Toldja they read our blog.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, having evidently read John’s post on the city’s Roller Derby scene, were not to be outdone by the Wrecking Dolls having a player with the WWE-esque nickname of “Snot Rocket Science” so they went out and one-upped them by signing former Tampa Bay Buccaneer defensive end Anthony “Booger” McFarland.

I’d love to give you a scouting report on good ‘ol Booger but alas, he tore his patella tendon and missed the entire 2007 season. However, McFarland should still be somewhat familiar to football fans as he was a starter on two Super Bowl championship teams. He was highly regarded enough for the Indianapolis Colts to give up a second round draft pick for his services a couple years ago when it finally occurred to them that occasionally stopping the other team from scoring might be a better idea than simply hoping to score 55 points a game. Unfortunately, their high regard immediately plummeted to callous disinterest when he failed a recent physical.

Still, I like this signing for two reasons and since they are pretty insightful, I will share them with you.

1) McFarland probably still has some gas left in the tank. I know the temptation is to lump this in with the other Steeler Reclaimation Projects (see Barlow, Kevan) as doomed for failure but I’m not totally sure about that. McFarland played in Tampa Bay for defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin. Who was Kiffin’s defensive backs coach? Mike Tomlin.

This could very well be a case where McFarland took a bargain basement contract from an old friend with the hope that he can prove he can still play and thus earn a better deal from the Steelers or another team somewhere down the line. The NFL is a cruel, harsh place where dreams go to die. Kinda like Vegas. They don’t suffer cripples or invalids and if you can’t play, you’re thrown in the garbage heap with the rest of the trash. But every once in awhile, all you need is a little spackle, a little bondo, and a little TLC to transform that broken old lamp into an awesome bedpost/door knocker. Damn you, Ty Pennington!!

2) The Steelers need the depth. Last year, we pulled off the rarely done Defensive Hat Trick of leading the league in pass defense, run defense, and total defense. Then DE Aaron Smith went down. What happened? Well, that’s why I have his name listed in the Steelers MVP voting over on the right. We immediately surrendered 150 yards to the Jets’ Thomas Jones. Then we got gashed by some third string rookie making his first start for Cincinnatti whose name I can’t even be bothered to remember. Then, worst of all, came the 200+ yard wrecking that Jacksonville dumped on us.

It’s almost like the Steelers sometimes forget football is a contact sport. People get hurt. The 11 guys who start the season aren’t likely to be the exact same 11 who finish it. Some soldier inevitably falls along the way. It’s a game of attrition.

Now, I understand you can’t have 11 starters and then also have 5 back-ups as good as the starters. You simply can’t pay everybody. But the drop-off between starter and back-up doesn’t need to be quite that severe. With most teams, if the starter is an honors student, the back-up is in college prep. With the Steelers, our back-ups ride the short bus.

Last season, the law firm of Kirschke & Eason was an utter disaster. One player, albeit a great one, went down and our entire run defense collapsed. If McFarland can play at anywhere near his previous level, he gives us a very solid run-stopper to plug in whenever need be. Will be beat out any of our starters? Highly unlikely. But if injuries occur, and we all know they will, we won’t have to worry about our entire defense going down with them.

All in all, a very nice pick up by the Steelers. I know it gets frustrating that while other teams are in luxurious showrooms checking out the latest Audi or BMWs, we’re in the used car lot kicking the tires and hoping to make lemonade out of a lemon but you can’t argue with success. And there really aren’t many teams in the NFL better at managing, maneuvering, and surviving life in the salary cap era than your Pittsburgh Steelers.

Rejoice, Steeler Nation, our long national nightmare is finally over. Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Steelers came to terms with center Justin Hartwig.

The deal is a reported $4 million dollars for two years, including a $975,000 signing bonus. Once again, our tricky Player Personnel Director, Kevin Colbert, sits back during the early days of free agency, allowing the rotten teams to blow their wads like a virgin on prom night, then swoops in and manages to pick up a quality player at a discount price.

Don’t be fooled by the relative pittance we’re paying him, Hartwig is a fine player who basically became another salary cap casualty. Two years ago, the Carolina Panthers gave Hartwig a five-year/$17 million deal to lure him away from the Titans. They expected him to anchor their line but a nagging groin injury limited him to one start in 2006. Healthy in 2007, he started every game except the season finale. Carolina said he had a knee injury but the smart money says they wanted him to sit so they could take a look at Ryan Kalil as the heir apparent. Evidently they liked what they saw from the kid which made Hartwig, a grand old man of 29, totally expendable.

The entire situation is not unlike what we do here in the ‘Burgh, such as when we cut LB Joey Porter last year because we had a younger cheaper player ready to play. If you have two fairly equal options available, common sense is you go with the newer model. Unless you’re the Raiders, then you pick the old guy because you love veteranosity. But for a team like the Steelers, where our options are either somebody who has never taken an NFL snap at center or the Human Traffic Cone, Sean Mahan, a player the caliber of Hartwig is a huge upgrade.

And make no mistake; Justin Hartwig will be our starting center in 2008.

The Steelers also announced they resigned restricted free agents Chris Kemoeatu and Trai Essex. This pretty much completes our restructuring of the offensive line for next season. Colbert will almost certainly draft an OLineman with our first round pick but now he won’t be expected to start until 2009. Mahan, who to be fair is a natural guard, will compete with the Samoan Bulldozer (Kemoeatu) for the spot vacated by LG Alan Faneca. If he fails, there will be temptation to cut him considering at about $3.3 million/year, he’s being overpaid by about $3 million. However, our depth is pretty weak and he can back-up both G and C so he might be worth keeping around. Mister Transition, Max Starks, looks to be our starting LT, thus bringing our grand total to three new starters on the line this coming season.

Hopefully these changes will cut down our ridiculously high sack totals from last year where Ben Roethlisberger had about a 50-50 chance of ending up on his magnificiently sculpted ass on any given play. Considering we just paid Ben the approximate gross national product of Latvia to be our quarterback for the next decade, I’m sure keeping him healthy and upright is something of interest to the Steelers. With these strategically considered off-season moves, I feel much better that they succeeded in their goal. Let’s face it, True Believers, things really have nowhere to go but up.

That about sums up last night’s “game” against the Dolphins. As much fun as pulling for a 0-0 tie or watching a punt land on the ground and get stuck like a lawn dart was, there’s no way professional football should be played on a piece of shit like Heinz Field. I’m no grass growing expert, but 11 games in 7 days in late November in the Northeastern United States couldn’t possibly end well, even without the downpour. I hope Roger Goodell really comes down on the Rooneys about this fiasco, just like the league slapped down the Patriots a few years ago over their shitty field conditions for a playoff game against Indy. Then again, knowing that paragon of righteousness and fairplay, Bill Belichek, they probably Bull Durham’d the field on that one. But we’ve known for YEARS that Heinz had the worst surface in the league and yet all they do is talk and discuss and plan and never actually DO anything to fix the problem. They can grow fungus in outer space and hair on Cy Sperling, they can’t plant decent grass in Pittsburgh?

At this point, I would offer up some analysis of the game last night but given the conditions, I’m not sure we can really learn anything from that performance. Joey Porter played a great game for the Fins, almost single-handedly trying to will them to victory. His shouting “You still love me” over to the Steelers sideline was pretty funny. I kinda missed ‘ol J-Peezy for a few minutes there…at least until James Harrison absolutely OBLITERATED John Beck on a sack/fumble play and I realized we’re just fine at linebacker, thank you very much.

I wonder if Dolphin fans would’ve been content with a tie? Technically, they’d still have a winless season, but it’s better than nothing. Cam Cameron seemed pretty intent on testing that theory as his ultra-conservative offensive calls pretty much ensured the entire game would be played at about mid-field. Don’t get me wrong, our defense played well but it helps when the other team doesn’t even appear to be trying to score. In fact, I think they called more plays which went horizontally down the field than vertically. And I got a good chuckle out of the Worst Commentators Ever™ hyping Ted Ginn as an electrifying return man. I could sure feel the electricity when he’d wave his hand frantically to signal for a fair catch.

Offensively, what can I say? Willie Parker had about 85 yards to go over 1,000 for the year. A fine accomplishment but once again he didn’t really bust anything or make the home run play we’re used to him making. Obviously, the field probably killed any ability to cut back or whatever. Hines Ward had his best game of the season, which is what you expect from a possession receiver in a game like this. Ben played okay, the interception to Porter was a terrible throw and a couple sacks were caused by him holding the ball way too long, one of which killed a nice drive we had going on early in the game.

As for the line, oh, you wonderful line you. Again, it’s hard to really tell much but we did surrender another 5 sacks to a team that only had like 12 coming in. Sean Mahan turned his back to me more times than the cheerleaders in high school which tells me he’s still getting blown by like a fat orange pylon. Seriously, did Chukky Okobi tell Mike Tomlin he loved him in “Jerry McGuire” on the first day of training camp? How bad could he possibly of been if Mahan beat him out? Heath Miller got two really costly holding penalties which looked to be because instead of out running a route, Tomlin is now holding him back as an extra pass blocker. Keep our best red zone threat at the line because we can’t protect our quarterback. Great.

Anyway, so ends the saga of Sod Bowl I. My only regret was we don’t have a scoring system like they have in the CFL because a game like this deserves to end with a final score of 1-0.