Sorry, Pittsburgh!

Well, I guess it’s time to weigh in on the Super Bowl. As usual, there’s plenty of stuff to talk about.

I could talk about former bag-boy Kurt Warner and his Horatio Alger story of rags to riches to rags and then back to riches again, all the while being one of the true nice-guy role models in the sometimes nasty business of the NFL. I could talk about Pittsburgh’s tenacious defense and their seemingly magical ability to disguise blitzes and stifle any semblance of offense by the opposition. I guess I could make a prediction (Pittsburgh 24, Arizona 17) on Monday and then tell everyone that Nostradamus predicted it 400 years ago in a quatrain where Pittsburgh was called “smelly mountain” and Arizona was called “habitual loser.” I could even discuss the relative success of the Pittsburgh model and how they’ve adapted to the age of free agency and the new CBA and still maintained a high level of performance.

I don’t think I’ll talk about any of that. I’m a Browns fan; Pittsburgh sucks!

Seriously, you’ve got to give the devil his due. Pittsburgh is good and they’ve earned what they’ve achieved, but they still suck! Their fans are arrogant in the Dallas mold, and they wave those silly little yellow towels, reminding me more of a mid-major college game than a real, live NFL contest. Pittsburgh’s stadium, Heinz Field (aptly named since playing there can only be described as slogging through a bottle of ketchup), is the worst surface ever. Sitting on the banks of the famous “three rivers,” it’s more akin to playing in a swamp than on a proper playing surface. Kickers can’t kick there with any proficiency, so it’s either touchdowns or punts and not much in between.

Pittsburgh sucks!

Where you’ve got to give them credit is that they KNOW Pittsburgh sucks, so they’ve worked very hard over the years to develop and maintain an effective running game. They know that no one is going to throw for long gains in that muck, so they get receivers who specialize in short routes; pudgy little guys with wide feet and big hands who can cut in that slop and then catch short, efficient little passes to keep the ball moving up the field. They got a quarterback who’s tall, so even if he sinks down 6 or 8 inches, he can still see over rushing linemen. What’s amazing to me is that the NFL allows games to be played at Heinz. It hasn’t been that long ago that the NFL canceled a game in Houston because the playing surface was deemed “dangerous.” Where’s the NFL when it comes to Pittsburgh?

They’re up the distal end of the Rooney family’s alimentary canal, that’s where!

Let’s face it; the NFL wants powerful, stable ownership like they had in the old days; you know, the Wellington Moras of the world. What they’ve got now is a bunch of “profit-first” guys who’re liable to move their franchise at a whim just for an extra nickel or two, fan loyalty be damned! Pittsburgh has such ownership in the Rooneys and it’s just what the NFL wants, so who cares if they play in an oft-times dangerous quagmire?

I do!

The NFL ought to insist that Pittsburgh repair its home field and keep the number of games played there to a minimum so the field is playable on Sundays. Of course, that doesn’t include re-sodding every other day and pretending that new grass that is simply laid on underlying dirt is an acceptable playing surface; it’s not! Loose grass is worse than worn grass, which is only slightly better than the painted dirt that Cleveland used to play on routinely.

So, even if Pittsburgh is good and is going to win it’s sixth Super Bowl on Sunday, they suck!