Want another reason to hate the Saints?

Like their team, hate their bandwagon fans.

and saying that the Steelers won’t be any good next year is idiotic.

Well, let’s review that statement. Full disclosure in advance, my top three teams are Saints, Bengals, then Colts whenever they aren’t playing the other two, so I should be relatively tolerable to you guys. And while I’m definitely biased in that my fourth favorite team is whoever is playing the Steelers because I absolutely hate them with a passion, I’m also very much a realist. I do actually study my opponents, even when I hate them, and know key players names and at least some stats/tendencies/etc. So lets look at what happened this last year and see if that statement is truly idiotic or not.

First off, the Steelers lost four of their division games, one of them on NFLN to the “joke” of the league known as the Browns. That’s embarrassing enough. Then you look at the teams they beat and who beat them. Well they deserve props for getting the Vikings and at least squeaking by the Ravens once, but beyond that where are their quality wins? San Diego? The team that always sucks in the first four or five weeks, roars for the rest of the regular season then sucks at the end again? Nope, can’t count it. Denver? The team that started hot before people realized they really didn’t have an offense after all? Nope, not really. Green Bay? Well the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat these guys, so playoff team or no this was a team feasting on a ton of putrid opponents and I can’t give credit here either. Miami? A team that by this point had lost a QB and its best RB? That had no WRs that could hold onto a ball at all and a defense that was fading fast? Nope, wrong again. Then we can add in that but for incompetence that was truly Lionesque, they might well have lost to the Lions, they did lose Chicago, Oakland, and even Kansas City of all teams. Wow. Great evidence for a team that’s going to be very good next year so far.

Then you add in the fact that their OL is probably one of the worst in the league, certainly at least in the bottom half if nothing else. Add in that their star RB didn’t exactly perform all that great and you have to wonder where their running game has gone so fast. Was the Bus that critical? Now maybe that improves with a better OL, but can they get one? Remains to be seen. Then you add in that their “superstar” QB had a less than stellar season to begin with and even worse was sacked 50 more times on top of the 150 or so he’d taken before such that he actually had to miss a game with a concussion, and you have to question his longevity and future production. And then you have to wonder whether Sweed can learn to catch a ball and just how much longer Ward can continue to play (for the sake of all their opponents health, I hope the answer to the last is “not long”).

Now lets add in some defense questions. Well they have no clear replacement for the absolute lynchpin of their defense in Casey Hampton, who is getting quite old and isn’t performing at quite as high a level anymore. That’s bad. Then let’s recall the fact that the next two major lynchpins of their defense are coming off season-ending injuries (Polamalu and Aaron Smith) means that there is at least some reason to question if they are going to come back at a high level either. Troy almost certainly will, but it’s not guaranteed. Smith however is already 33 and age becomes a factor quickly on the DL. Then we have to wonder if they can find a corner that can actually play “cover somebody” instead of “cover nobody”.

Last lets look at next year’s schedule, starting with the divisional opponents. The Bengals started good and sucked at the end of the year. No matter how much I might dislike it, it remains the truth. But if they can find a passing offense again while still keeping a decent run offense and avoiding backsliding on the defense… well their defense was top 5 already in yards and top 10 in points. At the very least these won’t be freebie games anymore. Then the Ravens have a team on the rise in many areas if they too can find some WR help and some corners that can also avoid playing “cover nobody”. Not pushovers at least. In fact they are my grossly early pick for next year’s AFC-N champ. Then the Browns beat them with a horrid team this year. If Holmgren simply avoids totally sucking they might well beat the Steelers again at least once. Their remaining home opponents are: Patriots, Jets, Raiders, Falcons, Panthers. For all that I hate the Falcons too (whoever is playing them is my fifth favorite team), they are pretty decent and again aren’t going to be a freebie. The Panthers are a complete tossup. Probably depends on if they can replace Peppers and if Moore is really any good or not. Patriots won’t come free, and the Jets aren’t great but aren’t bad either. And the Raiders beat them last year so until proven otherwise anything is possible. Finally their remaining away opponents are: Bills, Dolphins, Titans, Saints, Buccaneers. Bucs are horrid now but the NFC-S has a history of rapid turnarounds so don’t count them as a freebie just yet. Bills and Dolphins can probably be counted on, but the Titans can not. And the Saints at the Dome? You think Lombardi Gras was loud, wait until your ears bleed upon setting foot in that dome next year.

Add it all up and right now they just aren’t that good of a team and their prospects for next year don’t exactly overflow with concrete assurances of greatness. They still could be very good with significant improvement in few key areas. But so could the Lions. So one of two things are going to happen. Either the Steelers are going to get a LOT better in the offseason and end up being, say, 10-6 to 12-4 and prove me wrong, or they aren’t going to get the major improvements they need and they are going to be somewhere between 5-11 and 8-8.

Are like the pauper who just won the state lottery and suddenly feel they are richer than Bill Gates (and talk smack to Evil Bill when they get the chance)

t

t

It makes Detroit look like Belair

The truth hurts to everybody, and I’m just telling it.

Again, they’re doing the same thing we do: defending their team against a perceived insult. Do you stop and ask questions before labeling someone a troll? My guess is no. I get that in this case it was an accident, but you can’t climb up on a soap box and call them insecure if we’re doing the exact same thing. It’s called hypocrisy.

I agree, attacking someone for a comment (negative or otherwise) regarding your sports team is silly and redundant, and screams insecurity and sensitivity. This is the web, folks. No one is filling out a “How dedicated are you?” scorecard. But until we stop doing it, we can’t call out others for replicating our behavior.

Considering how many Viqueen fans did nearly the exact same thing? Do you really want an answer to that?

He did an excellent job, as did the rest of the team.

I just agree that Addai is great and protecting the ball.

Saban would bench him everytime he fumbled, so he learned how to hang onto the ball or sit his butt down. Very good running back! Very good person!

But if you read all the post on our board the last 2 weeks you would see the numerous times that people have come and told us we cheated
They have told us we took cheap shots on Favre ( who is my all time favorite QB ) that we got all the calls from the refs who screwed us over before OT on many occasions.
And the only reason we won is because the Vikes kept fumbling ( which we caused most)
The game was behind us and thats all we kept hearing on our blog and in the media

Are not a better team than the Saints if they lost. That’s a simple, undeniable fact.