Press the Panic Button; raise the S.O.S. flag. It’s time to panic when talking about this offensive line.
General Manager Omar Khan needs to be on the telephone finding IOL help. The Steelers have extra bodies at WR, perhaps even package QB Mason Rudolph. I’m not fond of trading Mason Rudolph; however, this OL is just that bad. I’m going to go as far as that I’m opposed to giving up the 2023 #1 Round Pick to bolster the IOL.
Left Guard Kendrick Green was just letting Jacksonville DLineman pass by him. Jacksonville was doing absolutely nothing special Saturday night. They simply lined up their 4 against the Steelers 5. They routinely blew up every single play. Warren Sapp posted a 2 minute video of the lowlights from Green’s performance.
Right Guard James Daniels was slightly better, but not by much. Daniel has some history of solid play in this league, so I’m not totally willing to give up on him like I am Kendrick Green. Daniels might be better suited moving to the left side of the line or to center.
Left Guard Kevin Dotson played well in pass protection on Saturday night, but struggled with the run. But the biggest issue with Dotson is that he is constantly injured. He’s just not reliable to be one of the starting 5 on a week to week basis.
Center Mason Cole has been better relatively, and I tend to think his PFF grades are mediocre because of the two guys on each side of him.
I don’t know if it’s technique, physically mentally or just schematics. This line is just not coming together, and things need to change. As Ramone Foster said on his show on the DK Sportsnet, “What the Hell!”
This needs to be corrected and the answer looks to be from the outside. The season starts on September 11th and at this moment, this looks to be a long season if an answer from the outside isn’t found.
Yinzers, do yourselves a favor and log off of Social Media during training camp. Stop paying attention to every minute detail of camp. Not everything is the best thing ever, nor is everything that terrible.
Breathe in, breathe out.
And repeat!!!
Lets remember that the guys haven’t even put pads on yet, and are two weeks away from the first Preseason Game.
The ridiculousness doesn’t just conclude with the fanbase, it proceeds with the media. We got Andrew Filliponi of 93.7 The Fan going absolutely bananas over just about everything. I’d include a specific tweet of his, but there’s like a dozen of overly-dramatic tweets on his timeline.
Breathe in, breathe out.
And repeat!!!
Just because Kenny Pickett (20th Pick of the 1st Rd out of the University of Pittsburgh) isn’t included in the 7 Shots the first week of camp is NOT an indication of anything. He’ll get more repetitions as time in camp proceeds. He’s still learning the offense and catching up to the speed of the game.
Breathe in, breathe out.
And repeat!!!
Sure a guy like Pickens is having an absolutely fantastic week. But stop giving the guy a Yellow Jacket already. There’s been a plethora of guys that shined in t-shirts and shorts and didn’t do squat when the lights came on. I tend to think George Pickens will ultimately be a special player, but that’s based more on his productivity at Georgia.
This week is essentially two hand touch which is meant to ease players into camp. I’m seeing guys keeping tabs on yards passing ignoring the fact that a WR may, or may not, break tackles. It’s merely a guessing game.
The Quarterbacks are going to throw touchdowns and interceptions. It’s apart of the process of development. Even the best QB’s across the league are going to toss a few INT’s. Defensive players make plays too. I’m more concerned with the QB’s ability to make second or third reads and find open guys when their primary receiver wasn’t open, as opposed to forcing the ball.
The offensive line is going to have growing pains. Let’s give these guys a chance to gel as a unit and develop as individuals before we get overly critical. I’m not exactly enthused with this group as a whole, and wouldn’t mind seeing an addition towards the end of camp when other teams do salary dumps.
Again,
Breathe in, breathe out.
And repeat!!!
One thing I will say is that a day after signing Free Agent RB Jeremy McNichols, the Steelers worked out FA Jordan Howard. That’s a clear indication to me that Benny Snell’s days in Pittsburgh are likely numbered.
This past week I had a horrible reminder of my mental illness. It wasn’t so much mental strife this time, but the physical pains from the self-neglect during my battles of depression.
A huge battle (within-the-battle) during a depression episode is really finding the urge to take showers, brush your teeth and other things that deal with daily hygiene. It is awful to think that I found more enthusiasm to go to a local bar, as opposed to basic daily responsibilities.
With my battles, I had to learn to find my underlying issue. If I didn’t step back and take care of the underlying issue, my depression cycle would’ve continued longer than it did. I remember a friend, that I met in phone war game, recommend that I write two letters to my mom; one good letter and one bad letter. After I wrote the letters, it literally broke my heart that the bad letter was longer than the good one. I put a ton of thought into both and really wanted to write more encouraging memories and thanking her. (I won’t touch on the negative things in this forum, because private matters are meant to be private).
It does feel good that I’ve tackled many of my issues, and likely will have to tackle many more (life evolves and has it’s twists and turns). I look forward to tackling them, with the help of my current support and future support.
I would like to help those that are dealing with mental illnesses of their own. I may not be a trained professional, but peer support is definitely important. Which is why I get involved in things like suicide prevention walks to raise money for suicide prevention. I’m also open to people that I meet regarding my mental illness from the start. If that’s red flags for them, I understand. But I also don’t want a future episode to come as a surprise to them as well. They need to know the potential of a future one is real, regardless of how much I’m trying to prevent one from happening. Fair is fair, as well as it’s a matter of respect.
Onto to what provoked such thoughts; my teeth are practically decaying, one-by-one. All last week I had mouth pain, until on Friday the pain was so unbearable that I had to call off work. My jaw was swollen from the toothache. I don’t know if it’s infected or not, but I’ll have to find out soon enough and get to a dentist. Self-care is still important; depression episode or not.
I’m not perfect, nor to I intend to be. I try to be the best person that I can possibly be. I had to learn that I can’t dwell on things that I can’t control; and I have to fix the things that I can control. And in this case, it’s fixing the teeth that I’ve neglected these past six years.
Where does the University of Pittsburgh stand in this world of calamitic change? The conference musical chairs is upon us and where does Pitt land when the music stops?
The answer to both is, “I don’t know!”
One can make an argument that Pitt will land on it’s feet; whilst at the same time; one can make an argument that Pitt will be left behind.
Pitt has a quality football brand with a rock solid history. Pitt has won Nine National Champions, a Heisman winner, several College Football Hall of Fame inductees, as well as several NFL Hall of Fame Inductees.
One must ask, is Pitt’s brand strong enough to watch a Pitt vs Michigan game with neither team being ranked and having losing seasons? People will turn in to watch Pitt vs Rutgers if both were in the Top 5. But brand strength and quality is really determined when teams are relatively struggling.
Take Notre Dame for instance; ND hasn’t won a major bowl in nearly thirty years; however; they’re deemed the richest prize in the realignment game (second to possibly the University of Texas). People are vested in Notre Dame, despite their lack of bowl success. They’re historically a Top 5 program with one of the largest fanbases in the United States.
The Pittsburgh media market is a top thirty media market in the country; however, the Big Ten Network already has coverage in Pittsburgh. Are there enough Pitt fans in the Pitt DMA to increase the ratings for games across the board on the network? That’s really a tough question to answer.
In relation to Oregon, Stanford and Cal, Pitt actually draws more fans to the home games than Stanford and Cal, and drew higher attendance against Wake Forest in the ACC Championship than Oregon drew against Utah in the PAC 12 Championship. So despite being touted for having poor fan-fair, Pitt is on par with it’s Big Ten expansion candidate peers from the west coast.
Now all of this doesn’t mean that Pitt is a great expansion candidate. Pitt compared to Texas, Notre Dame, Florida State or Clemson is just not even remotely in the same stratosphere; however, that’s also why those schools are mentioned first in these discussions. Pitt is likely that last, or next to last school in (if it is in), and our comparable schools are schools like Texas Christian University, Texas Tech, University of Louisville, University of Arizona, University of Colorado, Arizona State University, Baylor University and so on. Many of these could easily be included, while Pitt gets excluded.
The bulk of those are state flagships that carry new markets, and bring in fertile recruiting grounds. Western Pa is still a quality recruiting are, but it’s on the decline and schools like Michigan and Notre Dame already recruit WPA.
I don’t know if Pitt is 100% in or 100% out; it’s going to come down to which school sales itself the best. It’s going to be an interesting couple of days, weeks and months. There’s going to be plot-twists along the way.
Grab your popcorn and enjoy the show. The fireworks tonight on the fourth will not compare with the fireworks realignment will provide, especially in relation to the Pitt Panthers.
And yo, will someone FedEx me a Schneider’s Ice Tea for the show? Paweese!!!
It’s really looking grim if you’re the University of Arizona or University of Kansas or half of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Where it’s heading is incredible, but true.
We are going to see two super conferences of roughly twenty to twenty-four schools that ultimately break away from the NCAA.
They will have their own football playoffs; their own March Madness, their own College World Series; you get the point. The game is completely changing and will be leaving the bulk of D1 sports so far behind.
But perhaps this will be a good thing in a weird way. The Southeastern Conference and Big Ten conferences will more or less resemble semi-pro sports, and what’s left over will resemble more of what college athletics is supposed to look like.
This change will create two major March Madness tournaments. People are still going to watch the next tiered March Madness because there will be a lot of powers left over to make that watch worthwhile; think Georgetown University, University of Kansas, University of Arizona, Duke University, Syracuse University, University of Connecticut and Gonzaga University. Many seasons it will be argued whether, or not, this 2nd tier would’ve won against the SEC/B10 Champion.
As for football, it will look a little something like this for post-season. Big Ten Conference and Southeast Conference will each hold 6 or 8 team playoffs internally, then the winner of each playoff will compete in the national championship game.
This way each conference’s playoffs will be apart of their television deals with ESPN or FOX, and then the national championship game will likely rotate between the networks. This will lead to five or seven more games to each of their inventory, which will likely garner high television ratings.
Perhaps the SEC or Big 10 will send teams to bowls, perhaps they won’t. But surely the schools left behind in the NCAA will certainly carry on the bowl season tradition on ESPN. The names of the participants won’t be as flashy as the past, but ESPN will still sponsor the bowl season.
It’s unnerving; it’s unsettling; ultimately, it is what it is. I vehemently hate the current path this is going.
A breeze of change is in the air. The change isn’t summer getting into full swing; that change is college sports realignment.
It certainly feels like de je vu in the realm of conference realignment. People will talk about greed, the loss of rivalries, state legislators getting involved and a slew of other things. They’re not exactly wrong neither.
There are 100 year’s worth of traditions are being lost at the stroke of a pen. Many people can be to blame: whether it’s faulty conference commissioners, TV execs making business decisions, or schools just flat out looking to get paid.
Throughout the decades there has always been some form of conference realignment. But those changes weren’t solely based upon tv/streaming device deals that would make a school tens of millions more with a conference change.
University of Southern Cal, University of California Los Angeles, University of Oregon, University of Washington, and the University Notre Dame will all likely be making the move to the Big Ten Conference.
State legislators in both Oregon and Washington already stated that they’ll do whatever possible to keep Oregon State & Washington State (respectively) in the same conference as Oregon & Washington, per John Canzano. That’s not a fight that they’ll win; however, a fight that they can win is keeping the Oregon/Oregon St & Washington/Washington State rivalries intact. Zero conferences are going to want all four, and that’s unfortunately a sad reality.
Schools like University of Colorado, Iowa State University, University of Kansas, Oklahoma State University and others will hurt the most through this wave of change because they’re being reduced to a Tier 2 status. It’s going to hurt their exposure thus their ability to recruit; then there will be a loss of interest in their programs.
Rivalries and the very essence of regionalism is being lost in this wave of super conference building. That essence will never be regained. Penn State has been in the Big Ten for almost thirty years now, and still hasn’t really established a top rivalry yet. There’s rivalries of course, but none of those schools consider PSU their top rival. Perhaps they’ll finally find one with Notre Dame; however, ND will likely consider USC the bigger game.
It’s ultimately about greed, whilst players are only getting Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) from this. It’s practically unpaid labor, and it’s time to start paying the players; or better yet, start taxing athletic programs. You can’t call this nonsense a nonprofit when schools’ athletic programs will be bringing in $100M in television revenue on top of the revenue generated via ticket sales and merchandise sales.
Time to call this what it truly is: minor league football with college branding and likeness that’s being funded by television. I wonder what Walter Camp thinks about what college football has become?
Last week MLS signed a ten year deal with Apple TV worth $2.5 Billion dollars, roughly $250M a year. Paul Tenorio of the Athletic has speculated that for Apple to break even they are going to need roughly four million subscribers subscribing to the MLS network within the Apple TV platform.
What really sticks out to me it that it’s really going to be hard to convince casual football (I’ll call soccer football in this case merely because the bulk of the world does so) fan to subscribe to the network. What initiative does Johnny in Cleveland to subscribe to the Network, when the league really lacks star power?
Another sticking point is that MLS will be paying for the production costs and per Sam Stejskal of the Athletic, those production costs will be roughly $60M a year. So without considering the potential payout from ESPN and Univision for the yearly simulcast of games, MLS will be getting at least $190M a year. The big thing for this year, at least, is that on top of that $60M is that the MLS will also be paying for the startup costs.
This deal is significantly better than the previous deal. Of the $90M a year that ESPN, FOX and Univision was paying, only $60M of that was finding it’s way to the MLS, and the other $30M went to the US Soccer Federation. So realistically, the MLS is bringing is more than 3X the previous deal, and that could be as much as 4X once ESPN and Univision strikes it’s deal with the MLS for simulcasted games.
Most fans first taste of MLS on Apple TV is likely going to take place in sports bars. Granted season ticket holders will get Apple TV & MLS Network for free and hardcore fans will just buy it; however, the average consumer is going to want to test network, and see if it is worth investing.
And this is where spending money to make money comes into play. The consumer wants stars; the consumer wants rivalries; the consumer wants storylines; and the story wants a certain level of entertainment value. If this criteria isn’t met; the consumer won’t be investing in the product, and will continue to seek the entertainment value from leagues overseas like the English Premier League or La Liga.
I’m not suggesting the MLS go and get Kylian Mbappe of France or any other top ten player in the world, that’s in their prime. But getting the next tier of players, especially American born, should be in the cards. Getting a Christian Pulisic or players around the Harry Kane level should help provide some of the star power needed to attract casual fans into buying into the product.
Football in general is very much a niche sport in the United States, and the MLS is a niche of that niche. This TV Deal momentarily helps close the gap with foreign leagues, but once we reach the end of this deal, the gap will be much wider than it is today, unless subscriptions meet an unannounced threshold and helps the MLS get a greater payout than it’s currently expecting.
It should be interesting to see how Apple promotes the MLS moving forward. They invested a lot in the product and it’s going to take a lot for them to even break even. Promotion is going to be key for the success of this deal.
I’m going to present this as scientific and non politically biased as possible without presenting graphs. I tend to think deep down if one lived long enough, they’ve literally seen the social decay first hand or via any news source. And oddly enough, our music industry has also been displayed this trend. Music theory has proven that music in the 60’s and 70’s was more intricate, more layered and had more depth and meaning. I personally prefer 90’s music myself, but theory has proven me wrong on this topic. You can look at past empires like the Romans or the Bronze Age Collapse and see a correlation between art and social order collapse.
60 years ago things like mental illness, guns, bad parents, drug addiction, alcohol abuse and homelessness all existed. So what really changed between the 1960’s and today? How are these problems so much worse that a political wing things that getting rid of guns is the answer when in reality that’s akin to putting a band-aid on cancer. I’ll argue that each of these problems being projected as singular issues even though they’re all a interweb of fuckery that’s related to the underlying problem.
Ultimately the underlying issue is globalism, and it’s effects on our social order. 60 years ago the traditional family of four, five or six had a single breadwinner and stay at home parent. Globalism effected our ability to compete with global trade. Our jobs went to Mexico, Japan, China and to a lesser extent India, Vietnam, and Thailand.
As a result of the loss of jobs, a single income became no longer sufficient enough income to get by in daily life, let alone and safe enough money to send Johnny and Jenny to college. Throughout the decades even two incomes aren’t sufficient to get by forcing people to get two or even three jobs.
I don’t think it takes rocket science to corroborate the relationship between economics and social order. When the economy is well, people are happy; when it is terrible, people are depressed.
With both parents working multiple jobs, there’s very little family time. We don’t need science to prove that parents that participate in their children’s education relates to their children being more successful in the classroom than parents that aren’t involved. Same applies for mental nurturing. Who and what do children turn to when their parents are working multiple jobs; perhaps a coach, a teacher, friends, a pastor, then on the flip side, awful friends and drugs.
When times are rough, married couples tend to argue. Individuals, in-general, tend to find their way to alcohol, drugs, affairs, or anything else that makes them happy, which often-times, leads to divorce and the creation of the nuclear family or single parenting. The nuclear family or a single parent household isn’t great for a child’s mental health, because of the lack of moral support. I wouldn’t say that this in general makes these bad parents, whatsoever; it just means they have to work to make ends meet. If they don’t work, their kids starve, their house gets foreclosed, they get evicted from their apartment, and so on. That’s just a tough juggling act that leads to alcoholism, drug abuse or whatever.
Nobody does a drug when their lives are well off. People tend to drink or use hard drugs to get away from whatever pain they’re dealing with. Due to many of our childhoods, 40 & below; perhaps 50 & below, many of us lack the ability to be open and talk to our loved ones about our issues; which ultimately leads to self-destructive tendencies.
School/mass shootings, and teen suicide, is definitely a biproduct of this. Bullying existed 60+ years ago. Hell, bullying existed thousands of years ago; bullying exists in other animals, especially predator’s. So if bullying practically always existed, why is bullying such an issue in today’s world. The answer has to lie in the fact that parents aren’t able to provide the moral support that kids 60 year’s ago received. How can we expect boys to “toughen up” when there’s not a father there to “toughen them up!?!” Such bullying leads to a kids bullying others, bullying animals, going on mass shootings, going to drugs, suicide, or finding something positive like art to vent their frustrations like poetry or music (see Eminem).
I do think there’s some merit to the argument that mental asylums shouldn’t have closed so many decades ago, and does think that there more that needs to be done as opposed to sending patients home on medications. I also see the loss of religion having merit in this as well. If parents don’t care to send their kids to church what kind of structure or positive outlet do they really have?
If we don’t get to the bottom of this as a society, maybe even as a planet; this could certainly lead to revolution or even the fracturing of our country. I see this as a national security threat. This kind of social collapse could break the world’s economy and have an effect similar to that of the Bronze Age Collapse. My question is, when will society want to have a serious discussion on this, as opposed to using guns and mental health as scapegoats?
What a crazy past couple of years this has been, both collectively and individually.
There has been so many keywords that come to mind: lockdown, mandates, vaccines, social distancing and so on.
The world has seen restaurants at half-full, stadiums that were completely empty then progressively became full again. Meanwhile concert venues shut down and eventually reopened.
Maybe we are getting back to normal, maybe we are not.
I do want to reflect on a moment in college that comes to mind through all of this. I used to think it was hilarious seeing Asian kids wearing masks during flu and cold season. The joke is on me, because I definitely see the importance of wearing a mask. I won’t tell you to wear it post-Covid, but I likely will be.
Through all of the madness, I picked up my bags, and I moved cross-country.
Portland is, and isn’t, as crazy as I thought it would be. The politics is super liberal/progressive; however, everyday people really aren’t. I get more of a blue-collar sense that isn’t all that different than Pittsburgh.
Hopefully we get this Covid thing off of our backs really soon. But in the meantime, I plan to blog on the Steelers, Pitt, Timbers and maybe Oregon and Oregon State.
I hope everyone has a great holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope 2022 is the best year yet for everyone.
joeweasel 