Dave’s Football Blog

We all look at football as a team sport, but sometimes, one man’s personality dominates a team so much that losing that one man takes away too much from the team.

Take Gangstarr, for example. DJ Premier makes the music for the band, and his production skills dominate the personality of the hip-hop duo’s music. Premier is so good at what he does that he could produce for anyone from Nas to Christina Aguilera and still create jams that grab your attention. Guru, on the other hand, is a fairly mediocre MC, and if you take away Premier’s sound, though, Guru’s voice just doesn’t grab you as much as it should.

Let’s be honest. Guru ain’t shit without DJ Premier laying the foundation. Go listen to some of those Jazzmatazz CDs and tell me I’m wrong.

The same thing happened to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006. We all wondered how this team would react to the loss of Jerome Bettis, and the answer was: not very well. It was Bettis’ drive and his hunger for a championship that drove the rest of this team, especially on the offensive side of the ball. When that hunger was sated and the Bus had pulled out of the station, this team seemed to lose its edge. The defense still seemed to have it, but the offensive line play faltered, and special teams became a horror show.

And yeah, Big Ben pretty much sucked this year. You can say he was still brain-rattled from his collision with that Chrysler, but whatever the reason was, his passer rating dropped, his touchdown-to-turnover ratio went south, and he’s directly responsible for that horrible loss to the Raiders. Was it just a bad year? Maybe. Most QBs have a bad year eventually, and losing Bettis’ locker room presence required a bigger adjustment from Big Ben than he was able to make. It was a perfect storm for a highly imperfect season.

There were bright spots to this season. Willie Parker had another good year, though he only played well for the fans in Heinz Field. Santonio Holmes may be a lousy punt returner, but he showed he could be a very good wideout down the road. Anthony Smith will be a great safety if he stops being a damn hot dog. Willie Reid could be healthy in 2007.

Overall, though, it was a Matrix Revolutions-sized let down. Perhaps a season like this, though, will put the hunger back in the Steelers in 2007. Much will depend on who coaches this team next year and whether the team can fill its offensive gaps in the draft. There aren’t many gaps on defense, save for the fact that everyone’s a year older and some of those linebackers will be slowing down. And guess what? The AFC North gets the AFC East and NFC West on the schedule next year. That’s got to be good for 6 or 7 wins alone, doesn’t it?

The 2006 season was a crappy one for Steelers fans, but I see better things coming in 2007. If nothing else, we can still look back fondly on that Super Bowl in January and hope this team looks back at those tapes and thinks, “Let’s get back there again. How do we get back there again?”

Now where did I leave that copy of Step in the Arena…

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