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View Full Version : On the Steelers: Faneca was a rare breed



stillers4me
05-15-2011, 06:52 AM
The retirement of Alan Faneca from pro football brought a Tweet from colleague Dale Lolley, who covers the Steelers for the Observer-Reporter of Washington, Pa.

"Big Red calling it quits makes me feel old," Lolley wrote.

Dear Dale, Lynn Swann calling it quits made me feel old, and he retired after the 1982 season. Swann is half a year younger than I am.

But Lolley has a point, and Faneca's retirement prompted a quick look into the history books..............

Read more @ http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11135/1146702-66.stm

ALLD
05-15-2011, 02:07 PM
Too bad he turned into a journeyman with a bad attitude at the end of his tenure.

stillers4me
05-15-2011, 02:28 PM
Too bad he turned into a journeyman with a bad attitude at the end of his tenure.

He was one of our greatest lineman. But humans have short memories and right now all I can remember is what a little bitch he turned into when Tomlin got hired instead of his buddy Grimmy. That was his ticket out of town and it had nothing to do about money or him being on the downside of his career. I'm sure Ben wished he was there while he was getting mugged for the last couple of years.

ALLD
05-15-2011, 07:32 PM
He deserved as much credit as FWP for the 75-yard record TD run in XL.

salamander
05-15-2011, 08:37 PM
He deserved as much credit as FWP for the 75-yard record TD run in XL.

One of the best blocks I've ever seen.

steelreserve
05-16-2011, 03:18 AM
He was one of our greatest lineman. But humans have short memories and right now all I can remember is what a little bitch he turned into when Tomlin got hired instead of his buddy Grimmy. That was his ticket out of town and it had nothing to do about money or him being on the downside of his career. I'm sure Ben wished he was there while he was getting mugged for the last couple of years.

Ben was getting mugged the last two years Faneca was here as well. I used to think that was because we went to the Parker-only running game and our offense was predictable, but that turned out not to be true, because he kept getting sacked anyway. Then I thought it was because our offense in general was predictable because of Arians, but that turned out not to be true because Arians finally got his shit together and Ben was still getting sacked anyway.

Turns out, Ben just gets sacked. He got sacked all the time with a good offensive line; he gets sacked all the time with a mediocre offensive line. The only time he doesn't lead the league in sacks is when he throws less -- like his first two years (when we were too conservative to trust him), or last year (when he was suspended 25% of the season). Otherwise, he runs around a lot and sometimes it works, but he also gets his shit ruined a lot.

You want to talk about why he gets sacked, look at his style of play, nothing else. Mechanical system QBs like Manning and Brady get sacked about 3-4% of the time. Good QBs on good teams like Montana, Elway and Moon tend to get sacked about 5-6% of the time (Marino got sacked about 3% of the time, apparently just because he was that awesome). OK quarterbacks on losing teams with shitty players get sacked 5-6% of the time (Sam Bradford, Matt Stafford, Jon Kitna). Playmaking, scrambling-but-not-necessarily-running QBs like Ben, Randall Cunningham and Daunte Culpepper get sacked 8-9% of the time. Shitty overrated quarterbacks like JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Jeff George, Bubby Brister, Rick Mirer and Alex Smith all get sacked about 9-10% of the time just because they suck. Playmaking/running QBs like Steve Young and Michael Vick get sacked about 10% of the time. That's just the way it is.

In the salary cap era, good for us and anyone else with a "playmaking" QB, because it makes the offensive line look shitty, so we can keep the good ones for cheap. Good for the Patriots and Colts, because it doesn't matter if they spend a lot of money on the line; it's the QB and the system that makes it work. The ones who get bent over are the teams with shitty QBs, because they think it's the line that's a big problem, and then they waste a lot of money and draft picks on the line when the problem was really that their QB sucked two or three dicks at the same time. I hope that makes sense.

Aussie_steeler
05-16-2011, 05:06 AM
Steelreserve --- I have never thought of it that way but that is the kind of logic that appeals to me.

Great football logic and reasoning plus the embedded Steelreserve SOB dialouge---- priceless

Great Post.

suitanim
05-16-2011, 09:04 AM
The whole "makes me feel old" thing really resonates. I can still remember a quote form draft day about him. The coach called him "Country strong".

SteelGhost
05-16-2011, 06:28 PM
Ben was getting mugged the last two years Faneca was here as well. I used to think that was because we went to the Parker-only running game and our offense was predictable, but that turned out not to be true, because he kept getting sacked anyway. Then I thought it was because our offense in general was predictable because of Arians, but that turned out not to be true because Arians finally got his shit together and Ben was still getting sacked anyway.

Turns out, Ben just gets sacked. He got sacked all the time with a good offensive line; he gets sacked all the time with a mediocre offensive line. The only time he doesn't lead the league in sacks is when he throws less -- like his first two years (when we were too conservative to trust him), or last year (when he was suspended 25% of the season). Otherwise, he runs around a lot and sometimes it works, but he also gets his shit ruined a lot.

You want to talk about why he gets sacked, look at his style of play, nothing else. Mechanical system QBs like Manning and Brady get sacked about 3-4% of the time. Good QBs on good teams like Montana, Elway and Moon tend to get sacked about 5-6% of the time (Marino got sacked about 3% of the time, apparently just because he was that awesome). OK quarterbacks on losing teams with shitty players get sacked 5-6% of the time (Sam Bradford, Matt Stafford, Jon Kitna). Playmaking, scrambling-but-not-necessarily-running QBs like Ben, Randall Cunningham and Daunte Culpepper get sacked 8-9% of the time. Shitty overrated quarterbacks like JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Jeff George, Bubby Brister, Rick Mirer and Alex Smith all get sacked about 9-10% of the time just because they suck. Playmaking/running QBs like Steve Young and Michael Vick get sacked about 10% of the time. That's just the way it is.

In the salary cap era, good for us and anyone else with a "playmaking" QB, because it makes the offensive line look shitty, so we can keep the good ones for cheap. Good for the Patriots and Colts, because it doesn't matter if they spend a lot of money on the line; it's the QB and the system that makes it work. The ones who get bent over are the teams with shitty QBs, because they think it's the line that's a big problem, and then they waste a lot of money and draft picks on the line when the problem was really that their QB sucked two or three dicks at the same time. I hope that makes sense.

Great post SR :thumbsup: