Performance Art, David Mamet and the AFC Championship Game

A long time ago, like back in the Neil O'Donnell era, I went to an evening of performance art at Mellon Park put together by this artsy guy who I kinda knew because he dated somebody I knew. I didn't much care for him. I thought he was pretentious and annoying because he was pretentious and annoying. Also, he wore purple. Lots and lots of purple all the time and I don't think I ever saw him when he wasn't wearing at least one article of purple clothing. He had a simply shocking propensity for purple. Not a dignified purple, like Northwestern or Minnesota Vikings purple, either. It was more like the shade of purple preferred by pre-pubescent little girls, the shade they would squeal with delight to find in a pen and then proceed to sign everything in purple and write on the fronts of their notebooks and stuff. That purple. He even wore purple socks. In the summer. With shorts and running shoes. (I am not making this up.)

But I started thinking about him, and this particular evening of performance art because the over-arching theme was time. It was made up of many different vignettes, some of which were more monologue and others more, em, performance artsy, if you know what I mean. And when one of them was finished, Mr. Purple would bang this little gong he was carrying around and call "Time!," only he did it in a really annoying way -- like, "TIIIMMMMMMMMEEE!" -- he really laid on that "M" and dragged it out. Then we'd all walk, like lemmings, to another spot in the park for another vignette.

I found myself thinking about Mr. Purple calling "TIIIMMMMMMMEEE" yesterday morning when I was reflecting on the Steelers-Jets game because it seems to me it was all about time, it was about the Steelers offense's ability to drain nearly all the time out of the first quarter and about the defenses's ability to make the Jets use more time than they wanted to down the stretch.

They opened the game with a 15 play, nine minute touchdown drive. Nine minutes is an insanely long time for the Steelers offense (any offense, really) to be on the field. The Jets offense must have felt helpless, just standing their on a freezing night, watching the slow, inexorable tour of destruction that was the Steelers offense at the start of the game. They were down by seven points, with one-sixth of the game gone before Mark Sanchez even touched the ball. It felt like that opening drive set the tone for the whole first half, that the Jets had been almost lulled into a coma by the first drive. In fact, the Jets held the ball for just 8:04 in the first half. TIIIMMMMMMEE!

After the Jets gamely fought back to make it a two score game, they took over near the end of the 3rd quarter on their own 13 yard line. Though they drove the length of Heinz Field, James Harrison et al. forced them to use 17 plays to do it, and chew up eight minutes of clock before Casey Hampton and Brett Keisel stoned LaDainian Tomlinson at the goal-line. This was a muther of a goal-line stand.

I realize that the Jets got a safety on the very next snap of the ball, and scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive. Of course. But think of it in terms of time. The Steelers forced them to use 12:38, almost a full quarter of the game, to score just nine points. TIIIMMMMMMEEE!

None of it works, mind you, if the Steelers offense cannot close them out.

In David Mamet's brilliant Glengarry Glen Ross, Blake tells the assembled sales team (selling what, I was never clear on) that they should:

"A-B-C. A-Always. B-Be. C-Closing. Always be closing. Always be closing."

QB rating be damned, Pig Ben is a closer. It may not be pretty and you may not be able to look at a stat sheet to see it, but he's got a killer instinct, an innate, uncanny ability to put a dagger in the other team's heart at just the right moment.

I've been critical of Bruce Arians from time to time (mostly, I just wish he'd take that little delayed handoff to Mewelde Moore and the reverse just out of his playbook. Out. Gone. Banished to the trash heap), but I have to applaud his play-calling at the end of the game, twice calling pass plays to pick up first downs when most other coaches would have just run the ball, punted and tried to pin the Jets deep. It doesn't look like much on the stats sheet:

2nd and 9 at PIT 42 B.Roethlisberger pass short right to H.Miller to NYJ 44 for 14 yards (A.Cromartie).

and

3rd and 6 at NYJ 40 (Shotgun) B.Roethlisberger pass short right to A.Brown pushed ob at NYJ 26 for 14 yards (E.Smith).

Just two relatively routine pass plays, but what those two plays really are is: "You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close!"

I love the calls. Of course, I love the calls because they worked. But lets face it, only a handful of coaches would do it, have the ability to to do it, because there aren't that many closers out there. Pig Ben has never thrown for a bigger 28 yards in his life.

It is a synergy of a quarterback who can make those kinds of plays and a coaching staff that trusts him to do just that. Always Be Closing. That was a closing.

"Fuck you. That's my name. You know why, mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. *That's* my name."

Play big or go home. Once again, the Steelers are going to the Super Bowl. And they're not going in a Hyundai.

Special Teams Return to 2009 Form and Drag Rest of Team Down with Them

I am a believer in the church of the special teams. Yea verily, just as surely as many evangelicals believe in the certainty of the rapture, I believe that special teams touchdowns will come back to bit you in the ass. Hard. I believe that special teams are as important to a team's success as having a franchise quarterback, winning the turnover battle, and controlling the line of scrimmage. In some mystical karmic way, special teams points seem to carry more weight, more cache and special teams touchdowns are to regular touchdowns as dog years are to people years.

Exhibit A: San Diego Chargers. The Chargers are fighting for their playoff lives in no small part because of two early season losses: to the Chiefs by 21-14 - a game in which they gave up a punt return for a TD; and to the Seahawks by 27-20 - a game in which they gave up TWO kickoff returns for TDs. As things stand today, the Chargers are on the outside looking into the playoff picture.

Exhibit B: New York Giants. Who lost yesterday's thriller to the Eagles when they allowed DeSean Jackson to return a punt for a TD on the last play of the game. Brutal. The Giants still are hanging on to the last spot in the playoffs, but I have to wonder if they can get past the kick to the stomach that yesterday's loss was to win out in the last two weeks?

Exhibit C: Pittsburgh Steelers. The team won in Tennessee after Antonio Brown took the opening kickoff to the house. It was the only touchdown they scored all day. Then yesterday, they lost to the Jets after allowing Brad Smith to take the opening kickoff to the house. Coincidence? I don't think so.

You put your team behind the eight-ball when you allow a special teams touchdown. NFL teams are a combined 10-16 when giving up a special teams touchdown and, for some unknown reason, kick returns seem to do more damage that punt returns. In the 20 games with a kickoff returned for a touchdown in the NFL this year, the team with the KO TD has won 13 of those times, and lost just 7 times. Those are pretty much 2 to 1 odds that you'll win if you take a touchdown to the house.

Maybe it's just the letdown factor for the defense. If you're kicking off, either its the start of the game, the start of the half or you've just scored. So let's say your offense fights and claws and puts together a 80-something yard drive. It takes a lot of plays of 11 players doing their jobs, maybe a spectacular catch or two, or maybe a few tackle breaking runs. And all that work is negated on the ensuing kick. The hard work of that offensive touchdown is erased in about 3 seconds.

It's disheartening.

And it's no way to open a game. Particularly against a team like the Jets.

The Jets average just about 21 points per game and I'm not sure if the folks at Stats, Inc. adjust that for other scores - the Jets had another special teams TD and a TD on an interception return coming into this game. Regardless, the Jets are hardly the Patriots prolific offense, so you can't help a team score, particularly one that had been shut out earlier this year by the Packers and had scored just nine points in the last two weeks. Sure, they were fighting for their playoff lives, but still, this Jets team was there for the taking.

Even with the special teams miscue, and even with a defense that cannot make any big plays without Troy on the field (talk about disheartening - just one sack, just one tackle for a loss and only two QB hits), the Steelers were down by just 3 points and had the ball. (For more on the defense being just pedestrian without Troy, check out Gene Collier's great column.)

Why on earth was Mewelde Moore on the field on 1st and 10 from the Steelers 3? Moore is the best blitz protection back, so if you're gonna pass, I can see him being on the field. But at their own 3 yard line, I don't think the Steelers are going to pass there. And the Jets didn't think so either.

Every coach, every player has a chink in the armor, an achilles heel, not like Troy's injured achilles, but one in the Greek mythology sense. And I think that Bruce Arians' biggest flaw as a play caller is that he tries too hard to outsmart teams.

"It would be so stupid of me to run the ball around the corner with Mewelde Moore in this situation that nobody would expect it. Perfect! .... Oh. Crap."

It's a low percentage call in a situation where you cannot afford to lose yards, so what's the logic in handing the ball off to the smallest, weakest back on the roster and running something to the edges?

Why not hand the ball off to the guy who has 100 yards on the day and is averaging nearly 6 yards per carry? I've said it before and I'll say it again -- they drafted Rashard Mendenhall to be the man. They should give him the opportunity to be the man.

The kick off return for a touchdown, the safety -- those are the kinds of plays the Steelers have manufactured to win this season. With special teams reverting to last year's execrable form, and without the team MVP on the field, they couldn't get any of those plays, but rather watched helplessly while the Jets made a couple of big 'splash' plays in Tomlin-speak.

On the upside, the Steelers haven't lost a game to a bad team this year, unlike last season's five game skid that included losses to the bad stinky Chiefs, stinkier Raiders, and the stench that killed an entire region, a/k/a the Brady Quinn led Browns. So, they got that going for them. Yesterday's loss was not one of those terrible, embarrassing losses, but still, it's a game that was there for the taking.