Steelers: My Obligatory Commentary on This Season

I'm not the kind of guy who puts a lot of stock in professional sports teams. Those who know me, recognize that I care little about sports on much of any level. I know people consumed by college sports. I am grateful that I matriculated from a small, private Midwest college with no national profile. I don't even need pretend I care about what its competitive teams are doing.

I am the same with professional sports. Although I get the poetry of baseball, it puts me to sleep. Basketball: I barely understand the difference between a lay up and a dunk. I never liked the sport growing up and certainly don't waste my time with it as an adult. I am amazed by what hockey players can do while balanced on a razor-thin steel blade, but I'm done when the first (of several) fights breaks out. If I want to watch fights, well, I'll watch real fights. All of the ice ballet in the world can't outweigh my loathing for the constant fighting and the NHL's apparent lack of interest in really correcting the issue.

Then there is the NFL. And, I suppose, CFL (Canadian Football League) for those who simply can't get enough of following competitive sports. I am, what I would call, a casual Steelers fan. That is, I follow the Steelers, but I don't lose sleep over missing one of their games. My (whatever day of the week they play) day doesn't revolve around making sure I'm in front of a TV at kickoff. If I get to see them play, fine; if not, I'll survive. I have become even more lackadaisical about following them since I moved to South Carolina. I left my Steelers-following friends with whom I watched most Steelers games behind in Florida. Football is more fun to watch with fellow travelers.

This is my 10^th football season in Greenville. For the first nine years, whoever at the local CBS affiliate made the decision about which games would air on Sunday afternoons, no longer seems to be calling the shots. I judge he/she was a Steelers fan. Probably no more than two Sunday afternoon games a season weren't offered locally. That same person either moved on or was struck down by a bus. So far this season, only two Sunday-afternoon Steelers games have been televised locally, and I was out of town for the first one.

I'm not a fan of sports bars, particularly on “game” days. If to see a Steelers game I have to go to a sports bar by myself, chances are pretty good that I'm going to miss it. I will watch other teams play if I'm somewhere and a game is on the TV. But, I really don't care about watching other teams play. On game day I root for two teams: The Steelers and whichever team is playing the Patriots. Otherwise, I have nada real interest.

I used to usually pepper my daily then weekly Clanging Bell posts with two or three Steelers blogs during the fall and winter. Mostly they consisted of rants about what I considered to be poor play, coaching and/or officiating. I've missed so many games this season that I just haven't had much fodder for a blog. My knee-jerk reaction to the sorry-ass Browns playing the Steelers to a tie in the season opener was to fire off a scathing blog, but there is simply too much talent among the Steelers roster for me to believe that game was anything but an anomaly. Of course, at the end of four games the Steelers had racked up only one win. I was tempted to blog that Tomlin was, perhaps, looking at overseeing his first losing season as Steelers head coach. I resisted that urge; although, I did say that privately to a couple of people.

Quality of play has relentlessly improved since that second loss. The Steelers offensive line is turning in brilliant work in both pass protection and opening holes for the season's biggest surprise, running back James Conner. Le'Veon who? Big Ben is still razor accurate (mostly) and he and Antonio Brown finally seem to be on the same page. It seems no one who plays a position qualifying them as a potential point maker doesn't have at least one TD under his belt. There is no shortage of heroes.

This is how Newton spent much of his evening.

After last Thursday's robust 52-21 blowout of the Carolina Panthers, I felt compelled to blog. It was an awesome performance marred only by a questionable TD call that wasn't overturned by a review. So, maybe it was actually a TD. Otherwise, the Steelers were firing on all cylinders. Panther quarterback Cam Newton never seemed more than a half-an-arm's length from being dragged down and was sacked five times. He was hurried multiple times and hit more often than not. On nearly every Panther offensive play there were at least two or three black jerseys running around the backfield.

When Big Ben left the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter, he had thrown more touchdown passes than incompletions! Even the Steelers kicker Chris Boswell, unreliable this season, was seven for seven point afters and nailed a 50-yard field goal.

After the game Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said something to the effect of “We're really not that good.” Soundly thrashing a 6-2 Panthers team maybe something the Steelers couldn't do on a weekly basis, but for sure, this is a significantly improved team than met the Browns in week one. And, the really good news for Steelers fans, the team just seems to be getting better and better.