The Green Machine: Roger Goodell's NFL Carousel Year-round, Around-the-clock Money Machine

Headed by Roger Goodell and pushed by back-room drivers like Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder, Zygi Wolf, et al, today's National Football League (NFL) -- the business -- does nothing that is not calculated.

"What's up with that, Dude?"

So, the announcement that the balmy, tropical resort known as Minneapolis has been selected to host the 2018 Super Bowl ... how much do you want to bet that event is held in March or even April 2018? ... ostensibly pushed back by the soon-to-be-expanded  playoffs that will churn, churn, churn cha-ching bling -- never mind diluting the ever-diminshing quality of the "product" being pushed to eager consumers of increasingly pricey cable television, which is likely to morph into pay-per-view -- and how much you want to bet that's not too far down the road? Pay-per-view, that is.

With an 18-game regular season and the soon-to-be expanded playoffs pushing the Super Bowl into March, the NFL will have a ready-made excuse to finish what it started this year, which was to push the three-day NFL Draft into May.

Expanded playoffs and a later Super Bowl almost guarantee a permanent later date for the NFL Draft, pushed back again, even further into May, and held over the course of four or even five days in multiple cities ... well, it just shows to go you that this year's charade of what was supposedly the NFL supposedly being forced to reschedule the draft because of a "schedule conflict" at Radio City Music Hall ... it really was a charade.

Meanwhile, Minnesota has been "rewarded" for building an extravagant, $1 billion taxpayer-funded stadium. Next up on the stadium roulette wheel: Buffalo, Oakland, Jacksonville, Atlanta.

Toronto, London and even far-off, exotic Los Angeles beckon.

Singular Focus. Obviously.

One issue Joey Porter's Pit Bulls would like to hear Mike Tomlin address is this:

"What will the Steelers do differently in 2014 to be ready for the start of the season?"

There's no disputing the Steelers weren't ready for the 2013 season. They went 0-4 in the pre-season, 0-4 to start the regular season and closed out the first half at 2-6, capped in spectacular embarrassment by the exclamation mark of a 55-31 thrashing by the New England Patriots.

They simply weren't ready to start the season, and you could see they wouldn't be, even as the pre-season unfolded . It was inexcusable.

If they had been ready, there is no way they would have lost the home opener to Tennessee. There's no way they would have given up 40 points in a home loss to the Bears in Week 3. There's no way they would have lost to Minnesota at any location, including London.  Let alone Oakland.

At this point, it's almost easy to overlook the fact that the Steelers had an easy schedule for the 2013 season, thanks to their lousy showing in 2012.

What now?

“That (one game at a time approach is) something that stops a bad problem from becoming worse,” said Tomlin at his post-season news conference on Monday.

“The No. 1 key to getting out of a hole is to stop digging, and I believe that’s what the singular focus allowed us to do. To stop digging. Not to worry about what we had done to get ourselves into the position we were in, but to look singularly forward at the challenge that’s in front of us. That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about having the ability to focus on this week’s challenge.”

This week's challenge: Prepare now for Week 1 of the 2014 season.