All Steelers, All the Time

That's Lay-Trobe to the locals.

The radio and TV guys are raving about what kind of shape Pig Ben is in at the start of training camp -- he's svelt, muscular and his arm looks deadly. They haven't gone so far as to call him dreamy, but they've been drooling. From a football perspective, this is great news, but honest, Ben, it took a police investigation, a serious reaming from the Commish and a four to six game suspension to get your ass into the gym? Seriously? Oh well.

Meanwhile the debate rages, in my head if nowhere else, over which quarterback should be the one to try to stake the team to a good start until Goodell gives Pig Ben the nod to play. Byron Leftwich? Or Dennis Dixon?

I've always liked Leftwich. He's has had success in the NFL and he seems to be a really good guy. I'll never forget that Steelers fans are very much indebted to him for pulling out a very nice win in D.C. in 2008 (absolutely crucial to getting the playoff bye that year), to say nothing of his amazing heroics at Marshall. I never get tired of watching that.

But ... Leftwich is what he is. He had some really good years in Jacksonville, was a great backup here, but was underperforming so much last year with Tampa that he was pulled after three games in favor of The Joshes, Johnson and Freeman.

With Dixon, what there is a lot of unknown, but the little we do know makes me salivate. He can fly and he can throw; before his injury at Oregon, he was a really special talent. He's like the prettiest Christmas present under the tree. You are dying to open it, but half the time, it turns out to be a pair of lousy socks from your great aunt and not the iPad you were hoping for. Dixon = Socks? Or iPad?

Dixon is a bigger risk, but with an exponentially bigger upside if it works. Leftwich is the guy who you can rely on to hold the fort, assuming the rest of the team performs well. I was wondering which way Tomlin would go. Mark Kaboly of the McKeesport Daily News reports that Leftwich is getting the lion's share of reps at QB.

Byron Leftwich took the most snaps during team drills in both the morning and afternoon sessions Monday and also exclusively played with the first-team offense during the afternoon practice.

In four practices so far, Leftwich leads the quarterbacks with 56 reps in 11-on-11 team periods. Roethlisberger is next with 51 followed by Dixon with 29.

Charlie Batch has taken only one snap during team drills in four practices and he handed off.

The numbers are a little skewed because both Roethlisberger and Leftwich ran the 2-minute drill Sunday in which each got at least seven snaps. Dixon will have a chance to run the drill later in the week.

I guess I have my answer. No socks and no iPad under the tree, this guy instead:



Things could be a lot worse, given all the givens.

The other question mark for me was whether or not Rashard Mendenhall had recovered from the Mad Fumblitis but it looks like he's still got a raging case:

Even with Rashard Mendenhall sitting out because of a toe injury, the fumbling didn't stop for the running backs. Mewelde Moore fumbled during 9-on-7 drills during the afternoon practice. Mendenhall fumbled in practices Saturday and Sunday.

Also courtesy of Mark Kaboly.

Meanwhile, on the defensive side of the ball, D-Line coach John Mitchell said he plans on using a six man rotation and is excited about it. The Starting Six are: the familiar faces [1) Big Snack (Casey Hampton), (2) Brett Keisel and (3) Aaron Smith], plus, the 2009 top draft choice [(4) Ziggy Hood], the journeyman [(5) Nick Eason] and old reliable [(6) Chris Hoke]. The Steelers list a bunch of other players on the D line, including 2nd round draft pick Jason Worilds, who it appears they will deploy as a linebacker, not a down lineman.

One last thought on the defensive side of the ball - it goes as Polamalu goes. I love this bit from James Walker's ESPN blog:

"He just kind of opens the playbook to anything you want to do," Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said. "It's just a matter of how far off the diving board you want to go."

An Inexplicable Obsession

I am a Blackburn Rovers fan.

Whenever I meet someone from England who is not a Blackburn fan, I usually get the same reaction when I tell them that I support the Rovers: "Blackburn? Why?"

The Rovers are not a fashionable club to follow, at least not these days. Admittedly, I started rooting for the Blue and White in their second heyday, following their first (and, truth be told, likely only) Premier League championship in 1995. But I wasn't a bandwagon jumper, actually not throwing my support behind the club until it was on the decline, in 1997. Only two years later they were relegated and I stuck with them, proof of my stubbornness or stupidity.

It was not a decision that was made lightly. I began following the Premier League around 1996, a time coinciding with my beginning to coach my son's rec soccer team and with ESPN2's broadcasts of some Premier League games. I decided to follow one team, and set a few rules in choosing which one it would be. I wanted to root for a team that had enjoyed some success but was not one of the mega-teams. And I wanted to feel a connection with not just the team but its supporters.

Options for viewing soccer, and following foreign leagues, were much more antiquated 15 years ago than they are now, so the tools at my disposal to help figure out what team I would call my own were limited. I relied on the occasional match on ESPN2 and message boards and email lists on the Internet to help make my choice. For a time, I joined email lists of fans of Newcastle, Liverpool, and Blackburn.

All three were moderately successful in the '90's and had some promise of future success. Liverpool had enjoyed a long spell as the best club in England in the '70's and '80's and Newcastle had a strong fan base and fanatical following. Rovers had been the best team in England in the late 1800's and had enjoyed a revival under steel magnate and local boy made good Jack Walker, who had purchased the club in the early '90's and quickly steered it (or bought its way, depending on how you looked at it) from the Second Division to the Premier League and then champions in a remarkably short period of time.

I quickly struck Newcastle off of the list, finding their fans to be boorish and unintelligent. The Liverpool supporters were smarter but had an air of entitlement that I found off-putting. The Rovers fans, however, were smart, funny, and had a certain "us against the world" attitude that fit with my predisposition to root for the underdog (a trait I believe I share with many West Virginians).

My support for Rovers was cemented by two other factors: their fantastic blue and white halves, a kit that I think is the best looking soccer shirt in the world, and a 7-2 thrashing of Sheffield Wednesday on a Monday afternoon that still may be the most dazzling soccer game I've ever watched.

That was 13 years ago and it is still the most goals I've ever seen the Rovers score in a match. There have been some very low points along the way, including relegation in 1999 and two season in what was then called the First Division. As hard as it was to follow a club in the Premier League then, it was nothing compared to the wasteland that was news, let alone match highlights or live games, regarding First Division teams.

Rovers tried a number of miserably unsuitable managers while stumbling into and then through the wilderness before a savior arrived: Graham Souness. Although his departure from the club, inevitable for almost any professional team, was unpleasant, there is no doubt in my mind that Souness was the right man at the right time to lead Blackburn back to the Premier League, which he did in a season and a half.

During the first year back, Rovers reached their high point since I've followed them, winning the League Cup final 2-1 over Tottenham Hotspur at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. I still have the video tape of that win, and pull it out and watch every so often.

Since then, Rovers have mostly struggled in the Premier League, although they did enjoy a spell in the top half of the league for a time under manager Mark Hughes, one of the heroes of the League Cup win. Hughes, however, bolted for the filthy lucre offered by Manchester City (he's since been fired there and was recently hired by Fulham, which employs Americans Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson) and were very nearly demoted again after a disastrous start to the next season under Paul Ince.

The past two years have been marked by mediocrity and dull play, due in part to the current manager, Sam Allardyce, a coach whose tactics and demeanor would be difficult for the most ardent supporter to warm to, and in part to the financial cost of "facing the drop" to the First Division (now called the "Championship") which makes survival in the Premiership the main goal for all but a handful of clubs.

Things are better from the standpoint of getting to watch Rovers live on FSC and ESPN2 these days when they play one of the "big clubs". But I can't say that I often enjoy the experience. That's part of being a true fan, particularly a fan of a perpetual underdog. And, unlike in baseball (I'm a lifelong Tigers and Cubs fan) or football (ahem, Lions?) at least professional soccer offers several different avenues, through cup competitions, for a team to shine even when the season isn't going all that well (Portsmouth were in the FA Cup final last year while slogging through a miserable league campaign that saw them practically relegated by Christmas).

The preseason hasn't gone well at all for Rovers this year, and I fear that survival may be an accomplishment rather than just a goal in 2010-11. But I'll be watching. Through thick and (mostly) thin, I'm a Rovers fan.