Wondering about kickoff times?  Well, more of less confirmed from various individual tweets, we pretty much know the schedule.  Oh, and I just saw ESPN.com has picked it up too, so the below is copy-pasted from there.

Steelers remain at 1 Eastern as originally scheduled, and will likely be CBS's primary early game in the majority of TV markets.

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I finished graduate school last week.  That was fulfilling.

I got married last weekend.  That was memorable.

We took our honeymoon vacation this past week.  That was amazing.

Now those moments are in the past.  I start something new on Monday, and expect to have very, very little free time over the next few months.  Enough to briefly scan the web for news from Latrobe, and enough to watch my team's pre-season games (yeah, NFL Network); it's not really football, but the process of player evaluation is interesting in its own right.

But there's only one moment really circled on my mental calendar now.  Noon (CDT) six weeks and (less than) two days from now, at the Dark Horse Tap & Grill, watching the opening kickoff from Heinz Field in the company of a cold Arn and the Steelers faithful.  At the moment I don't even care how the year goes, although I know I will feel very very differently when that moment arrives.  I just want to be there.

A few years ago, as part of my re-emergent interest in NFL football, I decided to learn as much as I could about Steelers history.  Don't know if anyone will be reading, but I've really wanted to do this kind of historical thing, so please indulge me while I try it out.

This post is an unauthorized, unofficial supplement to the "Greatest Wins" series currently being presented by maryrose.  In narrowing his list down to only twelve wins, there had to be some great games that didn't make the cut.  Since he's confirmed that this is not one of his twelve, allow me to be the one to take us back to 1954...

Week 5:  October 23, 1954,

Forbes Field, Pittsburgh PA

Pittsburgh Steelers 17, Philadelphia Eagles 7

1954 was yet another football season that opened with promise.  The NFL was not the juggernaut that it is today either in the country or in the city.  There wasn't a Steeler Nation to speak of yet.  And there wasn't the kind of burning passion for the team that we see today. 

The Steelers did achieve some level of local interest and success after their unfortunately brief flirtation with being a Champonship contender in 1947.  Since then, year after year, a hard hitting, hard playing, workmanlike team took the field and played workmanlike football.  As if to further embody their blue-collar image, the Steelers were an ordinary, middling team, year after year after year.  They'd start the season strong and then collapse.  They'd take awhile to get going.  They'd alternate wins and losses.  Either way, fans could be pretty sure that the Steelers would finish somewhere in the middle of the pack, probably ending the season with a 5-7 record, or maybe 6-6.  Naturally, they still hoped that this year might be different.  This year they might put things together.  This might be the year that they'd finally win that one for the... ring finger, I guess.  (Thought this was before rings.)

By the standards of the time, though, the 1954 season must have engendered a high degree of (guarded) optimism.  Uncharacteristic of Steelers teams of that era, the 1954 Steelers started the year racking up points in high scoring games.  After a 2-0 start, the Steelers lost a game in Philadelphia by just two points.  During that game, Eagles linemen laid in some controversial hits to Pittsburgh QB Jim Finks - hard enough to break his jaw and force him to wear a special mask afterward.  But Finks and the Steelers rebounded from that loss in a big way, defeating Cleveland 55-27 the following week.  This was a big deal because it was their first win ever against the Browns - the team who had won the Eastern Conference every year since entering the NFL in 1950.  The Steelers had arrived.  Now, just two weeks after their first meeting, the 3-1 team was anxious for a rematch with the Conference leaders, the 4-0 Eagles.

Wikipedia lists the attendance of the PHI-PIT game as 39,075.  Some estimates have it over 40,000.  In any case, it's generally agreed that this was the biggest crowd Forbes Field had ever seen to that point for a football game.  We can assume that the Pittsburgh crowd wanted to see blood after what the Eagles had done to Finks.  But hopefully they were in the mood to watch some defensive football and a battle of field position.  At halftime, the Steelers held a 3-0 lead after a second quarter field goal from Ed Kissell.

Late in the third quarter, a Steelers drive had gotten them to their own 40 before stalling.  On 4th down and 1, coach Walt Kiesling decided to go for it.  But the biggest play call came not from the coach, but on the field from end Elbie Nickel.  Nickel was an "end," as the position was called in those days, but he played like a modern-day Steeler tight end, catching passes on underneath routes and blocking with the best of them.

http://static.steelers.com/mediacontent/2007/10/29/04/Nickel_color_83695.jpg

To hear how Nickel contributed to this 4th-and-short situation, let's crack open our copies of My 75 Years With The Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL and let Dan Rooney take it away.

The Eagles expected we'd run the ball.  Coach Kiesling figured we'd run the ball.  But in the huddle, Nickel said "Finks, I think I can beat this guy deep."  Finks looked at him, nodded, and called the play.  On the snap, Finks dropped back two steps and faked the handoff to Jim "Popcorn" Brandt.  As the Eagle line crowded the line of scrimmage and closed in on Brandt, Nickel slipped behind their secondary, while Finks faded into the pocket.  Just when the Eagles figured out Brandt didn't have the ball, Finks aired it long to Nickel, who was streaking down the sideline.  No one ever laid a hand on him.  He ran in for the touchdown to give us a 10-0 lead...  You never heard such wild cheering, not until 1972.

From that play on, it was clear which way the momentum was going.  When the Eagles finally scored in the fourth quarter to make it 10-7, Pittsburgh stuck back, scoring the game's final touchdown on a 5-yard run by Lynn Chandnois.  The Steelers won 17-7, getting their revenge on the Eagles, tying them for the lead in the Eastern Conference, and igniting the city with the kind of thrill that too rarely went together with Steelers football.  On that day, one might have been able to make the case that it was the team's biggest win ever.

But that was the end for the 1954 Steelers, not the beginning.  After starting 4-1, Pittsburgh only won one more game all year, finishing with a 5-7 record.  The Browns won the NFL Championship.  Life went on much as it had been, leaving Pittsburgh fans to savor their minor triumphs. 

That moment of passion got savored plenty.  Nickel's catch was talked about for years.  Although it's not so well remembered in the post-Noll era, it was the most famous individual play in Steelers history until a certain playoff game in 1972.  In 1970, upon the opening of Three Rivers Stadium, the team received a gift: a tapestry, woven by Sally Anderson, depicting the Xs and Os of the play.  The tapestry can be seen today in the South Side Training Facility.

Nickel, who died in 2007, retired as the Steelers' all time leader in receptions, with 329 career catches.  He's #5 today (behind Ward, Stallworth, Lipps, and Swann), and #1 among tight ends.

Well, it seems original to me.  OAK @ PIT, in the 1972 AFC Divisional Playoffs.  A pretty impressive find if so from a time when the league was more interested in NFL Films-izing its great moments rather than presenting them in their original form.

Here the video (when there is video at all) is all pieced together from after the fact sources (you'll notice the video not matching the sound in several places, and the final score popping up even though there are still 5 seconds left), but I honestly think that the audio is taken directly from the original TV broadcast in 1972.  YouTube clips tend to disappear pretty quickly, so those interested should check it out while it's hot. 

It picks up with just under two minutes to go.  The Steelers are holding on to a 6-0 lead, but the Raiders, having made a QB switch, are on the move...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLMojeOYDo0&feature=related

Ed Bouchette's latest column: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10143/1060189-66.stm

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Even given what happened last year, people forget that the NFL is a parity-filled league in which alll 32 teams employ some of the best athletes in the business.  On Any Given Sunday, etc.

In other words, if you must "pencil in" Ws and Ls on your calendar at all, then for Cthulu's sake, don't use a pen.

Which games are you, as a fan, in danger of "looking past" this year?  Here's mine...

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I’m late to this party.  I was born in 1981, and first able to follow the NFL closely in 1987 (John Stallworth’s last season!).  This seemingly would give me a chance to live through a nice chunk of Stiller history, seeing a struggling team weighed down by the shadows of past glory build up again to be a championship contender, make a few great runs marred by disappointing endings, and then finally win it all as I entered adulthood.  It’d be a good story.

Problem is, I drifted away from football until the 2007 season.  I feel like I missed out, although I’m glad to have made it back into the fold in time to enjoy last year.  Eventually I immersed myself in Steelers history and got caught up, and that’s led me to ponder: of the times I missed out on, which were the most fun to live through?  If I were to pick, say, five years from the history of this franchise to get a chance to experience as they happened, which would they be?

The “obvious” answer (again, remembering that I was lucky enough to be there for 2008) would be years #IX, X, XIII, XIV, and XV.  But I don’t quite roll that way.  I went a different direction in trying to pick five seasons that by all accounts were amazing, but I’ll never be able to know first hand.

Why five?  Well, it’s an easy arbitrary number.  But I would probably have made it a six-pack and included 1995 if I weren’t excluding the O’Donnell/Blitzburgh era on a technicality.  I wasn’t following too closely, but I was aware, and remember the post-season games.  There were some great Steelers teams in those years, despite the bitter pills at the end: losing to the @&*@ing Bills, losing to the @&(&ing Cowboys, losing the most heartbreaking playoff loss in franchise history in ’94, etc.  From that set, I would have included 1995 as a particularly special year.  Some people argue that the 1994 team was even better, but 1995 had a story worth following.  A Polamalu-caliber loss on defense with Rod Woodson’s injury and a 3-4 start, followed by adjustments, dominance, and winning one of the best AFCC games ever.  And yes, the Super Bowl didn’t go so well, but at least it was a good fight given that Pittsburgh was something like a 99-point underdog, and doesn’t diminish the achievements of the rest of the year too much.

Okay, my choices:

1972

1979

1989

2002

2005

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One of the things that first drew me to this site was the excellent historical articles by maryrose.  I figured we could wait a little after they got taken down because of the promise of "reasons to be explained later," but it's been awhile now, so I have to be annoying and ask if anyone knows what happened.  Clearly MR is still part of BTSC.  Maybe he's writing a book?

MR or other staff members: If you feel like explaining, or even just explaining why there's no explanation, please do.

Just a link to a humor column from Deadspin.  The author writes weekly articles about the NFL full of profanity and scatological jokes; some will like that style of writing better than others.  But the thing that amused me so much was the lead-in, dealing with "the stages of fan grief."  Throughout the year, we've been reading posts from Steelers fans in stage 2, and now I'm seeing a lot in stage 3.  They deserve a little (gentle) mockery.

http://deadspin.com/5423289/the-five-stages-of-football-grief--jamboroo-week-14

I don't  buy this idea that one should hope the Steelers lose out, for two different reasons.

First, as has been memorably quoted, one plays to win.  I wonder if some fans are forgetting this sports premise that winning, in and of itself, is the goal.  Even if it doesn't "matter" as far as championships go, the idea is that your team plays to win.  Every game.  Sports fans want the team they support to be winners, not losers.  Consider a choice of two scenarios:

1) It is a point of pride that the Steelers are a team that no one wants to be scheduled against in the last few weeks, because they will ruin the playoff chances of the unfortunate opposition.  When the Steelers host a hated rival like Baltimore, they leave them battered, defeated, and sitting at home in January.

2) It is a point of disappointment  that the Steelers have transformed into one of the worst teams in the NFL.  This is a game that opponents can pencil in as a sure win.

I'll take scenario #1 every time.  It's the reason we cheer for a sports team.

Second, losing breeds losing way more than getting a slightly later draft pick does.  Quality squads build whole teams around trading wisely and picking the best unheralded talent throughout the draft, not just in the first round.  Being confused and dysfunctional hurts a lot worse.  Right now the Steelers are in a state of disarray, with concerns that they simply don't know how to win any more.  Tomlin and company are facing perhaps the biggest hurdle of his coaching tenure so far, and some of us worry that our coach has "lost" the team or that the players have given up on each other.  You know what would build confidence and improve teamwork heading into the off-season?  Fixing things, getting some wins, and getting everyone to believe in the Steelers again.  There is no doubt in my mind that finishing 8-8 or 9-7 would be much better for the future of the franchise than finishing 6-10.  None.

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Just a heads up that the emergence of "Renegade" as a de facto Steelers fight song will apparently be one of the topics of NFL Films Presents this afternoon on ESPN2.

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Inspired by something SteelerBuddha said in the Week 6 thread about how lucky we are to have this team, compared to what fans of teams like the Lions, Rams, Chiefs, etc. go through.

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