Hey, I made it 5 whole months without whipping it out! Roger's gotta cut me some slack for that, right?"
So we're one week into the preseason, which depending on who's talking, is either completely pointless or THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER DONE, EVER! But really, it's largely pointless except for watching to see which dudes win the chance to stand on the sidelines most of the time except for like kick returns or some shit. Still, there's some interesting things going on, so here's a breakdown of how the Steelers are shaping up on offense so far.
Running back: Mendenhall is supposedly still the man, and he's showing he has the speed, but he still has a difficult time holding on to the ball. That might be an important skill to master fairly soon. Isaac Redman must have fucked one of the Rooney granddaughters or something, this is the second preseason he's shown he can do all the short yardage and goal line work the team has been missing since Bettis retired, but he also got put on the practice squad last year despite being by far the best back in camp. Frank "The Tank" Summers has the look (and nickname) to be a good fullback, another area the team has been lacking for a few years now. All in all, the Steelers seem set to make some waves in the run game as long as Rashad holds on to the goddamn ball.
Recievers: After the whole Penisgate fiasco, trading Santonio Holmes for a bag of footballs was the biggest story of this off season. Everyone was shocked that the team told the Super Bowl MVP from just two seasons ago to fuck off, but if you were aware of the back story it was really no surprise. To make a tl;dr story short, Holmes more or less stopped listening to coaches and was becoming more of a diva than Plaxico was when he got shipped off. The Steelers don't put up with diva WRs, no matter what their resume, so off he went. So they went off and signed Arnaz Battle, brought back the husk of Antwaan Randel El, and drafted Emmanuel Sanders. They also drafted Antonio Brown probably to return punts and kicks, but he's shown so far that he wasn't just a dude who racked up a lot of stats in college because he was playing in the MAC. We also have some guy named Ward that probably will be pretty good too. So yes, we lost Holmes, but it doesn't seem to be the death blow to the offense that many seem to predict it to be.
TE: We still have Heath Miller, and that's really all there is to discuss. The Steelers use the rest of their TEs as either fullbacks or on the line in their fat guy goal line package.
O-Line: This has been a surprise so far. The Steelers don't usually expect a whole lot out of first year players, most of the time if you learn your playbook and don't walk in front of traffic that's all they ask. This year Pouncey has blown the doors off of everyone's expectations and now it seems like the staff is trying to think of a polite way to tell Justin Hartwig that he just lost his starting center job. That's kind of a big deal considering the Steelers have only had a handful of centers since like 1964, no one seems to want to pull the trigger on giving a rookie the job and having people expect him to carry on the Webster/Dawson legacy. The rest of the line has been better than expected, except for Flozell Adams who unsurprisingly has been proven to be too old and slow to stop a pass rush. If it ends up forcing the team to play some younger guys who have been collecting cobwebs on the bench, so be it.
Next time: Defense and Special Teams breakdowns, and an over/under on how many times Jeff Reed gets arrested this year.
Quarterback: This has been kind of the elephant in the room, all the pundits are picking the team to not make the playoffs because Ben and his wayward cock will be gone for 4-6 games (I'm betting on 4, for the record). While this is a loss, no doubt, Byron Leftwich's job is basically don't be a complete fuck up for a month, and I think he can do that. Dennis Dixon is doing everything he can to make people think he's Kordell Stewart minus the giant birthmark and alleged homosexuality. Charlie Batch is more or less an unofficial QB coach at this point, and will probably be released once Ben comes back from his dick therapy or whatever he has to do.
Running back: Mendenhall is supposedly still the man, and he's showing he has the speed, but he still has a difficult time holding on to the ball. That might be an important skill to master fairly soon. Isaac Redman must have fucked one of the Rooney granddaughters or something, this is the second preseason he's shown he can do all the short yardage and goal line work the team has been missing since Bettis retired, but he also got put on the practice squad last year despite being by far the best back in camp. Frank "The Tank" Summers has the look (and nickname) to be a good fullback, another area the team has been lacking for a few years now. All in all, the Steelers seem set to make some waves in the run game as long as Rashad holds on to the goddamn ball.
Recievers: After the whole Penisgate fiasco, trading Santonio Holmes for a bag of footballs was the biggest story of this off season. Everyone was shocked that the team told the Super Bowl MVP from just two seasons ago to fuck off, but if you were aware of the back story it was really no surprise. To make a tl;dr story short, Holmes more or less stopped listening to coaches and was becoming more of a diva than Plaxico was when he got shipped off. The Steelers don't put up with diva WRs, no matter what their resume, so off he went. So they went off and signed Arnaz Battle, brought back the husk of Antwaan Randel El, and drafted Emmanuel Sanders. They also drafted Antonio Brown probably to return punts and kicks, but he's shown so far that he wasn't just a dude who racked up a lot of stats in college because he was playing in the MAC. We also have some guy named Ward that probably will be pretty good too. So yes, we lost Holmes, but it doesn't seem to be the death blow to the offense that many seem to predict it to be.
TE: We still have Heath Miller, and that's really all there is to discuss. The Steelers use the rest of their TEs as either fullbacks or on the line in their fat guy goal line package.
O-Line: This has been a surprise so far. The Steelers don't usually expect a whole lot out of first year players, most of the time if you learn your playbook and don't walk in front of traffic that's all they ask. This year Pouncey has blown the doors off of everyone's expectations and now it seems like the staff is trying to think of a polite way to tell Justin Hartwig that he just lost his starting center job. That's kind of a big deal considering the Steelers have only had a handful of centers since like 1964, no one seems to want to pull the trigger on giving a rookie the job and having people expect him to carry on the Webster/Dawson legacy. The rest of the line has been better than expected, except for Flozell Adams who unsurprisingly has been proven to be too old and slow to stop a pass rush. If it ends up forcing the team to play some younger guys who have been collecting cobwebs on the bench, so be it.
Next time: Defense and Special Teams breakdowns, and an over/under on how many times Jeff Reed gets arrested this year.
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