Friday, March 16, 2007

2007 NFL Draft Preview: Opening Salvo

Our preference for the Steelers, of course, would be one of the guys who will be gone by the 15th pick of the first round, so let’s not even discuss any of the absolute sure-fire top 10 picks. And, unless we’re mistaken (always a distinct possibility), the following players we like will be gone by pick No. 15:

  • Levi Brown, OT, Penn State
  • Alan Branch, DT, Michigan
  • Amobi Okoye, DT, Louisville
  • Leon Hall, CB, Michigan
  • Jamaal Anderson, DE, Arkansas
  • Gaines Adams. DE, Clemson

If ANY of these guys is available, take him. They’ll be gone, though.

Realistically, then, who may be available for the Steelers to draft in the first round? … and at a position that makes sense (which eliminates QB, RB, FB, C*, TE, WR**).

First-round prospects who may be available (realistically) to the Steelers:

Since Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls like to build teams from the inside out (OL and DL), let’s look first at prospects for the Offensive Line:

  • Justin Blalock, G, Texas – Blalock may be the most highly touted guard to come out of college since Alan Faneca. He should be available at 1.15, but the Steelers’s signing of Sean Mahan muddies this picture, along with the contract status of both Kendall Simmons and Alan Faneca. Also, does Chris Keomatu fit in this picture as a potential starter? Uh, we dunno. So … Blalock is a definite maybe, although conventional wisdom says you don't take a guard this high. Clear enough?
Elsewhere on the offensive line, at tackle, there’s a big dropoff after Levi Brown, so let’s just move on to look at other first-round candidates, specifically for the Defensive Front Seven
  • Paul Posluszny, LB, Penn State – Jack Ham calls him “the best linebacker ever to play at Penn State.” High praise, indeed, but does he need to add weight? Can he cover downfield? Will he be an effective pass rusher in the NFL? Will he be able to shed blocks? Still, this could be the guy, but so could Adam Carriker or Jarvis Moss …
  • Adam Carriker, DE, NebraskaDescribed as “an Aaron Smith clone,” this guy may well be gone by the Steelers’ turn at No. 15.
  • Jarvis Moss, DE/LB, Florida – He has all the measurables. A fast, rangy, sideline-to-sideline end/linebacker who has shown impact as a pass-rusher. Really, this could be the guy, but he may be gone, too, so you may have to take a look at, say, the secondary, where you can never have enough ballhawks who can cover and play tough in run support. Then there's also ...
  • Anthony Spencer, DE/LB, Purdue - At 6'3, 266, Spencer is often compared to Adalius Thomas, which is not a bad thing at all. At Purdue, he was a finalist for the 2006 Ted Hendricks Award as the top collegiate defensive end. He projects as an outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme in the NFL. He's a phenomenal physical specimen, but can he cover? Probably. He reminds us of a slightly smaller Levon Kirkland. Adalius Thomas? Levon Kirkland? Definitely worth considering. By the way, for the Boilermakers last year, Spencer ranked second in the nation with 26½ stops behind the line of scrimmage, (including 10½ sacks). He also caused five fumbles and recovered another while batting away six passes and blocking one kick. Mayhem personified.

Safety First

In the Secondary***, the top candidates who may realistically be available to the Steelers are:

  • Reggie Nelson, S, Florida – Rangy, fast and very, very intriguing. Selecting this guy, perhaps the top-rated safety, at Pick No. 15 would trigger an entirely new philosophical discussion, which we will get to in a later post. Suffice to say for now the argument has merits. Strong merits. Again, we’ll give this topic a closer look in a few days.
  • Aaron Ross, CB, Texas – He won the Thorpe Award as college football’s top defensive back. If he’s available, he’s worth considering. You can never too many good corners, and the Steelers today don't have enough, let alone too many.
  • Michael Griffin, S, Texas – Ross’s teammate also is worth a close look, definitely, and he may be even better than Ross. At this point, he probably is.
  • Darrelle Reavis, CB, Pitt – Worth a look, but we have reservations. Let’s face it, Pitt’s quality of opponents (weak schedule) works against him. Still, worth a look.
  • Chris Houston, CB, Arkansas – Smallish, but blazing fast (4.32 speed). Anybody remember Harvey Clayton? He was smallish and could run, but he couldn’t cover.

The Situation Right Now: Just a hunch, but we believe the Steelers are looking closely at three players: Moss, Posluszny and Carriker, and not necessarily in that order. You could make a strong case for any of them, as well as for Anthony Spencer, who is maybe the most intriguing prospect of the four.

Personally speaking, yeah, Joey Porter's Pit Bulls wouldn’t necessarily disagree with any of them … But if Reggie Nelson is available … well, put it this way: Can you say, “Ed Reed”?

Still, the cap and depth chart scream, "Linebacker."

More on this later.

*C – There’s a head-scratching logjam at this position with Mahan, Simmons, Okobi and Phillip; it’s a mystery and makes no sense at this point.

**WR – Too many other holes to fill. After Calvin Johnson, too many question marks about the other receivers in this draft. Plus, after Matt Millen, GMs who take first-round wideouts in consecutive years will be few and far between.

*** This entire topic (the Secondary) will be covered in more detail in a later post. Be forewarned: Cap implications will be involved.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Today's Birthday: Ol' Hickory

For what it's worth ...

It's the birthday of the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, born in 1767.

Joey Porter's Pit Bulls have always been fascinated by this character, arguably a pivotal figure in American history as a rough-and-tumble president, borderline-illiterate, swashbuckling miltary leader, electoral reformist, and developer/advocate of a form of "Jacksononian Populism" still discussed today. In fact, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., decorated U.S. Marine veteran, author and former Republican Secretary of the U.S. Navy under President Ronald Reagan, cited Jackson in his response to this year's State of the Union Address:

"In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy ­ that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today."

The Writer's Almanac makes the point that, until Jackson, all U.S. presidents had come from distinguished or aristocratic families along the East Coast. Jackson, on the other hand, was born into poverty in the backwoods "frontier," and he received almost no formal education.

As noted, "The Battle of New Orleans turned him into a national hero, and when he ran for president in 1828, he portrayed himself as a champion of the common man and appealed to working-class voters, especially frontiersmen who were settling in the West. The election drew more than three times as many voters to the polls as the previous election, and Jackson won in a landslide."

Jackson opened the White House during his inauguration "to the people," who by news accounts of the time, numbered 20,000 drunks who turned the occasion into utter chaos.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

D-Day for the Penguins?

Fatcat Boss BIG ED RENDELL is strong-arming supposedly meeting in last-ditch negotiations with Mario Lemieux, Ron Burkle and other executives of the Pittsburgh Penguins today in Philadelphia (?!).

Why is it that Boss Rendell LOOKS like a crook cigar-chomping, old-style machine politician? He is? Gee, what a surprise … who would’ve guessed?

The incompetence of our civil servants shady, blundering election-stealing smoky backroom-dealing elected officials is mind-boggling.

Frankly, we’re not surprised, but let’s hope it’s not too late to save the Penguins.

Our blogging friends over at The Dock Ellis Experience today have posted a tremednously passionate column.

Check it out.

They list phone numbers for the whole crooked cockeyed crew (Rendell, Onorato, Ravenstahl, etc.), while imploring all of us to make some noise.

Hey, at this point, it couldn’t hurt.

*Photo/Illustration credit: Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette


Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Say it ain't so!


The Las Vegas Penguins does NOT have a ring to it.

Viva Las Vegas

(words & music by doc pomus and mort shuman)

[sung by Elvis Presley; lip-synched by Mario Lemieux and Ron Buerkle]

Bright-light city gonna set my soul,
Gonna set my soul on fire.
Got a whole lot of money that’s ready to burn,
So get those stakes up higher

How I wish that there were more
Than the twenty-four hours in the day
‘cause even if there were forty more
I wouldn’t sleep a minute away

Oh, there’s black jack and poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on every deal
All you need’s a strong heart and a nerve of steel
Viva las vegas, viva las vegas





From Mondesi's House

Mondesi's House does an excellent job describing 79 reasons why it's hard to be a Pirate fan, which was featured as the Pirates' 2007 season preview on Deadspin. Congrats.

Corners, anyone?

Cal’s Pro Day, courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle: Cornerback Daymeion Hughes, whom many have projected as a mid-first round pick (hint, hint), says he tried to make up for a disappointing 40 run at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.

“At last month's NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Hughes, who said he was slowed by a back injury, ran a 4.65, and most draft experts deemed his stock to have taken a more precipitous fall than any of the other 300 potential picks at the event.”

Also, according to the Chronicle:

“Most of the 30-plus professional scouts who attended Tuesday's athletic meat market at Memorial Stadium clocked Hughes at 4.56-seconds, but he said one scout told him that he ran a 4.47.

"If you play with a stopwatch and start it and stop it as fast as you can, it's like a tenth of a second," Hughes said. "That's the difference in a 4.4 and a 4.5, and I don't see how that plays a very big deal in your football ability."

“No one is questioning Hughes' ability or his production. Before he was injured at the Senior Bowl, he put on one of the game's most impressive days of practice, starting to refute the perception that he'll have to play for a Cover-2 team in the NFL.

"We all care about the measureables," one NFL scout said, "but I'd gladly have him on my team if he falls to us."

Hmmm. Probably not a pick for the Steelers – they have more glaring needs – but, still, you can never have too many cornerbacks.

Hughes isn'even the highest-rated corner this year, but if the Steelers trade down, they could probably pick up Hughes late in the first round or early in the second ("Quick, get Chicago on the speed dial!"), and address filling another need with the extra pick.

Nah, the Steelers have more glaring needs.

Don’t they?

Well, don’t they??

After all, it’s not like Ike Taylor was benched late last year or anything, or like DeShea Townsend is getting old, or Ricardo Colclough is a bust or anything, right?

Right???

Over at Stillers.com, though, CK Stiller (Feb. 22 entry) makes a compelling case against drafting a cornerback in a high round this year, and he’s probably right. We’re confident Ike will be fine, and we don’t want to tie up too much cap money against one position. The O-Line (Levi Brown?) and defensive front seven (Jarvis Moss? Paul Psluszny?) need to be upgraded this year, and it’s not like teams in the NFL pass very much or anything, right? Oh.

Punt!

“Now on the clock in the 2007 NFL draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers. And, with their sixth-round pick in the 2007 NFL draft, the Steelers select Andy Lee, punter, University of Pittsburgh and San Francisco 49ers.”

The Steelers essentially are giving the 49ers their sixth-round pick in April’s draft for the rights to sign Andy Lee, the Niners’ punter of the last three seasons.

The Steelers must have figured they’d take a young guy (Lee is only 24) with NFL experience (three years already) rather than take a chance on an unknown commodity or, worse, the known commodity that is the Steelers’ incumbent punter, 37-year-old Chris Gardocki, whose performance last year was abysmal.

Is Lee really an improvement, though? Almost certainly, and nearly anybody would be. How much of an improvement, though? Hard to say, but don’t expect too much.

Lee’s gross average per kick was significantly better: nearly three yards better than Gardocki’s (44.1 vs. 41.3) – but their net average, respectively, was about the same (36.8 vs. 36.7). We have no idea about Lee’s hang time.

Money? Terms of the Steelers’ offer to Lee have yet to be made public. The money is probably close to what Gardocki was to make in 2007 – about $1 million a year – but presumably with a longer contract, say, three years instead of one.

In trying to wrap our arms around this development … and let’s face it, the Steelers’ punting game was a serious sore spot last year … here’s’ some data n’ datta, facts and thoughts:

  • The 49ers had tendered Lee a one-year, $850,000 qualifying offer. Because he’s a restricted free agent, any NFL team could better that offer and, if accepted, the 49ers would receive that team’s 6th-round draft pick in April.
  • That’s because the 49ers used a sixth-round choice to draft Lee in 2003.
  • Under NFL rules, the 49ers have until Tuesday to match the Steeler’s offer or waive that right and receive a sixth-round draft choice, which is what they used to draft Lee in 2003.
  • The 40ers will waive their rights to Lee.
  • The Steelers will give up a sixth-round draft pick and use Lee as their new punter.
  • Still, Lee’s performance last year, in terms of net average, was only nominally better than Gardocki’s:
    • Lee averaged 44.8 yards a punt last season; 36.8 net.
    • Gardocki averaged 41.3 gross; 36.7 net.

Then there’s this bullshit statement from Lee’s agent, Eddie Edwards, who was quoted in today’s edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"In my estimation, he punted in the most difficult stadium in the NFL," said Edwards, who has a Pittsburgh office. "In (San Francisco’s) Monster Park, the wind is unreal. Look at his stats: He was seventh overall in the NFL [in gross average]. You put him in a stadium with a neutral weather pattern, he could have been tops."

Gotta call bullshit on that statement. After all, since when does Heinz Field have a neutral weather pattern??!!!

Lee will be punting at Heinz Field, not Heinz Hall.

Ask Josh Miller, Jeff Reed, Tommy Maddox, Ben Roethlisberger and the thousands of season ticket holders in the 600 level whether Heinz Field has a “neutral weather pattern” … or if it has bitter, swirling winds, especially in November, December and January.

Speaking of which, isn’t it fair to speculate that Lee also benefited from playing six games a season on the road in the relatively benign conditions of the NFC West? … where San Francisco’s opponents include the Arizona Cardinals (paradise), the Seattle Seahawks (generally mild weather) and the St. Louis Rams (dome stadium). By contrast, the Steelers’ opponents in the wintry AFC North include the Cleveland Browns (hell), Cincinnati Bengals (hell) and Baltimore Ravens (hell).

Granted, Lee has experience punting at Heinz Field during his days at Pitt, and his experience punting in San Francisco’s wind should not be totally discounted.

Still. Are the Steelers really making an improvement, especially when you factor in money and the forfeiture of a sixth-round draft choice? Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round. We’ll see.

There’s one other connection for Lee in Pittsburgh, and that is new special teams coach Bob Ligashesky, who coached Lee when Ligashesky was the special teams coach at Pitt. Clearly, the Steelers wouldn’t have signed Lee without Ligashesky’s endorsement. Let’s hope he knows what he’s talking about, but we have a feeling he’s a goofball.

Finally, there’s another bullshit statement from Lee’s agent, again courtesy of the Post-Gazette, but what else do you expect from agents?

“Edwards said he does not know if the 49ers will match the offer and that Lee was not unhappy in San Francisco other than not being able to reach a long-term contract before he became a restricted free agent March 2. The 49ers have changed special teams coaches this year.

"San Francisco is not displeased with his performance. It was based upon the uncertainty with a new guy (a new special teams coach) coming in and how he fit in with the system."

Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls gotta call bullshit on that one, too: “How he’ll fit in with the system”???!! Hey. He’s a friggin’ punter. Get rid of the ball, don’t let it get blocked, get good hang time, punt toward the sidelines or pin it inside the 20, and give your gunners a chance to down the ball or make a tackle.

It’s not rocket science. It only seems that way to the likes of Bob Ligashesky.

Footnotes:

Yikes! Reportage in the Bay Area is that the Steelers offer to Lee is six years, $7.1 million (an average of about $1.183 million per year).

Fan Forum in the San Jose Mercury News: Keep Andy Lee! And more of the same … plus this comment from the 49ers Fan Forum in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I would DEFINTELY match or beat Pittsburghs offer for Lee. He has been a great punter and allowed the 49ers to stay in all their wins and especially games with Seattle and Denver. To not sign him would be silly with a punter who can get a suspect defense out of trouble and help them own field position ...a good punter gives the defense hope and improves the offense's chance of success. Punters are usually highly under valued.”



Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Ka-Chinggg!!!

Well, that didn't take long.

Joey Porter is cashing in, and good for him. Today's Post-Gazette reports the Miami Dolphins have signed Peezy to a new contract, the terms of which include a $12 million signing bonus and $20 million in guaranteed cash -- which is all that really matters -- as part of a five-year, $32 million contract.

Well-played, JP, well-played.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Sooner or later ...

It was bound to happen.

See ya, Joey, and good luck. Thanks for the years and especially for speaking the truth during the 2005-06 Super Bowl run when you called out the Indy Colts ("They're soft!") and Seahawks' tight end Jerramy Stevens ("What's he ever done?!!").

Thanks also for sustained periods of stellar play and team leadership, as well as for the occasional blips of bombastic comic relief and thought-provoking insights and interviews that make us go, "huh."

For all the goofy shit you'd say and do, Ol' 55, a lot of times you made more sense than anybody.

Good luck to you and your family, and your pit bulls, too, although ... THESE here pit bulls aren't going anywhere. We're hungry.

Oh, and one other thing: It would be overstating the case to say these things come in threes ... but R.I.P. former Steelers Elbie Nickel and Lloyd Voss.

Elbie Nickel, a highly accomplished pass-catching tight end during the '50s, was honored by being named to the Steelers' 50th anniversary team. Lloyd Voss (#65) was a run-stuffing defensive tackle who played in the 1960s on an extremely nasty, vicious and brutal front four that was the immediate predecessor of the Steel Curtain. Although the team's record in Voss's era was abysmal, nobody savored facing that violent defensive front. Voss's linemates were fellow defensive tackle Chuck Hinton (#64) and defensive ends Ben McGee (#63) and Big John Baker (#68 and size 16 shoes).

Rough hombres, all four of them, in the Steelers defensive tradition carried on by the likes of Joey Porter. May the tradition continue.

Links:

Ed Bouchette's article in Friday's Post-Gazette.

Classic quotes from Joey Porter. Check 'em out.

Blog 'n Gold coverage from the Post-Gazette.

Ron Cook: Joey Porter Was a Terrific Teammate

Post-Gazette Slideshow: "A Salute to Joey Porter"

Deadspin's take on the news: Make sure to read the comments.

Just because we can: The Mighty MJD's "Letter"

And, to cap it off, a salute to "Ol' 55"
(lyrics by Tom Waits):

Well my time went so quickly,
I went lickety-splickly out with my old '55
As I drove away slowly, feeling so holy,
God knows, I was feeling alive.

Now the sun's coming up,
I'm riding with Lady Luck,
freeway cars and trucks,
Stars beginning to fade,
and I lead the parade

Just a-wishing I'd stayed a little longer,
Oh, Lord, let me tell you
that the feeling's getting stronger.

And it's six in the morning,
gave me no warning; I had to be on my way.
Well there's trucks all a-passing me,
and the lights are all flashing,
I'm on my way home from your place.

And now the sun's coming up,
I'm riding with Lady Luck,
freeway cars and trucks,
Stars beginning to fade,
and I lead the parade ...
And, no, not THAT Joey Porter.

THIS Joey Porter, and THIS one, too!

Oh, oh ... We didn't do it! Honest!!


Michael David Smith over at AOL Fanhouse reports another incident of pit bulls mauling a horse to death ... this time a race horse.

Sheej, impressive, not that Joey Porter's Pit Bulls approve of that sort of thing, of course.