Posted on 01/24/2011 5:17:14 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
PITTSBURGH -- You see it all around town these days. The "Big Ben" signs gradually returning to the windows in working-class hillside neighborhoods. The No. 7 jerseys on the backs of suburban convenience-store clerks, grade-school teachers - even, strikingly, children.
Most prominently, you see it in how the discussion unfolds when talk turns to Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Instead of phrases like "criminal investigation," ''NFL suspension" and "bad example," the words today are back to what they were a couple years ago: Completed passes. Makes things happen. Leader.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtae.com ...
Yes I’ve seen coaches run down to the end zone to celebrate. Ryan won with class. He didn’t insult anybody. Joy does not lack class or dignity.
bullchit.The Cowboys did not call themselves America’s Team...Brent Musburger when at CBS coined that phrase but thx for playin
I can totally understand why a person would want to get the hell out of Ohio or Pennsylvania, by either moving or getting away for a weekend game. I just spent 4 days in the tri-state area during a blizzard; this was two weeks ago. I vowed never to return if I could help it. I've never been so cold.
Ward only complained about one game Ben missed, and then when it was pointed out that the doctors sat him he apologized. He didn’t blame the bad season on Ben at all.
One should keep in mind that before this season began most of the prognosticators had the Steelers finishing 3rd in their own division, nobody figured they’d come out of Ben’s suspension 3-1, and they all figured there’d be pretty heavy chemistry issues once he got back. When the world thinks you’re going to finish behind the Bengals you’ve probably got a slightly larger hill to climb than most teams.
As for the fans “sense of entitlement” I think that’s just getting used to success. When a team has had 9 losing seasons in 40+ years (since Noll took over), and most of those just barely under 500, the fans can grow accustomed to being a contender. And I’ll admit when the Steelers won XLIII and once again put themselves in the lead on the Lombardi count there was a feeling of the world resuming its correct balance. Being a Steelers fan is a bit of a charmed existence, don’t have to learn a lot of coach’s names, don’t have to learn a lot of different styles of offense, don’t have to wonder what it’s like to go 10 years without a playoff win, don’t have to pay attention to the draft because the Steelers draft non-positionally and non-flashy. And thanks to the Steelers football identity Steelers fans immediately know stuff about each other, if I see a co-worker wearing a Steelers jersey at work I know that’s a person who likes hard hitting defensively oriented football.
I’ll give you complacency, but entitlement is taking it too far. We know we’re not entitled, especially those of us who survived the lean years of the late 80s. But success sure does feel more normal than failure.
Oh c'mon, he threw 4 TDs in the Super Bowl!
Ok, granted, 2 of them were to the Cowboys, but still, 4 TDs!
I vividly remember how the Steelers took great delight in pounding him into the ground repeatedly the next year when O'Donnell went to the Jets.
Near the end, for a big game. Try almost all of them. To the end zone or at least on the field. Happens all the time. Especially in the playoffs.Did you see how far out on the field Tomlin got after some of the big plays? It’s part of football, it’s not classless at all. And it’s really kind of silly to claim it is. “Classless” seems to be rapidly becoming the most over used word on FR.
Just what is it you want to hand him? As a fan, I don't really give a damn about the teams PR skills. I only want to see them in the playoffs regularly and at least have a shot at a title every decade of so.
Maybe if he kept his butt up in the owners box where he belongs and allowed football people to run the show, didn't change coaches the way he changes his socks, or sink tons of case on disruptions like TO, the Cowboys could get back to where they used to be in their glory days. A consistent winner.
Jerry Jones is a pimp
Tom Landry, Gil Brandt, and Tex Schram built the Cowboy’s legacy
It should be, both are technically in violation of the rules because they’re out of the “travel” zone the league has defined for coaches, both are showing joy at your team’s success. They’re either both “classless” or neither.
You’re taking this way too seriously. It’s just football. Regain some perspective.
So many ‘haters’ of the beloved Black and Gold on here. My, my...its going to be a fun two weeks:)
ESPN did a piece last week on the Best Fans of any franschise...it came out almost unanimously the Stiller Nation. The ESPN guys had the lamest excuses ever for why. Black and Gold are ‘cool, machismo colors.’ They play outdoor on real grass (so do alot of others). No...the reason they missed, is the most obvious here (on a political board).
Our declining population (first huge wave went out with the death knell of the US steel industry) sent a generation born ‘here’ out there...all over the US seeking jobs. Yet, during the Fall and Winter they could ‘revisit’ the Burgh (or their relatives could come and stay with them if they were close to an away game) via the Steelers. If you wore the Black and Gold you immediately found ‘other’ displaced yinzers. And so it went on...
The Stiller Nation...the original ‘social network.’
Rwi, we are soooooo ahead of the curve here, aren’t we (’splains the jealousy)...
Rev’n for Seven. PM
That's like winning Miss Congeniality from the New York Times.
I went to a Ranger game last year when they played the Red Sox, and there seemed to be more Sox fans than Ranger fans. That was probably because they were louder and more obnoxious, but the rest of country seems to have grown accustomed to putting up with sports fans from the northeast, who've fled their dying states' economies and liberal politics and brought their funny accents and attitudes down here.
A lot of Steeler Nation is like me, I’ve never even set foot in PA, and probably never will (don’t like to travel, don’t like the cold). We like tend to like the Steelers because of what they are, they’re a very consistently run organization with a very well defined concept of how the team should run and what they should put on the field. Whether it’s the success of the 70s, the failure of the 80s, the near misses of the 90s, or the climb back to the top of recent years, you always know what Steelers football is, and what kind of decisions the organization will make. You know they’re going to draft for style and personality not for position and flash, you know it’s going to be a strong defense, you know they’re at least going to try to have a strong running game, you know the coach is going to be a no-nonsense guy you’d probably really enjoy having a couple of beers with, you know that even if they don’t win they tried, and you know there’s not going to be any TO style BS coming out of the locker room.
I can’t imagine being a fan of a team like the Redskins, even when the Skins are good you really don’t know what to expect out of the team. Might be west coast, might be 3 yards and a cloud of dust, might be a 3-4 blitz oriented defense, might be a Tampa 2, might be a really cool coach, might be a guy with a giant ego that mismanages every aspect of the team. What is Redskin Football? Cowboy Football? Cardinal Football? Dolphin Football? I know what Steeler Football is, even people that hate the team know what Steeler Footballs is. It’s easy to be a fan when you know what’s coming, it’s like being a fan of a band or an actor. It’s not just being a fan of the uniform or the city, it’s being a fan of the product.
You are so right. I can’t believe all this hatin’ on the Stillers.
I guess Rooney’s support of Obama rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Yeah, I get that, but it’s not the team’s fault that (one of) the owners is a moron.
But it IS true. You see it all the time. If you’ve watched this entire season of football you’ve seen at least a dozen incidents of coaches running towards the end zone, way out on the field, way outside the league defined “coach zone”, to celebrate big plays. It’s a CONSTANT occurrence and to pretend it’s something unique to to Ryan in the divisional round is silly. I can’t give specific examples in much the same way I can’t give specific examples of the coach ripping off his headset in anger like Ryan did this Sunday, it’s too common an event for the brain to bother to note. It’s like trying to remember a sneeze, they happen all the time, they aren’t generally memorable.
I don’t think any of the stuff Ryan has said is stupid. Declaring a game personal isn’t stupid. Declaring that he thinks the team is good enough to win the Super Bowl isn’t stupid. Declaring that every time his team loses it’s his fault not the players isn’t stupid. Every other coach? No of course not. MANY other coaches? Certainly. Plenty of other coaches have done this kind of stuff, and not even just the ones he’s related to by blood. Most of the coaches we really remember have at least had a few Ryan-esque moments. Some of the great phrases of football come from them: PLAYOFFS?! PLAYOFFS?!, crown their asses, you play to win the game. And even the guys that don’t manage to come up with good quotes, you’re a Steeler fan, you’ve seen Cowher screaming so hard he spit, and you’ve seen him run way out on the field in joy too.
Ryan makes the news not because he’s unique, but because he’s fun. He’s a quotable guy, and working in NYC where all the media are doesn’t hurt his cause. He’s fun, it’s a game, gotta get over it.
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