About an hour ago
The first “You crazy, bro?” of 2021 starting with Steelers fans in Pittsburgh. Then it hits Philadelphia, New York, Washington and Miami along the way.
We have narrow points that turn into running rugby. A remedy for the NFL service. And upset about the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Oh, and a lesson in grammar.
Yes. It’s humdinger. We start the new year with a high beam around here.
Jake has an … um … ‘out of the box’ idea to fix the Steelers knockout game.
‘The Steelers should consider making a few candidates in a running back position. Why not? Stiff points are larger, have good hands, are skilled in the course of short pass routes and are trained in blocking.
Someone like Lance McDonald could be a good candidate next year. It would be great to have such a guy to pick up lightning in pass-blocking, or who could be a good third down receiver, and who would be better able to pick up important first downhills on short work situations simply because of his size and power. McDonald punishes tacklers. ”
OK. Lots to unpack here, Jake.
In the first place, just because, for example, Derrick Henry is built like a tighthead strip does not mean that every tighthead side can be Derrick Henry.
Certainly. Every now and then you have a man like Rod Bernstine, who made the switch from the tight end to the relegation with the Chargers in the 1990s. However, he was only two pounds heavier (235) than James Conner (233).
But I have to follow the example of that time, because I can not think of too many others who have done well since then. Especially if we do not count fullbacks.
And there is a reason for that. These are completely different skills and positions. Especially in today’s game. There is a difference between blocking a curb on the line of scrubbing and picking up a flashing midline back or safety.
I mean, you saw Eric Ebron block, right? And you want that guy approach to Ben Roethlisberger? While trying to recognize who to upload? And from where? Contrary to the fact that immediately after the snap he knows who to hit?
No thank you!
And your partner “Lance” McDonald is £ 267. Not 247 like Henry. I’m having a pretty hard time seeing ‘Lance’ stretch a run, and play a distance around the edge.
“Lance” and Ebron are pretty deep in their careers to make such a drastic position switch, don’t you think?
How about the Steelers – and I’m just playing here – you just have to better run or draw rugby?
Is this something you might be interested in?
Like me, John is incensed at the amount of missed penalties he missed in the Steelers-Browns game.
‘I think I have never seen such an inconsistent (and poor) service as this year. And believe me, that says a lot.
I almost think there should be 11 officers on the field, 1 responsible for every player in the attack. They would then be responsible for the matching defensive player. This will not repair an incompetence of officials, but can eliminate the missed calls.
This honestly makes it very difficult to watch more of a match.”
That’s true, John. But what makes the game look even harder is an excessive number of flags. Especially from officials who wanted to throw them just to keep their ten other peers in line on the field – in your scenario.
Further clutter on an already busy playing field with four more guys who are simply not very good at what they do is not the answer.
If you demand a full statement of more or less transgressions, you can not answer the degree of anger. It will only change what you are angry about.
What needs to happen is more consistency of the calls themselves. Let’s come up with a steady threshold to hold on, disturb the disturbance and the quarter. And stand by it.
Do not hold a tap in the first quarter so that you can achieve a kind of imaginary “quota” because you were, technically, ready to whistle an attacking lineout in a hurry. But then ignore a blatant call that affects a huge profit.
This is the issue NFL officials are currently dealing with.
Thomas is less satisfied with the condition of the local baseball team.
‘Over my lifetime, the Pirates had some bad teams, but in the old days, they had at least a few players on the top shelf. It now appears that the organization is happy to play the role of a farm team lucky enough to be in MLB.”
When you say ‘old days’, what exactly do you mean? Like in the 1970s when they had Willie Stargell, Dave Parker and Roberto Clemente?
Or the nineties when they had Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke and Doug Drabek?
Or 2013-15 when they had Gerrit Cole, Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker?
Regardless, all those teams feel in my mind as much as the “old days”, I see myself all playing in Exposition Park.
Mike was out of shape after the childish reaction of New York in the aftermath of the Philadelphia Eagles tank … oops … hmmm … ”
That loss sealed the NFC East for Washington and removed the 6-10 Giants from a division title.
6 wins and still had the chance to reach the playoffs at the last minute of the regular season. And they got a gift from the refs in their own game today.
– Mike Ross (@IronCity_Mike) 4 January 2021
I agree, Mike. And I can not help but think of what it must have been like to be a fan of the Miami Dolphins on Sunday night and browse through all the sacred testimony of New York and the gnashing of teeth on Twitter.
I mean, at 6-10, should Giants fans really proselytize on “how the game should be played” just so their team can come back as the worst division winner in NFL history?
If you’re a Miami fan, your team has had a surprisingly strong season. But they were left out of the playoffs at 10-6 because the AFC is so deep and their division had a 13-win champion in Buffalo.
But Giants fans want to hold a pity party after failing to pick up 7-9 Washington in their own division or the 8-8 Bears as the last game card?
What a joke!
Eventually I get a quote from the grammar police, specifically ‘Officer Beau’.
‘You never start a sentence BUT !!!!!!! If you start a sentence with So, there must be a comma after SO !!!! Dear god man …”
First of all, Beau, your marks are not quite according to the letter of the law. And as a sports columnist, I’m not looking at the letter of the law anyway. Be the grammar 101 or AP style.
I stick to both as much as possible. BUT the goal is to have more conversations than writing in line with what will get me an A + on my third grade report card.
I’m also sure that ten exclamation marks for two words violate a rule. So too the end of the sentence with an ellipse. Just like the removal of a noun as an example of reference points without quotes to it as with ‘so’ and ‘but’.
Furthermore, we can dispute about whether you should use ‘god’ with a capital letter and not follow it with a comma.
BUT, why try? My idea is that there are now bigger issues in the world to debate.
SOWhat I’m really saying, Beau, is that you can kiss me … (fill in the ellipsis).
Tim Benz is a staff writer for Tribune-Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets can be re-posted. Unless otherwise stated, all emails are subject to publication.
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Sport | Steelers / NFL | Breakfast with Benz