The city of Pittsburgh is known for many things. Pierogies and Iron City Beer. The Three Rivers and steel mills. Being named both Friendliest City and City of Champions. And it’s quickly gaining another reputation.

Home to the worst offensive coordinators in all of football.

Members of Steeler Nation are already familiar with the various crimes against offensive football committed by Bruce Arians. His schemes and game plans are positively Wile E. Coyote-like in their elaborate design and penchant for failure. But there’s another inept playcaller roaming the sidelines in Pittsburgh. His name is Matt Cavanaugh and he’s OC for the University of Pittsburgh.

Perhaps you had nothing better to do but tune into the Sun Bowl on New Year’s Eve. If you did, what you witnessed was football being set back roughly fifty years. That’s not a joke. The last time a game ended with a score of 3-0 was approximately fifty years ago in a game which may or may not have been coached by Pop Warner.

The point is it was an embarrassing performance which disgraced the team, the university, and the city of Pittsburgh. I’ve been hard on head coach Dave Wannstedt on these pages before but this game made me realize what it must feel like to be a Raider fan. The game plan was slightly less crazy than pissing in the wind, the adjustments were non-existent, and smart coaching decisions were totally absent. In short, I’d like to know what Wannstache was doing on the sideline because it doesn’t appear he was watching the game.

In a game plan which was about as useful as a shoddy bomb casing filled with used pinball machine parts, the Panthers decided to run superstar RB Shady McCoy left, then right, then left again, then up the middle for good measure. Unfortunately, Oregon State was aware of this ingenious strategy and stacked the line to stop him. Here is where it gets good. Instead of, oh, throwing some short passes and/or screens to loosen things up, Cavanaugh kept dialing up long bomb after long bomb. Great idea if you have a strapping rifle-armed gunslinger under center…a slight problem when you have noodle-armed Bill Stull and a howling wind.

No offense to Stull because I’m sure he tried his best but when you go 7 for 24 in a bowl game, you have no business starting. Pittsburgh is home to many great quarterbacks and I can’t figure out why Pitt hasn’t been able to find a decent one since Dan Marino back in 1982. Seriously, Rod Rutherford? Tyler Palko? Dirty Pete Gonzalez?

Two seasons ago, I remember counting not one not two but THREE QBs starting for NFL teams who went to high school in the Pittsburgh area. This season there’s rookie sensation Joe Flacco, who transferred out of Pitt due to recruiting politics. Local legend Terrell Pryor didn’t even CONSIDER Pitt which is embarrassing when you learn his final choices came down to Ohio State and Penn State. How inept is Wannstache that he can’t out-recruit a 98 year old man?  I mean, if he’s not a great recruiter and we’ve seen he’s not a brilliant game strategist, why exactly did they hire him?

I can’t understand why, with all the attention given to high school football and Friday Night Lights around here, Pitt year in and year out suffers from mediocre to downright rotten QB play. Last year when Stull was hurt, two highly touted recruits got a chance to play and both proceeded to blow. Of course the freshman, Pat Bostick, did play well in limited work this year so maybe there’s some hope on the horizon. The fact Wannstedt didn’t put him in the game at the beginning of the second half was both an insult to him and to any fan who paid hard earned money to travel to Arizona only to see the Stache make zero effort to win the game.

Unless you count a 58 yard FG attempt an honest attempt at victory.

So ends another college football season around these parts. Pitt finishes with 9 wins which means they fell short of the double digit plateau yet again. In fact, the last time they had 10 wins was… 1982! Funny how that works, huh?

Well, that didn’t take long.

A little more than twenty-four hours into the Pittsburgh Steelers 2008 training camp, two key members of the defense found themselves placed on the Physically Unable to Perform list. This means they are not officially part of the roster, not permitted to work out with the team, and if they remain on the list at the end of camp, they would not be allowed to play until the sixth game of the regular season.

NT Casey Hampton was placed on the list for basically being a fatass. Yes, shocking as it may seem, the player nicknamed “Big Snack” reported to camp a tad overweight. By a tad, I’m guessing about forty pounds. Get Dan Marino on the phone, pronto. Hook a brother up with some NutriSystem, Danny.

Hampton was unable to complete the first day running drills and Coach Mike Tomlin disgustedly booted him from practice until he’s in physically better shape. Hampton’s argument is running has nothing to do with playing football. Okay, big fella. Sorry to break it to you but part of the reason our run defense was repeatedly gashed during the tail end of last season probably had something to do with conditioning. I also hate to break it to you but despite making the Pro Bowl (when other players bowed out), you didn’t have that good a year. In prior seasons, Hampton was a force, making tackles, disrupting plays, and occasionally creating pressure up the middle. Last year, he mostly did nothing but occupy space.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, All-Pro Safety Troy Polamalu did complete the first day running drills. Unfortunately, this lead to him spending the next day with his leg wrapped like an extra from the next Mummy movie. Polamalu, who is the highest paid defensive player in Steeler history, had an injury-riddled year in 2007. From a partial PCL tear to an abdominal strain, his play suffered greatly while he battled injury after injury. Yes, he was named to the Pro Bowl but it was an undeserved honor based mainly on reputation as Polamalu will be the first to admit he didn’t have the interceptions, quarterback pressures/sacks, or general level of play which is expected of him.

Amazingly, despite injuries to key players, the Steelers still had the #1 ranked defense in the NFL. This is a bit misleading, though, as after DE Aaron Smith went down, our run defense which hadn’t allowed a 100 yard rusher in like two years allowed two 100 yard rushers in the same game. And our pass defense, despite having perhaps the best trio of cover corners in the league, simply didn’t create any turnovers.

For Blitzburgh to reverse both those trends in 2008, Hampton and Polamalu will need to work through their issues and be physically ready to go by week one. With the slate of offenses we’re scheduled to face this season, we’re going to need them.

Somewhere there is a racehorse. And this racehorse’s great-great-great-great-great granddaddy was also a racehorse. And one fine day back in 1933, that horse won a race. A race bet on by a North Sider by the name of Arthur J. Rooney. And Art Rooney used the money he won that day, about $2,500 in total, to purchase a professional football franchise which would one day be known as the Pittsburgh Steelers.

For 75 years, the Rooney family has owned the Steelers. Sure, some things have changed but the Rooneys have remained the one major constant. Three Rivers Stadium is nothing but a memory. Art Rooney is gone but not forgotten, his eldest son Dan having been in control of the team for several decades now. And a recent appraisal of the Steelers values the team at around $1 billion.

Yes, you read that right. ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

Why was the team even being appraised you may ask? Because there is a very real possibility that sometime in the near future the one constant in Steeler Nation might no longer be constant. Yes, there appears to be a day coming when everybody who bleeds Black and Gold wakes up in a world where the Rooneys no longer own the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If that doesn’t worry you at least a little, it should.

With the passing of their father, controlling interest in the team was left to his five sons, Dan, Art Jr., Timothy, Patrick, and John. Dan was team president while Art Jr. was scouting director from the early 70’s until 1986 when his brother fired him, primarily because he insisted on taking NT Gabe Rivera over a local kid with a cannon arm by the name of Danny Marino. I would’ve fired my own mother over that one. The remaining brothers had other business interests and had no direct involvement with football-related matters.

The Rooney boys are all in their 50’s-70’s so they naturally have begun preparing for the inevitable transfer of power. Dan has already groomed his son, Art III, to take his place as team president. I believe this is Sticking Point #1 in that Art III is generally considered an asshole. When Bill Cowher had his farewell press conference, he spoke glowingly of Dan but had nothing to say about Art III. Rumor has it Little Art led the “Screw him! We don’t have to pay him because anybody can coach our awesome team!” charge which ultimately led to Cowher’s departure and subsequent dental work.

Dan Rooney is a powerful man in the NFL. He chaired the committee which nominated tape-destroying slimeball Roger Goodell for commissioner. He’s a major voice on every labor issue or contract negotiation. And it’s no secret he, and most likely his scheming son, want the team for themselves. Which is why it’s a bit suspicious that the NFL has all of a sudden interjected themselves into the Steeler’s ownership structure, demanding one person own 30% of the team while also suggesting some of the Rooney brothers’ race track business ventures constitute a violation of the league’s no-gambling interests policy.

The four remaining brothers have responded by doing the unthinkable; looking to sell their shares to somebody outside the family. This is where the appraisal comes in as supposedly Dan/AIII made an offer which was a bit low. Maybe they should bring in Sidney Crosby as a partner. Nah, Marian Hossa wouldn’t take a discount to play with him, the Rooneys probably wouldn’t either.

Enter Stanley Druckenmiller, owner of Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Capital Management,and filthy rich bastard. He’s a billionaire which is one requirement for buying something valued at around a billion dollars. He’s also a lifelong Steelers fan. Join the club, pal.

In fact, here is where it gets interesting. If the Rooney boys are serious about opening bidding for their shares up to the general public, there will unlikely be a free-for-all. I can imagine every disgustingly rich bastard from Mark Cuban to Eddie DeBartolo will enter the fray. Owning the Steelers isn’t the same as owning the Pirates or the Penguins. Don’t get me wrong, I love all our teams but the Steelers are a legendary team in the most successful (and popular) sports league. Interest in this would be huge.

And therein lays the worry. With the Rooneys, we know what we get. Sure we complain about their cheapness, we bemoan their lack of action in free-agency, and hate that while they want to win, it’s not Super Bowl-or-failure as it is to many of us. But what if we get a Ford or a Bidwell? Or, horror of horrors, a Danny Schnieder? Would Pittsburgh really want a flamboyant self-promoting clown like Jerry Jones prancing all over the sidelines at Heinz Field? These are the questions we may have to grapple with in the not-so-distant future.

Always remember, better the devil you know.