After Week 4, only 1 team remains unbeaten: the Kansas City Chiefs. Anyone who had them in the office pool, take a bow then ask yourself what the hell you were thinking when the season started. Maybe more surprisingly, only 11 teams have a winning record right now.
What We Learned
- Jay Cutler is still Jay Cutler. He can look brilliant one week and a put up a performance worse than the last Twilight movie the next.
- Some of the good teams might not be as good as we thought they were. Green Bay, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Houston all struggled to beat Detroit, Carolina, San Francisco, and Oakland. Yikes.
- No one knows how to cover a kickoff any more.
- The NFC West was, is, and will be the worst division in football. Not only did the division leaders go out and lose to St. Louis, the current division leader (Arizona) has a -60 point differential. San Francisco, despite being 0-4, is still only 2 games out of first place.
- Kyle Orton is a decent quarterback. Most of us knew this already, but some people just refuse to believe it.
- Ben Roethlisberger coming back to the Steelers. Consider this: the Ravens Insider Blog over at the Baltimore Sun made a big deal of Joe Flacco racking up his 6th career game-winning drive in his 41 starts. They somehow think this is marginally better than Kyle Boller’s 6 in his 53 starts. Ben had 6 in his first season in the league. He repeated the feat of 6 game-winning drives in a season in 2008.
- Seeing Indianapolis lose to Jacksonville. Makes you feel a little better about losing to Baltimore. At least it wasn’t Jacksonville. And it wasn’t with our #1 quarterback.
- Signs of life in Detroit. After being so bad for so many years, this team has a pulse. They haven’t put a win up yet, but they’re playing good teams closer and are still without their starting QB.
- Cincinnati losing to Cleveland. That’s gotta make you smile. Hahahaha
- The Penguins are back this week. It works out well that the NHL season starts on the Steelers bye week. Go Pens!
- The Giants-Bears game. It was sloppier than a Ke$ha video.
- Losing to Jacksonville. Seriously, Indianapolis? And you call yourself a contender?
- Having to change our Twitter avatar to Ray Rice for a week. Per a bet we had with @iHateJJRedick, we would change our avatar to Ray Rice if the Ravens won and he would change his to LaMarr Woodley if the Steelers won. Fair bet, we lost, and are now rocking a Ray Rice icon.
- Miami’s special teams. That was just plain bad.
- Everything going on in Buffalo right now. Pack your bags for Toronto folks. Good thing Andrew Luck looks good in red.
Futility Watch
10
Greg Lloyd “I Wasn’t Hired For My Disposition” Award
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
We love comedy and satire as much as the next person. Stewart and the Daily Show folks put together America the Book back in 2004, possibly one of the best works of satirical historical American fiction…ever. We haven’t gotten our hands on Earth: The Book yet, but we’re betting it’s just as good. In the spirit of satire, Stewart is hosting the Rally to Restore Sanity on October 30 in DC. The buildup alone has been hilarious. In response, Stephen Colbert responded with the Rally to Keep Fear Alive. Gotta love it. Comedy Central shows are bringing their A game.
Bob Smizik “Douchebag of the Week” Award
David Price
We’ve made it well known over the past few years that we like seeing the Tampa Bay Rays win. It gives us hope that a team like the Pirates might someday, once again, be good. However, what Rays pitcher David Price said this past week was deserving of this award. Price berated Tampa fans for poor attendance, saying it was embarrassing that they couldn’t get more than 17,000 a night when they were in a penant race. Hey guess what David? Not everyone is a multi-million dollar athlete that can afford tickets. In case you hadn’t noticed, which based on your salary you probably didn’t, the economy blows. Guess what? If people can’t afford tickets to watched over-paid crybabies play, don’t berate them. Go Twins.
Finally, a call for help from our readers:
We are trying to compile a “roster” of players that Steelers Nation respects and players that they hate.
Here’s what we were thinking:
-Send us a “roster” of your most respected players from around the league
-Send us a “roster” of your most hated players from around the league
We’ll compile the votes and put together the rosters. We’ll take whatever we’ve received by Thursday night and start compiling the list. We’ll send the list out to everyone who participated by the middle of next week, then you can post them on your blog or something. We’ll probably post the list here on our blog around the end of next week. We’ll credit everyone that participates (more on that later).
As far as positions go, here’s what we were thinking for the Rosters:
QB, RB, RB/FB, 3rd Down RB, WR, WR, #3 WR, TE, T, T, G, G, C
DE, DE, DT, DT/NT, OLB, OLB, ILB, ILB, CB, CB, S, S, K, P
Honorable Mentions: feel free to include up to 5 “honorable mentions” for either team (we threw this in in case you were having trouble narrowing your list down)
The only rule: You can’t pick a player that is a current or former Steeler for either Team Respect or Team Hate (aka no Alan Faneca, Chris Hope, Nate Washington, Santonio Holmes, etc)
If you can’t think of a player you like/respect or really hate at a position, feel free to leave it blank.
Also, when you reply, let us know how you’d like to be credited in the post (whether it’s a blog link, twitter link, etc).
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