I think Harris has to be part of that. No point signing him as back up otherwise, could always have waited a couple of weeks. As to who sits, my guess would be a back up LB

I’m guessing at least in the short term, Eason dresses and Harris is inactive.

Harris will need some practices and time to become more familiar with system in order to move past Eason and get a “Hat”.

and I’m a Steelers fan, but if the MVP vote were held right now, I can’t see how any quarterback besides Peyton Manning should get a vote.

Sucks that we lose Smith, but I believe Sonny to be a great player, and with a little time a good addition to this team. Hope whoever starts at DE can stop the run as well as Smith can.

…and I really, REALLY want Sunny Harris to be good, but there seems to be a lot of hype on the board (and has been for awhile now) for a guy who was a 6th round pick, got cut, was picked up by a Panthers team in major need of D-line help and couldn’t make the active roster there. It kind of reminds me of the A.Q. Shipley/Tank Summers pre-draft hype. Sunny Harris might become a player some day (as might Shipley and Summers), but he isn’t one now. So that leaves us with an Eason/Kirschke/Ziggy Hood pu-pu platter to replace Aaron Smith. Hood looked good in pre-season but he’s still really green. Long story short, the D got significantly worse in the past 48 hours, Sunny Harris or not.

…to be honest, I’m ready to break open the Jack and drown my sorrows. I’d never trash this team or this franchise and I truly believe, like the Rooneys do, in taking the long view of things. The Harris addition is indeed a good thing. I’m just really bummed, that’s all. Smith is one of those essential “glue guys” we were discussing on the board a few months back. I love his motor and his attitude and his selflessness. He epitomizes why I’ve rooted for this team for over 30 years. I agree that it will be fun to see what guys like Hood and Harris can do and I think the experience they’ll gain from this will be invaluable. 91’s a big, big loss though. I maintain hope we can overcome it. At the moment, though, I’m ready for that drink…

And I still believe it. That is a huge loss for the Steelers.

What’s the opinion on our offensive line against Jared Allen?

is now, if the Steelers are going to do anything this year. I expect Harris to be inactive this week, but I think it won’t be before too long before he is ahead of Nick Eason in the rotation. Some of us are so high on Harris here because I actually think he looked better than Ziggy in the preseason. He’s bigger than Ziggy, holds the point better and he has a good burst to get to the QB if he disengages from his man.

What excited me about Harris is the way he used his hands and controlled the man trying to block him. He was able to stack at the point of attack, find where the ball was going, throw his man aside and then pursue the ball. The kid looked pretty good and is only going to get better. I still need to see Ziggy hold the point, get off blocks and make tackles. I haven’t seen that yet. I think it is a good thing that Big Snack will get some more time on the field in the nickel and dime D. With this being a contract year, you know he wants to put up some numbers and wreak havoc.

Has anyone noticed that Farrior’s play has dropped off significantly these first few weeks? He’s been getting beat in coverage and hasn’t been playing on the other side of the OL as he has in previous year. Anyone think he might have lost that proverbial “step” that many players lose in their 30’s that they had earlier in their careers? If so, it might be time to get K. Fox some time in the base D. He’s definitely a thumper.

I saw where someone else on another board had mentioned how bad K. Ratliff has looked in coverage for us and wished that the Steelers had kept CB/S Roy Lewis instead. Don’t know if he’d be an upgrade, but at least he is there if the Steelers get an injury in the secondary.

A lot of people aren’t understanding the optimism about some of the young players on the Steelers. With some time and a chance to learn the system, players like Ziggy, S. Harris, M. Wallace, R. Foster could be very productive pros for this team in the future. And when you see them flash some of the skills that they have, you don’t want to see them develop for another franchise. The Steelers picked them (or discovered them) and need depth in those areas, so keep them and give them a chance to produce for you, not another team.

If they aren’t good enough, then get the next batch of players in. Still think K. Colbert did a pretty good job with this draft, probably his best thus far.

I can’t wait for this weekend – not only for Steelers/Pitt games, but I’ll be done with a hellish week of classes. I have one more tonight, an art law class taught by a transactional lawyer from a huge firm here in Pittsburgh.

She may be a very good attorney – I don’t know. But she can’t teach. Each week she assigns a huge reading list, 15+ cases plus assorted articles. That translates to over 100 pages for that class, easily. But we don’t even go over everything – we’re inevitably short on time, so we skip around. She could simply cut down on the damned reading, but instead we have to slog through it every week, knowing that we’ll go over maybe half of it.

But now she’s outdone herself – one citation leads to a case whose opinion wasn’t even published. WTF? How do we read this? Two articles give me 404 errors. One is an LAP listing of famous art theft cases – which am I supposed to read, all of them? Class is in an hour, and this bullsh** has demotivated me to the point where I have ten more cases to read. Ain’t happening. And because of stupid American Bar Association rules, I can’t really afford to take this class off tonight.

Arrrggh. Sorry for wasting everybody’s time.