.  Without sounding gloomy, they’re not young men.   Why not take the $140 million dollar pay off and live the rest of your life flying first class to Vegas, staying at the bowling alley penthouse at the Hard Rock, and doing shots off the leathery funbags of bleached-blonde Eagle Cheerleaders strippers?

Not to mention, if you’ve been following the news beyond the sports page, you might of heard that our economy is what financial experts call “sucking the big one.”  Things are not going to get better in the immediate future.   Yes, if the Steelers go up for sale, I’m sure bidders will line up.  But instead of a half dozen suitors, you might only have two.  And then there’s the danger of a Wayne Huzienga scenario.   Huzienga owned both the Miami Dolphins and the Marlins.  He spared no expense in assembling a championship team down in Florida.  Then his primary business, Blockbuster, went boom and the baseball team was basically gutted due to cash flow problems (ie having none).  Beyond that, if they wait until after the election it’s a no-win situation.  If McCain wins, the economy will likely continue its Republican induced slide; if Obama wins, the Democrats love taxing rich bastards.   So waiting until March ‘09 to sell the team might cost them untold millions they’d save by selling now.

I know you’re wondering why I care about this.  I don’t know Stanley Druckenmiller.  I’d like to, but only because anybody who paints his face black-and-gold and owns season tickets is my kind of guy.  If I saw him at a bar, well, I wouldn’t recognize him.  But if I did, I’d send him an Iron.  Or a shot of Cuervo.  Or a glass of Pinot Grigo.   Whatever rich bastards are drinking these days.

The main reason I wanted Druckenmiller to own the Steelers is this quote from him which appeared in the Post-Gazette following his failed bid:

But he said he never changed his bid, and was “disappointed” when it was finally turned down.

“I don’t like being in the press,” Mr. Druckenmiller said. “I really need to disappear again, and I need to start now.”

He doesn’t like publicity.  That is my kind of owner right there.   The absolute worst thing that could happen to the Pittsburgh Steelers is for them to be bought by one of these NFL owners who are nothing more than self-promoting jackasses.  Could you imagine a more terrible nightmare than to wake up and find our beloved team owned by Jerry Jones 2.0?

The Rooney family has long been recognized as not only the class of the NFL but one of the most respected owners in all of professional sports.  Their title is well-earned.  They are involved in the football operations but they don’t interfere with their football people.  They aren’t reactionary.  They don’t have hair-trigger tempers.   They are patient but not too patient.  They want to win and they expect to win and aren’t satisfied with anything but winning.  Putting a quality product out on the field is their primary concern.

This is a sharp contrast to the owners I mentioned above.  You can pretty much divide them into two groups.  The first is the Do-Nothing owners.   Mike Brown and WC Ford fall in this category.  These are the owners who we as Pittsburghers should be familiar with if we follow the Pittsburgh Pirates.  They subscribe to the Steve Miller school of management.  Which is to say, they take the money and run.  These owners, like the pillaging Bob Nutting, are perfectly happy to sit back, take the collective bargaining money the league doles out, and not put any of it into the on-field product.

As painful as it is to admit, the Bengals have had some talent the past few seasons.  Unfortunately, their owner hasn’t shown the slightest bit of interest in acquiring and/or keeping the pieces necessary to take the team to the next level.   And Lions GM Matt Millen must have pictures of Nana Ford fellating a young sheep while smothered in green gelatin to still have his job after compiling a 23-62 record under his “leadership.”

Opposite of the Do-Nothings are the Know-It-Alls.  These guys run their teams like they own a fantasy football franchise instead of a real one.  Guys like Al Davis or Jerry Jones continually stick their noses in the football side of the business, bringing in personnel they want, drafting players they want, or coaching from the owner’s box.  The worst of them all is Lil Danny Snyder, who every year goes out with his checkbook wide open and brings in every “name” he can find and then watches his team stumble to an 8-8 record when his Dr. Evil-esque plans fail.

Snyder’s foolishness reminds of a great Myron Cope story.  The ‘Skins were playing the Steelers back in 2000.  Cope (who was at least 70 at this time) kept referring to the Redskins as the “Wash Redfaces” Apparently, Snyder didn’t like this and sent someone to the Steelers radio booth to tell Cope to knock it off.

Legend has it Myron’s exact reply to said note was, “If the boy billionaire thinks he’s gonna shut me up, he can stick his head in a can of paint.”

If the mental image of a half drunk, chain-smoking, septugenerian Myron Cope pulling the punk card of the bigshot billionaire Daniel Snyder live on the air doesn’t make you smile, turn in your passport to Steeler Nation right now.

This story sums up my point better than I could.  Do we want that kind of owner?  Do we want somebody in the owner’s booth that Myron Cope would rather dunk in a bucket of glossy enamel than work for?   I don’t think Mr. Druckenmiller would’ve been and that’s why I wish he would’ve bought the team.   One things for sure, one day in the near future we’re going to wake up and find the team is in somebody else’s hands.

The Rooneys better know what they’re doing.

Somebody once said, “Cheaters never win and winners never cheat.” That person was probably a loser. If being a modern day sports fan has taught us anything, it’s that honesty is not the best policy. You want to become the all-time greatest home run hitter? You cheat. You want to become the greatest pitcher of the modern era? You cheat. You want to win three Super Bowls in seven years? You cheat.

The problem with all this cheating is nothing can be done about it. Oh sure, rules can be changed or penalties can be stiffened so it doesn’t happen again in the future. But nothing can be done about the past misdeeds. Once the home run record is broken, it’s broken. Once the Super Bowl has been played, it’s been played. The cheaters have already won.

That’s why I’ve resisted writing about the newest revelations in the New England Patriots “Spygate” scandal. It seems our ever intrepid Senator Arlen Specter has uncovered a long, detailed history of sign stealing and illegal signal taping by New England coach/documentary filmmaker Bill Belichick. Included in those misdeeds are four instances where the Patriots pilfered signals from our beloved Pittsburgh Steelers.

Belichick has finally broken his silence on the subject. The main gist of his claim is that any information gleaned from those tapes was of negligible value. Really Bill? Then why even bother doing it? If watching grown men go through a complicated series of hand gestures is your idea of a hot Saturday night, more power to you. Mine usually involves a bucket of chicken and a stack of Katie Morgan movies so I won’t judge. However, that explanation is so weak, even Roger Clemens wouldn’t buy it.

Also, why were the Steelers a horrid 1-3 in those games? Coincidence? Strangely enough, I remember the AFC Championship game back in 2004 quite vividly. Hopes were high that year. Even though our quarterback was then rookie Ben Roethlisberger, he still managed to lead us to a 15-1 record including a 34-20 dismantling of the Pats earlier in the season. Alas, the game was an absolute disaster, with our team ending up on the wrong side of a 41-27 pasting. I remember how clueless and confused Ben looked. I remember how the Patriots seemed to be two steps ahead of him all game. I remember my Grandpa calling for Tommy Maddox because, as he very astutely pointed out, we needed a veteran quarterback who could be trusted to call an audible when it was obvious the defense was ready for the play about to be run. Strange how things start to make sense in hindsight.

Steelers owner, Dan Rooney, has come out in defense of the league. Of course he has. Rooney is nothing if not a good company man. The last thing he or any NFL owner wants are Congressional hearings into his sport. It doesn’t change the fact that something stinks and I’m not talking about “Cloverfield.” A giant lobster? Seriously? I waited 90 freakin’ minutes for a giant freakin’ lobster?

The key point here is the timeline. The Jets game was on September 9th. Commissioner Roger Goodell completed his investigation and penalized the Patriots on the 13th. The Patriots didn’t turn over the tapes and notes regarding the spying until the 17th. I repeat for emphasis, they issued the punishment before they even knew the extent of the offense. How is this possible? Is Goodell a pre-cog? Unless he and Tom Cruise go jet-packing around the slums of New York on weekends, the fact he imposed a penalty before he even knew the crime tells me he wasn’t interested in justice, he just wanted the issue to blow over.

As I already said, the problem is what can be done about this situation? If Specter holds a hearing and succeeds in finding out the depth of the Patriots skullduggery, what good does that do? We’ll never get that AFC Championship game back. The Rams or the Iggles aren’t going to be awarded the Super Bowl by disqualification like in a bad wrestling match. But I would like to see even more penalties imposed on New England.

It’s like the NCAA. If they discover recruiting violations from five years ago, you’re penalized going forward. This is how the NFL should handle it. The Pats other #1 draft pick this year? Gone. Their #1 pick next year? Gone. Monday night games? Gone. And how about this…Bill Belichick? One year suspension. Hey, if a college program did the kinds of things the New England organization did, we wouldn’t see them in a bowl game for 5 years. No Tom Brady on my television, no weekly columns by Bill Simmons to inform us how Belichick enjoys rescuing stray kittens* on his days off. And, hopefully, if instant karma really does get you, no Patsies in any sort of Bowl for quite a while.

*to sell to coat factories

Well, Mike, the wheels have officially come off. Off Fast Willie Parker and most likely off the Steelers’ chances to make do anything significant in this year’s playoffs.

For the roughly 90% of you who don’t have access to the NFL Network, thanks to either the selfish cable companies or the arrogant football league (whichever greedy corporate entity you prefer), last night’s 41-24 win over the St. Louis Rams saw Parker’s season end with a broken fibula on his very first carry. For all the bitching there’s been about the soddy tundra of Heinz Field, we forget that at least it doesn’t carry anywhere near the same level of injury risk as that damn artificial turf.

The loss of Parker, the NFL’s leading rusher going into the game, is catastrophic. Yes, the Steelers haven’t been their typical grind it out/ball control/power running team this year. And yes, we have opened up the passing game and thrown the ball more frequently than in previous seasons. But if history has taught us anything, it’s taught us to win in January, you need to have a high-powered running attack. More importantly, it’s also taught us for the Steelers to compete with the AFC Elite, like the Colts and Patriots, their only hope would be to play a ball control/grind it out type game. There’s simply no way we win a shootout against either of those teams.

Not to be a Bitter Betty but I wouldn’t get too excited about anything that happened last night against the Rams. Scoring 41 points sounds impressive except when you consider we scored them against what is quite possibly the most inept defense I’ve seen in the past two or three seasons. Seriously, they’re beyond terrible. And we play the Browns and Bengals every year so think about the territory that statement covers. I can’t believe D-coordinator Jim Haslett is associated with Pittsburgh in any way. He must have some Cleveland ancestry in him somewhere. It’s the only possible explanation.

Consider QB Ben Roethlisberger was 16 of 20 for 261 yards, with 3 touchdown passes, no interceptions, and a perfect score on the quarterback SATs. Hell, even Daniel Sepulveda, our punter, was throwing on these guys. The fat guy in the Jerome Bettis jersey wearing the black and gold beer helmet I see at every home game could probably lead an Elway-esque Drive against the Rams. I’d feel sorry for St. Louis except they won the World Series a couple years ago while we have the most abominable disgrace of a baseball franchise in recent major league history so I guess everything evens out.

Najeh Davenport ran for 123 yards on 24 carries and scored two touchdowns in relief of Willie Parker. Again, don’t get too excited about the Dump Truck because this was against a defense that would be improving if it reached a subpar-level. WR Nate Washington had two TDs, including one real nice deep ball. And Santonio Holmes played an outstanding game, especially blowing by the secondary for an 83 yard catch on the first play of the game. If nothing else, it looks like his ankle is better and he should be near 100% for the playoffs.

However, beyond the Parker injury, there were other ominous signs in this game. Both our offensive and defensive lines are still playing way below what is acceptable. The O-line gave up 4 sacks and Ben was eating the turf all day which means inserting Max Starks into the line up didn’t provide the anchor we desperately need. And defensively, we were once again getting gashed by a running back, Stephen Jackson. The only reason he didn’t have a huge game is because Marc Bulger was completing passes at will and their imbecilic head coach inexplicably decided to emulate the Pass 24/7 Patriots, except the Patriots, they ain’t.  Actually, our secondary having a terrible game actually helped in a way because the Rams would score so quickly, our offense could go right back out there and pick on their hapless defense. If St. Louis would’ve slowed things down and played more of a possession game to keep their D hidden away like that embarassing brother who lives in the basement, things might’ve gone better for them. The Steelers secondary did improve somewhat over the past couple weeks by not allowing any deep bombs (most likely because S Anthony “There isn’t a play fake I won’t bite on” Smith was replaced by Tyrone Carter) but they were giving way too much cushion which lead to a lot of easy completions, especially by slot receiver Drew Bennett. They did play a bit better in the second half but it was a 10 point game in the fourth quarter and only then, after the game had started to slip away, did the D begin to look like the D of old.

At least the Steelers have 10 days to rest and get things together for the season finale against the equally inept Baltimore Ravens. At this point in the season, to lose a crucial cog like DE Aaron Smith is one blow. To then lose your All-Pro stud running back, that’s just beyond devastating. I don’t know if Mike Tomlin walked under any ladders or broke any mirrors recently but it sure seems like if wasn’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all.