The Pittsburgh Steelers lost again on Sunday, 31-20, to the Denver Broncos. The loss drops the Steelers to 2-6, or just 12 consecutive wins away from a second straight Super Bowl title. This was a game in which the Steelers were actually favored to win by the Vegas bookies. Yes, the 2-5 team that just lost to the Raiders was favored over the 5-2 team that was edged by the Colts...but since this is the NFL, no one batted an eyelash. Especially Bill Cowher Statue, the inanimate replica of our former coach that was wheeled in before the kickoff of the 2006 campaign. The likeness is uncanny: Cowher Statue looks exactly like our former coach, but without all the emotion that Bill was famous for. Cowher Statue gets a rest on Tuesday, when the real Bill Cowher steps in and berates reporters at the press conference. But today the Cowher doppelganger was in full effect.
One of these days, I'll actually get an invitation to the Tuesday Cowher Press Conference. I can only assume that each invitation has been lost in the mail for eight consecutive weeks. But the popular "Questions for Coach Cowher" segment will persist on.
This week's questions for Bill Cowher...or Cowher Statue...
"When the Steelers have the ball, does the opposition rub it with vegetable oil, grease, or melted butter?"
"Any regrets passing on Chad Jackson because of Santonio Holmes' returning abilities?"
"Is it true that Roethlisberger needs Tommy John surgery after having him throw 54 passes?"
"Did Deshea Townsend's play look as bad in person as it did on TV?"
"Nice job stopping Mike Bell today. But doesn't it hurt to know that Javon Walker produced enough offense for three men?"
"Are you aware that between Javon Walker's 206 and Najeh Davenport's 74, guys Green Bay had no use for gained 280 yards of offense today?"
"How bad is the sting knowing that playing your team was the cure for a slumping Jake Plummer?"
"On that goal-line fumble, was Hines trying to re-create John Elway's famous Super Bowl helicopter touchdown?"
"If James Farrior were your dog, would you kick him harder than Farrior kicked that Bronco?"
"Did Cedrick Wilson's 2 returns for 4 yards lock up the punt return duties for next week?"
"If Santonio's going to return kicks any more this season, could we at least get the Heinz Field audio staff to cue circus music to synchronize with the runback?"
"Is Joey Porter still on the team? I didn't see any completely inappropriate dancing today, so I didn't notice."
"Any thoughts on Sudeep Paul and Anand Shankar Durvasula, the two CMU kids caught trying to break into the House That Ben Built?"
"Five catches by Heath Miller...was that a new Steeler single-game record?"
"Can we talk to the equipment manager about not handing out #10 anymore? I think it's a cursed jersey."
"Good thing you didn't have to watch this game on TV, Coach. Every commercial break, they kept playing this patronizing commercial for Chevrolet with John Cougar Mellencamp singing This is our country..."
"Cincinnati blamed their playoff loss on Carson Palmer's injury. Indianapolis said they beat themselves. Seattle blamed the refs. Can this loss finally give Steeler Haters a reason to say the Denver playoff game was a fluke, and fill in the only missing link in their 2005 Steelers Suck Theory?"
"Have you made your tee times for January yet?"
25 comments:
"If Santonio's going to return kicks any more this season, could we at least get the Heinz Field audio staff to cue circus music to synchronize with the runback?"
hahahaha.
I thought Mellencamp's Bad-ass patriotism song peaked when he performed it at the World Series, but nope. We get assaulted with it and end up singing it to ourselves in the shower.
Elway's helicopter maneuver was for a first down inside the 10 or so. It was not a TD.
Why is Najeh returning kickoffs? Isn't he slow as shit? Well, I guess I should be thankful that he doesn't fumble.
This apathetic Cowher of 2006 feels almost disrespectful.
Thanks for the laugh this morning...much needed!
Ahh Monday Morning Mondesi's House. Eases the pain....
At least Big Ben's performance didn't suck near as hard as Brady's or Grossman's.
So we got THAT going for us.
Which is nice...
Okay, here's my conclusion: the highs put the lows in perspective. A year ago, a Steelers loss was cause for two days of depression. It's not that I don't care anymore, it's just that the lows aren't as low because of the high of winning SB XL. Understand, I was 15 when they won SB XIII. I went through a lot of seasons that were close, and a lot that were kinda like this one. But last season is something that even a 2-14 season can never take away from me. I'll still watch every Sunday, and I'll still yell at the TV when the ref refuses to throw a flag on the opposition for an obvious taunting call that they wouldn't hesitate to throw against the Steelers, but I won't wake up Monday Depressed (unless of course we lose to the Browns).
Vinnie,
I'm like you, before the season started I was already giving them a pass since they won the SB. It is still painful to watch knowing they are better than the Bengals, Falcons, and Raiders, and still find ways to lose.
I hate to whine about the refs, but it appears the refs are against the Steelers, especially with the taunting or lack of calls against other teams.
Once they lost to the Falcons, I knew this season was over, when Ben started against the Raiders, I knew Cowher just doesn't care anymore.
The most painful thing of this season is seeing the Ravens win.
I'm just surprised that there are still people who want Cowher back next year. Let him go enjoy the next stage of his life. Clearly, his heart is not in this stage anymore.
Sure, it means leaving on a sour note, but no one did more to create that situation than Cowher. Reap what you sow, sleep in the bed you made, yadda, yadda, yadda.
That Chevy/Melloncamp commercial makes me want to throw my TV of my balcony.
It ranks right up there with the opening sequences of Sunday AND Monday Night Football; proving that TV execs are completely out of touch with their core viewers.
I think Cowher needs to bench Farrior for a game. I love Farrior, and he's an integral part of our defense, but Cowher needs to regain control of his team, and these 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, especially after we're ready to regain possession, are the nail in the coffin. Cowher ought to publicly set a policy for the rest of the season - any unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from any player leads to a one-game bench. The season is already lost at this point, so it's not like we will be risking anything much. It will hopefully wake these players up to the fact that stupid actions have consequences, because apparently losing isn't enough of a consequence to deter their juvenile behavior. And yes, I'm suggesting that ANY player should be subject to this rule. If Ben, Ward, and Parker all get flagged in a single game, then I'm happy with the backups for the following game.
the local media is treating cowher like a dog and people expect him to smile pretty. the media fool who asked the question which was something to the effect of "did you ever think back in spring training that you would be 2-6?" should be barred from all future news conferences, period. what kind of moron would ask that? it is no wonder why cowher treats the media like fools. plus, why the hell is john steigerwald so angry about big ben's INT's? he was awful quick to point the blame.
The Mellencamp Chevy commercial still isn't as annoying as Toby Keith's (or whoever that redneck is) Ford truck commercial. "I'm a Ford truck man, that's all I dri-IVE." Mellencamp became a pussy when he dropped the Cougar from his name.
I think the Benny Hill theme song
(Yakety Sax) should be the official soundtrack of the Steelers special teams.
Deshea Townsend reminds me of Tim McKyer these days.
The only way this team would get more personal fouls would be if they signed Delton Hall.
The Borat movie was the best part of my weekend.
So what are the odds Cowher pulls a Jerome and retires before even leaving the field?
Unlike Jerome, he won't announce his retirement on the Super Bowl postgame stage.
In other, much more hopeful new, the Pens take on the best team in the NHL tonight.
"Coach Cowher, could you tell me who the guy that keeps getting his posts removed on Mondesi's House is?"
As for what musical piece should accompany the Steelers' special teams, I'll side with eh jeh. "Yakety Sax" will now play through my head when I see San Antonio Holmes or Ricky Ricardo Coakley (sic) back to field a kick.
Let's put this whole thing in perspective...In an entire lifetime of watching the Steelers (over 40 seasons of really understanding and following football), I've never seen them: A) fold their tent like this, B) play so stupidly, C) take so many selfish penalties and D) treat the football like it contains kryptonite. This version of the Steelers has actually succeeded in sucking out the total respect that I had for this team. Other than a select few players, I'd clean house, including the man who was once known as the emotional Bill Cowher, who is now just a shell of his former self standing there looking like Art Shell on the sidelines, not even imploring his players anymore. No wonder the players don't care. Does Cowher look like he cares or just that he's disgusted?
Face it Steeler fans, the reason that the Patriots are always contending is because they're always getting rid of players. They know these guys have a very limited shelf life as a valuable commodity because most of them are too immature to keep their winning edge. The Steelers' winning edge looks like it has been pounded by one of those piledriving machines. The players are now too rich, are too satisfied in themselves, are still thinking about their Superbowl run, about their Superbowl rings and the Superbowl adulation lavished on them by Steeler fans. Their coach is too much of a multimillionaire to get excited anymore. He's too busy thinking about his North Carolina mansion and his yacht than to get worked up about Holmes or Farrior or Foote or Porter or even Big Ben.
Hey, I'm never going to jump off the bandwagon, I'm a lifer. But I think there are a bunch of guys who are betraying that balck and gold uniform they're wearing, the fans who support them, and the Rooneys who pay them handsomely, lackluster effort or not. All this from a group of guys who just nine months ago went on a playoff run for the ages.
Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One last thing. Do you remeber before Heinz field opened and the Steelers would say, "We can't afford to hold onto our free agents." After losing untold numbers of good players, they finally moved into the land of milk and honey. Do you remember the disasterous season they had shortly thereafter when they held onto those free agents? Millionaire syndrome.
From Coach Cowher: "Louis Lipps is My Homeboy, the posts you refer to were taken down by the person writing them. Mondesi's House has always been an uncensored place to air grievenaces and further discuss the Steelers, Pirates, Penguins, and Pitt. I also wonder who would write such a comment that they would immediately delete it. But I have bigger problems. Like a first round pick that has a psychological aversion to fielding punts cleanly. And a linebacker that kicks opponents. And a fan base that keeps blaming me. But I agree, we need to get to the bottom of this. BC Out."
Bill looked like Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back, frozen in carbonite, I appreciated the statue comparison to Cowher's comatose demeanor. Maybe he has been fighting a cold. Well, what a season. If you think about it, if the Steelers just didn't F up so much we would have had a pretty good team this season, but that time has past. I was hoping for a few more games before the season ended, maybe sooner the better this year. It never happened.
The most emotion I've seen from Cowher this season is when Mike Vick ran past him and into the Steeler bench during the Atlanta game. Cowher had such a big smile on his face that I thought he was going to stop Vick and ask him for an autograph as he jogged back to the huddle.x
Do you remember the disasterous season they had shortly thereafter when they held onto those free agents? Millionaire syndrome.
I'm very much an "intangibles" kind of guy. This is one of the best such observations I've ever seen.
How about this, the Steelers are doing sooo terrible, lets throw in the towell, forfeit the remainder of their games this year, everybody can take the rest of the year off, Cowher can retire, we'll restructure next year. After the last few games, very few players are worthy of wearing the Black 'N' Gold. Think of what this would do for the free agent market for other teams, Hines Ward for the league minimum, "he was smiling when he went over the goal line and fumbled", Ben has thrown what, 14 INT's?Joey Porter, where has he been?...... you guys are pathetic, if we had just won our 6th SB, the same complaints would be up on here.....IBLEEDBLACK'N'GOLD.....
Bring in Denny Green, he's gonna need a job after this year. It's amazing what a blk coach can do for a team. (Blk coach = Superbowl victories)
Hahahahaha.......
Actually, 2002 was the season after they started dishing out cash.
Problem was, they dished out the cash to the wrong guys!! Namely, Chad Scott and Dewayne Washington. Anyone upset with Deshea and Ike after Sunday needs to remember Scott and Washington. Deshea and Ike each had a bad game.... Scott and Washington were bad for TWO SEASONS before we finally got rid of them.
Anyways, we weren't that bad in 2002. Just the secondary was. It was 2003 that was the disaster! Yipes!!
And I thought the comments were being deleted because they dared to insult the not-so-mighty Louis Lipps in my presence!!!
Post a Comment