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Coming Out of Hibernation
Article by Jonathan Pasterick (8/2/01)
Graphics & Layout by McMillen & Wife
Ok, so here we are at training camp time. When Timmy asked me to contribute
to his website, I thought, "Hey, great! I'm as big a Steelers fan as they
come and I could write all day about them." Then I realized that it was
still, in fact, May, and that not much was going on. I scanned the
Pittsburgh headlines to find some items of note that I could wax on about,
like, "Steelers sign Will Blackwell to 2 year deal" and "Steelers sign free
agent Mike Jones." Not really the stuff of analysis, so I didn't analyze...
perhaps to Tim's chagrin, perhaps not. Not even the extension of Josh
Miller, not an insignificant move given the Steelers offense, got the
proverbial pen flowing. And I got a newfound appreciation for Steelers beat
writers, who have to make something out of nothing in May when the best they
have to work with is the resigning of a second-string wide receiver or a
free agent linebacker that may well get beaten out of a job by a rookie this
season.
But now things are different, and not because it's official that my hometown
baseball team, the Orioles, truly suck. Rather, training camp has
started, and so it's time to refocus the microscope on Steelers, sort of.
Let me say first off that I don't give a crap about training camp or
preseason generally. Don't follow stats, don't care who had a good
practice, don't care that some undrafted free agent is impressing the hell
out of the coaching staff. That just means that he'll be the last cut
rather than the third to last. In reality, there are only about four spots
on this team that there will be any real fight for in training camp, and I
only care who wins one of them. Will Mike Logan beat out Brent Alexander?
Who cares, Alexander played fine last year. Will Kendrell Bell beat out
Mike Jones? Who cares, Jones will be fine as a weak side OLB if Bell isn't
ready yet. Will Witman beat out Kreider? Who cares, they both played fine
when healthy last year. Will Casey Hampton beat out Kendrick Clancy? Well,
we gotta care about that one because Hampton was the first round pick and
one of the reasons he was drafted in particular was the belief that he would
be ready to make an impact early.
Aside from that, the Steelers starters, for better or worse, are set at
every position. Thankfully, this offseason, with the exception of losing
Dawson and Kirkland, the first of which was expected and the second of which
should have been in hindsight, was relatively quiet. Far from losing key
free agents, the team actually picked some up.
Sure the team lost an offensive coordinator that some hold in high regard,
but when the guy insisted on trying to teach the offensive equivalent of the
theory of relativity to a quarterback that has the defense-reading
equivalent of a GED, he pretty much dug his own grave. Can't say I shed too
many tears when Gilbride hit the bricks. To my mind, his ego was too big to
acknowledge that his personnel, either in terms of talent or intellectual
capacity, didn't suit his PhD style of offense, and he wouldn't make the
necessary adjustments. So now the team has an offensive coordinator that
may be just inexperienced enough to keep it simple, stupid, which was the
Steelers way all along. That's a net gain in my book. Plus, there no
longer appear to be any scandals regarding the personal lives of the
Steelers head coach or starting QB, which was easily the most regrettable
byproduct of a couple losing seasons and which may have been the only thing
in my life that ever made me ashamed to be a Steelers fan, with the possible
exception of the unnecessary and largely self-defeating booing of Kordell at
Three Rivers.
My view of the preseason is simple: if nobody gets hurt, it's a good
preseason. If the Steelers come down to play the Redskins in a preseason
game, and I can see all the wine-and-cheese Skins fans watch their
heartless, loser team with a jerk of an owner get their asses kicked by some
real football players, it's a little better. But the important thing is
that the team is all together now, and while the games that count don't
start until another 40 or so Orioles losses from now, it's time to rub the
sleepies out of my eyes and start to at least pay attention to the injury
wire.
So even though you shouldn't expect any updated articles from me (I can hear
the sighs of relief from here) about how DeShea Townsend is tearing it up in
preseason or Ron Rivers is showing eel-like elusiveness on the fields of St.
Vincent, just know that I'm having my first cups of coffee in preparation
for what I truly believe will be a season that will last more than 16 games
for the Steelers. By the Jacksonville game, my enthusiasm should be at a
fevered pitch, and I hope that the rest of you all will be right there with
me.
Later for now,
Jonathan Pasterick
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