Hi-

I am an Oregon Duck who did his undergrad and grad school and currently works at the UofO.  I just want to say that you folks at the Steelers got a great athlete and a great man in Dennis Dixon.  Mature beyond his years, he is the classy kind of guy you want representing your organization.  

I attended the USC game here in Eugene last season and watched Dixon make the USC defenders look absolutely silly.  He is elusive, shifty, quick, and intelligent.  His ball fakes would make Harry Houdini proud.  If you haven't already seen it, this footage from the Oregon vs. Michigan game is a must see:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcHa4MzCICc

 Dixon not only fools the Michigan D on this play, but the cameraman and both announcers.  You gotta love the shocked look on the Michigan faithfull's faces.

Add another (new) Steeler fan to your mix!

I. Stolms

Eugene, OR

I hesitate to write about this because the topic is so negative, but I think there is sufficient new information and info that has impacted the Steelers that we would be remiss to not at least review it. This article appeared in today's Washington Post. The Tribune-Review also has an article as well

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403517.html

In terms of a highlight of an interview that will be aired on HBO tomorrow night, Walsh quotes an unidentified Patriot QB as saying that the information gained from the tapings allowed them to successfully anticipate 75% of the defensive plays that were run against them. On NFL Total Access (NFL Network) they had some of the tapes for review. Marshall Faulk and Rod Woodson confirmed that the information contained would have provided a significant competitive advantage. Arlen Specter in explaining why he would push forward with an investigation anticipated why the Rooneys (and Tomlin) would take such a dismissive attitude; the integrity of the League is at stake. This would be more important than any gain that would be made by outing the Patriots.

Based on the information I've seen so far, this is my reaction. I don't want to hear anything else about how great Bill Belicheck is as a coach, or for that matter how great Tom Brady is as a QB. Knowing what the defense is running 75% of the time, hell, Maryrose's daughter could be a Pro Bowl quarterback. This is on the order of steroid abuse or corked bats in baseball. I have said on earlier occasions that Spygate will not go away, and I think this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I try to check to see where visitors to Curtain are coming from from time to time. One way for me to do so is by checking the Goolge searches that lead potential readers to BTSC. Lo and behold, we had a visitor just a few minutes ago from the following search:

The original logo had what word(s) next to the three hypocycloids?

 

For those not yet reading the site or for those who may have missed it, this discussion came up in a trivia contest held held here on Curtain awhile ago. Thanks to maryrose for the trivia questions, and to 5020, nycsteeler, SteelerMike and our resident math WIZ HinesField for the lesson.

There are others out there just as nerd-tastic as us! Steelers football, beer...and hypocycloids!

The time is 11:43 EST. You have about 1 hour and 15 minutes to wish our own TMVT good luck on his NAVY SEALS physical examination. Pushups, situps, a 1.5 mile run, swim and other physical tests will be administered. He has sworn off alcohol and greasy food for months now in preparation.

Give him a shout out Steelers style to pump him up. He's vowed to head to his local Steelers bar for a much deserved beer and burger afterwards, followed by some more of his great contributions to the site now that this will be out of the way.

Go kick some ass young man!

I know you guys have probably already covered this, but I'm new to the blog and was wondering what you all thought about the difficulty in our schedule vs other teams....

Does it make sense that teams like the Pats and Cowboys have such easy schedules?  I mean I understand that the Pats are in a very weak division, which makes up half of their games, but it doesn't seem to make sense that a team that just went 16-0 in the regular season would get the easiest regular season schedule the following season.  I've heard people saying crazy stuff like that the league is trying to give them another shot at perfect season, but that doesn't jive....I hope!!!

Straight from my email box from the network architects re: the new and improved search functions on Curtain and other SBN sites:

**********************

Hey folks,

This morning we launched the new + improved search feature designed
based on direct feedback from your communities and developed between
migrations, bug fixes and other feature upgrades.

When we built the platform, one of the big changes we made was to
include a new, powerful (and open source) search technology. However,
on our first release we didn't hit the target on the interface we
built to use it. Of course many members of your communities posted
ideas for improvement to our support email address and in your
threads. Based on all of that, and a few ideas of our own, we have
completed the next round of changes to search. As usual, we're never
done and we're eager to get feedback that we'll use into future
iterations of SB Nation search. And there may even be a few bugs here
& there. We're still beta!

Here is what we've done:

- Improved UI: clean, open search page designed for ease of scanning
results and to quickly find what you're looking for

- Comments are searchable again

- With one search you can view the number of results for all content:
front-page stories, FanPost, FanShots and comments. One click to view
those results.

- Relevant excerpts with highlighted keyword matches are displayed
with very result

- You can sort by date or by relevancy

- Pages for matching players, events and teams, including quick links
to stats, rosters, news and schedule are displayed in results

- Power search allows you to fine tune your query, show more results
per page and filter your search by user or date

- Easily increase the scope of your search by including results from
the league or the entire SB Nation network with the tabs at the top

- If you're looking for something posted by a particular user, just
click their name anywhere on the network and use the search box on
their profile to automatically filter results by their name.

Bob Smizik of the PG has written an article claiming that the Penguins may be in position to surpass the Steelers as Pittsburgh's favorite team.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08130/880449-61.stm

I'm not sure what to make of this. I haven't lived in the Burgh for years so I don't know if what he says makes any sense. The accompanying poll has most fans disagreeing, but by a much smaller margin than I would have suspected. I have to also say that Smizik isn't one of my favorites. I remember when he was covering my high school football games. And that was a loooonnng time ago. And I wasn't crazy about his ideas back then either.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against the Pens. In fact, I watched much of their game last night and am pumped about their playoff prospects. Love the team and have been a big Mario fan. I suspect I'll be big on Crosby as well as the years go on. But to suggest that they will surpass the Steelers in the hearts of Pittsburgh fans (especially while the Steelers continue to field highly competitive teams) smells of sacrilege. What do you all think?

I was just watching  ESPN newscasts on the release of the Matt Walsh Spygate tapes to the NFL commissioner.  One of these tapes involved a Steelers / Patriots AFC championship game.  ESPN  believed that from the info released, no further action by the commissioner was warranted.  They also implied that these tapes (of both offensive and defensive signals) were for future use.  In my opinion this is contrary to all logic.  Why take tapes of the signals unless they could be of immediate use, especially an AFC championship game.  It seems that they had to have some sort of method to review the tapes at another location and then forward their results.

I'm no conspiracy theorist but if you could review and interpret the tapes from the first half and give the opponents signals to your coaching staff, for example at half time, they would be game changing.  Perhaps this could also account for the Pat's vaunted ability to comeback in the second half.

Is this scenario far fetched, or should it be dismissed.

I here people talking about how Timmons is already a bust, how if he doesn't start this year he should be qualified as a bust. This is insane. I personally think it is bias against that particular player to call them a bust when they are 21 years old.

I will give a few examples of what a true NFL Draft bust is.

Continue reading this post »

Looks like the browns are already the 2008-2009 superbowl champs go look at their blog dawgs by nature and on the top where their banner is states the are that sure of them selfs this year.  Boy do i love being the under dog.  Im not even sure they can win the north yet let alone the whole damn thing.  They good on paper but paper dont mean nothing.  So lets have a give those browns a pat on the back by already winning this coming super bowl.  Congratulations