Galax Steeler
06-25-2010, 04:09 AM
The Pittsburgh Steelers have already been written off as championship contenders for the 2010 season. This is promising news. If you have been following this franchise for a while you know that the Black and Gold have not been particularly good front runners over the past few decades, with the 2009 season being only the latest example of how high expectations usually lead to disappointment.
What follows is summary of the conditions that could lead to that seventh Lombardi Trophy this year.
Isn’t it a bit early, you may ask, to be addressing such concerns? It is more than a month before training camp begins. Well, from my perspective, that’s the challenge. I’ve been busy working on a contribution to the MSP Annual (an interview with four time SB champion Randy Grossman. Hope you like it.), but watching the events of the winter and spring with great interest. I’m not making any concrete predictions here. Someone could step in a hole on the first day of camp and change the trajectory of the entire season. What I’m aiming for is to illuminate a set of conditions that can be tracked throughout the season (argued and debated every step of the way) and could, if enough of them fall the right way lead to a championship run. Surprisingly little has to go right in order to be successful and, conversely, surprisingly little has to go wrong in order to fail. When speaking of the success of the Steelers teams of the ‘70s Randy Grossman stated that you have to be good, but you have to be lucky too. But before moving forward, a couple of disclaimers.
Injuries. It is unrealistic that in today’s NFL that any team can escape injuries. And I agree with Coach Tomlin that injuries should not change the expectations or goals of the team. We can hope, however, that what injuries do come happen sooner rather than later in the season, are not of the catastrophic variety (season or career ending) and touch lightly if at all on certain key positions.
Distractions. Particularly important this year, let’s hope we have already peaked in the knucklehead department for this season. No police blotter stuff, no failed substance abuse tests, no psychological or emotional breakdowns, no silly behavior over money, contracts or roles on the team. Unlike injuries these are avoidable. Let’s hope that no one becomes what Tomlin likes to refer to as ‘the Guy’, beyond our current problems.
http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/
What follows is summary of the conditions that could lead to that seventh Lombardi Trophy this year.
Isn’t it a bit early, you may ask, to be addressing such concerns? It is more than a month before training camp begins. Well, from my perspective, that’s the challenge. I’ve been busy working on a contribution to the MSP Annual (an interview with four time SB champion Randy Grossman. Hope you like it.), but watching the events of the winter and spring with great interest. I’m not making any concrete predictions here. Someone could step in a hole on the first day of camp and change the trajectory of the entire season. What I’m aiming for is to illuminate a set of conditions that can be tracked throughout the season (argued and debated every step of the way) and could, if enough of them fall the right way lead to a championship run. Surprisingly little has to go right in order to be successful and, conversely, surprisingly little has to go wrong in order to fail. When speaking of the success of the Steelers teams of the ‘70s Randy Grossman stated that you have to be good, but you have to be lucky too. But before moving forward, a couple of disclaimers.
Injuries. It is unrealistic that in today’s NFL that any team can escape injuries. And I agree with Coach Tomlin that injuries should not change the expectations or goals of the team. We can hope, however, that what injuries do come happen sooner rather than later in the season, are not of the catastrophic variety (season or career ending) and touch lightly if at all on certain key positions.
Distractions. Particularly important this year, let’s hope we have already peaked in the knucklehead department for this season. No police blotter stuff, no failed substance abuse tests, no psychological or emotional breakdowns, no silly behavior over money, contracts or roles on the team. Unlike injuries these are avoidable. Let’s hope that no one becomes what Tomlin likes to refer to as ‘the Guy’, beyond our current problems.
http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/