Steelers Pre season Newsletter 9/6/05

Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:20:47 +0000
"Are you ready for some football?" I trust as you read this you are as excited as I am about the upcoming season. What isn't to be excited about if you are a Steelers fan? Do you think this is the year we add one for the thumb? Anyways... The count down is on. Five days until the opener against the Titans. I am going to try to make a newsletter for my friends in the Steelers Nation. I hope you do not mind receiving mindless Steelers banter and the occasional black and gold photo each week this fall. If you do not want to receive the newsletter, simply send me an e-mail message stating that Dave P blows Kordell. I will get the message and cancel sending out the newsletters to you in the future. LOL! Sorry Dave. I could not resist. Please feel free to send me your comments and/or pictures from "your version" of Steelers Nation for me to use. All comments are welcome. If you have a Steelers fan to add to the our list, please forward so we can grow the Steelers Nation.

Pre season Wrap Up:

We finished the pre season with a pre season record of 3-1. Who really cares? The main thing is that we got through it fairly injury free. Bettis and Staley are both banged up, but not for the long term. Time for Willie Parker to step up! I am going on record right now saying that Willie Parker will be a starter in this league someday. He will start the opener for us against the Titans, but I mean he will eventually be the main guy on a NFL team. It may not be the Steelers, but he will be the featured back one day for a NFL franchise. This guy is so fast. Everyone in the NFL is fast, but this guy is a step faster. In the NFL no on gets to the corner and then turns the ball upfield. He routinely does this. Watch for this in the opener. He will beat the LB and DB's to the outside and will turn it up the field. Just my two cents.

Our offense stunk in the pre season. Big Ben played for what amounted or totaled one full NFL game between the four pre season games. He finished 16-36 for 145 yards with no TD's and two picks. Not real stellar numbers. The critics are coming to his defense saying that we went into the pre season games without a game plan, and that we never actually have a game plan during the pre season. Basically we are just looking to evaluate talent and not get anyone hurt. Maybe so, but I would like to see some more continuity than I did. I really saw some lousy offensive football. I am hoping that Hines' holdout will have no ill effects, but he did miss two full weeks of preparation. Cedric Wilson looks a lot like Plax but just in a smaller package. We brought this guy in from Frisco and he has been transparent with no real effects on the offense. It looks like Ward and Randel El will start at WR with Wilson coming in as the third receiver. Because of injuries to our receiving corp, special teams standout Sean Morrey will start the season as the fourth receiver. This lack of depth may be an issue if Lee Mays can not get healthy quickly. Look for our offensive line to be a strong point once again.

I think that our defense will be one of the better defenses in the league again this year. I am not sure if they will finish as the top ranked defense like they did last year, but I think they will continue to be strong again. My biggest concern is our secondary. Will Ricardo Colclough or Ike Taylor be able to unseat Deshea Townsend and/or Willie Williams? We will have to wait and see. This weakness was picked apart by Tom Brady last January. It will be interesting to see how this plot unfolds. I have heard rumors the Cowher is thinking about putting Mike Logan ahead of Chris Hope at Free Safety. I hope this is not the case. My boy Mike is a Mountaineer and all, but Hope is faster and a better tackler. Mike needs to stick to special teams and the nickel and dime packages.

Week One:

These are not the Titans of old that used to come into Three Rivers and give us a battle every year. But we should not underestimate them as well. I would love to see Big Ben/Willie Parker have time consuming drives eating up the clock and keeping McNair off the field. Let's just get the first win under our belts. It could be a huge week if we open with a win and then Peyton/Marvin/Edge slap around Ray and boys Sunday night. Could be a two game edge to open the season.... Here we go Steelers, here we go...

My predictions for the AFC North this year:

Pittsburgh 11-5, Baltimore 10-6, The Bungles 9-7, and da Brownies 5-11. I could really argue the scenario of the Ravens, Bengals, or us winning the division this year. Ben is not going to have the season he had last year. That is a given. But what it comes down to is that I have more faith in our offense than I do in the Kyle Boller led Ravens. Who knows about the Bengals? Some national publications are saying that Carson Palmer is going to have a break out year and that the Bengals will win the AFC North. Who knows? I will take our chances. Hopefully New England will have too many holes to fill this year, and we will have a better record than the Colts. I want to play the Colts at Heinz Field in January, and not the other way around in us chasing those receivers around the RCA Dome.

Attached is a pic of me from the first Saturday of training camp in Latrobe this year. There was a huge banner welcoming everyone to St. Vincent's College and everyone signed the banner wishing the Steelers good luck for the season. It was only day six of camp, but the banner was completely filled. The second pic is of my friend Brian(originally from Greensburg but now living in Delaware). Please send any cool pics you may have during the season. Have a great weekend. It is a 1:00PM game this weekend. One more time. Here we go steelers, here we go...