June 15, 2008

Do You Guys Hear Crickets?

No images today, friends. Use your imagination...
Well unfortunately, we've entered that complete dead zone between OTA's and Training Camp. 41 days and counting.

Plus, it's Monday. And I spent all weekend running from state to state, only to return home to Hoboken late last night. So I regret to inform you that I don't have anything insightful or witty in the queue for today. At least not exactly...

Nevertheless, despite MY inadequacy, the Pittsburgh media machine is still cranking. Here's some of what they've churned out over the past four or five days...
  • Ed Bouchette juxtaposes Faneca's whining about lack of respect against Marvel Smith's "take it as it comes" attitude. That's nice. Really, just great. But that doesn't instill any kind of confidence in me that the Steelers intend to re-sign Smith after next season...and um, it's not like we drafted anyone to potentially take his place. Should make things interesting.

  • The Trib's John Harris chronicles the graceful aging of the Defensive line. While all starters will be over 30 by September, none of them feel a day over 28...comforting. PS - they didn't actually say that, I just made it up. Sounded a lot funnier in my head too...oh well.

  • Some dude from Belle Vernon opines that the Browns will win the AFC North this year. Anyone with the time please call the Pennsylvania State Police and alert them of this egregious violation. This man must be expelled from the Commonwealth immediately.

  • The Huntsville Times (AL) had a good story Saturday about John Stallworth and his former roommate, Bennie Cunningham. It's all about the bond the former members of the 70's teams had and still have. Timely in the face of the recent unfortunate loss of Dwight White.

  • Tomlin claims he's going to ease up a little at this year's Camp. Probably not a bad idea considering the injury problem last year...see, he's learning.

  • FWP may be out of his mind, but he plans on working right up to training camp. While I commend his work ethic, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the distinct possibility that he might over exert himself. Guess you just have to trust the man to know his own body.

  • And finally, as if we didn't know this already - Tomlin told us that no positions are yet set in stone. Boy, good thing he said that. Because otherwise, you know, I might have thought that Kirschke supplanted Big Snack or something...not.
Ugh, I'm just going to go back to napping on my desk now. Wake me up if you see drool...

Oh and just one more thing - I was thinking over the weekend (never a good sign)...

How many runs of 30 yards or more did FWP have last year?
How many did he have the two years prior?
And most importantly, how many of those were to the right side?

What's with all the questions? Well, if I'm remembering things correctly, a lot of FWPs long runs in 2005 and 2006 (including I believe the 75 yarder in Super Bowl XL) were to the right...where there was one 6'8", 340 pound monster named Max Starks. Last year, we saw significantly less long runs, and to the right 'twas Willie Colon.

Mere coincidence? Let's discuss...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Colon was bad last year no doubt. I think he was a better choice than the out of shape starks was in camp. I don't care about FWP training hard, best case two bad ass RBs, worst case Mendenhall starts Willie fills in. I think that Marvell Smith is way overrated and we are waiting to see what Big Max does this year and either sign Max or Marvell, hopefully drafting someone in the meantime.

domski43 said...

Willie was able to run to the right effectively because Faneca was a badass guard who could pull like few other. And it didnt hurt that Jeff Hartings was @ center.

Cotter said...

Dudes,
On the issue of Starks vs. Colon - I don't know if it made a difference or not. But I felt like it'd be worth talking about. I mean, after all (Domski), Faneca was there last year too. Of course, Hartings just might have been the X factor...we can only speculate.

As for FWP - I don't care that he's training hard as long as he hasn't put too many miles on those tires before the season starts.

And finally, on the issue of Marvel Smith - I don't know if he's overrated, but I definitely wouldn't give him Alan Faneca money...if that's what he's seeking. Again, this is a wait and see sitch. But in either case it would've been nice to try and add some depth through the draft. Not that that is anything new coming from me...

Hope you all enjoyed your Mondays...

- C