Season Prediction

I decided to write a prediction for the upcoming season because people kept asking me, "How do you think they're going to do this year?" I have no real idea. So, I'd tell them honestly, "Gee. I dunno. New coach, new offense, new coordinator, more responsibility for Ben, we still don't know who are starting five on the offensive line are... could be anything. Probably not good, but could be anything."

Well, that's a shitty prediction.

It's kind of like an "open invitation." I'm sure you've gotten an "open invitation" to hang out at somebody's house, come out for the weekend, come over and play with the kids, etc. Really? Is it totally open? Can I show up at your house at 4 a.m. with a case of beer, pounding on your door and screaming, "DOOD! Natty Ice is the beer of the SUN! We gotta drink it to toast the sunrise!" Can I really? It's an open invitation, right?

What an open invitation really is is one party not caring enough about the situation to bust out the calendars and pick a date. Sure, you might settle on August 5th, 2009 between 1-1:30 p.m., but that probably just means you're too busy. Maybe you should stop reading this blog. You look tired. A vacation, maybe. My buddy says I have an open invitation to hang out at his beach house...

At any rate, me throwing my hands up and saying, "They could win the Super Bowl, they could draft 1st overall!" was just as much of a cop-out.

So, without further ado, here's what I think...

I think we're going to win the division. I may be a total moron (that's probably the case, actually), but that's what I think. And, I've looked at the schedule, thought about the other teams in the league and the division, and that's what I seriously think.

Here's why:

1. I'm not basing a division championship on our pre-season record, but the fact that we went 4-1 really tells me something about Mike Tomlin: He gives a shit about how this season turns out. Emphatically. The. Man. Gives. A. Shit. He might give two, or up to seven shits about the outcome of the 2007 season for our beloved Steelers. He came into the pre-season prepared. He had the guys ready to play for each game and he had them fired up. Especially on defense, where we gave up a total of 42 points in 5 pre-season games. From the pre-game warm-up music to the post-game speech, he is going to have every last detail planned out. Our guys need that after having to patch leaky faucets and busted sewer manes with an absentee landlord last season.
2. Seventeen months ago, we had just won the freakin' Super Bowl after holding the top 4 offenses in the NFL at bay in consecutive weeks. We've lost guys since then, but we've added guys since then. The majority of the roster is still there, though.
3. First five games: at Cleveland, home against the Bills and 49ers, at Steelers West, home against Seattle. Then a bye. We can win all 5 of those games. My buddy Chris said to me that there's a strong probability that we can head into the bye at 5-0. I said he was a moron. Chris, I apologize. Those are 5 very winnable, pretty easy games.
4. After that, things get hairy, with two road games at Denver and Cincinnati and a Monday night home game (going to that one, bitches!) against the hated Ravens. Now, Denver has tons of new starters on offense and defense, a new defensive coordinator and a second year QB that didn't look all that swift when pressed into service last season. They also missed the playoffs last year and we would've crushed them at Heinz Field had it not been for the six turnovers. Cincinnati has a tougher opening schedule (home game against the hated Ravens on Monday night to open the season, New England before the bye) and will most likely be without their two starting tackles (Levi Jones and Willie Anderson) for the month of September. They also lost Eric Steinbach to the Browns. That's a lot to overcome for a team that lives and dies by its offense. Baltimore... well, they're another issue entirely.
5. Every year in which the hated Ravens have been handed the division title before the season even started, they have not won the division. '01 after their Super Bowl title, we won it. '04 after their division title and playoff run, we won it. '07 after their division title and playoff run... you see where I'm going with this? Add to this the fact that the only pick that solicited a, "Damnit! I was going to take them!" out of anyone in my Fantasy Football drafts was the Ravens D/ST, and you've got a recipe for another disappointing year for the hated Ravens in which the defense eventually gives up and everyone questions Brian Billick's offensive aptitude. I'm telling you. By the time they play us, they could be 2-5. They'll still play us tough, but I'm just floating this out there right now. Granted, they crushed us last year, but this is this year, not last year.
6. Which brings me to this point: If teams try to blitz the hell out of us this year, they are entering into a world of pain. Perhaps the biggest thing I took out of the pre-season is that Ben and his receivers are finally, finally on the same page as far as blitz recognition is concerned. Holmes, Ward, Wilson, and Miller (and possibly even Willie and Davenport) are going to have the opportunity to make some big plays if defenses blitz us a lot this year. And, if they decide to play us straight up, there's no way they can cover everybody. I predict big things from the offense this year. One of the reasons I think we're going to win the division.
7. But, the BIGGEST reason that we'll win the division is this: The Steelers have owned this division for so long that every other team in it is designed just to beat us. The only problem with that design is that we're no longer us anymore. This is a different Steeler team and a pretty big departure from the old Cowher teams (I know, he only resigned in January, but it seems like a lifetime ago and the make-up of this team is significantly different than the one Cowher coached last season). We'll run more no huddle (in that we'll run it at all outside of the two minute warning), we'll run more 4 wide receiver formations on first and second down (in that we'll run them at all), and we'll look to get Willie Parker in space as much as possible. Not just on screens, but creating running lanes where he only has to beat one guy to the corner. We're going to be doing a lot of different things on offense this year and the rest of the division (to say nothing of the rest of the league) will not be ready for it. And, truthfully, I'm not ready for it. But, in order to take the contrarian view, I need to be positive and assume that it's going to work.
8. The defense looks ready to play. They are an emotional group and feed off of emotion. While Tomlin is not as fiery as Cowher, he and Dick LeBeau certainly have this unit fired up. We'll see if it lasts until late in the season (with another brutal stretch), but, again, trying to stay positive here.
9. Getting back to the schedule: After the Monday night game against the hated Ravens (did I mention that I'm going to that game?), we've got the Browns and Dolphins at home surrounding a road game against the Jets. All three of those are winnable. After that, comes the death. Home against the Bengals (who may be reeling at that point), at Foxboro, home against the Jaguars (they always play us tough), then two road games at St. Louis and at Baltimore to close out the season. However, the Patriots aren't as good as everyone thinks, the Jaguars will either be out of contention or possibly have locked up the division by then (same with the Rams), and I highly doubt that the season finale against the hated Ravens is actually going to mean anything - one party or the other will already have the division salted away.

Therefore... if we win the 8 winnable games, we only need to split the other 8 (or even go 3-5, since I doubt anyone else in the division is even going to win 10 games) in order to win the division.

One of the reasons last year was a major disappointment was because we shit the bed against lesser teams. If we simply win the games we're supposed to win, the division is ours.

Think of all the shit that went wrong last season and how painful it was. Then realize we went 8-8 and came within a few bad bounces of making the playoffs.

We got crushed by Baltimore twice and lost to the Raiders, but blew out the Browns, Chiefs, and Panthers. Take care of the inconsistencies of last year, add in that we get to play the AFC East (weaker than the West - last year's opponents) and the NFC West (weaker than the South - last year's opponents), and an 11-5 season doesn't seem that unrealistic, does it?

C'mon. Argue with me. Open invitation.