BuckeyeHoppy's Sports Page

Thoughts on the NFL Network Steelers All-Time Top 10

2010-12-26T00:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve night, the NFL Network started a team-by-team series of all-time Top 10 lists. Naturally, as is fitting, the network in its infinite wisdom led off with the clubhouse leader in the Lombardi Open, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, this got me thinking of the guys I thought would be or should be included on such a list. At around 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, I had posted this list on a friends' Facebook:

10) Jerome Bettis
9) Jack Ham
8) Mel Blount
7) Lynn Swann
6) Hines Ward
5) "Mean" Joe Greene
4) Mike Webster
3) Franco Harris
2) Terry Bradshaw
1) Jack Lambert

Naturally, that was a pretty solid list by any objective measure. Now, let's compare that with NFL Network's list:

10. Jerome Bettis
9. Lynn Swann
8. Hines Ward
7. Troy Polamalu
6. Mel Blount
5. Jack Lambert
4. Rod Woodson
3. Franco Harris
2. Terry Bradshaw
1. "Mean" Joe Greene

So, I didn't do too badly with my projections, as 8 of the 10 guys on my list made it to the NFL Network list. Here are a few observations:

I figured all the players on the list would meet two criteria: one, that they would all be Hall Of Famers or will be once they become eligible and, two, that they would all have Steelers Super Bowl rings. Eventually, I will be proven right on the first count and, with the exception of Woodson, the second count proved to be true.

I figured Hines Ward would be on the list above Swann and that they would be the only two wide receivers on the list. Ward has already eclipsed Swann's and Stallworth's numbers and has his own cache of SB jewelry. That's also the criteria they will look at when he is inducted into the Hall Of Fame.

If there was going to be a Steelers player who never won a Super Bowl with the team on the list, it might have been nice to add Ernie Stautner. Don't get me wrong, Woodson deserves the honor for his complete body of work (although, I don't know if I put him higher than Mel Blount). But, if you are going to put a token player in there who never got a Steelers Super Bowl ring, a tip of the cap to the pre-Super Bowl Steelers would have been nice, especially when there was a player, like Stautner, who labored in virtual obscurity his entire career and still managed to receive Hall Of Fame induction.

All things considered, I had "Mean" Joe Greene way too low on my list. He was the first player drafted in the Chuck Noll era, so he was the one player who can be pointed to as starting it all. That said, how come Jack Lambert appeared as low as he did on the list? What position, above all others, are the Steelers noted for in their history? Jack, almost assuredly, deserved to be in the Top 3 on this list.

In retrospect, I am a little surprised that Bettis made the list over Ben Roethlisberger. Now, perhaps it's because Ben's body of work still needs to be rounded out before we can really put him on such an elite list. But, as more than one of the interviewees pointed out (Scotty Ferrall, most notably) he came within a shoestring tackle (by none other than Ben, of course) of being the goat in that 2005 playoff game vs. Indianapolis. Had that ended differently, there would have been no way Bettis makes the list, despite numbers that will one day include him in the Steelers Wing in Canton.

I am also surprised that Lambert was the ONLY linebacker to make the list and that 3 defensive backs made the list. That, as someone who holds Steeler linebackers in higher regard than the Pope himself, just shocked me. Not that perhaps one day Troy Polamalu wouldn't warrant inclusion on such a list. But, between you and me, I think it might have been slightly premature to have included him, for many of the same reasons that Ben was excluded, on this list at this time.

And, if Terry Bradshaw had seen this list prior to its airing, I suspect he would have been more than a little upset that Webster wasn't included. Iron Mike was EVERYTHING a Pittsburgh Steeler should ever aspire to be: tough as nails, fierce as hell with a non-stop will to win. Iron Mike fit that criteria as well as anyone who has ever donned the Black and Gold. His exclusion from this list puzzles me.

All that said, the folks who put together this list had to have been beating their heads against the wall trying to round it out.

Brent Musberger, a football broadcaster who, personally, has never done great things to endear himself to me, made a pretty astute, if not obvious, statement when he suggested that putting together a Steelers Top 10 list was impossible. Tough thing was, those were the rules. On balance, their effort was and is praiseworthy, even if not perfect.

Kudos to the gang at NFL Network. Might not have been a walk off homer. But, it was certainly a ground-rule double in the bottom of the 9th, at least. We'll be looking forward to seeing some of the other Top 10 lists as they are rolled out.

Roger Goodell's Effort To Let Players Wear Dresses and Comfortable Shoes During Games

2010-11-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

The title might be a little long. But Roger Goodell, so-called "Commissioner" of the National Football League probably wants this.

Want evidence? Here's the case in point: 8:22 left in the 3rd Quarter of the Oakland v. Pittsburgh game yesterday. Oakland's Jason Campbell drops back to pass and tosses a half-hearted, 8-yard pass that ends up being intercepted and returned to the Oakland end zone for a Pittsburgh touchdown. Yet, the play was nullified by a roughing the passer call on the Steelers James Harrison, the same James Harrison who has been fined three times just this season for hits on players the league felt were excessive.

Brilliant! And the fire always follows the smoke, right? Roger Goodell wants the millions who watch his league's product week in and week out every fall to believe that. But even CBS Sports color analyst Dan Fouts questioned the validity of the call after the fact, remarking that it was a borderline call costing the Steelers a touchdown. I guess that since Harrison was the one making the hit, that it was time to throw another log on the fire. Very well.

Either way, Fouts was speaking from knowledge at that point in the game. The officiating crew had already dropped 13 penalty flags and had another seven coming before the game's end. That's 21 penalties called, or, one penalty roughly every 2:52 of the game. That, as former Kansas City and Buffalo Head Coach Marv Levy might say, is a little over officious.

My view is that if Roger Goodell ever wanted to making a lasting statement on the quality of the officiating in the NFL, he could do what Major League Baseball does and go to full-time officials who wouldn't be moonlighting as bank presidents or corporate executives, among other worthwhile life endeavors. They would be in charge of the on-field policing of a multi-billion dollar entertainment empire. That doesn't sound like a product that should be left in the hands of "weekend warriors". Officiating, at that level, isn't the place for those seeking a part-time job. Professional football requires professional officials. It requires those who would make the officiating of the game a full-time pursuit.

And what exactly is the story with Goodell and his "risk management" of the NFL anyway? I was responding to a friend on Facebook about this. The following is the verbatim text of what I told the friend, edited for brevity:

"Football is a horribly violent game. Never mind the fact that it's the most popular game in America, it's still horribly violent. There was nothing illegal about Harrison's hit, and the videotape and Dan Fouts both agreed the call was bogus. It cost the Steelers a TD. What if that had happened to Oakland? It would have snuffed out a comeback. That is why it's a bad call. But Goodell is crapping his pants because of some perceived injury risk. I'll let him in on a secret: if you suit up and play football, you are greatly enhancing your injury risk anyway once you line up. These guys play, they understand the risk and play anyway. Goodell is a piece of work. He's a bean counter, not a football guy. He needs to be gone."

And that sentence says it all. Goodell fails to grasp the intrinsic nature of the product that he is selling. People get hurt. A few of the unfortunate have been seriously hurt enough to end their career. Or, their ability to walk or breathe without an artificial apparatus helping them. Maybe Goodell means well in trying to eliminate all the risk of injury in football. It's simply too bad that it is unrealistic to expect that ever to be the case. Players will continue to get hurt, even on clean hits.

The NFL needs a commissioner who understands the basic nature of the game and understands that the game cannot be governed by some "risk management" spreadsheet in a binder at the league office.

I know my friends in Pittsburgh might not agree with this. But, the one guy who, I believe, possesses both the native intelligence and the playing career I believe are necessary attributes to lead the National Football League is Cris Collinsworth, who currently provides color commentary for NBC's Sunday Night Football and analysis for Showtime's Inside The NFL. He comes across as someone who understands the basic nature of football and he is someone who played the game at its highest level. He is also someone who might be able to withstand the intellectual demands of the job and weigh that with the demand for good public relations from the commissioner's office.

Either way, Roger Goodell has proven to be a failure as National Football League Commissioner. With a looming work stoppage seemingly inevitable, does the National Football League really want to entrust the business of this league to someone who clearly doesn't know the nature of the game, among other faults this man has in his current professional capacity.

I could go on and on about Roger Goodell. It would require much more writing and many more articles. But, as a football fan, you should already know where this writer stands. Roger Goodell is bad for football and even worse as Commissioner of the NFL. He needs to pack his bags.

What if The Browns Were Forced to Stay in 1995?

2010-10-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, the best blogging material just happens out of casual conversation. Happens to me all the time.

A friend of mine mentioned something on his Facebook about how the current Cleveland Browns shouldn't have been allowed to maintain the former records of the team that was allowed to move to Baltimore following the 1995 season. And he has a very good point because that team bears no resemblance to the team currently know as the Cleveland Browns and probably won't for quite some time, if current trends persist.

The rest of this post is the response to my friend (edited here for clarity):

When the Washington Senators moved, both times, the records went to Minneapolis and Arlington with them.

But, the NFL, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the Browns were too sacrosanct for the records to follow them to Baltimore. Really? If they were that sacrosanct, why would the NFL allow Cleveland to hang in limbo for 3 years while Baltimore got what amounted to an expansion, yet fully established, team?

If the NFL ever had any actual brains, they would have told Art that he was going to suspend his operations and that he was guaranteed an expansion team in Baltimore for the 1999 season. And they would have told Cleveland that the Browns were theirs, but that a new stadium was going to be built or the city would forfeit the team if construction hadn't commenced before the team in Baltimore started playing. This would have been beneficial to all parties involved because it would have:

1) Lit a fire under the City of Cleveland to build the stadium that Art Modell should have built or arranged to have been built in conjunction with the city.

2) It would have kept Art Modell in as the owner in Baltimore. He went belly up because he ended up having to defend his actions in court and he had to maintain all the overhead of running a team right after moving to Baltimore, instead of not having to pay player salaries and operating expenses for three years while he got his new team up and running. Modell would still be the Ravens owner had he been forced to do this by the league.

3) It also would have forced the City of Cleveland to build their stadium somewhere other than where it is right now. The city has been complaining for years about lakefront development. Well? One of the largest single pieces of real estate in Cleveland that could have been used for lakefront development happens to have a very huge monolith on it that gets used only about a dozen times a year. The rest of the time, it sits there... empty and useless.

4) If the city had been pig headed enough to insist that the new stadium be built on the same site, it would have forced the team to move temporarily. The only logical place to have done that would have been to Columbus. That would have been a boon to the market share of that club in that town. That would have been particularly true if the same front office that went to Baltimore had stayed in Cleveland. What was it that the Ravens won in 2000. Now I remember... they won a Super Bowl. That team, quite frankly, should have been the Cleveland Browns.

Bottom line is that there was more than enough stupidity in the Browns move to go around.

Art didn't want to lose his team. Very well. He got his team and his Super Bowl ring... and lost everything eventually anyway. And there are some who think this moron should be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall Of Fame. Holy crap, would that be a mistake.

The City of Cleveland should have insisted that that Browns team be legally enjoined from playing anywhere other than Cleveland or in any other uniform other than the Browns uniform. Instead, they allowed Art to leave and take his toys with him and took the chances at starting new, but with the old colors and records in tact. The reality is that the product that is parading around as the Cleveland Browns in 2010 has no actual connection to any team that was the Cleveland Browns from 1946 to 1995 when the real Cleveland Browns were allowed to die by the NFL. The ones out there now are impostors, plain and simple.

And the NFL should have forced Art Modell and the City of Cleveland to play by its rules. In the end, it is their team, their property and they allow those who want to be involved in their league to play by their rules ultimately. Don't think so? Ask Jerry Jones or Al Davis.

They should have forced Art to accept an expansion franchise if he wanted to own a team in Baltimore. The reality with that is that the league would have ended up doing Art a favor in that he'd probably still be the owner of the team he was forced to sell after he got his Super Bowl ring.

And the league should have forced the City of Cleveland to build a new stadium as a condition of keeping their football team, as I had mentioned before. In return, the league could have taken over operation of the club until a suitable owner could be found (Major League Baseball later set the precedent for this when they took over the operations of the Montreal Expos until a new owner was found, who then moved the team to Washington, DC under much different circumstances that the move that involved the Browns). If the team had to temporarily relocate while the new stadium was being built, it would have saved the real Cleveland Browns while it would have allowed the team to take over the Columbus market at a time when the team was in a ascendant period.

Alas, none of this happened.

Cleveland got the colors and name and records. Is it really the same team?

Paul Brown's Browns are long since deceased and have been since his firing in 1962. Sure, his players managed to remain competitive through the '60s as proof that a Doppler Effect exists in sports when one coach is replaced by another. But my own father's allegiance to the Browns faded away after Paul Brown was no longer there and no team after that recaptured his interest.

And the "Dawg Pound" teams of the '80s, the last consistently good Browns team? That team failed three times to bring Cleveland the prize of a Super Bowl and it was the best they could do. And the "Dawg Pound", as the physical structure of the old Cleveland Stadium bleachers was so dubbed at the time, is now a reef in the middle of Lake Erie where the fish population happily go to spawn.

Instead, the Browns today are a laughing stock. The team hasn't come close to earning the fan base they have and they appear to be in a state of perpetually arrested development.

Browns fans are throwing out their hearts and souls, but for what? It's a team they love that isn't loving them back and doesn't appear to have any inclination to doing that any time soon.

George Steinbrenner... a Tough Act to Follow

2010-07-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you for weighing in on my Facebook over the last day on my views on the passing of George Steinbrenner. It has allowed me to take a long view of his life and how, if certain things would have worked out differently, how thing might have been different in my home here in Cleveland.

My view of George is positive despite the warts. What he did in Lorain was largely unacceptable. Lorain is still trying to figure out what to do for recovery to this day. But, if we blame George and AmShip for the start of the slide there, we can also blame USX and Ford for completing his work. Today, Lorain is ripe to rise from the ashes. They are looking for the person or people who will take the risk and develop something that will allow Lorain to become a viable center of commerce again. If anyone wants to put a bee in Alan Spitzer's bonnet, a good time to do that might be sooner than later.

George set a high bar for all baseball teams and, yes, he did exploit the system for the benefit of his team. So be it. That's the way the system works. It didn't seem like Dick Jacobs had much trouble keeping up when he owned the middle-market Indians, although it would be interesting to see whether he'd be doing things the same way now. One thing's for sure, the Dolan family simply lacks in comparison in their carnival act ownership of the club

It also would have been interesting to see if George had become the owner of the Indians. I'm not completely sure that George would have had the same success. But, I am sure that he would have seen to it that the team was equipped for success in Cleveland the same way that he set up the Yankees for success. I believe that he would have set up the Indians for an unparalleled level of success that they had not seen before.

I also believe that he would have been a champion for Cleveland and that, working with political and community leaders, he would have been a go to guy for improving his hometown. I suspect that he would have been instrumental in developing what became the Gateway Project much sooner and would have done so under the big tent including the Cavaliers and Browns. I also suspect that Art Modell would have been convinced by George to be part of the project and that chances would have been that the project would have been the early catalyst for much of the new stadium development we have seen in pro sports over the last 20 years. It might have saved Cleveland the pain of the embarrassing loss and hiatus of the Browns.

I know that much of what I've said here is much ado about speculative history. So be it. If you think of it, the great things George did to return the Yankees to glory had the cloudiness of a heaping helping of suspicion toward others over those years. No doubt that drama would have played out here in Cleveland. But the great mountains of interpersonal drama play out often in the world of successful professional athletics. If Cleveland would have been the locale of that drama in return for a few World Series trophies, I surely would have dealt with it. And, if you are a Cleveland sports fan, you would have, too. I can assure you of that.

At the end of the day, for all his personal and professional gaffes, George was a success and leaves a standard that will be difficult for others to top.

Celebrate Hockey Day In Canada on Saturday

2009-02-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

One of the best ways to celebrate the greatness of a sport is by profiling it at the grass roots level and showcasing those who are the strongest representatives of the sport...everyday men and women and boys and girls for whom the game will always be just that...a game.

On Saturday, the CBC will train their cameras on the small town of Campbellton, New Brunswick on an inlet of Tracadish Bay to celebrate the simplicity of an event which amounts to be nothing more than child's play...the game of hockey.

For one day a year in Canada, a small town is featured to be shown in the context of a sport that is more than sport. It is an agent of community unity. A focal point of local pride. Campbellton will be putting its best foot forward this Saturday to display its love for an activity well-ensconced in the toy box of life.

And that is what will make the 13 1/2 hour celebration of the game on frozen pond such great television. It will feature ordinary folks doing their best to extend the legacy of hockey, a game of universal appeal that only has the strength it has from the thousands of communities across the globe like Campbellton, New Brunswick.

For those who have had enough of the drama of sports...the steroid scandals in baseball...will Brett Favre ever retire?...where will T.O. play next?...Hockey Day In Canada puts the game of hockey on stage for all to see in its simplest form of the community ice rink that is ubiquitous in villages, towns and cities all over the world. It's a program enveloped in the trio of games played by those who have made the simple sport a way to make a living at its highest offered level.

For those who have access to NHL Network, the programming from the CBC will begin at noon on Saturday. The first three hours will focus on Campbellton and there will be more features in between the play of the NHL games being shown that day.

Give Hockey Day In Canada a look on Saturday. It's one of the best showcases on all of television of the basic goodness and goodwill of sports.

Herb Score, R.I.P.

2008-11-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

When you're a sports fan, you remember the voices that gave a team character. For the Cleveland Indians, that voice belonged to Herb Score.

Herb Score passed away this morning at the age of 75 after being in declining health for several years.

But, for me, Herb wasn't only a great Indians pitcher and even greater broadcaster and play-by-play announcer, he was a good a decent man.

I had the privilege to get to know Herb, his wife Nancy and the rest of his family when I worked for his daughter, Susan, at Our Lady of the Wayside, an agency which provides services to the mentally and physically challenged in Northeast Ohio. Susan had her share of problems. She was born with Down's Syndrome and had the full array of incumbent physical issues that went with that particular diagnosis. Nevertheless, she had an angelic spirit and was a truly beautiful human being.

Many families would allow the circumstance of having a disabled family member tear them apart. This never happened with the Score family and Susan's spirit was evident and transcended her family. But, I'll bet that spirit was a two way street all along. Even after Susan passed in 1994, the Score family was still very involved in the Our Lady of the Wayside community.

But the Herb Score that I knew best was obviously the one that many Clevelanders knew as the voice of the Indians. He was masterful and was a voice of reason in the frenzy commonly known as sports fandom. He was all about the home team, but was never a "homer" and always took great pains to avoid provincialism in his calling of a game. In the Terry Pluto book "The Curse of Rocky Colavito", he discussed his method of calling a game. Calling the home team "we" was verboten. So was second guessing the action on the field or the description of the action from the play-by-play booth. Herb believed in brevity and not adding too much description to the action, allowing the imagination of the scenario of the play on the field to be subject to the listener's discretion.(You can read a more detailed explanation of Herb Score's broadcast career in "The Curse of Rocky Colavito" by Terry Pluto, pages 176 to 188.)

Nevertheless, his description of the game was always engaging and many of Cleveland's finest sportcasters: Bob Neal, Joe Tait, Nev Chandler and Tom Hamilton had the opportunity to work with Herb. For Herb, he was gracious and thankful to work with these talented professionals while they endured his absence of graceful speech.

Herb was a great ambassador for the Indians. Just as the Tigers had Ernie Harwell. Or the Pirates Bob Prince. Or the Reds Joe Nuxhall. Or the Brewers Bob Uecker. The Indians had Herb Score and he was blessed to have the chance to serve in that role.

As we all get older, the distance from our youth grows longer. Today, mine got that much longer with the passing of Herb Score. He was a Cleveland original, a Legend, and a man to whom it will be hard to say goodbye.

Rest In Peace, Herb Score.

The NFL Fining Players For, Well...Playing? Bad Idea

2008-10-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was sitting with a friend of mine last night at my high school alma mater's football game (Bay High School in Bay Village, Ohio) where his son is a sophomore offensive lineman who gets some varsity playing time at guard and tackle. He had his daughter sitting in his lap and she couldn't quite understand the violent nature of the sport. Her dad said something to the effect of "football is just a very rough sport".

And in that short exchange, my friend and his daughter pretty much summed up the nature of football: it is a violent sport filled with collisions. Sometimes those collisions are so violent that it causes permanent injury, careers to end suddenly and a lifetime of pain that just doesn't go away.

The comments of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu this week regarding the fines levied against teammate Hines Ward over "unnecessary roughness" spoke volumes and elicited a typically buttoned down response from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The comments were a clarion call coming from the relatively soft-spoken Polamalu, who looks like he just just stepped of the beach from a day of surfing.

The guys who play in the NFL have to know that...and most do. They accept the fact that their next hit could very well be their last. And they accept that after year upon year of repeated violent contact. And they still suit up and go in...they aren't willing to be pussies about the situation.

Goodell doesn't seem to understand this concept. Now, with all these fines being levied against NFL players for "excessive contact"...or whatever the new buzz words are...you'd think that players would tone it down to avoid further financial "hardship", right? Maybe some would. But that is not the nature of the game.

And the fines are coming on relatively routine plays, many of which cause no injury to any of the players involved. It's the place from where Polamalu's concern rises.

Maybe the commish is on a money grab. Maybe Good Ol' Rog is losing at the track and needs to make good on covering his sloppy betting habits.

But whatever it is, the entire matter of fining players for just playing the game is just plain stupid.

Somewhere, Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert is getting a chuckle out of this...but he still knows that quarterbacks should wear dresses. Most players in the NFL share Lambert's sentiment. It's too bad that sentiment disconnects before it reaches the commissioner's office.

Why Am I Watching This Game On Monday?

2008-01-05T10:06:00.000-08:00

As a fan, I have grown accustomed to watching college football on Saturdays. Call me silly for saying that. On the other hand, most college football is still played on Saturdays. Saturdays = College Football. Yeah, that’s how it works.

The grand finale of the college football year happens on Monday night when The Ohio State Buckeyes play the Louisiana State Tigers for the BCS National Championship.

Wait a minute! Monday night?! Am I reading this right? No, no, no!!! College football is to be played on Saturdays. I just mentioned that, did I not? Or at least on a weekend, right?

The NCAA and the BCS, in their blood lust for money and ratings, have pushed this game back to a Monday night start. Never mind that after the usual 5,000 commercials and interruptions that accompany an event like the BCS National Championship (for future reference in this article, please note that this is an event, not a game), the event will probably end at some point around 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning!

Pardon me for being cynical, but couldn't the powers-that-be governing this event have seen to it that it be scheduled on a Saturday night or, short of that, Friday night. Call me unfamiliar with how the logistics work for an event like this, but wouldn't it make more sense to put it on a Saturday or Friday night when they have a greater chance to boost ratings and get casual viewers?

It is also important to note that all fans should want what's best for the NCAA and the BCS. It is the providence of those who pay the bills to always have their way. It makes no difference that they stand to lose money on a Monday night when they would probably make more money on Saturday or Friday night.

Gee, if Monday night works so well for the BCS Championship, let’s move the Super Bowl to Monday night. They play pro football on Mondays, right? Never mind that pro football is played on Sundays, mostly. So is the Super Bowl. Ironically, the Super Bowl actually works on the day when most of their activity happens.

It will never work for college football, or so the NCAA and the BCS will have you believe

The event already has Ohio State and LSU fans in the fold, but why would I care about this game after 10 or 11 p.m. on Monday night if my team weren’t playing? That sound you’ll hear is the pitter-patter of footsteps to the bedroom and that sight you’ll see is lights and televisions being turned off in places other than Ohio and Louisiana.

It could be a much greater event on a weekend. People can sleep in the next day. Fans can celebrate or commiserate without the worry of waking up for work the next day and feeling the after effects.

The event is on Monday night, just to let everyone know. It is not on Saturday or Friday night when it would actually make sense.

Then again, when was the last time the NCAA or college football made sense when scheduling anything?

(Pause)

I thought that would be my answer. Thanks for playing!

Ohio State...Why Be Jealous?

2007-12-25T22:03:00.000-08:00

To those who will be jealous just because Ohio State is beautiful, There are three words to keep in mind.

Get over it.

Don't like that, here's five more.

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

If Coach Jim Tressel's tenure at The Ohio State University is anything like his tenure at Youngstown State, then he is just warming up. Even if the Buckeyes win on January 7 and have a mass exodus of juniors, they will still be loaded for next season. Surely they will be considered a top 5 team to start 2008.

Tressel actually got off to a faster start at tOSU, winning the BCS National Championship in just his second year. That win validated a theory about former tOSU head coach John Cooper: he recruited great athletes and didn't know what to do with them once he got them to Columbus. Tressel knew how to use the talent he inherited and led them to an improbable win over the University of Miami.

We'll see what Les Miles has to bring with Louisiana State. It should be a formidable challenge for Tressel, perhaps the biggest of his coaching career after the pasting tOSU received at the hands of the University of Florida just one year ago.

The irony is that Tressel has a pretty similar track record at tOSU as he had at YSU. He won the first time he had a team in the D-IAA National Championship at YSU and lost the second time.

After the loss he proceeded to qualify for and win two National Championships in succession to win three in a four year span.

Overall, he would win four titles total at YSU in six games and qualified for the playoffs in 10 out of 15 seasons. All four of his D-IAA titles came in a nine-year span.

Impressive, indeed.

Tressel has been at tOSU now for seven seasons. This is his third BCS title game appearance.

There is no reason to believe that he couldn't duplicate his Youngstown success in Columbus as well. He is rarely without a well-stocked and well-balanced roster of players and he addresses his needs from a recruiting standpoint very systematically. In other words, it isn't just about accumulating "talent" for Tressel; it's about getting the right talent.

If you must be jealous of anything outside of the Buckeye Nation, it is that Tressel has poured his heart and soul into tOSU at a time when coaches are mercenaries, looking, perhaps mistakenly, at their "next challenge".

For Tressel, his coaching values are very much the same as his father, the late Dr. Lee Tressel. He never aspired to a much higher level than his father had attained at Baldwin-Wallace. However, he was destined to go farther and he had enough recognition of his own talent as a coach to understand that he was capable of much greater things.

That is what the rest of the college football world is up against. Coach Jim Tressel may not run an immaculate program, which is hard to do in this day and age. But he does come close and he already has an impressive set of credentials that other college football "nations" would be well advised to emulate and not be jealous of.

The Hypeman Trophy...Not The Real CollegeFootball MVP

2007-12-05T21:15:00.001-08:00

The Hypeman, er, Heisman Trophy winner will be announced this Saturday night. Can somebody wake me up when it is over?

Let me tell you something...there is nothing that will ever convince me that the Hypeman will ever be a legitimate award ever again until the selection committee starts putting players on both sides of the ball and from all positions on the field into contention to win the award.

I remember when Chris Spielman, the Ohio State linebacker who would go on to have a distinguished career with the Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills, was a senior. All the hype that year, 1986, was about Oklahoma linebacker Brian Bosworth and how Bosworth was going to be All-World. He would cure world hunger, this and that, on and on, ad nauseam. The Boz could do no wrong.

Bosworth, as I remember, was a finalist for the Hypeman. Go figure. Even if he didn't win the “award.”

The reality was that Spielman had more tackles and sacks that season than Bosworth. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a small but very telling blurb on the comparative stats of the two linebackers just before the Hypeman vote in 1986. Perhaps he should have been in the Hypeman loop, but Spielman wasn’t even on the radar screen.

Spielman may not have had a Hall Of Fame caliber pro career, but he was pretty good by any objective analysis.

Bosworth chunked out of the NFL within three years of his overrated career. He was a Grade A self-promoter and a failure at backing up his own hype if there ever was one.

That was the first time that I felt a non-skill position player should have won the award. Never mind that I thought it should have been Spielman instead, but I digress.

Since then, only one player who hasn't been a QB, WR or RB has won the Hypeman. Go figure that it was Charles Woodson from That School Up North, even though he's gone on to have just as serviceable a pro career as Spielman.

There should have been other non-QBs, WRs, and RBs in the last 20 years that should have rated higher. Orlando Pace should have won the "award" the year before Woodson. I guess being an offensive lineman ain't sexy enough for the Hypeman. That's only one example, but there have been others over the last twenty.

And that is why I say Ohio State’s LB James Laurinaitis deserved consideration this year as opposed to the usual skill position suspects. I’m not saying that the finalists for this year’s “award” aren’t good players or won’t go on to have productive NFL careers. But are they decidedly better than Laurinaitis? That is very debatable?

Don't like Laurinaitis? Why not LSU ‘s DT Glenn Dorsey? Why not That School Up North’s T Jake Long? USC’s T Sam Baker? Illinois’ LB J Leman? I could go on and on...but I'm sure you are all smart enough to get the point.

NHL Season Preview 2007-2008

2007-09-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to BuckeyeHoppy’s NHL Preview. The Stanley Cup Playoffs last year had lots of drama and I would expect this year's run to the Cup to be even better, as the competition level in the NHL seems to be more intense than recent years.

The mode of operation here is simple: I will rate each conference separately, in perceived order of finish from worst to first. I will be writing a short synopsis on each team stating my reasons for why each team is located where it is in the pecking order.

Now, this is, more or less, an educated guess and different factors will affect the order as the season progresses. Some teams are still in obvious need of making additions and others will find it necessary to tweak chemistry or cover injuries. But, for now, this is where I believe the teams in the NHL stand to start the 2007-2008 Season.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

They Will Be In The Playoffs (If They Buy A Ticket):

Philadelphia - the Kool-Aid on the Flyers off-season acquisitions will not be drunk here. It is still a team that lacks strong goal tending or a player who is a genuine “leading man” on any line. They should be better (obviously) than last year, but will not be a factor down the stretch.

Washington - many of the fortunes for the Caps rest on Ovechkin leading the attack and Kolzig minding the net. They are a bit deeper than the past few years but still seem to be a year or two away from being legitimate contenders.

Florida - the Panthers are a team who always seem able to bring it to the net, but the blue liners don’t seem able to return the favor. This year could be different, but the chemistry needs to be there. Adding Vokoun can only help but he needs to stay healthy. There are too many question marks here to justify a pick much higher than this.

Montreal - last year, the Habs had the look and the talent to back up qualification to the playoffs but just fell short. This year features a shed of most of that talent and another looming rebuild. Carbonneau, Gainey and Company appear to have their work cut out for them as this season has the look of building for the future.

Boston - re-signing Chara and adding Fernandez in goal can only help the Bruins, but the organization is once again in flux and it doesn’t look like they have the horses to finish in the money.

NY Islanders - the Islanders have key players in many of the right spots, but another off-season overhaul after qualifying for the playoffs on the last day of the season doesn’t inspire much confidence. Ted Nolan is a great coach and is as capable as any coach at steering the ship through rough waters, but it will be too much to ask him to do it two years in a row.

Carolina - they lifted the Cup two years ago, but the ‘Canes just don’t seem to have the blue line strength to protect Ward on a night-in-night-out basis. The attack is still solid, but in today’s NHL the teams with the best balance get to dance. The ‘Canes seem to be lacking a player or two to consider them playoff worthy.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (As First Round Goodies):

Tampa Bay - this team appears to possess exactly what Carolina lacks on the blue line and having Lecavalier and St. Louis doesn’t hurt either. Playoff qualification seems favorable for this scrappy and veteran Lightning team.

Buffalo - many would think that after the free-agent losses the Sabres have taken the last two years that they would be left in an insurmountable hole. But this team appears to be re-loading and have been able to secure some quality big league ice time for the players taking over for those who have exited. Couple that with a solid blue line, a good, young goalie and some talented holdover forwards and a trip to the playoffs still seems likely.

Toronto - the Leafs always seem to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs. Perhaps the injury bug will keep them in the cold again, but the tea leaves say that there is enough veteran presence coupled with some savvy off-season acquisitions to propel this squad to a date in the playoffs.

Atlanta - a good young team that is another year older and appear to be poised for greater things this year. Another division crown seems likely for the Thrashers if they can hold off Tampa and should give this team home ice advantage. The Thrashers are not there yet, but will be a tough out this season.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (But Are Not Yet Ready For Prime Time):

New Jersey - the Devils have been one of the steadier teams in the NHL over the last five years. It helps to have the league’s best goalie in Brodeur and the team saw fit to equip him with a competent backup in the off-season acquiring Weekes. That should improve his ability to have legs in the playoffs and give his team a better chance to go deep. A solid, top-shelf team, the Devils could be a fooler if they get on a roll.

Pittsburgh - was there any better story in the NHL last year than the Penguins? Not really. Crosby, Malkin and Company became The Team No One Wanted To Play in last years playoffs. The big thing for this young team is avoid a letdown, but having some veterans like Roberts and Recchi around and adding Sykora to this crew will make them a handful once again.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (…And Then There Were Four):

NY Rangers - on paper, this team should win it all…and they got richer in the off-season. But the Rangers needed a strong final push last year just to get to the playoffs. This team is mystifying. They will either run the table and lift the Cup, or…they might just get run out in the first round, since their don’t seem to be any light touches in the potential playoff lineup in the East. The question: Which New York Rangers will show up this year?

Ottawa - the Senators showed last year that they were an elite team, then they were able to get over the hump and reach the finals. With minimal adjustment to an already packed roster this team has the mojo to once again reach the Cup Finals. The competition should be slightly tighter than last year for a complete Cup run, but Ottawa appears to have the strength to get past all comers.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

They Will Be In The Playoffs (If They Buy A Ticket):

Chicago - a pretty young team will hit the ice in Chicago and the results will bear witness to the rebuilding project the Blackhawks will conduct. It’ll be a year for a young team to endure their harsh welcome to the National Hockey League.

Phoenix - last year, I mentioned that the Coyotes were about a year or two away from playoff contention. That forecast still hasn’t changed, although the team has pared some payroll and will be skating with a much younger team. It’s hard not to like the disciples of the Great One, but there simply isn’t enough on the shelf yet to call this a playoff team.

Columbus - if it’s another new season in the NHL it must be another rebuilding project for the Blue Jackets. Ken Hitchcock has never coached a team for a full season and failed to qualify for the playoffs. This team will be his first in that category. They should be a solid team from the blue line, but they will have trouble scoring and you don’t win in the West when you don’t score goals.

Nashville - the Preds have never won a playoff series and losing Hartnell, Kariya, Timonen and Vokoun will be too much for a suddenly younger team to take. They still have plenty of weapons at forward, but will give as many away as Mason will be called upon to be the first-team G for the first time. We’ll see if he is up to the task in the rugged West.

Los Angeles - there are lots of good teams in the NHL West. The Kings are among those good teams. Unfortunately, it takes greatness just to be in the playoff picture in this conference. The Kings are on the right track and have really ramped up their blue line and goaltending over the last year and in the off-season. It’ll be fun to watch this team this year, but I can’t help but think that they are still a year away.

Edmonton - it hard not to like what the Oilers have done in the off-season, adding Souray, Sanderson and Penner. But they have a large hole to dig out of from last year and the West doesn’t give much quarter to teams that don’t quite measure up. There are still a few moves away from legitimate playoff candidacy, but the Oilers appear to be headed in the right direction.

St. Louis - speaking of the right direction, John Davidson has the Blues nearly completely turned around from where they were two years ago. The blue line and goal still need some shoring up, but this looks like a team that contenders will want to avoid down the stretch. They appear to be a year away, but appearances can be deceiving.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (As First Round Goodies):

Dallas - a very good veteran core returns for this team who lost what might have been the best series in all of the playoffs last year. How the Stars respond to the first round lost from last year will tell the tale for this year. I suspect they will treat it like another day at the office, as good teams with lots of experience do. The Stars will be a commodity not to be fooled with.

Colorado - last year’s Avs looked like they’d be all about Joe Sakic and not much else. Instead, they failed to make the playoffs with the greatest number of points for a non-playoff team ever. Not bad effort and what you have in Denver is a fairly well-balanced attack with a rising star in Budaj between the pipes. Add some well-placed FA acquisitions to the mix and the Avs should be playing until the end of April.

Detroit - the Red Wings are the Over The Hill Gang of the hockey world. How they keep doing it defies logic, but they just might have done it long enough to allow for a pretty fair nucleus of young stars to emerge. The look of the Wings now is a fairly credible mix of seasoned veterans with youngsters who have been trained well in an already successful program in Detroit. This is another team in Hockeytown who will be a handful at playoff time.

Minnesota - this squad has a stone wall for a defense and that is a good thing, since they are merely middle-of-the-road on the attack. But if it is true that defense wins championships, then the Wild will cause nightmares for any team and that will be particularly true if Gaborik can stay healthy enough to be the leader on the attack.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (But Are Not Yet Ready For Prime Time):

San Jose - this is a team that, much like the NY Rangers, is fully capable of hoisting the Cup but they can’t seem to get out of the way of themselves. The Sharks are now a team who has had lofty expectations over the last three years and have disappointed every time. They have lots of star power and should at least play into May but there are still questions in goal and that could stall a deep run in the playoffs yet again.

Calgary - this is a strong team who now has the most strong-willed of coaches with Mike Keenan behind the bench. It is a move that could bring lofty results and Keenan has been successful with his methods in the past. It is a high risk move by the Flames FO, but if GM Darryl Sutter is right about his choice of coaches, this is a team that could win it all in June.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (…And Then There Were Four):

Anaheim - the defending Stanley Cup Champions have lost a little bit from last season’s squad. But, as long as they have the Giguere/Bryzgalov goalie tandem behind a rock solid blue line and a Selanne-led attack, the losses have every chance to be overcome and the Ducks have every chance to be skating the Cup again.

Vancouver - the Canucks, like many of the teams in the West, have stone walls on defense. The awesome Luongo in goal and the Sedin brothers as a very effective one-two punch stood toe-to-toe with the eventual Cup winners before bowing out. That means they belong at the table when mentioning potential teams to win the hallowed trophy in sports.

They Who Will Lift The Cup Will Be…:

This season’s eventual winner of the Stanley Cup is hard to pin down. There are at least half a dozen teams who could be skating it at the end of the playoffs.

But I will be going out on a limb this season and calling for the dreaded all-Canadian final that the NHL’s prized demographic…Americans…is just jumping for joy about.

The Ottawa v. Vancouver match-up I see happening has two teams who have been on the doorstep for the past couple years. Both teams have had the same line up long enough that each has spotless chemistry and can overcome lapses with good line depth and strong play between the pipes.

But the match up will come down to a battle between the stellar Heatley/Spezza/Alfredsson trio and the goal play of Roberto Luongo. Defense is the surest way to win titles many times, but the trip to the finals for Ottawa is the kind of exposure any team loves and can bank on in future Cup runs. It will pay of for the Sens this season.

It’ll go the distance, but figure on Ottawa winning Canada’s first Stanley Cup since Montreal in 1993.

Game On!!!

NHL @ The Break

2007-01-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

The NHL has hit its All-Star break. With all the festivities happening this week in Dallas, it is now time to reflect on the surprises and outcomes of the season and predictions for the stretch run.

What's With These Teams (Disappointments):

To be sure, there has not been much to look at in regards to disappointment at this stage of the season. With 30 games left, only a handful of teams are playing toward next year. The rest are in the hunt for the playoffs and this will make the stretch run well worth watching.

That being the case, there are still a few disappointments at the break.

For those familiar with my post on Talk Freedom's sports forum last year ("Approaching 50 (Games)...A Review") this will sound like a broken record, but...Chicago and Columbus have proven (once again) to be the poorest tango partners in the NHL. These teams have been world class underachievers again this season.

In one respect, this is a tale of two teams. Columbus has looked like they could break through at any time since play started again after the lockout. This has not materialised and it has cost the head coach at the start of the season (Gerard Gallant) his job. I can't imagine that GM Doug MacLean would be far behind. If they are not noticeably better down the stretch, I would be surprised if he still had a job when Columbus hosts the Draft Day festivities in June. At least the Blue Jackets had enough sense to hire Ken Hitchcock as head coach. Hitchcock has never failed to lead a team to the playoffs in any full season in his coaching career. Next year will be a stiff test for that claim to fame.

Chicago is quickly becoming a non-factor in the west every year. The Wirtz family seemingly has no inclination to improve this team and that is highly reflective in the performance of the organisation across the board. The tradition of this team in Chicago remains strong, but the losses that continue to pile up for this organisation is making it evident that the Blackhawks are becoming the Cleveland Browns of the NHL (great fan support of a lousy product on the field). They don't look to be a factor in the west anytime soon.

Two teams in the Atlantic have performed dubiously enough to warrent mention in this section. Obviously, one is Philadelphia. I realise that I didn't pick them to be a playoff team this year. That being said, I never expected that they would have the freefall from grace that they have had. This is clearly the worst team in the NHL at present. And being 19 points away from their next closest team in the east and 11 points away from the next closest leaguewide the difference is pronounced. It is nearly safe to assume that the Flyers are on the clock as we speak.

The Rangers are in the middle of the playoff hunt, but they are the one team at this point that has underachieved and is a surprise to be tied for the final playoff slot in the east. Inconsistent defense and no real fire lit under this team in general has to be a cause for concern. There is too much talent on this team to be on the edge of playoff contention. If they fail to make it in to the playoffs heads could roll at MSG.

Pleasant Surprises

The great thing about the 2006-07 campaign is the number of teams that are vying for a spot in the playoffs. Even teams that didn't appear to have a chance at the start of the year (i.e. St. Louis, Phoenix, etc.) look to have a glimmer of hope a a chance with about 30 to 35 games remaining. It would appear that at least 90 points will be necessary to qualify for the playoffs. Two thirds of the teams in the league have 50 to this point. These teams are more than in the hunt. Another six have between 45 and 50. With a great flourish to end the regular season any of these teams could enter the second season.

The biggest surprise at this stage of the season is the play of the emerging Pittsburgh Penguins. Even with the unsettled status of the team past this season, the Penuins appear to be ahead of schedule as far as developing a winning mentality and a style of play that can match with any team in the league. This team will be a handful after this season and should be a perennial playoff team for many years to come. For this season, this appears to be a team that opponents do not want to see down the stretch.

Montreal has also been better than advertised. If the season ended today, they would have home ice for the first round. For a team in a town as religious about hockey as Montreal, the presence of the Canadiens will do the league a world of good.

Teams To Watch

New Jersey has looked exceedingly good and Martin Brodeur has been his usual HOF-bound self. The thing with the Devils is whether they will be able to get any additional scoring punch to help for the remainder of the season. It would stand to reason that unless Brodeur was to take his game up yet another notch (how would that be possible?) that the Devils may be susceptible to a team with an unusually high-powered attack (Buffalo, Ottawa).

Nashville enters the break as the clubhouse leader in team points. Now, along with Detroit, is it that these teams are really that good or are these teams getting fat at the expense of Chicago and Columbus? Detroit was a #1 seed and a first round loser last year. We have seen that result more than once from the Red Wings. Is history poised to repeat itself for the Winged Wheelers?

And what about Nashville? The Preds have looked good...very good...so far. But are they a key injury away from humility like they were last year when they lost Vokoun? Who knows. All I can say is that the Predators should be a handful in any round in the playoffs, but their opposition should be equal to the task.

That said, the western playoffs should have no light touches and right now there are at least six teams in the conference who have a darkhorse chance or better of making it to the Cup finals.

How Do I Look?

So far, it appears that I have done well at projecting the best teams in the league this year from the start of the season. Teams will continue to have high and low points, but a large factor in playoff success will be how the teams that have been there before will show up when the moment of truth startes them in the face. Buffalo and San Jose (the pre-season matchup for the finals) appears to be a good bet at this point.

Buffalo should get its stiffest challenge from Ottawa. So far, the Senators have been a reliable thorn in the side of the eastern runners-up from last year. The Sabres must get better goal keeping from Miller and the defence will need to ramp things up against Ottawa's formidable attack. The Sens, if they are to be knocked out, are going to go by taking a chunk of flesh from whoever eliminates them and they should have a fairly sizeable chip on their shoulder going in to the post-season anyway.

San Jose isn't the clear-cut frontrunner in the west like Buffalo is in the east. They have had, among other good things so far, undeniably quality goalkeeping and a platoon between the pipes that should be noteworthy in the playoffs. Anaheim appears to be in the same boat on the back line, so they are to be feared in any playoff series. One thing to take note of with the western playoffs is that the conference semis and the finals should all be dogfights. There will be one or two teams that could be reliably considered for the conference finals in the east who will knocked out of the first round in the west.

Strap in, hockey fans. The stretch run should be filled with everything that makes a great sport great.

BC And The Acceptable Outcome For My Steelers

2007-01-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Bill Cowher, 15 years the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has passed up the final year of his contract and announced his resignation from the team he coached to the win in Super Bowl XL just 11 months ago. It's Sunday, two days after the news of his "retirement", for now, maybe.

Now I have a confession to make to my friends in my home town of Cleveland...I have been a fan of the Steelers since the 1980s and over the years I have grown to be an increasingly hardcore fan of the Black and Gold. The Pittsburgh Steelers, on Sundays in the fall and early winter, are my team.

I look at Friday's developments with the Steelers as the passing of a era. I developed a much greater affinity for the team under Cowher's leadership. I grew to admire his tenacious coaching style and the way he dealt with his players. He was very much a player's coach. He was a coach that, to a man, the players loved. He enjoyed a mythical, god-like status in Pittsburgh and among the Steeler Nation.

The Proof Is In The Outcome

The thing that created the human Bill Cowher was his lack of success in the truly big games (AFC Championships and Super Bowls). He was 3-5 in those games. He split a pair of SBs and was 2-4 in AFCCs, 1-4 on home field in those games. It seemed like he could never get over the hump in those games. It created a legion of naysayers in Steeler Nation and sullied what would have otherwise been an excellent reputation.

My view, until the 2005 season was this guy had a very real "proof problem". Cowher's problem was that he really needed what I would term as "the acceptible outcome" to a season, any season, to be considered among the upper echelon of all-time NFL head coaches. He needed to prove that he was worthy of the legend of the truly great coaches.

My mantra for the 2005 season was simple..."there is no acceptable outcome to this season short of a Super Bowl championship". The Steelers, without a Super Bowl win in the 2005 season, would be a suspect team with an increasingly suspect coach.

As the Steelers 2005 season became 12 games old, the 7-5 record they had to that point suggested an impending failure of "no acceptable outcome". The unacceptable was about to become a very real probability, particularly in the light of the almost freakish AFC playoff race.

That was when the Steelers threw the proverbial switch on their season. Four consecutive wins to finish the season only guaranteed them the final playoff spot in the AFC. The 2005 Steelers, in order to reach "the acceptable outcome" would need to become "the road warriors".

They would face Cincinnati in the first game. The good news was that this was a road game. The Steelers had beaten the Bengals on their home field four consecutive times. A slow start worked its way to a robust finish and a decisive Steelers win. One down, three to go, next stop...Indianapolis.

The Colts drove the Steelers into the ground like a rental car in the regular season Monday night meeting. For the Steelers, the fact still remained that there would be "no acceptable outcome...". For the Steelers, this would be a required road win at the scene of an unspeakable mugging only two months earlier.

The Steelers played that game from the opening kickoff like someone set their rear ends on fire. How come they couldn't have played like this in the regular season game? Despite efforts to give away the game with time expiring, the Steelers would get revenge for the obscene display of the November matchup with the Colts. The Steelers were now halfway to the goal line of "the acceptable outcome".

The road warriors would write chapter three in the Rocky Mountains. To Denver they would go.

Would this game be like almost all the other AFC Championship games? They were favorites every time if for no better reason that they were the home team. This time, the comforts of home would elude them. They must have one final road win to get the matchup they needed. No team had ever won three straight on the road to reach the Super Bowl.

For the Steelers and Bill Cowher, there would be "no acceptable outcome".

They would play one of their more convincing 60 minute stretches of football of the 2005 season. They would go into the no-man's-land of Denver and , to paraphrase the legendary Pittsburgh Penguins announcer Mike Lange, they "beat the Broncos like a rented mule".

The "acceptable outcome" was one win away.

For the first time, a NFL team had won three road games to reach the Super Bowl. It was only for one reason this happened...there would be no acceptable outcome for the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers and for the career of Bill Cowher.

They would play the Seattle Seahawks, a team making its first ever appearance in the NFLs showcase game. They would be playing the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers, making their sixth Super Bowl appearance six hours from home in the Motor City. Detroit, Michigan. For two weeks, Detroit would become the nerve center for Steeler Nation.

The Steelers had sixty minutes of football left. For the team and their coach to fight off their backs and to get this far would mean a far more unacceptable outcome if they would come this far and lose.

From the gritty play of Ben Roethlisberger to the flair of MVP Hines Ward and sensational running of Willie Parker...an undrafted free agent, this combination would add up to the end of the futility of Bill Cowher's quest for football's ultimate prize.

As the final seconds ticked away, I would be heard to say "I accept this outcome!"

The Legacy of Bill Cowher

The Steelers would add a fifth Vince Lombardi Trophy to the case at team headquarters...and William Laird Cowher pulled a huge monkey off his back.

Eleven months later, the coach has decided to put impending legend on ice after the struggle of a .500 season, hardly the way a winner should top off an accomplished career.

For me, I will always want Bill Cowher to be the coach of the Steelers and only the Steelers. Unless the Steelers fire his successor to bring him back to the fold once he is ready to come back it is unlikely he will ever coach his hometown team again.

Will Bill Cowher coach again? Odds are good that he will. He is 49 years old. He has proclaimed himself to not be "burned out". He wants to enjoy the comforts of his new home in Raleigh, NC where he attended college at North Carolina State. He would like to watch his daughters play hoops.

Many speculate that he will be on the sidelines for only a short time. That he will have a new job come 2008. In my opinion, I wouldn't be so sure that will happen. He may decide that he actually likes retirement. It happened to John Madden. It nearly happened to Joe Gibbs. Both are Hall of Fame coaches.

Will Cowher follow those two to Canton? Perhaps. Although it is my feeling that Cowher still needs another Super Bowl win, or about five more years of successful head coaching to stamp his ticket. If he were to stand on his accumulated record to this point, I get the impression that it might be enough, but he certainly wouldn't be considered on many first ballots outside of Western Pennsylvania. I feel he needs another trip to the Super Bowl to be a sure first ballot inductee.

The legacy of Bill Cowher in Pittsburgh has been one of success. The only coach in Steelers history who doesn't have to look up to the standard he set was a guy named Chuck Noll. His teams won four Super Bowls. Needless to say, he is enshrined in Canton. Cowher may one day join him. Between these two men is 37 years of mostly unfettered excellence. Between these two men, they have carried the fortunes of half of the Steelers history to the one of the most sustained legends of any team in the National Football League.

Whoever's Next...I Wish Him Luck

The next coach has a nearly impossible standard to keep up with. There are many candidates for this job, now an elite situation for any aspiring NFL coach. One of the few things more rare than a coaching search in Pittsburgh is an NFL Championship search for the Cardinals (one championship in 85 years in existence).

Whoever it is, they will be inheriting a team that is one season removed from the NFL title. Many of the components of that team will still be present in 2007. Whoever the Steelers select will be well-fortified for success from his first day on the job. The rest of what he inherits will be up to him. No pressure at all. He'll only be succeeding two head coaches who are already in the Hall of Fame or an excellent candidate to be in one day.

Whatever happens next and whoever guides the Steeler Nation there I know only one thing...that I will be along for the ride to the next acceptable outcome.

Hockey Season Preview: 2006-2007

2006-10-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

Well, here's another stab at getting a read on the new NHL season. Last year, only one team in my finals pairing made the playoffs (thanks, Bruins). I will be writing a short sentence or two for each team stating why I feel they will be finishing where they will. I will be rating each conference separately.

It's a difficult thing to gauge how a team will do from the outset and a lot of what I see happening has a lot to do with off-season maneuverings. At best, this will all be more-or-less an educated guess (like any other prediction).

Here we go:

Eastern Conference

They Will Be In The Playoffs (If They Buy A Ticket):

Florida- the Panthers gained a headache (Bertuzzi) and lost Luongo, who will add buzz to the Canucks Cup Final hopes. Non-continuity problems and a suspect defense will doom this squad.

NY Islanders- it's hard to pick a team that has at least some appreciable degree of quality veterans this low but beyond the few good ones the Isles have they don’t have much left to work with.

Washington- past Ovechkin on the ice and Kolzig between the pipes the Caps have much the same problems that they do on Long Island.

Boston- this is a team in shambles after last season. They made some good moves in the off-season but it will take time to build team chemistry. They will have flashes of brilliance, just not enough of them.

Pittsburgh- with Crosby, Malkin and the younger Staal in the fold the future looks bright…real bright. Too bad this year is not the future. The Pens still have some maturing to do.

Toronto- the Leafs are still searching for the formula that will put them in the playoffs. The youngsters are still improving and a new coach will bring new hope but will it be enough to get them past the middle of April? I don’t think so. Not yet.

Philadelphia- these are still the Broad Street Bullies. Problem is, the new NHL doesn’t reward thuggery like it used to. Their style of play and the lack of the type of player that would make this team a front-runner will keep them from the playoffs.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (But Not Real Long):

Tampa Bay- they still have many of the forwards that made them the Cup Champs in 2004 but a lack of a deep back line and questionable goalkeeping will keep the Lightning in a bottle this year.

Montreal- the Habs always seem to have something that keeps them in the middle of playoff talk and this year they have the talent to back it up. Problem is, they don’t have enough to take out the best in the East.

New Jersey- these guys are the Flyers, only with more players and a stud goalie. That will put them in the playoffs, but won’t get them past a truly good team.

Atlanta- a team that has made slow but sure progress and may be ready to realize enough of a push to make a run to the playoffs. The eight-ball sez that the outlook isn’t so good for a Cup run but a first-time playoff qualification is decidedly so.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (For A While):

Carolina- many of the veterans picked up for the successful trip to the Stanley Cup finals are gone, as is the depth in goal with Gerber’s departure. Yet, this is still a team not to be taken lightly and will still be a handful.

Ottawa- there really isn’t a weakness to this squad so if they go out they will be a tough out. Therein lies the rub…when will they step up to get past the conference playoffs and into the finals?

They Will Be In The Playoffs (On Memorial Day):

NY Rangers- these guys are loaded with star power and have a truckload of expectations to live up to. The Rangers are up to the challenge for a long run to the Cup.

Buffalo- what happened last year was not expected at the start of the season. They damned near won the Cup. Much of last year’s squad is back with a few added tweaks in just the right places. This could be the year in WNY.

Western Conference

They Will Be In The Playoffs (If They Buy A Ticket):

St. Louis- last year was the first time since the Ford Administration that this team failed to make it to the playoffs. So why not go down in flames, right? Well, they won’t be going to the playoffs this year either.

Chicago- it is far too coincidental that this team shares a town with the Cubs. And their fate this year will be much like the fate of this year’s Cubs…lots of expectation, few results.

Phoenix- a Wayne Gretzky coached team is hard to not like and there are elements of this team to like. Still, they are a little too green for the playoff harvest. A year or two away, at least.

Colorado- this team needs a lot more than Sakic to be a playoff team. There are far too many holes left on this team from free agent departures and retirements to pick this squad for the playoffs.

Los Angeles- the Kings have decent talent that is noticeable. But it takes more than marquee names to put a team in the playoffs in the new NHL. Their suspect goalkeeping will keep them on the couch during the playoffs.

Minnesota- this is a playoff capable team in many respects. It appears more likely that the Wild simply don’t have the depth to get them past the regular season.

Detroit- yeah, that Detroit. Too many years of signing expensive free agents and not giving decent young players a chance from Grand Rapids will pay a mighty toll this year. Losing to an 8 seed was no accident last year.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (But Not Real Long):

Columbus- it’s go time in Cowtown. The coach and GM are on the spot and the playoffs are a good idea this year if they want to keep their jobs. Fortunately, they did upgrade the roster and the depth in the off-season to an already good team. The playoffs are not an unrealistic prediction for this crew.

Edmonton- the Oilers were 20 minutes away from hoisting the Cup last year. That’s a great accomplishment for an eight seed. It will be too much to expect that to happen again this year but this club is still formidable enough for more than a few headaches for opposing coaches.

Vancouver- getting Luongo from Florida was a coup for the Canucks. The rest of the team still has many of the same question marks that they did last year. A projection much more optimistic than this one could happen but is somehow unwarranted.

Anaheim- this is another team that could be a fooler to project. They could be first-round goodies for the elites or skate all the way to the Cup Finals. They need to prove that kind of love warrantable, however.

They Will Be In The Playoffs (For A While):

Calgary- the Flames were originally from Atlanta and bear a striking resemblance to the baseball team there (at least until this year). This team is steady and solid with a stone wall in front of the net in Kiprusoff. They probably don’t have enough fire power to get to the finals, but you never know.

Dallas- much like the Rangers, the Stars have plenty of their namesake. Tough competition from the elite teams in this conference makes Turco’s presence crucial at playoff time. Will he be equal to the task?

They Will Be In The Playoffs (On Memorial Day):

Nashville- this is the team who has the best chance of representing the teams south of the Mason-Dixon line this year. The stability of this franchise since its inception finally paid off last year and it should have paid off more (thanks to Vokoun getting hurt). A fully healthy Predator team can hoist the Cup.

San Jose- the Sharks are quite possibly the strongest team coming into this NHL season. They are also a team that could have very well lifted the Cup themselves last year had Ron Wilson not outsmarted himself with a questionable goalkeeping strategy. Consistency in coaching and game plan will put this team over the top.

They Will Lift The Cup:

The winner for this season appears to be Buffalo. They lost virtually nothing in the off-season and will be bringing back nearly every key component to last year’s final four side. The big questions will be the health of the defense and how well Miller will do as the number one goal keeper. Having Biron re-sign was a major coup, especially if anything happens to Miller. This is a team that is up against the limit of the salary cap, so it is a team that is largely built for this year. That shouldn’t be a problem for a side that appears to be a player deeper than the others in the East and it should also be enough to get them through the finals with a good mix of age and youth.

San Jose is the most likely team to emerge from the West, but it seems that they will have a tougher row to hoe. Calgary and Nashville are both better between the pipes, so they will have to rely on superior offensive and penalty killing prowess to escape. If any team can do that, the Sharks are a good bet.

Buffalo will capture the Cup in six games come June.

Game On!!!