A Fleury of Updates

There has been a lot going on recently and I didn't want to split it up into several posts.  I thought that I would throw out a Fleury of updates regarding my thoughts about what's been happening...

Pirates:

They still suck.  It's good to know that some things never change.  Well, no, I guess it's bad that the suckitude of the Buccos never changes.

What irks me is that they had a chance to get to .500 against the Padres and blew it.  In response to questions about getting to .500, manager Clint Hurdle said that getting to .500 doesn't matter.  He has a point, but not in the context of the Pirates.  The goal of most professional sports teams is to win a championship.  The goal of the Pirates, at this point, should be to at least break even and go from there.  I agree that, for most teams, being at or above .500 in early May is not important.  You want to be at or above .500 -- hopefully several games over -- in late September.

But, since the current Pirates losing streak is almost old enough to drink, I think Hurdle needs to re-align his mission statement.  Let's get to .500 and go from there.

Penguins:

I underestimated the Lightning and I overestimated the Penguins.  I underestimated Roloson and I overestimated Fleury and the defense.  The fact that Tampa went on to sweep the Capitals doesn't make losing the series suck any less, but it does make the loss a little more admirable.  It could very well be that the Lightning are a great team.  We knew heading into the series that the Pens were just a good team.  Taking the series to seven games is only a moral victory, but it's still something.

I prefer not to think of it as the Pens blowing a 3-1 lead in the series.  I prefer to think of it as them pushing a superior team to the brink, but finally running out of gas.  That may be a ridiculous statement, but that's what I'm sticking to.

After Game 5, I came to the realization that this Penguins team had a ceiling of three goals.  If Tampa was able to score more than three goals in a game, they were going to win.  I also realized that the Lightning really didn't have a ceiling, which meant that they were probably going to run us out of the series.  I had some glimmer of hope heading into Game 6 and that was squashed.  By the time Game 7 rolled around, I believed that they could score two goals and pull out the victory, but, logically, I had trouble convincing myself that my belief was founded.

With Crosby and Malkin back next season, they should be a great team again.  They shouldn't take heavy losses in free agency and should be able to return fresh next season, ready for another Cup run.

Power:

I'll admit that I haven't seen a lot of the Power in the past three games.  I watched one game online and recorded another, but I was distracted by finals and being out of town, so I can't say that I gleaned much from that film study.

It looks to me like Anthony Morelli might be the answer at quarterback and he's the guy that has the most experience at the position right now, so I'm anxious to get a better look at him tonight when the Power play the Shock at 8 p.m.  That game is at home and is going to be on the CW.  Be sure to tune in.  Maybe at least the Power can get to .500 and they have a shot at that tonight.

Mendenhall:

In addition to the Pens getting eliminated, the NFL Draft, and the royal wedding, Osama bin Laden was shot and killed.  Rashard Mendenhall Tweeted about it and drew a great deal of national attention, as well as the ire of most of Steeler Nation.

Now, Mendenhall exercised poor judgement and shouldn't have Tweeted what he Tweeted.  But, it's not like he smoked a bunch of weed, locked himself in a bathroom with a drunk 20 year-old, or assaulted his girlfriend.  A number of fans are calling for Mendenhall to be released or traded once the lockout ends.  That's pretty short-sighted and just a little extreme. 

It was a Tweet.  What he did wasn't illegal or immoral and is protected by the First Amendment.  Mendenhall's just an idiot.  That's not against the law.  It's also not against the league's personal conduct policy, which mainly just scolds players for Tweets and Facebook posts that undermine the organization (complaining about food at training camp, dissing other players on other teams, saying bad things about the league or their team). 

Fans have the right to call Mendenhall an idiot and boo him when the season opens -- interestingly enough, that's on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 -- but trading or releasing Mendenhall would be a tad crazy.

One other thing: If he had stopped at, "What kind of person celebrates death?" then I would agree with him.  A number of Americans were outraged by the fact that other people in other countries were celebrating and dancing to images of the World Trade Center collapsing in the wake of 9/11.

Now, the two scenarios are different in many ways, but both of them involved large groups of people celebrating the death of another person.  I was happy that Osama died, too.  I'm not saying those people are bad for celebrating.  I'm just saying that Mendenhall has a point.  If he had just posed a question and not said all the other dumb stuff he said, then maybe we're all asking ourselves the same question he posed.

Right now, though, I'm done with questions and conjecture and I'm prepared to move on.  I think the Steelers are prepared to move on... once the CBA is in place and they can move on, that is.  Mendenhall is an idiot, Osama is dead, bring on the hated Ravens.