SB Nation User Blog: t1mmy10

Silver lining

t1mmy10 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:52:17 -0000

Silver lining

in situations like these, it's nice to something to make you laugh. Enter Patriots....if someone could photoshop the pats mascot being arrested, it would be awesome.

PLAYOFFS!?!

t1mmy10 — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:16:02 -0000

Playoffs!?! You wanna talk about playoffs!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7fjDS0jKiE

Yes, Coach Mora, I’m talking about playoffs and you should be, too. Personally, after a tough loss I like to stew in for about a day then turn my sights towards next week’s game. And despite our 4 game losing streak, we stand a decent chance of still making the playoffs…IF we win out.
He’s the break-down of what must go-down for us to sneak into the playoffs.

Edited to adjust for a few mistakes. (Edits in italics)

Guess I was right the first time, back to the first copy.

These are the tiebreaking rules: http://www.nfl.com/standings/tiebreakingprocedures if you notice any mistakes please tell me and i'll edit the page.

If the playoffs started this week this is what the standings would look like: {conference record}
1) Colts 12-0 {8-0}
2) Chargers 9-3 {7-3}
3) Bengals 9-3 {6-3}
4) Patriots 7-5 {5-4}
5) Broncos 8-4 {6-3}
6) Jaguars 7-5 {6-2}
7) Ravens 6-6 {6-4}
8) Dolphins 6-6 {4-4}
9) Jets 6-6 {5-5}
10) Steelers 6-6 {4-5}

With 4 games remaining, you’re probably wondering how the Steelers are going to jump FOUR teams with our less than adequate conference record. Right now, it’s impossible to catch the Colts & it’s very unlikely we’ll catch the Chargers or Bengals, who would have to lose 3 or 4 games respectively. With 5 teams that are 6-6 or better going for that last spot and only 4 games left, it’s also a safe assumption one of them will end up undefeated. That HAS to be us if we are going to make the playoffs. Fortunately, we play against both the Ravens and Dolphins, so if we beat them we jump them. Even by doing that, it’s no secret we’ll need some help. The losses we will hand the Dolphins and Ravens will only take care of 2 of the 4 teams we need to jump. This is how we can jump the rest of the teams and move up 2 more spots (important points bolded):

Jets: If the New York wins out, we will lose our spot to them because of the “Common games played” tiebreaker. The way we jump the Jets is if they lose a game, which is very possible. There is one other scenario, but I’ll cover it later. Remaining schedule:
@ TB
vs ATL
@ IND
vs CIN
The only thing worth noting is that there is a possibility both the Colts and Bengals will stop caring by the time the Jets play them. Keep your fingers crossed that the 16-0 record is important to Peyton.

Jaguars: Even if the Jaguars lose a game, we will always lose our spot to them because they’ll have a better conference record. Only way we jump the Jags is if they lose 2 games. That outcome has a pretty good chance of happening considering their schedule:
vs MIA
vs IND
@ NE
@ CLE
I seriously doubt Indy will phone-in a rivalry game with 3 weeks left in the season and homefield advantage not yet clinched.

Patriots: Yes, we actually have a chance to jump our old enemies from the north even though they’re currently at the top of their division. If the Patriots lost only one game, they would still win the division because the Pats would have a better division record than the Jets and the Dolphins would be stuck at 9-7 due to their loss to us. But, if the Patriots lose 2 games they lose the division to the Jets and we jump them.
vs CAR
@BUF
vs JAC
@ HOU
Since Jacksonville & New England play each other, that’s a guaranteed loss for one of them. That team will only need to lose once more for us to overtake them.

Broncos: I saved the most complex for last. Obviously, they would have to lose 2 games for us to jump them. But there are a few different scenarios that could happen (this reminds me of a scene in BASEketball).

-always ignore the Jaguars if they are also tied with us along with the Broncos and/or Jets. The Jaguars will keep their rank above us because of their conference record and will have no impact if we can or can't jump the other team in the rankings.

-if the Jets are NOT involved with the tie (aka Jets loss/Jets win east div.), we jump the Broncos because we beat them head to head.

-if the Jets are involved in the tie & the Broncos did NOT lose 2 conference games, we lose our spot to Broncos and Jets. The Broncos would have a better conference record and the Jets would beat us with a better record in commonly played games.

-if they Jets are involved in the tie & the Broncos DID lose 2 conference games, it would go to strength of victory. Strength of victory is the number of wins earned by the teams you’ve beaten, so that wouldn’t be decided until the end of the year. We could end up jumping both the Broncos & Jets, only one of those teams, or neither. Of course, it could always come down to the 2 man sack races on consecutive Saturdays until a winner is declared...

Denver’s remaining schedule:
@IND
vs OAK
@PHI
vs KC
Who says we can’t be the only team to lose to both the Chiefs and the Raiders this year?

It is also important to emphasis that we must overcome either the Broncos or Jaguars as one of our 2 teams. We won’t be able to jump both the Patriots & Jets because someone will win the AFC East division and be ranked above us.

To make the playoffs, we need to go undefeated AND have any 2 of the bolded situations above happen. It’s worth mentioning that 10-6 also tends to be the cutoff for the playoffs in the NFL. With the 8 division setup over the past 7 years, only 4 teams have not made the playoffs when going 10-6 or better. There also has only been 2 situations were a team had to have better than a 10-6 record to make the playoffs. So if we just worry about ourselves, take care of our stuff, and win out; odds are everything else will fall into place. I’m banking on Jacksonville & New York coming through for us…Buuut it probably wouldn’t hurt to breakout that 4 leaf clover right about now, either.

Frustrated

t1mmy10 — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:57:37 -0000

I’m sure you feel the same way. I walked out of a Steelers bar in Philly in disbelief that we lost to the 3-8 Oakland Raiders lead by Bruce Gradkowski and I’m still stunned. I can’t believe that we lost 4 straight games…that the chiefs get their THIRD win of the year over us 2 weeks ago…that our once dependable Steel Curtain defense failed us once again by letting the worst offense in the league (last in points/gm) put together two 80+ yard touchdown drives with little more than seven minutes left in the game. Oh and by the way, before this week the Raiders had the worst passing offense in the league, last in both yards/gm and passing td/gm. It’s frustrating that I took time out of my day that could’ve been spent studying (I’m in Med school) to go to a steelers bar because the game wasn’t on TV in Philly (and that I took time to write this crappy fanpost to vent). Frustrating that the odds of a West coast team winning a 1 PM game on the east coast were probably ridiculously low start. Frustrating that the steelers are now a mediocre 6-6 in the middle of the pack for the wildcard race. That we have a crappy conference record so we’re hurting in the tiebreaker department. It only rubs salt in the wound knowing that the steelers were expected to win the division this year. I personally would like to find someone to shoulder this blame for this recent slide, because the last time I felt this way was when then steelers went 6-10 in 2003.

Now, one could put the blame on Gay’s frequent missteps, Mundy’s helmet to helmet contacts on both Gay and then against the Raider WR for a penalty. Possibly Ike Taylor with his half hearted attempt to push out Louis Murphy on his long TD reception or his decision not to go for the INT instead of knocking down the ball on the Raiders last drive allowing Murphy a 17 yard reception. And of course there was Ben’s interception on a horrible decision in the redzone or Burnett’s dropped interception. If ANY of those happen a little differently, the Steelers are probably 7-5 and in decent position in the playoff race. But I personally put the blame a little higher up the ladder. This one falls squarely on Tomlin & LeBeau.

I realize this is probably a very unpopular stance to have on BTSC. I would probably get more agreement if I creatively come up with a way to point the finger at Arians. LeBeau reminds me of a grandfather, but is a devious defensive genius. Meanwhile, Tomlin has endured us with his insight observations/comments called “Tomlinisms” and giving us our record setting 6th super bowl. But this loss represents a bigger problem & not just due to a couple bad plays. Let’s start with LeBeau. His defensive strategy was atrocious on the last drive. He constantly rushed only 4 players. If a 5th was brought (maybe once or twice) it was in a delayed blitz fashion. Our secondary was being embarrassed the entire 4th quarter and hoping that we get a coverage sack was a foolish strategy. From the days when we used to have horrible secondaries, any Steelers fan knows that the solution to a poorly playing secondary is to bring more pressure & faster. Sack the QB before he has any opportunity to look downfield and find that open WR. The one time LeBeau did bring some pressure was when they had gotten inside our redzone, but he brings IKE TAYLOR on a corner blitz. It was a double corner blitz but again only 4 people were trying to pressuring the quarterback permitting the Oakland wideouts enough time to get open once again for the game winning TD. Mr. LeBeau, I have the utmost respect for you and think you’re a defensive mastermind. I’m sure you have forgotten far more about defensive strategy than I’ll ever know. But why did you bring your best defensive back in a 4 man blitz when we have a depleted secondary due to injuries and a 4 man blitz hadn’t worked once this quarter? Not smart, not smart at all.

As for Tomlin, I think he’s a great head coach. He seems very intelligent and seems to say and do a lot of the right things. But it drove me insane watching him stand stoically on the sidelines for 99% of the game while his team failed to put away the underdog. This entire game, our team didn’t seem fired up. They didn’t seem to want it. Remember Gradkowski’s 10 yard run for a first down that was called back because of holding? At the end of the play, Taylor just pushes Gradkowski out of bounds and he would’ve had the first down. Gradkowski never tried to slide and wasn’t just already out of bounds when Taylor got to him. Do you think if the Steelers were fired up for the game, that Taylor just pushes Gradkowski out of bounds or do you think he lights him up there? You motivate your players and get them fired up in football and Tomlin didn’t seem to do it for this game or against the Chiefs. If you can’t get your team fired up to play against a 3-8 team at home and end a 3 game losing streak to save your season then when will you get your team fired up? Tomlin seemed to get more excited during games last year and the results of those games speak for themselves. Haley and Pendergast had their team firing on all cylinders against us because they were still pissed about the super bowl loss and that’s one of the best games the Chiefs have played all year. I wonder what would’ve happen if Tomlin would’ve laid into the defense on the sidelines after they let up the big play for the Raiders second TD and told them he expects more even without Troy. Maybe they would’ve stopping the Raiders on the next drive. The players have said they enjoy that Tomlin doesn’t yell and scream all the time because it treats them like adults. I agree that’s good to have on the professional level for the most part, but on occasion it’s good if you reprimand players. This isn’t the work place where you need people to only think with their minds. This is a sport where intense physical action is needed along with that thinking. Maybe Tomlin’s take that we won the super bowl last year and it doesn’t mean anything this year was the wrong mind set to have. Teams are elevating their play against us. We’re the game EVERY team circles on their schedule as a huge game. Maybe saying it’s going to be even harder to win because we won last year would’ve been the right mind set instead of just wiping the slate clean.

Let’s get this straight, I’m not calling for a new head coach or LeBeau to be replaced. I think they’re great and we won’t find a better replacement. But Tomlin calls for accountability and I’m simply holding him and LeBeau accountable for not getting their jobs done. The two most important jobs coaches have are putting their best players in the best possible positions to make plays and the second is motivating those players to get the best out of them. I think LeBeau isn’t putting his players in the best positions and Tomlin isn’t motivating the players. They need to adjust what they’re doing and come back working harder. We can still save this season. We have a very winnable schedule left and should be getting Polamalu back soon. And since this 8 division setup was implemented in 2002, only 4 teams have been 10-6 or better and not made the playoffs. But I really think that change has to come from Tomlin if we are to see a change in the players because we certainly won’t have to worry about having a target on our backs next year if there isn’t any improvement. What do you think?

The Good, the Bad, & a couple observations

t1mmy10 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:18:34 -0000

A few observations about the Chargers games, some notes about the upcoming game, and a couple unique takes from going-ons from around the league.

-This has been beaten to death, but you have to give credit to the offensive line. They did a great job in opening up holes for the running game. They may very well have turned a corner since last year. Even when Mendenhall didn’t have huge holes to run through he looked good. He was making cuts to find open spots and getting a fair amount of yards after the first hit.
Arians also did a great job. I like the use of the 2 trick plays because it helps to keep the defense honest. Not to mention a 66.7% 3rd down conversion rate is pretty good.
-Ben continued to look good like a HOFer. Holmes is definitely getting a lot of the defense’s attention which is helping to get Miller and Ward open down field.
-It was good to see Reed nail the long field goal. His face on the sidelines told the story of how badly he needed to make a long-distant clutch field goal.
-On the defensive end of things, our run defense was great (16 yards for the whole game is insane) & Harrison did a good job pass-rushing getting 2 sacks and forcing a fumble to end the game.

Gold stars for: Mendenhall, the entire offensive line, Arians, Roethlisberger, and the run defense.

-Logan’s fumble was bad and it helped to open the flood gates in the Chargers attempt of a comeback. The whistle certainly should’ve been blown before he was stripped of the ball, but regardless you cannot let something like that happen at that juncture in the game. Football is often about will power and you can’t depend on the refs to always make the "right" call.
-Our 4th quarter pass defense wasn’t looking good….again. Granted with one of the 3 TD’s they let up San Diego had a shortened field, but they only managed to stop the Chargers 2 out of 5 drives. And one of those was with 46 seconds left, no time outs, and the chargers were down by 2 scores. I have a feeling that getting Troy back will help remedy the situation. Not only is he the MVP of our defense, but also we only have 5 "good" DB’s without him. Not a lot of depth if we want to use a dime package, prevent, or sub a person out if they’re tired. It makes me nervous incase another DB gets injured.

Running an extra lap in practice: Logan, our 4th quarter defense

Things to take with a grain of salt:
-With Logan’s 2nd fumble (which happens to be the same number of times Burnett fumbled in preseason) and his lack of touchdowns so far, some people are getting impatient and calling for Burnett to get another shot. But let’s look a few stats. Burnett has fumbled 2 times out of his 4 returns in preseason. Logan has fumbled twice out of his TWENTY-SIX returns…not counting preseason. Not too bad. Now for the TD’s. In 2008 there were 2 KR/PR who had 3 td’s for the entire season. 2007, there were 3 that had 3 td’s and one with 6 td’s (devin hester). 2006, 1 with 3 td’s and Hester with 5. 2005, no one had 3 td’s or more. 2004, 1 had 4 td’s and one had 3 td’s. So it’s safe to say, if Logan makes an avg of 1 TD per 5 games he’ll easily be one of the best returners in the league this year. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened this week since it seems Detroit has one of the worst kick and punt coverage teams in the league right now.
The offensive line has looked pretty good this entire year with pass protection and we have done decently well in the running game against the Bengals and Bears. It also seems that the Titans just flat out have a great run defense this year (no running back has had more than 46 yards against them so far). But I wouldn’t be too quick to expect this from our running game every week. The Chargers have a pretty atrocious run defense, especially since they’re missing their usual NT. They currently rank 28th in the nfl in rushing defense and the worst yds/carry any running back had against them was the Raiders’ McFadden with 4.0.

-I really hope Kemoeatu is okay. He’ll probably play since he had a full practice on Friday and is listed as probable. But he didn’t look good at all when he came back into the game after his injury and it would really hurt us if he has some long term effects. Speaking of injuries, Polamalu will probably be back week 6. I’m VERY happy to see we get him back before the Vikings, barring a setback.

Looking forward to next week:
-the lions pass defense has looked kinda rough recently. Plus, they’re missing a fair number of players on defense (3 outta their 4 starting dline) and I’m hoping the Steelers can capitalize on that.
-I’m disappointed that Stafford probably won’t be playing this week. His team has a fair number of sacks and interceptions with him at QB. The veteran Qb, regardless how past his peak he is, will probably make less mistakes than his rookie counterpart.
-the lions lean on Kevin Smith for a lot of their offensive production. The key to winning will definitely evolve around stopping him. Ike Taylor will face another challenge this week playing across from Calvin Johnson.

Some thoughts from around the league:
-Favre is playing great right now. Kinda reminds you of last year, right? A lot of the experts out there have been saying Childress is a genius for bringing him outta retirement. But it was never a question if Favre would get back to playing well. I’m curious what he’s going to do in December when the games seem to matter a little more, when that weather gets cold, and (assuming they make the playoffs) in the playoffs when every play is magnified. Remembering last year, Favre fell apart after about week 12 (their 11th game). People seemed to blame it on his injury and although I’m not his trainer, I’m betting his injury probably happened due to his age and lack of offseason conditioning. This offseason he got a year older, came back even more out of shape, and had major offseason surgery. I wonder when he’ll start to struggle this year.

-High draft picks are commodities that are not to be wasted. The reason why some teams seem to be perpetually bad while others are always good often has a lot to do with who the team spends their draft picks on. This preseason, there has been a lot of criticism about some of the steelers draft picks from the 2008 class (warranted or unwarranted). But you have to be thankful the Steelers usually manage to use their high draft picks on people who buy into their team concept and don’t create serious problems on or off the field (at least while they’re with the steelers). Yes, sometimes it takes a player a little longer to pan out than others and some are busts. But we don’t run into situations where the guy we drafted sits out for most of training camp, then shows up over weight and breaks his foot…probably because he’s overweight. Or a guy who sits out 4 games of the regular season because he wants to be paid more than a player drafted higher and playing the same position…because he "deserves" it. It’s just one more example of how the steeler’s organization is the best run in football.

I think i'm in love

t1mmy10 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:26:57 -0000

I think i'm in love

NFLtouchdown did a break down of what type of girl team team would be...if it was a girl. It's pretty funny.

breakdown of teams offseason improvement or not

t1mmy10 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:44:56 -0000

I try hard to follow teams in the offseason to see if they make improvements or if they lose key players. But the offseason is long, there are great backups waiting in the wings that only local fans sometimes know about, and often players like offensive linemen will slip threw the crack in terms of media attention. i've found websites that grade free agents and say where they end up, but does anyone know of any free websites out there that grade teams on whether things like the running attack, passing attack, offensive line, and defensive will improve or probably get worse from last year? it would be a major help in ranking players/teams in terms of projected fantasy output. i'm not interested in solely rankings in fantasy terms because those are very easy to find and often some of the "experts" are a little too opinionated and subjective about where players will end up. or are just following the hot trends. i think this would prove a more objective ranking and let me make some of my own calls. Thanks.

54th Player

t1mmy10 — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:40:04 -0000

With training camp set to begin in a couple of days, I figured I’d give predicting the 53 man roster a try even though any required cuts are a month away. And I’m curious what you think about my predictions.

One thing is for certain, it will be difficult to make the Steelers roster out of training camp. Due to FA, retirement, or making cuts, we lost only 8 players from last year‘s team and most of those were backups: Nate Washington (#3 WR), Gary Russell (short yardage RB & KR), Byron Leftwich (#2 QB), Bryant McFadden (starting #2 CB), Anthony Smith (backup safety), Fernando Bryant (backup CB, dressed in 2 games), Larry Foote (starting ILB), and Orpheus Roye (backup DE, dressed in 6 games). I’m not counting players that were only temporary replacements for injured players still on our team aka Mitch Berger & Jared Retkofsky or players that didn‘t play since the beginning of last season due to injuries aka Marvel Smith & Kendall Simmons. With a lot of returning players, competition will be tough.

Listed below is the steelers current 80 man roster & the minimum number of players for each position that I think the Steelers would like to have (and don‘t forget some players may fulfill 2 different roles). I listed those I think are an easy lock for making the team (italics), those I think will make the team, and those I don’t think will make the team. For players that I feel even have a realistic chance (even if it’s a small chance) of being cut, I listed what I believe they’d have to do to make the team (italics again) and possibly a little background info.

QB: (3) Ben Roethlisberger    Cut: Mike Reilly-undrafted rookie. needs Batch shows his age
        Charlie Batch
        Dennis Dixon

RB: (4) Willie Parker
        Rashard Mendenhall
        Mewelde Moore
        Frank Summers(RB/FB)-2009 5th rd draft pick. equivilant short yardage back to Mendenhall or FB
        Stefan Logan(RB/KR)-2008 CFL starter. sproles-esque RB or KR
               Cut: Justin Vincent-practice squad member past 2 years
                       Isaac Redman-undrafted rookie
               To make team: bring something special to a deep backfield

FB: (1) Sean McHugh(FB/TE)-the best FB or top 3 TE
Cut: Carey Davis. good short yardage back, best FB, or special teams contributor

WR: (5) Hines Ward
        Santonio Holmes
        Limas Sweed
        Mike Wallace(WR/KR)
        Shaun McDonald-played for Lions in 2008. top 5 WR
             Cut: Dallas Baker-dressed in 8 games & had only 1 reception. ended season on practice squad
                       Martin Nance-2008 practice squad member
                       Brandon Williams(WR/KR)-cut from Rams 2008 preseason, dressed for 10 games in 2007
                       Steven Black-undrafted rookie
                       Tyler Grisham-undrafted rookie
               To make team: top 5 WR

TE: (3) Heath Miller Cut: David Johnson(TE/FB)-2009 7th rd draft pick. top 3 TE or best FB
Matt Speath-top 3 TE Dezmond Sherrod-2008 practice squad member. top 3 TE

C: (2) Justin Hartwig                    Cut: Doug Legursky-2008 practice squad member. top 2 C/par with Stapleton
     A.Q. Shipley-2009 7th rd draft pick. comparable to Stapleton

G: (4) Chris Kemoeatu                Cut: Jeremy Parquet(G/T)-on roster for 14 games in 2008, dressing for 4. top 4 G
    Darnell Stapleton(G/C)
    Kraig Urbik

T: (4) Max Starks
    Willie Colon
    Trai Essex(T/G)-2008 active roster member, dressing for 7 games. top 4 Tackle
    Tony Hills-2008 active roster member, dressing for no games. top 4 Tackle
             Cut: Jason Capizzi-2008 Rams practice squad member, signed to steelers roster for last 4 games.
                   Ramon Foster-undrafted rookie
             To make team: top 4 tackle

K: (1) Jeff Reed                            Cut: Piotr Czech(K/P)-2008 preseason member of Ravens. injury
P: (1) Daniel Sepulveda
LS:(1) Greg Warren
NT:(2) Casey Hampton
      Chris Hoke
              Cut: Scott Paxson-2008 practice squad member, promoted to roster for 8 games, dressing for 1 game
              To make team: top 2 NT or Hoke shows his age

DE:(4) Aaron Smith                      Cut: Nick Eason
      Brett Keisel                                        Jordan Reffett-2008 practice squad member
      Evander Hood                                  Ra'Shon Harris(DE/NT)-2009 6th rd draft pick
      Travis Kirschke-top 4 DE               Steve McLendon-undrafted rookie
                                                          To make team: better backup than Kirschke or Kirschke starts to show his age

ILB:(4) James Farrior
       Lawrence Timmons
       Keyaron Fox-quality backup LB or special teams contributor
              Cut: Andy Schantz-undrafted rookie
                      Tom Korte-undrafted rookie
      To make team: quality backup LB or special teams contributor

OLB:(4) James Harrison
         LaMarr Woodley
         Bruce Davis-2008 active roster member, dressing in 5 games. quality backup LB or special teams contributor
         Patrick Bailey-quality backup LB or special teams contributor
         Andre Frazier-quality backup LB or special teams contributor
         Donovan Woods-2008 practice squad member. Promoted to active roster for 7 games, dressing for 5 of those. quality backup LB or special teams contributor
               Cut: Arnold Harrison-2 torn ACL’s in 2 calendar years, one was during preseason last year & was cut after preseason. quality backup LB or special teams contributor

CB:(5) Ike Taylor
      William Gay
      Deshea Townsend-top 5 CB or better safety than Carter
      Keiwan Ratliff-2008 Colts CB. top 5 CB or top 3 safety
      Anthony Madison-top 5 CB or special teams contributor
      Keenan Lewis-2009 3rd draft pick. top 5 CB or special teams contributor
             Cut: Roy Lewis-2008 practice squad member. promoted to active roster for 2 games, dressing for 1 game.

S:(4) Troy Polamalu                     Cut: Derrick Richardson-undrafted rookie. top 4 safety or special teams contributor
    Ryan Clark
    Tyrone Carter-better safety than Townsend/Ratliff
    Ryan Mundy-2008 practice squad member. legit backup safety or special teams contributor

KR/PR:(2) Joe Burnett(CB/KR)-2009 5th rd draft pick. top 5 CB or return man

If you add up the number of players that I have making the team, its 54. I really struggled when trying to decide who would be last person cut. There is a good chance this could come down between a backup center & one of the d-backs. I’m sure there are a lot of fans out there rooting for Shipley (I’m one of them), but the stats speak against him. In the past few years, only 1 or 2 players that were drafted in the 6th rd or later or signed as undrafted rookies made the 53 man roster out of training camp each season. It’s more common for them make their way onto the active roster during the regular season. Obviously, Legursky’s or Shipley’s best bet to make the team would show themselves as a better backup center than Stapleton. If either is able to achieve that, they’ll certainly have a roster spot come September. But what if Legursky or Shipley can’t? Ideally, it’d be better to carry a backup center beyond Stapleton because its risky when your only backup for a key position is another starter at another key position…and they both play at the same time.

On the other hand, we really need a good backup safety. Ryan Clark has never been able to play an entire season without getting injured (why I think the steelers shouldn’t invest top dollar in him if they extend his contract) and Polamalu has only been injury free 3 of his 5 seasons as a starter. In the past few years, anytime one of the safeties was out they’d put Tyrone Carter in and he‘s been a decent backup…but he hasn’t been great and since he‘ll be 33 this season I don’t expect him to get any better. There is up and coming Mundy and reports say he has potential. Realistically, however, he doesn’t have a good chance of be any higher than a #4 safety at the end of training camp since he was only good enough to play on the practice squad last year. So for Carter to be cut, I think either Townsend or Ratliff will have to prove themselves better than Carter at safety.

I figure there are also 2 other situations that would free up a spot for both Carter and a backup center. 1) one of players who may only make the team as a punt/kick returner isn’t a good enough punt/kick returner (ex. Burnett or Logan). This would free up a spot because then someone wouldn’t be taking their spot on the roster at their position (ex. If our FB from last year was cut, we’d take another FB to fill the spot). 2) Townsend or Ratliff isn’t good enough to replace Carter and at the same time one of the CB’s isn’t good enough to make the team as either a CB or special teams player (such as Ratliff, Townsend, or Madison). We wouldn’t need to take another CB to fill the spot because we would still have 5 CB’s on the roster.

So I’d like your opinion on who going to be the “54th player.” I’m also interested in your take on my predictions for the rest of the roster. Remember though, say for instance that you disagree with my prediction that Hills will make the roster instead of Capizzi, that wouldn’t be the 54th player because Capizzi would replace Hills on the roster and another player would still have to be cut. My final take? Carter will be cut. I think Townsend will outperform him and allow Ratliff to be the #3 CB, while Burnett and Logan both bring enough to the team to earn themselves roster spots.

Poll

Who do you think will be the "54th" player and be the last person to be cut?

the backup center (Shipley/Legursky)

19 votes

Carter

21 votes

one of the CB’s (Townsend/Ratliff/or Madison)

15 votes

one of the kick returners (Logan or Burnett)

38 votes

someone else I have making the roster

14 votes

107 votes | Poll has closed

We saw this being kicked around Cblog, so it got us to thinking. If you are going to the game, get...

t1mmy10 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:30:03 -0000

We saw this being kicked around Cblog, so it got us to thinking.
If you are going to the game, get a Fleury chant going....MAF has the world on his shoulders tonight. And maybe, just maybe he'll feel the power.

thepensblog

This is from Yinz Luv 'Da Guins. There's definitely been some pessimism on the boards because of...

t1mmy10 — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:12:18 -0000

This is from Yinz Luv 'Da Guins. There's definitely been some pessimism on the boards because of the beating we received on Saturday. Hopefully the sweet rap helps people believe the Pens can turn this around. Heads up people, the series isn't over yet.

Bill Guerin's brother, John, a hero.

t1mmy10 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:45:09 -0000

Bill Guerin's brother, John, a hero.

Apparently John Guerin stopped some joker from trying to steal season tickets from a women outside of Mellon Arena. Got this from thepensblog.com