Manning looks ready to stick his neck out against the Steelers.. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-US PRESSWIRE

Purgatory is just about over!  In just a little over 24 hours, fans of Professional Tackle Football will be watching games weekly until February of 2013.  Welcome back old friend, I’ve missed you like crazy.  Oh, and leaves; you can rake yourselves.  The Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants will get the regular season started September 5^th in primetime and our very own Pittsburgh Steelers play Sunday night in the feature game of the day.  I am ready to bask in all the pageantry and glory that is opening weekendedness in the NFL.  You have to admit that they have diluted the impact of the product the last few years by having the Thursday night opener and now they’ve bumped it back to Wednesday night on a short work week.  But hey, I bitch and I watch just the same.

All of the lead up to the Sunday night contest looks like a fall preview for the Peyton Manning Show (coming to NBC right after 30 Rock!!).  The promos focus on a very serious looking Peyton and speak of his rebirth with a new team and the promise of a new beginning for both him and Johnny Horseface’s Broncos.  The Pittsburgh Steelers are mentioned only in passing; kind of a courtesy flush, if you will, for the Black and Gold.  No matter.  The Steelers have a history of ruining a team’s coming out party.  In 2001 the Tennessee Titans were poised to take their place atop the AFC and came into Pittsburgh to stake their claim.  They left with their tails between their legs.  The 2004 Eagles didn’t fare any better when they came into Heinz Field riding some stupidly made up winning streak that spanned different seasons.  The Steelers pounded the hell out of them and mocked T.O. mercilessly.  Peyton Manning himself knows what it is to play the belle of the ball to the plain Jane’s that are the Steelers.  The 2007 Indianapolis Colts were a lock at home to dismiss the pesky Steelers.  Manning abandoned his game and tried to match up physically against J. Peezy and his defensive brethren.  Having an over confident douche of a place kicker boot one wide didn’t help Peyton’s cause any that day either.  The Pittsburgh Steelers are a humble squad but don’t like to be given the also ran role (they won’t be ignored, Dan….). 

I, for one, can’t wait to see Peyton Manning under center for Denver.  I hope he audibles all over the place on every play until the brains fall right out of the heads of those Mile High idiots.  The daggers that Manning will stare through those morons after using all of his timeouts in the first quarter due to confusion will crack me up.  He is literally a man playing amongst boys there.  It’s Peyton Manning’s opportunity to reestablish himself as the dominant quarterback in the league.  Is his supporting cast up to it?

I’m sure that Pittsburgh’s defense is up for the challenge.

Mike Wallace sees greener money somewhere else. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

In case you haven’t heard, Mike Wallace has arrived in Pittsburgh to sign his tender.  Wallace will earn 2.7 million clams for his services this year.  I was fairly positive (I get like that) that Speedy Mike would come back to town.  But in my mind I thought he would present himself in a different manner.  Here’s how I’d hoped the Mike Wallace extravaganza would have played out:

                “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, my Steelers teammates, and Steelers Nation, thank you so much for coming out on this beautiful Western Pennsylvania day.  I’m sure you had other stories to cover, practices to attend, or lives to lead.  It is humbling that you give me this opportunity to address you all.  As you may know, after last season, I was an restricted free agent.  And although I didn’t end the 2011/2012 season as competitively as I started it, I still thought I was worth a king’s ransom in the murky waters that are restricted free agency. 

My agent and I made every attempt to walk away from this team, this city, and this fan base.  We did it for money.  I am young, highly talented, not terribly aware of my place in the world, and I felt that another NFL team would be willing to give me more money than the Pittsburgh Steelers.  There was a highlight film from last season that we used to showcase my talents to prospective teams that I hoped would pay me more money than the Pittsburgh Steelers.  I had the tape edited down to show just the first nine games.  This was in an effort to show my best performances and to down play any mention of how my game faded toward the end of the year. 

I have seen my teammates restructure their own contracts to free up money to sign other players to long term deals.  If no other NFL team was willing to pay me the money I thought I was due, the ‘Larry Fitzgerald’ money that I spoke of, I was hoping my brothers on the Steelers would sacrifice their own salaries so that I could pad my wallet.  My other option, here in Pittsburgh, would be for this historically cautious franchise to make me a super sweet deal.  A deal that bound their hands to sign other free agents and even this year’s class of draft picks.  As I said before, I’m young and I and not terribly aware of my place in the world. 

Alas, none of those afore mentioned scenarios took place.  I lost any percieved leverage that I thought I had.  So I did what other people, immature people with feelings of entitlement do; I pouted.  I didn’t participate in my team’s OTAs even though I knew we had a new offensive coordinator.  I stayed away from minicamp even though I recognized my team’s void in leadership.  I then decided not to attend training camp even though my team would be working and sweating and bonding without me.  Keep in mind though, I technically did nothing wrong throughout this entire process.  As I mentioned earlier, the waters of restricted free agency are murky at best. 

But here I am before you now. You can’t say that I arrived at the last minute but I did arrive a day later than I was expected to.  This was to ensure that I wouldn’t have to practice with my teammates at all this week because it’s still very warm here in Western Pennsylvania.  I don’t want to over exert myself in this heat or risk an injury that would affect my chances of leaving this city, this team, and this fan base as soon as this season is over.  For my agent and me, it’s all about the money.  I should at least be paying some lip service to winning or to the concepts of team and brotherhood; but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I just want money.

I’ll be more than honored to answer any and all of your questions now.”

But it play out anything like that, did it?  Wallace did not say any of those things.

Have a great season, Mike.  I mean that too.  Get your stats, get your story told, put some highlights on tape (try for an entire year this time), hell, get yourself a Steelers Super Bowl ring that has to be delivered to you in a different locker room.  I don’t care.  Just go and blow your smoke somewhere else.

Mike Wallace is all about Mike Wallace and there’s nothing murky about that.

Courtesy espn.com

Known for a tandem of linebackers that would scare even the fiercest of quarterbacks, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been terrorizing offenses since the early 1970s. Somehow the Steelers have found a way to duplicate this anomaly by always having the instincts to pick the best linebackers in the draft and develop them in to fearless warriors. James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley are two linebackers in the lineage of Jack Lambert, and deserve to be considered as the best linebacker tandem in football. (more…)

Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan line of shoes has long been popular, and you can often see athletes such as Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger rocking Jordan gear. Jordan brand is finally putting out something that Steelers fan are going to want to take a long look at: Jordan Spizikes in black and gold. The Spizikes released in louder colors last year, but with these and a cool gray colorway hopefully coming out in 2008, Jordan brand is going in a direction that will be easier to wear with your everyday outfit, especially if your everyday outfit is a Steelers jersey. No release date is set yet, but expect these in fall 2008.

The Infinite Monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will eventually type something that actually makes sense.

Clearly, this is the how the NFL created their schedule for the 2008 football season.

How else can you explain the murderous slate handed down to our beloved Pittsburgh Steelers? We didn’t receive the 9th hardest schedule, which would logically correspond to our position in the draft. We didn’t receive the 5th hardest schedule, which is where we finished in overall defense. Where does our schedule rank you may ask?

Numero Uno.

Yep, we got the hardest schedule in the NFL. Which is a little perplexing considering, at 10-6 last season, our record was worse than the Wild Card team we played in the playoffs. The New York Football Giants also finished 10-6 but, I don’t know if you heard, they won the freakin’ Super Bowl. They’re way down at 16th most difficult, two spots below those plucky Cowboys, who clearly need an easy schedule so they can make their yearly one and done trip to the post-season.

Here’s your official 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers schedule:

Sunday, Sept. 7 vs. Texans 1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Sept 14 @ Browns 8:15 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Sept. 21 @ Eagles 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Monday, Sept. 29 vs. Ravens 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, Oct. 5 @ Jaguars 8:15 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Oct. 12 Bye
Sunday, Oct. 19 @ Bengals 1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Oct. 26 vs. Giants 4:15 p.m. (FOX)
Monday, Nov. 3 @ Redskins 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, Nov. 9 vs. Colts 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Nov. 16 vs. Chargers 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Thursday, Nov. 20 vs. Bengals 8:15 p.m. (NFLN)
Sunday, Nov. 30 @ Patriots 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Dec. 7 vs. Cowboys 4:15 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, Dec. 14 @ Ravens 1 p.m . (CBS)
Sunday, Dec. 21 @ Titans 1 p.m. (CBS)
Sunday, Dec. 28 vs. Browns 1 p.m. (CBS)

Quite a row to hoe, eh? Speaking of which, now that Steely McBeam has been canned, can we please bring back the Steelerettes? They might be the only saving grace this year when we’re going to be very very lucky to go 8-8.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe this is much ado about nothing. Maybe this is just a quirk in the scheduling that affects all the top teams. Let’s take a look at the bottom of the list. Surely the parity-obsessed NFL will give the easiest schedules to the teams that sucked the worst. Who’s got the easiest schedule in the NFL next year?

The New England Patriots.

What?!?! The same New England Patriots that went 16-0 last year? The same New England Patriots that were one game choke job away from a perfect season? The same New England Patriots that, with the exception of a few close games, pretty much blew out every team they played last year? Those New England Patriots? Easiest schedule?

Somebody better sit that monkey back down at his typewriter and tell him to try again.