Season 2, Episode 35 of The Terrible Podcast is up and David Todd and I come at you smack dab in the middle of Patriots week. We actually open up by talking about the Ravens Jaguars game Monday night and how the Ratbirds do not look as scary right now as they did after beating the Steelers back in week 1. We move on to discuss the injuries headed into the game and discuss a few things Mike Tomlin hit on during his press conference on Tuesday. We look back and give some closing thoughts on the game last week against the Cardinals and start discussing the New England Patriots game this coming Read more [...]

The Steelers begin practice preparations today for their Sunday game at home against the New England Patriots. The Wednesday injury report is out and it shows that nose tackle Chris Hoke, linebacker James Harrison (eye), guard Doug Legursky (toe), wide receiver Hines Ward (ankle) and linebacker Jason Worilds (quad) did not practice today. Hampton expects to play Sunday after missing the last 3 weeks with his shoulder injury. Harrison told reporters today that when the doctor tells him he can come back, he will be back, but that he still is experiencing some sensitivity to light. Hoke will likely Read more [...]

As the Steelers head into their two biggest games of the season, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is warming up at just the right time. Through the first 4 games of the season it was obvious that his accuracy was a bit off and his week 1 performance against the Ravens was one to forget. After the week 4 loss to the Texans, Roethlisberger had an 80.2 passer rating with a 62% completion rating. He still had a very respectable yards per pass average though of 8.3, thanks to Mike Wallace, but he also had thrown 5 interceptions compared to just 3 touchdown passes. He was pretty banged up as we all know Read more [...]

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin gave a pretty thorough injury update today during his weekly Tuesday press conference and reading between the lines you can assume that linebacker James Harrison (eye), linebacker Jason Worilds (quad), guard Doug Legursky (toe) and nose tackle Chris Hoke (neck) will all likely be down again this week against the New England Patriots. Harrison and Legursky are pretty much locks and based on how Worilds continues to have setbacks, I suspect they will take it much slower with him this time around in an attempt to get him fully recovered. By the time he is 100%, Harrison Read more [...]

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin held his usual Tuesday press conference this afternoon down on the South Side to discuss the win the past Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals and look ahead to the New England Patriots game this week at Heinz Field. Tomlin gave an injury report update on several players and fielded several questions from the media. Below is the audio from the press conference along with the main talking points from today. [audio:http://www.steelersdepot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/mike-tomlin-week-8-patriots-press-conference.mp3] As far as injuries go, Tomlin said Curtis Read more [...]

The 2011 NFL season kicks-off tonight with the Packers hosting the Saints and it is time once again to throw out my prediction for the entire 2011 NFL standings and records. Last year I sold the Steelers short and had the Packers winning it all over the Jets and you can see that post from last year at this time here. This year I think the AFC is once again pretty cut and dry with Patriots, Steelers, Texans and Chargers winning their respective divisions with the Jets and the Ravens both earning wild card spots. The Colts are the real mystery here depending on the status of Peyton Manning. Even Read more [...]

The Steelers 2011 season kicks off this Sunday and I have purposely waited until now to post a game by game quick look ahead at the Steelers 2011 schedule. The free agent moves and final roster cuts have taken place around the league and it provides a much clearer look at where teams are at that the Steelers will face this year. I will not go too much into depth with each game and will try to capsulize each. So many things can change the further you get into the season and you never can predict injuries that may occur along the way. With all of those disclaimers out of the way, here is a quick Read more [...]

The other day I posted about the Steelers and the passer rating differential stat tracked by Cold Hard Football Facts, but wanted to explore it further going back to 2002. There are two tables below that make up this study. The top table is the passer rating differential by year of each team and is colored with blue for teams that won their division that year and yellow for teams that earned a wildcard birth. The differential is determined by subtracting the defensive passer rating from the offensive passer rating. You hope your team has a positive number and the greater the number the better of Read more [...]

If you missed the recent article by Kerry J. Byrne of Cold Hard Football Facts on Sports Illustrated this week, you missed a great article on the passer rating differential stat. Basically, the stat subtracts an opponents passer rating from its own passer rating to get the differential of the two. While I admit that the passer rating stat is overrated to a degree, the differential stat, that uses passer ratings, certainly does pass the mustard in regards to winning as Byrne easily points out. Here are the differential stats of all 32 teams from the 2010 regular season and you can see the Green Read more [...]

John Clayton had a story that caught my attention the other day on ESPN.com in which he was trying to convey the notion that teams facing true 3-4 defense need bigger backs to get the job done on the ground. Clayton did preface this by saying, "To beat a 3-4 defense on the ground you need a bigger back, or at least a runner who can break arm tackles." I wanted to take a look myself at the running backs and fullbacks that ran against true 3-4 defenses in 2010 and see how accurate the big back compared to smaller back theory holds up. Clayton notes that 15 teams ran 3-4 schemes last season, but Read more [...]

ESPN.com is at again today with their latest Power Rankings series. This week the panel of ESPN columnist and bloggers ranked the owners around the NFL and the Steelers Rooney Family finished first overall as they garnered 4 first place votes and 4 second place votes to finish with a score of 76. The Patriots and owner Robert Kraft finished second overall even though he received just one first place vote from AFC South blogger Paul Kuharsky. The only other team to receive first place votes outside of the Rooney family and Kraft was the Packers and their ownership group, who received the other three Read more [...]

#1 - Let It Rain A Few QB's Early - Let's hope the Panthers start right off the bat by selecting Auburn quarterback Cam Newton number one overall in the draft and a few other teams follow suit other than the 49ers, Cardinals & Titans. There is an outside chance the Dolphins and Patriots could indeed draft a quarterback in round 1 and not only would it drop a few players down to the board, it opens up the possibility of teams trying to trade back into the bottom of round 1 with the Steelers to draft a quarterback like the three teams I mentioned above. The Vikings, Redskins and Bills are also Read more [...]

Jason La Canfora has Steeler Nation all going crazy tonight with his report that the Steelers have serious designs on trading up in the 1st round of the 2011 NFL draft Thursday night to get Mike Pouncey, the twin brother of Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey. La Canfora reports that a league source has informed him that Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has given an edict to his personnel department to explore all realistic trade options should Pouncey slide down the draft board. In his report, La Canfora mentions the Chargers and Giants as teams that could possibly have their eye on the Florida twin Read more [...]

I was asked via email what type of pass rush the Jets used in both of their playoff games thus far against the Colts and Patriots and who they attacked pass defender wise. I have broken down the tape below of both games and included the QB stats against the different pass rusher numbers as well. Peyton Manning # RUSHERS ATT COMP YDS YPA SACK TD 3 man rush 2 2 22 11 0 0 4 man rush 19 13 225 11.8 1 1 5 man rush 5 3 18 3.6 0 0 Jets versus Colts QB Position # Pass Rushers Result Receiver Defender Under Center 4 9 yards Garcon Cromartie Shotgun 4 Incomplete Tamme Scott Shotgun 4 5 Read more [...]

The New York Jets beat the New England Patriots 28-21 on Sunday evening in Foxboro to set up a rematch of week 15 in Pittsburgh next Sunday night for the AFC Championship and the right to go to Super Bowl XLV in Dallas. The Jets beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh 22-17 back on December 19th, but the Steelers were without strong safety Troy Polamalu and tight end Heath Miller as both were out with injuries. The Jets Steelers AFC Championship game betting line opened up with the Steelers favored by 3 points or -3 for us degenerates. Read more [...]