The Steelers were a top 10 defense against the run this season.

Everyone makes mistakes.  However, if after all the mistakes he made he is STILL doing shit like breaking COVID protocol to go to a strip club when his team is on the verge of a playoff birth then it seems unlikely he’ll do a 180.

He certainly isn't starving right now either. The average OC/DC salary is around a million a year.

If a coach is an up and comer that is sure to get some great job offers in the not so distant future: absolutely.

However, if your future is less certain then I think a relative no-name would be a fool to pass on ANY NFL HC job.  Even if just from a financial perspective.

Fuck me running the Steelers signed Haskins.

Look at the wildcard game.
Browns ran all over the Steelers.

Also in other games they gave up big run yardage.

Which is about 7 times less than the average HC salary.  $1M per year is obviously great, but after just one HC gig you instantly gain the ability to comfortably retire anytime you want.  

Of course, but Bienemy doesn't need to rush and take whatever shit job is out there. He will have his opportunity, and frankly the longer he stays and does well with the Chiefs, the better his starting contract might end up. Even if it only nets him 1-2 more years on his first deal, that could be another 10 million in the bank.

I'm not saying they were the '85 Bears, but let's look at the stats.

Top 3 in total defense.

Top 3 in points allowed.

Top 3 against the pass.

Top 10 against the run.

#2 in takeaways.

If a coach, player, or fan were told their team's defense was going to have those stats in the upcoming season I think most would be overjoyed.

The Browns also had the 3rd best rushing offense of the season (even with Chubb out for 6ish weeks) and started with a big lead on the Steelers which made it beneficial to continue pounding the ground.

So I wouldn't use that one post season game as a metric to judge the defense.

Crazy but with hearts of gold

From my observations, it's because they're Steelers fans.

When assholes collide

Look good on paper but faded in games.
Yes loosing Bush and Dupree hurt but the team still let opposing teams run on them.
In the wildcard game the Browns o-line were out a good part of their starting o-line.
They manhandled the Steelers.

They were run on in other games as well.

Haha, yeah, but I just think there are “better” things for them to be unhappy about.  For example...

Le'Veon Bell is playing in the AFC Championship.

Antonio Brown is playing in the NFC Championship.

The Steelers went one and done to a depleted Browns team that didn’t even have their HC.

The Browns ran all over most teams.

Pittsburgh's run defense isn't the reason they went one and done.

Those certainly aren't great things.

Seriously.  When was the last time, if ever, in a playoff game a team's offense committed 5+ turnovers (including at least 1 defensive TD) and their team still won?

I know the Seahawks did it in the 2014 NFC Championship. Wilson threw 4 INTs and they lost 1 fumble and still won 28-22 in overtime. Packers were up 16-0 at halftime and then collapsed. They had a 95% win probability at half time, and then 99.9% with 3 minutes left.

Wilson had a 0.0 passer rating. Seahawks scored with 2 minutes left to bring it to 14-19. Bostick fumbled the onside kick, one I will never forget. Ball popped up, he had a clean look, and just fucked it all up, right off his face. One of the worst plays I have ever seen. 4 plays later Seattle scored again, went for 2, went up 3. Packers tied the game up with a FG with 14 seconds left. Seattle won the coin toss, and game over.

Whole game Rodgers played like shit 19/34, 178 yards, 2 INTs. Marshawn ended up having over 150 yards rushing.
Seattle had 400 yards of offense and half of it came in the final 3 minutes and the first 3 minutes of overtime.

I would tell you all of the games, but PFR's searchable database is no longer free

No defensive score in that one, but yeah, that was pretty bad.  Imagine losing a playoff game in which ALL of the following happen:

- Your team will have the #1 scoring offense in the NFL.

- Your team will have one of the best QB's of all time.

- The other team will commit 5 turnovers.

- The other team's QB will have a QBR of 25.3 and a passer rating of 44.3.

- The other team will have 7 total points heading into the final 3 minutes of the 4th.

A) Don't do me like that dawg...

B) PFR's database switching to whatever it is now really fucking sucks.

Yeah... I don't necessarily blame them. They spent years building one of the most comprehensive data bases available, with the ability to search for seasons, games or even individual plays that matched specific criteria from like 100 different categories if you wanted. Basically the only resource like that publicly available, but now that they are the only ones, and they have become so popular, time to cash in.

At least you can still check all the player / team stats and records without paying.

Edit: If it was a one time membership of like $20 or just $1-2 a month, I would probably pay it just for fun since I like to look up things on it. But I'm not paying $8 a month. I think that turns it into a resource that primarily only media members would be interested in.

It seems very unlikely we would have gotten a better game and virtually impossible we would have gotten a more memorable finish, but Patriots vs Packers in 2014 could have been a fun "what if" Super Bowl.

IIRC, they played each other earlier in the season and GB won fairly easily (only punted once). It made that championship game collapse hurt even more knowing they were perfectly capable of beating NE that year.

Only punted once, but only won 21-26. Was a 1 score game for about half the time, and for the final 14 minutes.

But yes... The Packers, even with it being that close, appeared to be in control all game, they just couldn't convert touchdowns, they settled for 4 field goals (all in the red zone) and only had 2 TDs. Rodgers threw for over 350 yards, Eddie Lacy rushed for 100, 0 turnovers. They should have won the game by a lot. Funnily enough their 2 TDs both came from outside the red zone. Couldn't get it done from up close.

Packers won 26-21 at home with the Patriots having it 1st and 10 at the Packers' 21 with 4 mins left, but coming up empty.

I'm not sure I'd consider that a fairly easy win.

Boxscore is one thing, watching the game and being able to see the "momentum" and which team is controlling the game is another. As David said, NE was able to limit GB to FG's vs TD's and kept the score close, but GB had no issue going down the field to score points while NE did have trouble doing so.

I didn't say it was a blowout, I said they won fairly easily. They never had to regain a lead, the never had to recover from a turnover, they never struggled to put drives together, they didn't struggle to get 1st downs, NE wasn't going drive for drive with them, etc.

I'm not trying to say NE was a push over or anything, and I know a SB vs Tom Brady is never going to be an easy game, I'm just saying they were perfectly cable of being competitive if they hadn't imploded vs the Seahawks, and if NE had steamrolled GB earlier in the season then as a fan I could go "well even if GB didn't implode vs. the Seahawks they were probably just going to get beat again by NE." That wasn't the case, so here I sit knowing Mike McCarthy, Brandon Bostick's hands of stone, and the defense pissed away an obtainable 2nd SB win in Rodgers career.

Momentum or not, I wouldn't consider it a "fairly easy" win when a 26-21 victory saw you up by 5 with 4 minutes left and the other team had it 1st and 10 from your 21.  YMMV.

Right after that onside kick I called up a friend in Wisconsin and we had a chat about it. Blew his assignment (was a blocker), moved back in front of Jordy, jumped and botched it... I swore he would never play again. They probably had to take him out of the state of Wisconsin under cover of night with an armed escort. New identity shit.

Packers cut him shortly after the Super Bowl. Surprisingly enough, he kept pushing, bounced off a couple practice squads (not with Green Bay) and eventually ended up playing a little bit for the Jets in 2016 before being done.

Edit: Just found an article from 2020 with him talking about how much that play has fucked him up mentally and emotionally. 5 years later, still receiving death threats and hate mail and such. Has been trying to work in coaching.

Yeah there are some slightly interesting articles written about him, his career, and the aftermath of that play.

It was #2 here if anyone missed it:

Video of just it: https://youtu.be/s6aIKpam2xI

Jordy Nelson standing there wondering why a 3rd string TE has jumped in front of him to catch that ball with his face mask...

Which is a fact completely lost on Buck and Aikman.  

"The ball hit the ground so he had to try and field it."

To be fair, most announcers don't get into the specifics.

Jordy was back there to recover that, everybody else on that front line initiates a block....except Bostick who decided he was gonna catch that thing. The guy Bostick would have been blocking if he had allowed Jordy to recover the kick? Yeah that guy comes in and snags the ball after it bounced right off your face.

Inconsequential specifics, sure.  

When player commits an obvious (at least is should be obvious) fuck up that prevents his team from winning a conference championship... not so much.

Just out of curiosity: did he ever say WTF he was thinking?  I doubt it was a premeditated plan to be the "hero" as would have still gotten chewed out even if he caught it.  Seems more likely he just panicked.

He blamed his instincts as the 3rd string tight end. Saw ball. Went for ball. Didn't follow assignment.

Yeah from what I remember it was something like that.

And I mean...I do kind of get it. The ball is basically kicked right to him, he would get ripped on just as bad if he ignored it to block and some Seahawk player swooped in to get it.

You just have to know the play design and trust the guy behind you to get it instead of relying on the "make the play" instinct.

Anyone bored with Tom Brady post season stats/facts yet? Yeah, I didn't think so, I'll keep them coming.

Tom Brady is more likely to make the conference championship then Lebron James is to make a freethrow.
Then any pitcher in the MLB is to throw a strike.
Then any pro golfer is to make a 4 foot putt.

SINCE TURNING FORTY, Tom has as many or more playoff wins then 6 franchises have in their entire history (Jax, Det, Ari, TB, Cin, Hou).

Tom Brady has won at least TWO playoff games ELEVEN times in his career.

Tom Brady now has more career post season wins then 27 franchises. New England is ahead of him of course. Others ahead of him are the Packers, Steelers and Cowboys. He is tied with the 49ers. He theoretically can pass all of them next season and have more wins then all 32 franchises.

Brady has had a QBR of at least 75 in 13 of his last 17 playoff games, and he has had a QBR over 80 in his last 3 conference championship games.

Tom Brady has defeated 18 different teams in the post season. He has beaten more teams than any other QB has total wins in playoff history.

Brady is the only quarterback to play in a conference championship under 4 different presidents.

One I didn't think about, that I should have, we were able to watch the #1 and #2 in career yards (Brees, Brady) and career touchdowns (Brady, Brees) face each other THREE TIMES in one season. I'm not sure that has ever happened before at all, let alone three times in one year.

Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers by EPA/play in the postseason since 2011 (10 years):
TB: 1,118 plays, 0.244 EPA/play
AR: 613 plays, 0.244 EPA/play
When garbage time is filtered out (win probability between 2-98%):
TB: 985 plays, 0.236 EPA/play
AR: 513 plays, 0.199 EPA/play

Aaron Rodgers could have made the conference championship every year as a starter and still wouldn't have gone to as many conference championship games as Tom Brady.

Including this one because of all the Phillip Rivers discussion this week. Top 5 QBs all time in terms of number of games with a 100+ passer rating:
1. Tom Brady 159
2. Drew Brees 149
T3. Peyton Manning 118
T3. Brett Favre 118
5. Philip Rivers 115

This season Drew Brees had attempted 19 passes 20+ yards downfield.
Tom Brady attempted 101. Led the league in 20+ air yard passes.
Drew Brees had the shortest avg depth of target at 6.7 yards.
Tom Brady has the longest avg depth of target at 9.8 yards.

Tom Brady since week 14:
PFF Grade - 1st
Yards per attempt - 1st
Passing TDs - 1st
Passing Yards - 1st

This one goes back to the previous week with all the passes Ben threw.
A quarterback has completed 34+ passes 11 times in NFL post season history.
They are a combined 4-7.
Tom: 4-0
Others: 0-7

Only 8 times in NFL history has a quarterback thrown for 4,600+ yards and 39+ TDs with 12 or fewer INTs. Brady has done it 3 times. No other QB has done it more than once. The others are Brees, Culpepper, Mahomes, Manning and Rodgers.

Now that’s just sad. Especially considering half those teams have been in the NFL since the playoffs truly started in the 1960’s.  

If the NFL ever swings the pendulum back to defense even just a little bit, none of Brady's records will ever be broken. Mahomes is the only guy who'd have a chance, but I suspect a good portion of his success is due to the weapons he has. Take one or two of those away and what's he look like?

NFL announced that Super Bowl LV in Tampa will host 22,000 fans — 7,500 of which will be vaccinated healthcare workers being given free tickets to the game.

Adam Schefter  (@AdamSchefter) January 22, 2021

The 7,500 health care workers being invited by the NFL to the Super Bowl each will have received two vaccine doses by Jan. 24. Most will come from the Tampa area. Each other NFL team will identify four health care workers to send to the game and cover airfare and hotel costs.

MarkMaske  (@MarkMaske) January 22, 2021

Oh FFS...

At least there will be fans I guess...

65,890 listed occupancy.
22k = 1/3rd
-7,500 health worker PR move
If the player rule hasn't changed, every player gets 2 free and can buy 13 more, I assume it is probably equivalent with relevant coaching staff. Let's say... 60 people, median 7.5 tickets, round it up to 1,000 even.
Home stadium gets 5% of the seats (14,500 * .05) = -725
The other teams all get 1.2% (29 * (14,500 * .012) = -5,000

Leaves less than 8,000 tickets.

Last year journalists had over 5,000 tickets. If we just assume it was a percentage of capacity it was 7.5%, which would be another 1,000ish.

So now we are talking fewer than 7,000 seats.

I assume there's another sizable chunk controlled by the teams ownership for lower level staff and management. Then team sponsors and NFL sponsors.

Likely only 5,000ish tickets will be available. But available to who? Could potentially make the tickets the most expensive Super Bowl tickets ever depending on people willing to go down for it.

https://sports.yahoo.com/documentary-takes-air-out-of-nf-ls-deflategate-case-against-tom-brady-who-continues-to-prove-it-wasnt-about-the-balls-054420195.html

This may ruffle some feathers...

I remember at the time how the league's "scientific" case was shredded from various observers, but the problem was a scrutiny of the evidence of what actually happened never really made it into the courts, and the question that the appeals court decided was the league had the power to do what they wanted under the NFLPA agreement.  Ditto on the Zeke case that came later.

plus the guy who 'broke' the story on ESPN ran with false and unverified info.

Steelers tight end Vance Mcdonald retires.
Just could not stay healthy.

IIRC, The Patriots even fired a couple staffers due to the "scandal." If nobody did anything wrong (as the Patriots correctly and clearly stated), why fire anybody over it?