SB Nation User Blog: 13thieves

Chipper Jones and Santonio Holmes

13thieves — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:14:43 -0000

Great post over on Mark Bowman's page about Santonio Holmes and Chipper Jones mutual appreciation of each other.

Holmes on why Chipper is his favorite baseball player:

"One of the main reasons I liked him was the ability to switch sides," Holmes said. "That's amazing for somebody to be able to do that and have the great hand-eye coordination with his swing lefty and righty and have the ability to hit home runs. That's amazing."

Browns Trade Rumor : Jay Cutler

13thieves — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:26:53 -0000

Browns Trade Rumor : Jay Cutler

"Brady Quinn and Shaun Rogers to Denver for Jay Cutler and a third-round draft choice."

While this is probably not true the funniest part of the article is that the writer thinks the Browns would be getting ripped off.

Draft Thoughts After the Combine

13thieves — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:24:24 -0000

There's a lot of interesting fallout from the combine, here's a rundown of things that concern the Steelers:

Andre Smith kills his draft status. In a year that once again has 7 or so top of the line OLs even the slightest set back could cost you millions, but for someone who earlier was in the top three best OLs and a lock to be drafted in the top ten, Smith could hardly have done more to make it worse. Some writers have suggested he might slide out of the first round entirely, certainly an overstatement, but if he slides far enough down could the Steelers trade up to get him?

As an Alabama fan I've been watching Smith for three years and he's got the tools to be a great lineman. I would be thrilled to land him.

Michael Oher was exposed too. His draft status was inflated more from the book he was featured in (The Blind Side) than his own ability. He still projects to be a mid first round pick.

The WR crop looks deep. The big news from the combine was all around speed and agility in the WR position. If the Steelers aren't be able to sign Nate Washington to a reasonable contract they might be looking to snag a WR late.

The CB crop is deep as well. With the big contracts being handed out to CBs this year (see Asomugha's 50mil deal) it is looking more and more unlikely that the Steelers will be able to resign McFadden. The goodnews is that there should be several quality CBs in the second round.

Winning does several things for a team. One of benefits is that it takes the pressure off the draft. Not that it becomes less a priority, but it clears the table of all extraneous questions such as A) what will the fans think of this pick? or B) what's the safest pick?

The way I see it is with some of the turmoil and attrition in the OL rankings the Steelers's first round pick can only improve as teams (feeling the pressure to draft safe) fill other positions. With our second pick we can take a CB. And with the third or fourth pick snag a speedy WR that can double as the return guy.

Reasons Why the Steelers will Draft a TE

13thieves — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:11:58 -0000

Blitzburg has a great analysis about Heath Miller and how much it might cost the Steelers to resign him. As great as Miller's been here are some reasons why they won't resign Miller.

1. Matt Spaeth has been fine in limited playing time and comes at a cheaper price than Miller. In 09 we should see him get a little more playing time before he takes over in 2010.

2. The Steelers drafted Heath Miller in 05 (first round) and Matt Spaeth in 07 (third round). If you're wondering if they drafted a TE in 03 they didn't, but they did sign one, Jay Riemersma to split time with Tuman who they drafted in '99. So since 2005 we've taken one year off between drafting a TE.

Interestingly enough, looking at pre-draft rankings Spaeth was ranked all over the place from a late 7th round pick to the third. He was the third TE taken (after Greg Olsen and Zach Miller). Apparently the Steelers saw something they liked. Another note: the NYG drafted Kevin Boss in the 5th round (the 6th TE taken).

3. Taking the first three rounds of the drafts from the last six years we see that the number of TEs drafted goes up and down. In 2008 seven were drafted. In '07, three. In '06, eight. In '05, three. In '04, five, and in '03, seven. Outside of 2003 we see this up/down pattern. Assuming this has more to do with the needs than overall talent, in 2009 we should see fewer TEs drafted in the first three rounds. Few teams take the best overall player like the Steelers do.

Of the 33 TEs taken over the last six years, 8 have been in the 1st round, 12 in the second, and 13 in the third. I see us taking a TE in the third round, possibly the second if one of the elite TEs in the draft falls to us.

4. There are 4 top ranked TEs in this years draft: Brandon Pettigrew (Oklahoma State) Jared Cook (South Carolina), Shawn Nelson (Southern Miss), Chase Coffman (Missouri). Drafts never go the way people think they'll go (just spend some time looking at mocks from a few years ago like I did), but it seems like that at the very least we'll get the fifth best TE in the draft in the third round, and perhaps one from the top four will fall to us. But as we learned from Spaeth, pre-draft rankings don't always tell the whole story.

Looking at various mock drafts there seems to be 5 teams that need a TE (NO, Phi, Atl, Car, and SD) and there isn't much in the free agent market (Scaife, Daniels, LJ Smith, Kleinsasser), so assuming a couple of these sign TEs (therefore knocking TE priority down a few notches) that leaves three teams in the hunt for a 1st or 2nd round TE.

Few teams have been as successful as the Steelers in drafting talent. It looks like the strategy for the Steelers is to draft and develop a TE rather than spending the big bucks. I love Heath, but I expect this pattern to continue. Draft, develop, and draft again.

Liking Ike

13thieves — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:57:49 -0000

I'll be honest. Last year I hated Ike Taylor. Overrated. The only time I did that shut down hand waiving thing he does was when he got burned or when he fouled someone to avoid getting burned. Last year I chortled a little whenever announcers called him our best CB.

But this year he won me over. Don't get me wrong he still screws up, he's one of the few NFL players to deserve every single Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty he's ever been called for (and a few that he hasn't been called for), and the only reason he's a CB is b/c if he could catch he would be a WR.

via www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com

That said, you can't defend Larry Fitzgerald much better than this. Sure Fitz caught it, but he's a freak of nature.

All year long Ike played well and slowly I quit congratulating him for not screwing up or ceased expressing surprise that he knocked the ball away without commiting a foul. In the Super Bowl (of course I yelled something unkind when Fitz came down with the ball) watching the replay I realized that Ike did a heck of a job (only two people could've caught that ball and Jesus Christ doesn't play football) and I finally agree, he's a pretty goob CB.

Rooting against the Steelers

13thieves — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:40:32 -0000

ESPN Magazine (the undisputed worse sports magazines in the history of sports magazines) took a fanwide poll (of 177,673 responses) and broke up the percentages by teams. Overwhelmingly people were rooting for the Cardinals with four exceptions:

Bengals fans, Browns fans, Ravens fans and the Buccaneers fans.

It makes a weird kind of sense that our division foes would root for us, but what explains the support from Bucs fans?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I was prepared to root for the Cards in the Ravens got in.

3rd Down Back

13thieves — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:10:56 -0000

One thing the Steelers desperately need is a big third down back. If Mendenhall is the one, great, but if he can't be that guy I want to get some beef. None of this kicking on 4th and 2 Blades of Grass from the Goal Line. I would've signed Bettis on the spot if he would've offered his services.

Options at other positions:

Anyone think we can get JP Losman as the backup QB?

Maybe Devery Henderson will come cheaper than Nate.

Jumping the Gun : Nxt Yrs Schedule

13thieves — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:54:56 -0000

There's still so much to do, basking in the SB victory, breaking down personel, anticipating front office moves, not to mention the mother of all offseason projects in mock drafting. But I would like to jump over all that and look at the Steeler's upcoming schedule.

This year we have the AFC West and the NFC North. I've read that our home games (excluding the division): Ten, SD, Oak, GB, Min and our away games: Den, KC, Chi, Det, Mia. Not nearly the intimidating schedule the Steelers faced this year.

Looking over the teams many of them our in outright rebuilding mode: Det, KC, and Oak. Chi is not really rebuilding, but not ready to compete yet and I'm not sure I buy Mia's rapid turn around. Min and Ten lack QBs to win (though I've heard rumors that Min will be looking to acquire Cassel or McNabb, Ten will look to Collins to manage the game or continue to develope Vince Young), while Den, GB, and SD have championship pieces, but not the overall make up yet.

Looking at the division, I think we all expect Bal to improve. Flacco showed great poise for a rookie who came from nonpowerhouse football program, the D is as brutal as ever, and it's a hungry team. Suggs will probably be lured away by big bucks, but the D always seems to be able to reload. Cin is a difficult team to gauge. With so many weapons you can't write them off, but their season rides on Palmer, if he's healthy they might be a pesky team. Cle still seems another year or two from competing.

You should never count on sweeping the Ravens and away games are tricky even if you're playing the Browns or Bengals so I'll estimate that we go 4-2 in the division.

Among the AFCWest, we should beat Oak at home and KC away and I think we could go 1-1 against SD at home and Den away. So 3-1.

NFCNorth, depends on how tough Min or GB will be but assuming we split with them, and I think we can beat Chi and Det away, which would mean 3-1 again.

That leaves Ten at home and Mia away and let's just say that they both beat us, 0-2.

For the season we would be 10-6 and 7-5 versus the AFC. There's always a surprise or two and the Steelers could easily be a 12 win team, but I find it hard to believe, excluding serious injuries, that we'd be worse than 9 wins. Winning 10 is usually enough to get into the playoffs and from there -as Arizona just demonstrated- anything can happen. Looks like another good year for us Steeler fans.