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…

One last playoff picture post for the season. After this weekend, it’s all about actual playoffs…

• AFC Playoff Picture
• NFC Playoff Picture

AOL promoted the NFC Playoff Picture on its front page this morning. The amount of Brett Favre fellatio in the comments is truly terrifying. I am reminded of how the quality of writing in the Usenet newsgroups plummeted in 1994 when they let any old AOL user start posting…

So the Pittsburgh Steelers get a revenge match today at Heinz Field against the Baltimore Ravens. JJ Cooper’s game preview is here. Also, the Carolina Panthers continue to play out a string attempt to stave off playoff elimination in the Georgia Dome against the Atlanta Falcons. My game preview — which, I freely admit, is considerably lame this week — is here.

No liveblog today. I’m being the good son and going with my parents to Xmas Eve mass this afternoon. At some point, my dad will make note of all the kids in the congregation, turn to me and say something to the effect of, “Son, every 30-something in this building is procreating except you.” As soon as the service is over, though, I’ll be the one looking up scores and fantasy stats on my Treo. Because that’s just how I roll.

Against all odds, I’m also playing for the office league title this week. I would like Peyton Manning to throw at least two touchdowns to Marvin Harrison, and I would like Maurice Jones-Drew to score three touchdowns in a losing effort, because a Jags loss would help the Steelers’ playoff hopes. Pittsburgh staving off elimination for one more week is present enough for me at this point…

So yeah, enjoy the games today, folks, and since I probably won’t see you until later next week, have a happy Xmas on Monday.

ESPN informs us that the Eagles-Cowboys game on Xmas Day will be the first game in NFL history in which both starting quarterbacks are Hispanic. Yes, Jeff Garcia and Tony Romo were both born in Mexico.

I caught up with Garcia and Romo earlier today, and they decided to celebrate this historic event with a song…

That’s the gist of the five questions I got from Jay Busbee over at Sports Gone South. By the time it was done, traffic deaths were spiking in Charlotte.

You can read my answers here. Go for my comments, stay for the videos of redneck Arkansas fans…

You gotta hand it to Bears head coach Lovie Smith. After watching the Colts rest their starters for weeks after clinching that first-round bye, Smith knows a losing strategy when he sees one. He’s keeping his starters in the game the rest of the way. He’s going to make sure they’re on top of their game going into the playoffs.

Too many coaches in Lovie’s position get concerned that players will get hurt before the playoffs start. It’s football, people. Players can get hurt at any time, and it’s inevitable that some will. That doesn’t make these games meaningless. You should want to make sure your engines are tuned up and ready to go for the games that really matter. You don’t want players that have to shake off weeks of rust coming into games cold. That’s what happened to Indianapolis last year, and the fact that they still have to compete to keep their first-round bye might actually help them in the playoffs this year.

I applaud Lovie Smith for this decision, and that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m starting Muhsin Muhammad, Bernard Berrian and Robbie Gould on my fantasy team this week. Nothing at all.

I know, I know, you’ve seen this video on half a dozen other sites. I don’t care. Videos like this are why the Internet is so awesome…

Today in the Houston Chronicle, columnist John McClain suggests that the Falcons will slap a transition tag on backup QB Matt Schaub, and anyone who wants to sign him away from Atlanta would have to give up a first-round pick.

That sounds like a pretty good deal, don’t you think?

I mean, look at the QBs in this draft right now. You’ve got Brady Quinn, who may or may not be overrated; Troy Smith, whom everyone thinks is too short; Brian Brohm, who comes from a school with a rich history of NFL duds at QB; and JaMarcus Russell, who has a strong arm decent numbers at LSU but will need at least a year or two of seasoning.

Schaub has that seasoning. He also has a live arm, a fairly strong pocket presence, and three years of NFL experience — not necessarily on-the-field experience, no, but anyone who saw his performance against New England last season knows what he’s capable of. You can’t teach a rookie three years of experience. Look at Philip Rivers. He didn’t have any on-field experience the last two years, either, and he’s doing just fine, isn’t he?

The Miami Dolphins could have had Schaub with the 15th overall pick last year, but they decided to be cheap and take Daunte Culpepper with a 2nd-round pick. What a bargain.

There are a lot of teams out there who could use a young QB with a strong arm who can step in and start right now, something most of these prospects probably couldn’t do. For many teams, that may be worth a 1st-round pick — perhaps not a top-five pick, but what if Brady Quinn decides to pull an Eli Manning and tells the team with the top pick (either the Lions or Raiders) that he won’t play for them?

Don’t want to come to Detroit, Mr. Quinn? That’s just fine. We’ll sign Matt Schaub instead and give our pick to the Falcons, who’ll draft Calvin Johnson, and you get to play for Oakland instead. How does that sound?

Matt Millen would probably be crucified for that move, too, but it would be far from the dumbest thing he’s ever done as the Lions’ GM. Granted, this also assumes Schaub stays on the market that long. This year, I don’t think he will…

Over at the NFL FanHouse, Michael David Smith has listed the five best and five worst announcers in NFL broadcast booths this season. I have no qualms about the first list, but the second list has more holes than a golf course.

I mean, really, Dick Vermeil with laryngitis? You’re going to pick on a guy because he attempted to play hurt? And you’re going to do when the guy standing next to him, Bryant Gumbel, is quite possible the worst play-by-play man in the last 30 years? How did all that monotone smugness miss this list? I’d almost put Gumbel ahead of Kornheiser here, he’s so horrible.

Here’s a dumb theory: Remember when Gumbel gave his whole “Gene Upshaw’s leash” tirade? Remember when everyone thought the league would drop him from those NFL Network telecasts, but they kept him around anyway? Is it possible that Gumbel delivered that speech in an attempt to get out of doing those broadcasts, and the NFL punished him — and us — by keeping him around?

I also think Joe Theismann surpassed Dan Dierdorf years ago in terms of pure broadcast suckitude, but I can understand how I might be in the minority. It also saddens me to see Dick Enberg on this list, but after the whole “Keyshawn Foster” thing last Sunday, I’m not at all surprised.

You know what we really need for some of these games? Some kind of alternate audio commentary — something beyond just your local radio guys. I wonder if we can work something out with the boys at Talkshoe for that…

Found this on my Bloglines feeds today…

The headline for the actual article is different now, but really, you just know ESPN publicly denounces the blogs while quietly reading them. They mine us for our ideas all the time. Just ask The Cavalier.