The Ol' Fumblerooski

Trickery, chicanery and hijinks. 

Anybody who's played football knows the slippery spheroid (the football itself) can be tricky to handle at times. It can be especially tough to hold onto, especially in wet, cold conditions that frequently occur in places like Pittsburgh and, yes, Foxboro, Mass.

Fumbles happen ... but it always helps if the football is a little under-inflated, making it softer and easier to grip.

A hat tip to our pal Richard over at YinzBurgh BBQ, the best Southern-style barbecue in Pittsburgh, for pointing out this massively stat-backed analysis by Warren Sharp at Sharp Football Analysis.

Mr. Sharp analyzed the New England Patriots' amazing ability to avoid fumbling the football since 2007.  Detailed research by Mr. Sharp includes this tidbit:

"The 2014 Patriots were just the 3rd team in the last 25 years to never have lost a fumble at home!  The biggest difference between the Patriots and the other 2 teams who did it was that New England ran between 150 and 200 MORE plays this year than those teams did in the years they had zero home fumbles, making the Patriots stand alone in this unique statistic."

A coincidence? Does Bill Bellichick cheat in the woods?

This all gets back to the absurd, preposterous NFL policy of allowing the teams to supply and control the footballs they use on offense.

The NFL, which controls every last detail down to the type of socks worn on the field, does not have game-day officials or its own equipment people supplying the footballs used in a game. The NFL created this mess; now the lawyers Goodell & Co. get to stew in it during the very week the league is in the world's media spotlight.

The NFL Looks Foolish in its "Culture of Cheating"

Distractions? What distractions?

During the build-up to the Super Bowl, the media-consuming public is usually subject to non-stop minutiae of the most tedious sort about all the possible storylines, players, coaches, quirks, proposition bets, Xs and Os, and other minutiae in the most agonizing detail.

Not this year.

The New England Deflatriots have seen to that.  This year, virtually the only story has been the one about Deflated Footballs, splashed all over the mainstream news channels in addition to the usual sports outlets (except for the NFL Network, and even they can't totally ignore it).

Good. Coaches hate distractions during game week, and this is the grand-daddy of them all.

Bill Belichick, the ultimate mastermind control freak, can deny and declaim all he wants, but he looks foolish in all his sheepish "Don't know" statements. Tom Brady, in all his wide-eyed "candor," cannot bask in all the wonderfulness that usually accrues to him.

Best of all, the New England Patriots once again are tainted and tarnished by the label of Cheats. They embody what former Carolina Patriots GM Marty Hurney called "a culture of cheating." Even Don Shula has been heard describing Bellichick as "Bill Bellicheat."

And the NFL itself looks foolish because of how colossally stupid it's been for the league to have ever allowed footballs used in a game to be managed by anybody but league officials. Why?

This is supposed to be the NFL's undisputed week in the spotlight. It is, but for the wrong reasons. It's not been a good year for Roger Goodell.

What We Learned We Already Knew

Ben fumbles.

The 2013 Steelers aren't nearly talented enough to play mistake-prone football. The Steelers are a bad football team, but we knew that. 

Against New England, they were non-competitive.

Penalties, interceptions, sacks allowed, a sack-fumble, dropped passes, sloppy tackling, missed assignments, lousy blocking, blown coverage, crummy punting, inability to get off blocks, general confusion, ad nauseum ... the Steelers put it all on ugly display in Sunday's embarrassing 55-31 fiasco in Massachusetts.   

They were steamrollered.

Rob Gronkowski: Wide open, romping and running free.

This game marked a new low. The 55 points allowed were the most in franchise history, and the game wasn't even as close as the lopsided score indicated. 

More than 600 yards allowed; three Patriots' receivers with more than 100 yards each; 198 yards rushing allowed -- it all added up, and the Steelers allowed Tom Brady to complete 29 of 33 passes to compile a perfect passer rating.

The defense was manhandled. Yet again, the Steelers' linebackers were virtually invisible, and their play worsened after rookie Vince Williams left the game with a concussion, not that he had played well beforehand. The Patriots ran play after play to their left side, and the Steelers' defensive players were not up to the job. 

Stevenson Sylvester couldn't get off blocks, Steve McClendon was run over, Lawrence Timmons was spun around, Jarvis Jones looked lost, and LaMarr Woodley was absent. 

They're not good enough.

Danny Amendola: Wide open.

The secondary was run past, through, around and over. Every one of them. Ike Taylor got burnt, William Gay couldn't cover, Troy Polamalu was consistently out of position, Shamarko Thomas was over-matched, and Ryan Clark was slow. 

This game made painfully clear what we suspected: Ryan Clark can't run anymore. He just can't run. He can talk, though.

The offensive line can't block, but we knew that, too. Emmanuel Sanders dropped a pass that hit him between the numbers. Le'Veon Bell dropped two passes, including one that clanged right off his hands, and he clearly missed assignments. 

Jericho Cotchery showed up. Good for him. Antonio Brown made some plays. Cameron Heyward showed some flashes. Heath Miller tried.  

To our untrained eyes, it seemed all the players tried ... mostly, however, they're just not good enough.

Can it get any worse?  Yes. It can always get worse.

Game Day 8: Steelers at New England

What are the chinks in the Patriots' armor? The 6-2 Patriots have had injuries on both lines and are starting a group of young receivers whose productivity has been uneven.

One stat catches the eye: Tom Brady has been sacked 23 times in eight games. That's an unusually high number for Brady. The Steelers' defense, however, has collected just 10 sacks; by comparison, the Patriots' defense has 24 sacks.

The Steelers also don't take the ball away. The Steelers have intercepted just four passes vs. 10 by New England's defense.

The Patriots rarely lose at home to AFC opponents. With Brady at quarterback, the Patriots have 34 consecutive home games vs. AFC opponents.

All of the above doesn't bode well for a Steelers team that desperately needs a win.

For what it's worth, here's a bit of history:

• A win today by the Steelers would mark the second consecutive and the third in the last four games against the Patriots.
• Since 2000, Pittsburgh is 3-4 vs. the Patriots.
• The Steelers are 14-8 vs. against New England in the regular season, including 4-2 on the road (1-2 at Gilette Stadium).
• Ben Roethlisberger is 3-3 vs. the Patriots in the regular season, including a win at Gilette Stadium in 2008.