Beer We Go Steelers

The lockout is over and a new collective bargaining agreement should be done by this afternoon! After the NFLPA nearly botched this whole thing, it looks like they are about to bring this in for a landing!

They need the players ratification that for some reason DeMaurice Smith didn’t have lined up. The economics of the deal were worked out more than a week ago. 

That included how the more than $9 billion in annual league revenues will be divided (about 53 percent to owners and 47 percent to players over the next decade; the old CBA resulted in nearly a 50-50 split); a per-club cap of about $120 million for salary and bonuses in 2011 — and at least that in 2012 and 2013 — plus about $22 million for benefits; a salary system to rein in spending on first-round draft picks; and unrestricted free agency for most players after four seasons.

Look for a whirlwind to begin this week. The best analogy I heard is, this is like merging Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter into one day!

Teams need to sign free agents and open camps THIS WEEK!!! While this is not ideal, I think it is going to be a hell of alot of fun! Keep your eye on BWG and I will do my best to stick with it giving our analysis.

Top Priorities:

1. Getting either Ike or another CB signed!

1a. Signing Woodley!

2. Offensive line help

3. Another running back to help Rashard! (Tiki Barber come on down)

Ben Roethlisberger got married this weekend! Every member of BWG nation is hoping this will curb Ben’s “night life”. The security was indeed tight as even Ambassador Rooney had to show his ID. The attendee list was the Who’s Who, of Steeler Nation, including Silverback James Harrison. I hope this squelches anymore rumors about the rift! Only Captain Tailgate was not in attendance as he usually gets drunk and throws potatoes salad at these types of affairs. (Ask former Rams Quarterback Marc Bulger!)

The affair was held at the famous convention center and he hosted over 600 guests!

We at BWG wish Ben and Ashley the best of luck!!! Unfortunately I believe his honeymoon will be at St. Vincent’s, as Labor peace should be here today!

All is forgiven buddy!!! Alright maybe our devotion to the Steelers has gone too far now.

Here is the text of the PR guys, I mean Silverback’s apology:

“I’ll start by offering my apologies for some of the words that I said during the four days in May that Men’s Journal was invited to my house to discuss what the NFL has recently been portraying as their attempts at ‘player safety’ rules and regulations, and to cover my everyday workout routine.

“I did make comments about my teammates when I was talking about the emotional Super Bowl loss, but the handful of words that were used and heavily publicized yesterday were pulled out of a long conversation and the context was lost. Obviously, I would never say that it was all Ben’s or Rashard’s fault that we lost the Super Bowl. That would be ridiculous. Both Ben and Rashard are great players and great teammates. Clearly the entire team bears responsibility for the loss, me included. It was a team effort and a team loss. My teammates know me well, and hopefully understand the things I said were not meant to accuse them of the loss. We all have discussed several things that went wrong in the Super Bowl since that day. What I do apologize for and take full responsibility for is for speaking in such a candid manner to someone outside the team.

“I also need to make clear that the comment about Roger Goodell was not intended to be derogatory against gay people in any way. It was careless use of a slang word and I apologize to all who were offended by the remark. I am not a homophobic bigot, and I would never advocate intolerance of gay people.

“As far as the photo that was shown on air yesterday, collecting guns is a hobby of mine, and I advocate the responsible use of firearms. I believe in the right to bear arms. I like to go to the shooting range. I like to hunt. I like to fish. I could just as easily have posed with my fishing poles but it obviously wouldn’t be an interesting picture for the magazine. I am not promoting gun violence by posing for that photo. There are also other photos in the magazine story that were not shown on air yesterday – including me with my sons, with my mom and as a kid.

“Unfortunately, the above items and other comments have detracted from the original purpose of the story – a position I have been advocating for some time now. If player safety is the NFL’s main concern, as they say it is, they are not going about it in an effective manner. There’s nothing about extending the season or issuing exorbitant fines on defensive players that makes any shift toward the prevention of injury to players.

“I believe that the league may have been feeling increasing pressure about injuries and concussions last year, and that they panicked and put rules in place that weren’t fully thought out. I’m not advocating more flags and fines, I’m just saying that the current rules are not completely fair, and I don’t believe in the way that the league is handling their position as overseer of the NFL and the well-being of its players.

“As far as the character and reputation hits I may suffer as a result of my comments in the article, I’ll take those hits and more if it brings increased attention to the re-examination and installation of rules and regulations that would create a REAL impact on player safety.”

  Doing their best impersonation of the division rivals Bengals and Ravens, the Steelers again have had another tumultuous offseason.  Let’s try and look back at the parade of events.

-Hines Ward wins “Dancing with the Stars”, which was a great distraction for a bad offseason, then gets a DUI last week. Honestly, reserve judgement on this as I have a feeling we aren’t getting all the facts.

-Rashard Mendenhall goes wild on Twitter. Hitting on such great topics as Osama Bin Laden might have been misunderstood.

-Lamar Woodley kills Joe Flacco basically providing bulletin board material for the year.

-Lastly, Silverback, our beloved Silverback lights up the Commissioner in a magazine article. You have read several articles on this by now for sure. I would defend Silverback to the end and the fines last year were 90% bogus. We all know it, but calling out the Boss was a joke. Worse was calling out his teamates. That is not the way Steelers do things.

I am extremely disappointed in Silverback for this one.

As for sitemail. Couple of quick things. I have over 3500 emails to review and I am doing my best to review EVEYONE of them. Contrary to popular belief I will post negative things about the Steelers or the blog if they are written in coherent or somewhat coherent sentences. So blast away!

GET A LABOR DEAL DONE ALREADY!!!

Hey everyone, I have been running wild lately in my real world. Here are some quick hits.

-God Bless John Henry Johnson. I often describe Steeler history as two phases BC and AC. Which my Mom finds somewhat offensive for some reason, it stands for “Before Chuck” and “After Chuck”/(Chuck Forward). John Henry was a bona fide Steeler star and like the predecessor’s of the Steeler dynasty, he represented a certain toughness that despite few wins people understood Pittsburgh to be. He was the leading rusher of the Steelers and just absolutely was a hammer out of the backfield. In the words of the Bus, “Smashmouth Football, Pittsburgh Style.”

-Labor peace may be coming to a team near you. There were some optimistic reports today about it. KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!!! 

-Plaxico Burress is out of the “tank” and looking for a job. I really wanted to write something about this in more detail. Plex if you have been living in a bubble, shot himself, then lost his contract worth millions and millions of dollars and then had the priviledge of being a guest of my home state NY where he was in prison for over two years. I REPEAT FOR SHOOTING HIMSELF.

My sincere hope is that he gets his life on track and resumes his career. I always liked him and I still believe he has some good football left in him. I am looking for him to land in Philly(YUCK) or Chicago.

-The Bruins who are on the verge of winning the Stanley Cup stole one our songs as their anthem.”Black and Yellow,” by Allderdice High School graduate Wiz Khalifa. This further proves my theory that nothing good ever comes out of Mass. Look at their teams The Red Sox who are the epitome of evil, the Patriots who I can pretty much assure you are Satan’s favorite team and now the Song Stealing Massholes Bruins.  

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UePtoxDhJSw   BTW I like the original better!

-I don’t believe Khalifa is related to Pirate “Legend” Sammy Khalifa.

I first and foremost like and respect the local Pittsburgh media and love the Post Gazette by far.  Last week they were dead wrong in characterizing James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley’s comments. I write to Gene Collier pretty regularly and Ed Bouchette both of which always take the time to respond.

I like Ron Cook and I am sure he doesn’t appreciate being taken to task by a hack like me but I felt it needed to be said. He never responded and I will post his response if he lets me. The local Pittsburgh media didn’t do anything to defend the Steelers last season when there was about a three week period where the refs were flag happy. So we are clear I was a journalism student so in no way do I feel they should have “cooked” a story or made something up. I just think the facts got lost in the shuffle and even though this blog is meant to report facts we understand it is skewed towards the Steelers. We never pretend it isn’t.

I do think the facts though warrant what we were saying.

Here is the letter I wrote recently on behalf of BWG NY:

Mr. Cook,

You are 100% right in that you can’t fight the NFL as the players are about to find out in an all too painful way. But, having your opinion and expressing it was 100% right of Harrison and as of this second he has no obligation to the NFL as he is a locked out employee not receiving  any type of compensation from the org. While his choice of words was not something I would have chosen, I have no problem with him expressing it.

I emailed Gene Collier last year and as the local media I thought you guys should have “protected” Harrison in every possible way without losing journalistic integrity. There were at least a dozen more hits more ferocious than Harrisons that weren’t flagged for 100K. Half of his fined plays didn’t even draw a penalty! How would you not feel persecuted.

Also, let’s be honest everyone knows that this rule has something to do with Harrison. If you are denying that you are kidding yourself. The most fined player in the league obviously had something to do with this. AKA the Hines Ward Rule, Mel Blount rule.

You were way off about the Super Bowl too, in no way can you lay that blame at Harrison’s feet or Woodley, for that matter and I contend that they were the two best linebackers on the field in that game! The stats prove that to be true. If the Steelers could have held onto the football they would have won. Heck one less turnover and they would have won. A healthy Troy Polamalu and they would have won.

There were several weeks that the refs over officiated the games. Go back and watch the films. (It’s not like we will have anything else to do soon.)

I respect your writing and I admire it very much. But you are dead wrong here! DEAD WRONG!

Sincerely,

(BWG NY)

….

As for Calling it the Steeler Rule or the Harrison Rule, you know what, we wear that as a BADGE OF HONOR!!!!

We may have lost the Lombardi this year but BWG Nation is bringing in the Mirrorball! Thanks to Hines Ward our often criticized but never to be underestimated WR.

It is no secret that we love this guy here and if he won a pie eating contest we would have been proud. DWTS is serious competition and he did an excellent job. It also was a nice distraction from all the Labor woes.

I also think it is fair to say that Christine Johnson should immediately be made a member of Steeler’s Nation!

What I liked best of course was the frequent use of the Terrible Towel by everyone from the fans, to teamates to the curmudgeon judge Len Goodman!

Congrats to Hines Ward. I can’t wait to get back to the business of football!

Hines Ward has made it to the final of Dancing with the Stars. He has been outstanding all year on the show. I am happy to see him on main stream media and glad he beat out OchoStinko and Mike Irvin.

I just hope he does a Krack Back block on one of the pro dancers!

Today marks the end of the career of Alan Faneca, the greatest guard in Pittsburgh Steelers history. It was a sad day in Pittsburgh when Faneca left the Steelers. He was a true character guy and a heck of a football player. He had an outstanding career and should be on the way to Canton. (If they ever will stop their Steelers biased! 🙂

“From the dog days of training camp to winning a Super Bowl the memories are endless,’’ Faneca said in a statement released through his agent Rick Smith. “The greatest memory that I will leave the game with is all of the lifelong friendships I have made.’’

Checking the Stats:

-Started EVERY game for 9 seasons and had the current longest streak

-All-Pro 2001-2008

-Pro Bowl Starter 2001-2009

-Threw the key block which sprung Willie Parker for the longest run in Super Bowl history.

#66 in your program, number 1 in our hearts!!! 

If you didn’t think his Super Bowl fumble was bad enough, Rashard Mendenhall this week made some “confusing” comments on twitter about the death of the Mass Murderer Osama bin Laden. This of course has many people up in arms and proves my point that nothing good can come of facebook or twitter.

After reviewing the comments, I have to say, Rashard did what makes America great, he expressed his opinion! While I didn’t agree with his comments about 9/11 or about the guilt or innoncence of bin Laden. He made some Christian points that truthfully he might have been right about.

My regret about bin Laden’s death is we couldn’t kill him twice, Probably not the most Christian statement but true none the less. 

Mendenhall’s comments were:

“What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…

BWG TAKE: I think people were celebrating a mass murderer being brought to justice.

“@dkeller23 We’ll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style

BWG TAKE: Since Rashard’s degree is not in engineering and he has no background in explosives or aviation I have to say this was an ill advised comment!

“I believe in God. I believe we’re ALL his children. And I believe HE is the ONE and ONLY judge.

BWG TAKE: I believe that very thing. Although, I would be willing to bet the the Good Lord upstairs migh be willing to give you a pass on bin Laden! Either way I completely believe in this statement!

“Those who judge others, will also be judged themselves.

BWG TAKE: This is Christian doctrine and obviously what he believes. Hard to argue against the guy’s faith.

“For those of you who said you want to see Bin Laden burn in hell and piss on his ashes, I ask how would God feel about your heart?

BWG TAKE: I don’t think anyone is in a position to question what God will or won’t feel. I am glad bin Laden is in hell and thankful for at least a small time the world is a little bit safer!

“There is not an ignorant bone in my body. I just encourage you to #think”

BWG Take: It is good advice and it is time to move on get back to the business of winning football games!

When I last checked this was America and you are allowed to express your opinions! For what it is worth I think it is foolish to continue to harp on this.