Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau was named one of the two senior nominees for NFL Hall of Fame induction.  He was nice enough to share his thoughts on the matter with us here at NPC.

Coach Tomlin told us after practice that I’m a finalist for the Hall of Fame thanks to the senior committee.  Good kid, that Coach Tomlin.  Reminds me of Lem Barney.  As for the Hall of Fame, all I can say is about time.

The damn sports writers only had 51 years to elect me to the Hall.  Yep, I joined the NFL back in 1959 when I was drafted by the Cleveland Browns.  Believe it or not, they were good back then.  The Browns cut me in camp but I managed to hook on with the Detroit Lions, where I played for the next 14 years.  That’s when Detroit ruled the auto industry with manly cars that put out 400 horsepower while getting five miles a gallon.   I still drive a Ford.  Nancy Boys buy a ricer, son.

When my playing days were over, I finished seventh all-time in career interceptions.  That’s a lot harder than it sounds.  Today, you have these pansy offenses that sling the ball to the left and sling the ball to the right forty times a game.  In my day, teams threw the ball only when they absolutely had to.  If I had gimpy arm nincompoops like Chad Pennington chucking the pigskin my way two dozen times every game, my record would still stand.

I also set a record for cornerbacks by playing 171 consecutive games.  Nowadays, you have trainers, massage therapists, and a specialist for every damn part of the body.  We had dirt.  Sprain your ankle?  Rub dirt on it and take a lap.  Strain your balls?  Rub dirt on it and take a lap.  Dislocate your shoulder?  Rub dirt on it and take a lap.

After my playing days, I was lucky enough to move into coaching.  I bounced around as an assistant until I finally became a defensive coordinator in 1984.  Altogether, I’ve been a d-coordinator for 19 years and three different teams.  People say that I innovated defensive strategery by inventing such schemes as the Zone Blitz.  I just say I hate quarterbacks.

The big knock against me seems to be my lack of head coaching success.  I was only the top man once, a 3 year stint with the Cincinnati Bengals earlier this decade.  C’mon, it was the BENGALS.  Sure I didn’t accomplish much but there’s only so much one man can do when an organization is rotten to the core.   A coaching committee of Don Shula, Tom Landry, and Chuck Noll couldn’t fix those losers.

I owe everything to my players.  If they hadn’t spoken up for me, I’d probably still be waiting for that nomination.  I think the words of former Steeler Rod Woodson during his recent HOF induction speech finally opened some eyes.  Good kid, that Woodson.  Reminded me of Night Train Lane.

Everything I’ve done is because of my players.  All the top ranked defenses.  All the Super Bowl championships.  All because of their hard work and talent.  They call me Coach Dad, which means a lot to me although if I were their father, I’d tell Keisel to stop getting all those damn tattoos and Polamalu to cut his hair.  He looks like one of those damn dirty hippies we used as tackling dummies back in the 60′s.  Anyway, I owe it all to them but if I played some part in putting those boys in a position to succeed, I’ll gladly accept your nomination.  Now get off my lawn, I have a practice to run.

Going into this season, the Tennessee Titans were considered an afterthought in a division which contained the perennially powerful Colts and up-and-coming Jaguars.  Although they also made the playoffs last year, losing to the Chargers in the Wild Card Round, people seemed to think Jacksonville was the team primed to make the jump to the next level when Peyton Manning and company began their eventual decline.

The Jags were quickly exposed as an overrated farce of a team while Indianapolis stumbled out of the gate due to injuries to key players.  Meanwhile, Tennessee got off to a fast start and never looked back.  Throughout the majority of the season, the Titans have consistently been ranked the top team in the AFC.  While it was easily justied when they were undefeated, the team has gone 2-2 over the past four games and could even wind up losing the #1 seed in the playoffs if they were to lose this weekend.

While their opponents, the Pittsburgh Steelers, have marched through the toughest schedule in NFL history, a close examination of Tennessee’s year reveals an assortment of creampuffs and pushovers.  Rather than just knee-jerk declaring them the best team in the AFC due to their record, it becomes more and more apparent that this is a team whose reputation is built on a lie.  In fact, going week by week through their schedule, it becomes more and more clear that this team hasn’t beat anybody at all.

1 – Jacksonville W (17 – 10)     Jacksonville (5-9) stinks.

2 – Cincinnati W (24 – 7)       Cincinnati (2-11) stinks.

3 – Houston W (31 – 12)     Houston (7-7) came on late but stunk early.

4 – Minnesota W (30 – 17)     Winning record but Gus Frerotte?  Really?

5 – Baltimore W (13 – 10)    Rookie QB on a team that we beat twice.

7 – Kansas City W (34 – 10)     KC (2-12) stinks.

8 – Indianapolis W (31 – 21)     Manning, Harrison, and Sanders were all hurt.

9 – Green Bay W (19 – 16)     Green Bay (5-9) stinks yet came thisclose.

10 – Chicago W (21 – 14)     Kyle Orton?

11 – Jacksonville W (24 – 14)     See above.

12 – NY Jets L (34 – 13)      Jets are overrated yet blew them out at home.

13 – Detroit W (47 – 10)     Detroit (0-14) really really stinks.

14 – Cleveland W (28 – 9)       Cleveland (4-10) stinks.

15 – Houston L (13-12)        Another loss, this to a non-playoff team.

From what I’m seeing, they have two quality wins (Baltimore and Indianapolis).  The games against the NFC North teams don’t count because that division is the NFL’s version of a Cripple Fight.  Two of them don’t have quarterbacks, the one that does has no defense, and the fourth is the Pittsburgh Pirates of football.  Every other game is either against a bottom 5 team or a loss.  Color me unimpressed.

Reminder:  Get your guesses in for the NPC Crocs Giveaway Contest. They’re sweet looking shoes for you to wear or re-gift them to the Steeler Fan in your life.  Best of all, as of now, you stand a 1 in 4 chance of winning.

I love football.

I can sit down and watch any game any time.  High school, college, NFL, CFL…  I even went to an Arena game back when Pittsburgh still had the Gladiators.  So I’m not surprised when I receive emails me asking why I don’t cover the University of Pittsburgh.  Many of you probably don’t remember way back in September when I wrote my one and only post on Pitt, it was the day after I went to Heinz to see them play Bowling Green.

Yep, that game.

Don’t misunderstand.  It’s not that I don’t follow Pitt because I only follow teams that win.  I don’t follow Pitt because they’re like the smokin’ hot girlfriend who keeps promising tonight will be the night but when the date is over you always go home sad, angry, and incredibly frustrated.  They’re the ultimate tease.

If Pitt simply stunk, I could live with it.  But they always acquire a decent crop of talent which one expects to produce on the field.  Pretty much every year Pitt has a player taken in the first round of the NFL draft.  The best wide receiver in the league (Larry Fitzgerald) went to Pitt.  One of the best young shutdown CBs went to Pitt (Darrelle Revis).  A rookie (Jeff Otah) starting for one of the best OLs in football (300 total yards rushing last week), you get the picture.  This year they featured a future first round RB (Shady McCoy) and WR (Jonathan Baldwin) while playing in the weakest conference in the NCAA.  Yet the best they could manage was 9-3.

Dave Wannstedt is a terrible coach.  I realize the alumni love him because of his sexy NFL credentials but failing at a high level is not an accomplishment because failure is still failure.  He was wretched as head coach of the Chicago Bears.  He was even worse as head coach of the Miami Dolphins.  And then there’s Pitt.  I’ll give him credit for recruiting well but his glossy credentials should entice good players to come here.  His enduring failure is his continuing inability to coach the talent he puts on the field.  He and Bill Cowher are both local boys who made good, but where Bill always got the most out of players, Wannastache routinely gets less.  He’s the Anti-Cowher.

Which brings me to this week’s showdown with the Baltimore Ravens.  Since 2000, the Ravens have been known for two things:  a devastating defense and an inept offense.  Even when they won the Super Bowl back in 2000, it was in spite of their offense.  By all rights, that defensive unit should’ve won more than one Super Bowl.  Of course, good offense starts with a good quarterback and any team under the leadership of the likes of Tony Banks, Trent Dilfer, Anthony Wright, Elvis Grbac, Steve McNair, and Kyle Boller doesn’t fill that requirement.

However, it appears Baltimore’s decade long drought has ended this year when the Ravens became one of the prime beneficiaries of Wannstedt’s stupidity.  They’re currently led by a tall, strong-armed kid named Joe Flacco.

Flacco was drafted in the latter half of the first round, mostly because scouts questioned if he had big time ability coming out of a small time program at Delaware.  It didn’t have to be that way, though.  Flacco, you see, began his college career at Pitt.  Unfortunately, the thrilling heroics of Tyler Palko and Bill Stull were too much for him to overcome leading him to transfer out.

Had Wannstedt not been absolutely inept at constructing a winning football team, he might’ve played Flacco.  And maybe Pitt, with some decent QB play for once, might’ve won a few games.  Maybe even went to a real Bowl and not the Summer’s Eve Maxi Bowl or wherever mediocre teams end up.  Most importantly, if Flacco had played well for Pitt, he might’ve been a top ten (perhaps even top five) draft pick, where the Ravens couldn’t get him.  So in a beautiful non-Wannstedtian world, Flacco is slinging passes for Detroit right now while the Ravens are 6-7 under the leadership of Troy Smith.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world.  In our world, Flacco is a Raven.  And his Ravens are 9-4, one game behind the Steelers in the AFC North.  In their first meeting this season, it was a brutal affair which resembled the opening scene in “Saving Private Ryan” more than a professonal football game until coming to a merciful end in OT.  This will be a similarly hard-hitting affair, although whatever the outcome the Ravens appear to have reestablished themselves as a force to be reckoned with.

You’re welcome, Baltimore.

As regular readers of NPC surely expect, this is where I’d usually post some random news and/or talk a little smack about our upcoming opponents. Considering this week’s game is against longtime rival the Dallas Cowboys, I’m sure many of you thought I’d unveil a masterpiece along the lines of “29 Reasons Pittsburgh Is Better Than Dallas” or “Top Ten Venereal Diseases Tony Romo Has Contracted From Skanky Blondes.”

Sorry to disappoint.

I tried to do something like that but my heart wasn’t in it. Don’t misunderstand, I hate the Cowboys, more than any team not from Cleveland or coached by a hoodie wearing douchebag. But at the same time, I also have to respect them. When you look at the NFL, there are really two teams which stand out as the crown jewel franchises. One of course is the Steelers while the only other choice has to be the Cowboys.

Whenever a team is successful, you’ll find a segment of the country jumping on the bandwagon trying to feel like winners. This allegiance is always short-lived, ending as soon as said team stops winning Super Bowls. In the late 80s, 49er gear was all over the place. Has anybody bought red and gold merchandise in over a decade? When Green Bay and Denver had their brief moments in the spotlight, they garnered a smattering of nationwide support but most of that was pity and none of it was sustained over the years. As for the most dominant team of the 00s, nobody outside of New England cares one iota about the Pats except to hate them.

The only two truly national franchises are the Steelers and Cowboys. The Cowboys call themselves “America’s Team” and while that bit of hyperbole is typical of an arrogant organization, it is also true you’re just as likely to find a Cowboy fan in Bangor, Maine or Butte, Montana as in Dallas, Texas. Likewise, Steeler Nation extends far and wide as is evidenced by the waves of Black and Gold which invade road stadiums in numbers like no other.

So why do I hate them? Why can’t I establish mutual respect and leave it at that? Why does Batman hate the Joker? Why does Superman enjoy punching Lex Luthor in the mouth? Why?

Because we are the same but opposite. One is summer while the other is the winter. One is light while the other is dark. One is good while the other is evil. I think you can figure out which is which.

The Steelers are and have always been a blue collar team which emphasizes gritty nose to the grindstone hard-work. The Cowboys are and have always been prime time flash and dash glitzy Hollywood red carpet superstars. In fact, they’ve had players named Prime Time and Hollywood.

The Steelers have always been about the whole being more than the sum of the parts. To quote the wise Mr. Spock, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” We’ve never had a situation where one specific player is our whole franchise. We never make one player the centerpiece of an entire team. That’s all Dallas ever does. Theirs is a culture of individualism. They’ll find a great RB or a great LB or a great QB but when that player goes down (as Romo did this year or Terrell Owens did last year), the team immediately falls apart. No wonder their fans wanted Bill Cowher and his belief in the team to come and save them earlier this year.

The Cowboys are owned by an irritating jackass of a man who insists on being the team’s General Manager.  Jerry Jones shameless self-promotion stands in stark contrast to the quiet dignity exuded by one of the most respected owners in all of sports, Dan Rooney. This is no doubt why the Cowboys have experienced over a half dozen coaching changes since 1993 while we’ve had one. Their meddlesome owner is at the root of their Machiavellian “win at all costs” strategy. He will bring in any player, regardless of character or past misdeeds, if he thinks it will help them win. Locker room cancers (T.O), gun-toting maniacs (Tank Johnson), and stripper beating miscreants (Pacman Jones) are all welcome in Big D. The Steelers systematically rid themselves of such players, even if they’re supremely talented, such as in the case of Plaxico Burress, an undeniably superior WR whose pea-brained antics continue to embarrass his team to this day.

Tony Romo knows he has crossed over to the Dark Side. That’s why he recently tried to cleanse his karma by taking a foul-smelling bum to the movies. Sure, this isn’t nearly as impressive as Ben Roethlisberger using Jedi Mind Tricks to talk a crazed gunmen out of bustin’ a cap in his ass but it was nice of him to pay it forward since nobody has been luckier these past few years than ‘ol Tony. Besides, what’s so impressive about sitting next to a homeless pan-handler? He let Britney Spears sit on his lap so obviously he’s not put off by strange odors.

Look, here’s the moral of the story. Sometimes good wins but occasionally evil is triumphant. Like in Super Bowl XXX where coke-snorting Mike Irvin and his band of whoring madmen handed the Steelers their lone Super Bowl defeat when Christian gentlemen/future astroturf salesman Neil O’Donnell was paid off by Jerry Jones threw two badly timed interceptions. They’re still paying for that win as they’ve never won another. Hopefully when Good emerges victorious this week, we’ll set their playoff hopes back enough to add another year to that penance.

The Pittsburgh Steelers head into their much-needed bye week with a solid 26-21 victory over the game but over-matched Jacksonville Jaguars.

The score is totally misleading because this game wasn’t nearly as close as it would appear.  Seven of the Jags points were scored on the opening drive when one of the Steelers WRs slipped on the poorly kept Jacksonville turf and QB Ben Roethlisberger did his best Neil O’Donnell impersonation for a quick Pick Six.   In the second quarter, the Steelers moved the ball up and down the field on the Jaguars’ pitiful defense but stumbled in the red zone and had to settle for Skippy Reed field goals instead of TDs.  The Steelers went into halftime up 20-14 when statistically the game was a more vicious beating than the one Unknown White Guy gave that phony Kimbo Slice on Saturday night.  We had 300 total yards of offense to their 50 while we had possession of the ball 22 minutes to their 8.

It bears noting, most of our superior offensive output came with Big Ben once again running the offense by himself in the No Huddle.  In fact, it seemed like the only time the offense sputtered in the first half was when the Steelers came back from time outs with a set play, which would invariably fail.  Obviously, offensive coordinator Bruce Arians is not only completely useless at making adjustments, but his poor play-calling and ridiculously complex schemes actually hinder the team.  Unless we add another Lombardi Trophy to the mantle this season, in which case we’ll probably be able to convince some ineptly run franchise like the Detroit Lions to take him as a head coach, I can’t imagine Arians returning next year.

Anyway, the hot, sticky, swamp-like conditions of that hellhole that is Jacksonville took their toll as coming back from halftime saw both teams sleep-walk through a poorly played and uneventful third quarter.  LT Marvel Smith left the game when the inhuman conditions caused him to cramp up and he was ably replaced by the $7 Million Dollar Man Max Star…   Oh, wait.  That was Trai Essex out there.  Guess Mike Tomlin is determined to make Loafus Maximus the highest paid bench warmer in history.

In the fourth quarter, Jacksonville’s overhyped and overrated QB David Garrard managed to avoid a couple sacks (aided by several missed holding calls on the O-line) and move the ball a little bit before the refs decided they must try even harder to hose the Steelers.   I don’t get why they’re always so determined to help Jacksonville win these games.  Either it’s a pity thing or the Jaguar cheerleaders must share a locker room with the referees.  Anyway, the Steelers had 10 penalties for an unbelievable 129 yards, the worst coming in the final quarter when a 3rd and a mile play was erased on a ridiculous unnecessary roughness call on S Ryan Clark (a poorly thrown Garrard pass sailed behind the receiver who ran upfield directly into Clark) and then there was a horrendous roughing the passer call on LB James Harrison.  With about 5 minutes left, the Jags inexplicably lead 21-20 despite being overwhelmed in every facet of the game.

This brought Big Ben and the offense back out for the climatic drive where he coolly and efficiently led the team down the field, once again shredding the defense like it wasn’t there.  RB Mewelde Moore, the Last Man Standing in the Steeler backfield, ripped off a nice 20 yard scamper, finishing the game with 99 yards rushing.  I hope they remember what a gem they have with this guy when Fast Willie Parker returns because it seemed like the first three weeks they barely used him.   Then Ben made an absolutely incredible play where he was being mugged by three Jacksonville defenders, one of which was dragging him backwards by the jersey, yet he still managed to shot put the ball downfield to Hines Ward for a big 20 yard gain.  Ben Roethlisberger was a warrior out there with his throwing arm hanging limply at his side but still mustering up the ability to drill laser beam-like spirals into tight spaces when needed.  A handful of plays after Big Ben’s heroics, Hines made some of his own with a great toe-dragging catch on an end zone fade route.  Game set match.

On a personal note, I would like to point out in my authoritative preview analysis, I mentioned Jacksonville CB Rashean Mathis was a dangerous ballhawk who should be watched.   And who had the INT return for the touchdown?   Why Mathis of course.  Meanwhile, the “great and clutch” Matt Jones, who some Jaguar fan felt compelled to defend, had 2 catches for a whopping 25 yards.  I realize Jacksonville only has about 25 fans out there but honestly, their fans do deserve a blogger who actually knows a little something about their team.  This is why I love Steeler Nation.  If we had a receiver who was as stunningly mediocre as Matt Jones, we would admit that fact, not try to deny it.

The Baltimore Ravens went down in flames yesterday and now look to be a .500 team at best.   So these early wins are doubly important as it’s looking more and more like 9 or 10 wins will take the division easily.  It was an unnecessarily close call but the Steelers got the job done and move into the bye week at 4-1.  This is good since the meat of the Hardest Schedule in the NFL™ has yet to come. And with a team that is as badly banged up as the Steelers, where literally every position from punter to quarterback to both lines has faced major injury issues so far this year, getting a win and then getting some rest are pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered.