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REWIND: False Narratives in Pittsburgh Sports · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
0:01
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
0:04
SPEAKER_02: This week.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: And I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: It's fake, phony fake.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: This week we're going to be talking about false narratives.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm Tim Hannon with me as always.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Steve Wirt, uh hiding somewhere in my basement, because I figure now the government's looking for me since we posted that clip.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, sometimes narratives get put out there, and if they're repeated enough, they just become reality for many people.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: But but I think a lot of times when you go a little deeper to examine a narrative, sometimes you'll find that the real truth often differs from the narrative.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think this happens a lot in current events.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: I think it can happen in our personal lives, and it most definitely happens in the world of sports.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: So today we'll take a deeper dive into some Pittsburgh sports narratives to see how they hold up.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: And for each of these, I'm going to talk about kind of what the narrative is, and then take a closer look to see what maybe the reality is, and then you folks listening can decide whether you agree or disagree.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Sound good, Steve?
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Sounds sounds like fun.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: So our first narrative is that the Seattle Seahawks were cheated in Super Bowl 40.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: And this narrative goes like this.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: So Super Bowl 40 in 2005, uh several key calls go against the Seattle Seahawks, which essentially gifts the Super Bowl to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: And this wasn't just a, oh, the rest were bad.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: Really, this centers around basically four calls.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: And the four calls were uh number one was an offensive pass interference call on wide receiver Darrell Jackson, that negated a touchdown.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: Number two was Ben Rothesberger being awarded a touchdown on a quarterback sneak where he did not get into the end zone.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: Number three was a phantom holding call in the fourth quarter, which negated a Seattle first and goal with a chance to take the lead.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: And then number four was a low block call on Matt Hasselback on a Nike Taylor interception return.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: And had these calls not been made, Seattle would have been the NFL champions that year instead of Pittsburgh.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Mike Holmer and the Seahawks coach said, quote, we knew it was going to be tough going against the Steelers, but we didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: To a round of applause in Seattle.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: And then referee Bill Levy, the head referee for the game, he even apologizes years later for quote not being good enough.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: So that's the narrative that the Seahawks got hosed.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: Let's dive a little bit more into the reality, though.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: So Super Bowl 40, number one, I think the I think, Steve, the biggest problem for this game was it wasn't a sexy matchup to begin with.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Peyton Manning had been eliminated, Tom Brady, Brett Favre, all those guys were knocked out of the playoffs.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: And Steel or Seahawks was not a great matchup.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, to be fair, it ended up being a really bad game.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was not a good game.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Like neither team wanted to win very badly.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: And so I think the media needed an angle to run with.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: So let's let's dive into all four of these calls one at a time.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: So number one was the pass interference call on Daryl Jackson.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: He literally pushes safety Chris Hope away from his body with two hands.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: I to me that's the very definition of pass interference, and he catches a touchdown because he pushes him away and gets separation.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Now you could say it was a tiki-tack call, but but I would I would argue probably the most forgotten play in Super Bowl history happens later in that game when the Steelers are in the red zone, and Heath Miller is called for wait for it, offensive PI, which kills the momentum on that drive.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: So you could say the refs were were calling it close, but they literally evened it out with an offensive pass interference calling Heath Miller when the Steelers had a chance to score.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: But no one ever remembers that, of course.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was definitely you know offensive pass interference when the Seahawks did it, not when the Steelers did it.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah, that too.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: That too.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: I think too, like people think that's a late call and it's not because like the flag does come out late.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: But if you watch the replay, the official goes to pull his flag out and he misses the flag.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: So he was gonna as soon as he saw it, he was gonna he went to go get it, he just missed it.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: And I think that too, like people are like, oh, that was a really late flag.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it looked like it looked like they waited until he scored a touchdown and they're like, oh, we can't have Seattle win.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Here, let's figure out a way to take it away.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's like you said, that's the narrative gets born from stuff like that.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: The second call, Rothesperger with the touchdown on the quarterback sneak.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that was called a touchdown on the field.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: And when you look at the replay and zoom in, it does look like at least the nose of the ball gets over the line.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: But but I mean, in reality, the the roles, the replay roles in the NFL state, you don't overturn the call unless it's conclusive.
5:31
SPEAKER_02: And it just wasn't.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it could have gone either way.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: So that was a close call, not a bad call necessarily.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: The holding call in the fourth quarter was a big one because the Steelers only had a four-point lead, and the Seahawks were going to have a first and goal on like the two-yard line.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: And they called holding on Sean Locklear.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: And again, if you watch the replay, he the guy reaches out his arm and he grabs Clark Haggins, who was going to sack Matt Hassel back.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, Seattle fans argue that Haggins was offsides on that play, and that's why Lockleer had to hold him because he had this head start.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: But even if that was the case, then that just would have negated the play, and they still wouldn't have had first and goal.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: And also, on the very next play, Hasselbeck throws a terrible interception to Ike Taylor.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: So sorry, but I mean it was a hold.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: And then the last call, the low block on Hasselbeck.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that was actually a bad call.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: That actually was.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: That should not have been called.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: But that was on an interception return.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: That was after Hasselbeck had already thrown that pick.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: And it didn't really matter because all it just gave the Steelers a few extra yards on the return.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: And then a few plays later, they iced the game anyway when Randall L hit Heinzworth for the touchdown that the Seahawks fell for, even though the Steelers had put that play on film by using it against Cleveland earlier that season.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: See, when the ball was when when Randall L had his arm cocked back, I was in the stadium, and I and I swear, first thought that went through my head was, oh my god, it's the exact same play from the Cleveland game.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that the Seahawks had two weeks to prepare for that game and did not were not prepared for that play is on them.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, those were the calls.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: The refs also missed a block in the back on the interception that Ben threw earlier.
7:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, no one ever talks about the bad calls they win against the Steelers.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: But but hey, what about the head ref admitting that he cheated the Seahawks?
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's that's not really what beat Bill Levy admitted to.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: What he admitted to was, quote, booting two calls in the fourth quarter.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: One was the inconsequential hassle back penalty that we just talked about, and the other was probably not calling Haggins offside, which, as we said, wouldn't have gotten the Seahawks their first and goal anyway.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: And and you know, we talked about this a little bit when we when we talked about our Super Bowl, when we did our Super Bowl 40 episode, but to me, there's there's a really unfortunate reality for for you Seahawks fans, and I know many of you are listening, I'm sure.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is your team choked.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: The Seahawks had the number one seed in the NFC that year.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: They had the league MVP at running back, uh, and they were fortunate to play a Steeler team that really didn't bring their A game to Detroit.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: They really didn't.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: The Steelers didn't play a great game, and they still couldn't do anything.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: They made so many mistakes in that game.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: They they totally mismanaged the clock right before halftime.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: The the kicking and the punting was terrible.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: Their tight end dropped a bunch of passes because he was spooked by Joey Porter.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: And then and really, most of all, they couldn't score points.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: They had set a franchise record that year by averaging almost 30 points a game.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: And the only time they got into the end zone was when Ben Gift dropped an interception for them on a terrible throw.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: So they blew it, but it's a lot easier to blame the fans, and that narrative has stuck because they've just they've that's what they want to believe.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's totally true for Seattle, I guess.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: I that just kind of like annoys me because it's like that's like one of my favorite Super Bowl wins and stuff, and it's like people try and taint something, and I I don't I don't know.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: I just like that's what kind of like annoys me about it.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, can't I just have my Super Bowl win?
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, why do you guys have to like, you know?
9:20
SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that like people do that more and more now, like with like going back and trying like sour things, I guess, is what like I remember when the Steelers were like that one year they went like 11 and 0, like a couple years, like not last year before, and like everyone's like, oh, they ain't played anybody, and da-da-da, Mickey Mouse schedule, and this team had this, and it's like, come on, can't we just like you know, you won the game, you know?
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Nobody, you know, I I don't know.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: I just I've just kind of grown tired of that.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Because you could go back through like every Super Bowl, all what are we up to 56, all 55 Super Bowls, and go, okay, here's a reason why this team, you know, shouldn't have won, you know, like try and like cast like you know, I don't know, a sour taste or like rewrite history almost.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: So Yep, that's that's very true.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: It's and and like you said, in the end, it doesn't matter.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: The Steelers won a Super Bowl, they were the champions that year, and that's in the long run, that's all that really matters.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I don't know what to say.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Like it just it just annoys me when people like it's just gotten really annoying.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: It's just like, yeah, I'm not gonna discount like the Rams won the AFC championship game, and that guy from San Francisco dropped an interception.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Does that make the Rams going to the Super Bowl illegitimate?
10:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, no, it just you know, stuff happens, and you know, sometimes you take advantage of a mistake and sometimes you don't.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: And again, those weren't egregious calls.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: They were close calls that went against Seattle probably more than they went against Pittsburgh.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: They weren't egregious by any stretch.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: All right, our second narrative is Mike Tomlin only won anything of note with Bill Cower's players.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: So the narrative here is that when Mike Tomlin won the Super Bowl in 2008, it was with Bill Cower's guys.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: The key players on that team, you know, who were they?
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Ben, Santonio, James Harrison, Troy Polomolo, etc.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: They were all guys that were drafted by Cower.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: Cower basically left behind a stacked team that had just won a championship.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Anyone could have won with that roster.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: That means, and so that's that that narrative is always used to, you know, indicate that Tomlin really isn't a good coach because he just wrote somebody else's coattails to greatness.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: So let's examine that one a little closer.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Here's a fun fact that people always you talk about rewriting history.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: Here's here's one that people always forget.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: Cowers players made the playoffs four times in his final nine seasons as head coach.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: So let me repeat that.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: In Bill Cowers' last nine years as head coach, the Steelers only made the playoffs four of the of those nine years.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: That's not very good.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: The team that won the Super Bowl did so as an unlikely number six seed, not as some league powerhouse.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: And the team that Tomlin inherited went eight and eight and missed the postseason.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: Tomlin took over in 2007, and that was after the Steelers had gone eight and eight in 2006.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: So that that that narrative is very skewed.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh the other thing that I always find interesting, you know, Cower, one of Cower's best teams, of course, was the Super Bowl 30 team.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, those were all Chuck Knoll players.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: Yancy Thigpen, Neil O'Donnell, Greg Lloyd, Rod Woodson, Carnell A.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: Those were all Chuck Knoll players.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: Why didn't anybody say, oh, Cower only went to the Super Bowl with Chuck Knowle's players?
12:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, nobody said that then, interestingly enough.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: Maybe because Rocky Blair was retired.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: Possibly.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Cower and Tomlin have almost identical track records as of the time of this recording.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: Both coached the Steelers for 15 seasons.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Each went to two Super Bowls, each won one and lost one.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh both of those guys lost playoff games at home that they were favored in.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh each guy has roughly 150 career wins.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: I think Tomlin has a couple of them more than Coward, but not by much.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: So they're they're not, you know, they're they're pretty equivalent coaches.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: And and honestly, the truth is a coach still has to coach.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, he still has to come up with a game plan, he still has to adjust during the game.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't just send superstars out onto the field and just watch them trample everyone.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: So even if even if uh Tomlin was inheriting this amazing team, which as we just said he really wasn't, you know, a coach still has to coach.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: So I find that narrative just kind of ridiculous.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: That you know, it it it it's trying to minimize Tomlin's success because you know he he had a good team that he that he took over.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I mean everybody inherits somebody else's players, right?
14:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean I guess Chuck Noel inherited whatever the guy before him's players were, but I mean I I I think like I didn't realize that four playoff wins in nine years.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: That's I didn't realize that, but I will disagree.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: I do think that 2000, the team that won Super Bowl 30, or the scene that won Super Bowl 40 was very was still a very good team because the year before they had gone 15-1.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: So I it was pretty much the same team.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: It's just they played in a loaded AFC.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: The AFC had Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and like the Patriots were really, really good.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And Denver was really good that year, too, with like you know their running game, and they had John Lynch and all those, you know, Cleveland Brown defensive linemen.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're they're really good.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: So I think getting out of the AFC was a tough task.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: So I I I like I don't know, like I don't know, like, didn't we do this in the three coaches?
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not sure.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, you're you make a good point that they're almost identical now, like, especially after like we made that part, like two more.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: It's like it is very much like weird how like Cower and like Tomlin have like almost become like the same kind of you know things.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: So I I think really the only difference is Cower Cower tended to lose AFC championship games at home, which was really disappointing.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Tomlin has tended to lose earlier in the playoffs than that.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh so it they both but they both kind of had their their disappointments and under I will say that under achievements.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: I think Tomlin's losing by way bigger margins.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Like when you want like I only remember like Cower, like that one time they played the Patriots in the late 90s, it was like, okay, they aren't even in this game.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Like it seemed like most of the playoff games they're at least in.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: The Steelers, I mean, I guess they were in that Jacksonville game till kind of the end and the Cleveland game a little bit, but it seems like his teams are just starting to get blown out in the playoffs.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So he's getting kind of weird with the way he's hiring people.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Like he just wants to hire like you know, yes men or something.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: But remains to be seen.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, right now, like at least record-wise, they're pretty even.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: So maybe, maybe Tomlin, you know, is gonna hire people that you know are gonna work out for him, and we'll see.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: We'll see what happens.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: And if he doesn't, then someone will win with Tomlin's players.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: The the next narrative on our list is that nobody cares about pit football anymore because the stadium is not on campus.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: So what happened was in 1999, the University of Pittsburgh made the decision to tear down Pitt Stadium where the Panthers had played since 1923.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: And I don't I don't think too many people disagreed with the decision to tear it down.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: It was not a great place to watch a game.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: It was just a big bowl with bleachers.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, Steve and I spent a lot of time in that stadium, and it was it was not a comfortable place to sit for three hours.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, however, they made the subsequent decision to build the Peterson Event Center, uh, which was a new arena for basketball and and the other indoor sports on the ruins of Pitt Stadium.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: The ruins.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: I like that.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: It's like the Huns or the Viscoths came in or something.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a bunch of rallies Penn State and West Virginia fans came and burned it down.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: The ancient, the ancient The Ancient Ruins of Pitt Stadium.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, they they make the decision to, you know, the Steelers are building this new football stadium called Heinz Field, and they're gonna play their home games there.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Heinz Field's on the opposite end of town than the Pitt campus.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: Thus, it ruins the experience of College Game Day, and more importantly, it keeps fans from attending.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: So that's the narrative.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: The the reality, I mean, just number one, let's just look at the attendance numbers.
18:27
SPEAKER_02: From 1973 to 1999, Pitt's average home attendance was 41,000.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: From 01 to 2016, their average home attendance was 46,000.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: So they actually averaged more people per game after they moved to Heinz Field.
18:41
SPEAKER_02: And that's impressive.
18:43
SPEAKER_02: I think that's even more impressive because the 2000s really started that era where a lot of people started feeling more comfortable watching the games from home.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: You had the new high-def televisions and things like that.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: But they actually drew more people at Heinz Field.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: Now, okay, that's just that's just a tendency.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: What about a stat that's not measurable, which is fan engagement?
19:04
SPEAKER_02: And you honestly can't say that there's anywhere near the level of excitement or interest in pit football as there was back in the Tony Dorset Dan Marino era when they played at Pitt Stadium, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_02: I I would agree with that, but there were plenty of other reasons, and chief among them that the team won nothing of significance between then and 2020.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: Not only did they not win, but they also had multiple seasons of winning like three games.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: And as we did a whole episode on, they had numerous dagger in the heart losses.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's natural.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, do you think the do you think like the the the fans of the Washington Commanders are as engaged today as they were when the team was winning Super Bowls in the 1980s?
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go ahead and guess not.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Washington Commanders are no Washington Sentinels from I think it's Keanu Reeves.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: I digress, so I'm sorry.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh just the point that, you know, when a team isn't isn't winning, and and and then, you know, when Pitt finally did put everything together to win a championship in 2021, I would argue that the entire city was fully engaged in that.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: They were lining up downtown buildings with Kenny Pickett's name on it.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: So I you know, Steve, I'm all for an on-campus stadium.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: I I do like love the atmosphere of play on campus, but I just it's not the fix that everyone thinks it'll be.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's not the reason that Pitts football has you know um gone down in popularity in this town.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: And and honestly, if they built an on-campus stadium, would it draw more students?
20:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it would.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, although I would say that the student presence at Heinzfield is pretty deafening already.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: But I think it would be offset by the rest of the fans who don't want to drive into Oakland and find a place to park and walk up that hill.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: So to me, that that whole narrative is flawed.
20:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh Dan Rooney had a theory in the late Dan Rooney, and he said you never want to build like your stadium too big because you always want to keep a waiting list, because you want to keep people like you know, wanting to go to the games.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: And the problem with pit football is is they're like the sixth thing in like Pittsburgh sports.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: If like you had like you know to rank like Pittsburgh sports franchises by popularity, it's like what Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, I don't know who else, like Bethel Park high school soccer.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, then you know, Upper St.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Clair soccer, and then maybe pit football.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's just not it's like you're taking that pie of football fans and you're cutting it up, and it's like, okay, of all the people who might be interested in football, now here's all the people that are might be interested in college football, and then like you have a lot of West Virginia and Notre Dame and Penn State fans in.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Area, so that even makes their fan base even smaller.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: So Pitt has a very small fan base.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, not everyone that lives in Pittsburgh is like automatically a Pitt football fan.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's probably the bigger problem with them than a stadium.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, it would be nice to have an on-campus stadium, but as long as you play in a 60,000 seat stadium, I don't care where it's located at, they're going to have a problem with attendance.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: If they moved over to the high mark stadium and they just made that like a 30,000-seat stadium, that would be better for Pitt than where they and it would create demand and it would keep the visiting fans out or down to a minimum because it would be so hard to get tickets.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: So I it I mean, it's just it's just always a problem.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: And like I loved, I know you didn't like I loved Pitt Stadium.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: It had like great sight lines.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: I thought to watch a game, there wasn't really a bad seat in the house.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: But the problem was, like you said, it was benches.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it even had lights till the 80s.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: And like I think it had, I'm guessing, four bathrooms.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Am I I'm pretty sure, right?
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Like two was on the one side and two on the other.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Like it literally and the can two concession stands for 60,000 people.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I remember going in there and like that, like when I was a kid, like people were like, you know, in the men's room were like peeing in the sink.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: And like my grandfather was like, this is insane.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, that's how, you know, it's like it was just like it needed it up.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: I would have rather them fixed it up and made it nice, but the Peterson Event Center is really nice.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And like when Pitt was winning, that was a rockin' place.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: So if they could build an on-campus stadium and an even one in, like I said at HighMark, like I don't like them being at Heinz Field anymore because I think it's just too big for them.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: That that's the problem, is either you go to TARPS like the the Pirates and the Oakland A's do, or you get a smaller stadium.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: I I think that's really the answer is to reduce capacity.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that's that's a very good point.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: Um and and there's there's always all kinds of initiatives to to build an on-campus, you know, stadium.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: There's even a plan for one, which is surprising because I don't I'm still not quite sure where you put it, but they figured out that there's apparently room down there to build one.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: Um again, I think it would be cool, but I just I I just disagree with the narrative that you know that's that's the you know, Pitt Pitt was in its glory time and then they tore down that stadium and now they're not.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: I think I kind of half agree with you on that.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: I think like a smaller stadium would be better.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: And then like, but the problem is is like Pitt has a small fan base, right?
24:56
SPEAKER_01: And that's just how it is.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't know if they'll ever have a big fan base or if they won for like 10 or 15 years like the Steelers did, you know, if that would make them a bigger fan base, I don't know.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: I find that hard to believe that that would because like what Penn State and Notre Dame fans are all of a sudden gonna become Pit fans.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't see that one happening.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: It's a pro town, and there's only there's only so much of the pie for Pitt.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the casual fan isn't gonna be that in the pit.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a diehard.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: You you're more of a diehard alumni, or you know.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: All right, next on our list is the narrative that the Tim Tebow game was an unmitigated disaster.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: So we've talked about this game a few times on this show.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: This was the 2011 Steelers season.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: They were 12-4 entering the playoffs, they were the defending AFC champions, and I've said this uh multiple times that that 2011 team I thought was better than the team that went to the Super Bowl in 2010.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: In the first playoff game, they traveled to Denver to play a team led by Tim Tebow.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh the Broncos had finished that season 8-8.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: That was a plus four win differential.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: There's actually never been a higher differential between any two playoff NFL playoff teams than the 12-4 Steelers playing the 8-8 Broncos.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: And Tim Tebow was a guy that was a flash in the pan, really good dude uh off the field, but on the field, just you know, he was a flash in the pan.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: He literally never would start another game at quarterback again after that postseason.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but what should be an easy win turns into a nightmare for the Steelers.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: They allow over 300 yards of passing.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, and this wasn't Tim Tebow running around, you know, using his legs like he he um was prone to do.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: This was him just kind of straight back passing.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, they allow an 80-yard touchdown pass to the late Demarius Thomas on the first play of overtime, which ends their season.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Had the Steelers won, they would have played the Patriots, a team that they had beaten in the regular season that year, and would have likely gone back to the Super Bowl.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: It's an unbelievable and crushing defeat, one that is equivalent to the Jets beating the Colts in the Super Bowl or the USA hockey team beating the Russians in the Olympics.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: So that's the narrative from a lot of Steelers fans.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: And here's why it's it's frankly, it's completely false.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: And I can sum it up with one word, which is injuries.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh the the Steelers were so decimated in that game.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: First of all, they they they did not have Ryan Clark.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: He had that sickle cell uh condition where he could not play in high altitude.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: So they didn't have their leading tackler.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Rashard Menonhall was their leading runner, he had tore his ACL.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: Rothesberger had injured his ankle a few weeks earlier in a game against Cleveland, he was hobbled.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: Marquise Pouncey was out.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: During the game, Mac Starks, Casey Hampton, and Brett Keisel all suffered season-ending injuries during the game.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: Lamar Woodley, who was still pretty good at that point, one of their best pass rushers, also gets hurt in that game.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh Doug Lagersky and Chris Kiamatu, two other offensive linemen, also get hurt during that game.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: Had the Steelers somehow survived that game, they would have had literally two healthy offensive linemen for the next playoff game.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: They they would have had to sign three offensive linemen off the street.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: That's not that's factual.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: They would have had to sign offensive linemen off the street just to come just to field a team.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: That game, what the truth about that game was it was a mercy kill.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: And and the fact that the Steelers took it to overtime with a roster that you would put in for the second half of a preseason game, I think is more impressive than people people realize.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: And that play in overtime, uh, as as Steve detailed in a previous episode, was really because Ryan Clark was out.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: So uh that game was, yeah, was it a disaster?
28:53
SPEAKER_02: We lost to Tebow.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: That Broncos were eight and eight, they they had no business being there.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: Fine, you can say all that.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: But you know, an NFL playoff team is an NFL playoff team, and the Steelers, again, we're fielding the second half of our preseason game roster.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh I still think it's a disaster.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: How many how many passes did Tim Tebow complete?
29:19
SPEAKER_02: He he didn't need to complete too many.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: He threw for 316 yards.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: So it it's it's one more than nine and one less than eleven.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: That would be 10.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: So he he I mean he completed 30 yards.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's 30 yards to completion, which is impressive.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I don't know.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: They just they they don't they they should have still won that.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: I they probably they probably do get blown out by the Patriots the next week, but come on, you gotta I I I uh they still wouldn't they pull they still had Paul Malu and they still had Harrison.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: And that's why they lost, is because these guys chased the ball, and you can't chase the ball against that offense.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: I I'm not saying that they should have lost or should like I I I will agree that they still could have won that game.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: My only point is that the narrative is it was this unmitigated disaster, one of the worst losses in Store history.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: And I just everyone tends to forget that we had no team.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: We had no team, you know, a lot of guys were hurt going into that game, and then the guys that were healthy all got hurt during that game.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: So to call that just to call that as one of the worst losses in SOR history when you had that many guys down, I I just think that's that's a false narrative.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: You had two healthy offensive linemen.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: How are you supposed to compete?
30:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they had the ball in Denver territory at the end of that game.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: At the end of regulation, they had the ball at the Denver 40, and they couldn't get ten more yards for a field goal because they couldn't keep Ben upright because the offensive line was dead.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: I get I I mean, I just I don't know.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: I think they they still should have won this.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Again, not disagreeing with you there.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: I just disagreeing with the fact that it was this unmitigated disaster.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: That's the narrative.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: The narrative is one of the worst losses in your history, and I I just I'll never I to me that's completely.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should do a podcast on the worst Steeler losses in history.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there's there's plenty.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: The San Diego loss in '94, the Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, there's plenty of.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, pick the Cleveland loss in 2020.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: I would say the 2001 AFC championship game when we hurt Tom Brady and lost to Bloodso.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's another thing.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, uh just again, so there's five off the top of our head that way worse than this.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: So again, not not the again, the narrative is not the Steelers, the Steelers shouldn't have lost.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: The narrative is that this was this was a total total tragedy, and and you know, I that's just to me, that's a false narrative that's totally discounting the fact that everybody was hurt.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's always a tragedy when the Steelers lose.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's true.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: He waits, he throws the pass, and it's getting sick!
32:20
SPEAKER_03: Don't go out with the 40! 35-30!
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Steelers vs.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Ravens is the best rivalry in all of Pro Sports.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And now that series has been chronicled in Pittsburgh vs.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Baltimore, the unofficial history, an all-new book from the Pittsburgh Sports Memories podcast.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Relive all the fierce battles and exciting moments from this amazing rivalry.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: There were legendary plays like Troy Polomalu's Pick Six and the Immaculate Extension, and there were crazy incidents like Joey Porter chasing Ray Lewis into the parking lot, or the Ravens putting a bounty on Heinz Ward.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: We cover all of it, including some stories you may never have heard.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Buy a copy for yourself, or get one as a gift for the Steelers fan in your life.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Find it on Amazon or see the link in the show description of this episode, and thanks for supporting the podcast.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: Alright, the next narrative is that Mario Lemieux bought the Penguins just to recoup his money, and that narrative goes like this.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh Mario Lemieux, of course, retires in 1997, and when he retires, he's owed more than$32 million in deferred salary.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: He was owed that much because he kept deferring his salary during the 90s so that the team could remain competitive.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: But when his career ends, it's now it's time to pay up.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: And the Penguins, of course, through a series of just completely horrible management decisions, which we detailed in a previous episode called The Gold That Saved the Penguins.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: They declare bankruptcy, and they're like, oh man, sorry, Mario, we we can't pay you because, you know, bankruptcy and whatnot.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: And so Lemieux realizes at this point he's only going to get pennies on the dollar for his deferred salary, and he finds himself in this really lucky position of being able to take over one of the NHL's premier franchises.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, why not?
34:15
SPEAKER_02: He's got nothing better to do.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: He's a retired hockey player.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And he rides the financial success of that for the next two decades.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: Fast forward to the year 2021 when Mario Lemieux sells the Penguins to Fenway Sports Group and makes$350 million.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: He essentially turned that$32 million in deferred salary into$350 million.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: Very slick business decision, kind of similar to like the Richard Gere character from Pretty Woman, take over the struggling business, bring all the profits out of it.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's does Jason Alexander and Julie Roberts show up.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: The reality of that, of course.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Um so so that's a narrative that I mean that's I don't know that that's a common narrative, but it's one that's out there that Mary just, you know, took over to get his money and and and you know profited greatly from it.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: The reality, though, was when he retired, all he wanted to do was play golf.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he had zero interest in staying involved in hockey.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't gonna coach, he wasn't gonna be an announcer, he wasn't gonna be in the front office.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: He just wanted to play golf and spend time with his family.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: And and yeah, he wanted his salary, but he deserved it.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who deserved it more than Mario Lemieux?
35:33
SPEAKER_02: And after all, he was only owed that much money because he kept making sacrifices for the good of the team to defer the salary.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: And when he first thought about buying the team, the plan from his agent and his attorney was for him to put together um uh an initiative that had him getting a bunch of money up front.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: So no one, you know, people think like, oh, he was owed$32 million and so they just gave him the team.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: That's actually not what happened at all.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: No one just handed him the team because he was the largest creditor.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: He still had to find partners, he still had to convince the league, he still had to convince the courts that his group was the best option.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: And even with that, at one point it didn't look very promising that his group was going to get the team.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Also, this idea that he took over one of the NHL's premier franchises, that's nonsense.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the Penguins in in the late 90s was a team with dwindling attendance that had declared bankruptcy twice in its 30 years of existence.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Like I realized they had those glory years where they won the two cups.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, uh overall their track record was a team that really had failed more than succeeded.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and Lemieux's attorney tells a story of Mario calling him early on a Sunday morning and telling him he was gonna forgo receiving any of the upfront money.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: And his lawyer's like, uh no, no, no, no, no, no.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: You can't do that.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: You're you're possibly gonna get nothing.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: That's a terrible deal.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: And Mario said he didn't care because it was more important for him to keep the team in Pittsburgh.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: That's that's really who Mario Lemieux is.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: That was a huge risk, um, especially for somebody that never really intended to be a team owner.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: Because again, that team, there was no guarantee that team was ever going to turn things around, or that the fans were ever really gonna come back.
37:22
SPEAKER_02: And under his management, of course, they turn into a monster success.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: And that's why it sells for a record amount in 2021.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I this is another one where maybe I disagree with you by degree.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: I think like he definitely wanted to keep the team in Pittsburgh and all that, but he definitely wanted his money.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And you know, and he was gonna get pennies on the dollar if he didn't, and it just I think you know, if he kept them in Pittsburgh and he ended up being owner of the team, I think he was okay with that.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I think that was a factor in him uh get uh wanting to own the team, but I don't know if that was the only.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: I think the main I do agree with you there.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: I think the main one seems like he wants to keep them in Pittsburgh.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: He lives here, this is where his family, and you know, he didn't want to see the team leave, and something he had built and something he wanted to keep here.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: So and he got you know, and he needed to get paid too, so you know.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think I think, yeah.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, maybe that's in the top five of reasons he's doing it, but I don't think that was his sole motivating factor because I'm sure there were other points where he just could have sold out.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: He still is involved with the team, even though he just sold.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: Isn't he like still on as something?
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it was Buerkle who wanted to get out, I think.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And he had like you said, he had to get partners, he just couldn't do it himself.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: So no, it it and and for sure it was a way to to try to recoup some of that money.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: But again, the the plan was he was gonna get a bunch of that up front so that he would be guaranteed to get some of his money back.
39:01
SPEAKER_02: I think when he went forward again, that's why his attorney freaked out when he said he wasn't gonna take any of the upfront money, because he's like, you might get you might literally get nothing now.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, you literally might get nothing because again, the team could have just hemorrhaged money like they had been doing the last ten years.
39:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh and you know, and and that's where where again he he just he he said it didn't matter because like you said, Steve, the the really the primary motivation was he'd spent his whole career building hockey in Pittsburgh.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: Hockey was nothing in Pittsburgh before he came here, and he didn't want to see it torn down because of stupid business decisions or by some owner that was just gonna you know move the team somewhere else.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because weren't they gonna sell to the um BlackBerry guy, Jim Bosselli, and then that fell through because he wanted to move the team to like Hamilton or something.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And so I mean he had he he did try like I remember that.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: I remember they were gonna sell the team to was that before Mario?
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that was before, but I don't know.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: I think that was around I think that was around the same time.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Steve, what's a Blackberry?
40:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, really.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: Is that like a VCR?
40:14
SPEAKER_01: Pretty much.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's yeah, it's uh ask a 19-year-old what a VCR is.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: It's a fun conversation to have.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure a Blackberry would fall into it.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're yeah, they're totally out of business now.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: They just discontinued them, I think, like a month ago or so.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: So I know.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: I wow, they had the first smartphone and couldn't cash in.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: So oh well.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: So much for Jim Bossilli.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: I guess he he's in bigger trouble than buying than buying uh hockey teams.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: All right, the next narrative is that Antonio Brown went crazy after Vontez Berfect concussed him.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: So the narrative here is that A B was a great steel receiver who, you know, maybe was a bit eccentric, but never really caused any problems.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: And that all changed on the night of January 9th, 2016.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: What happened on that night was the Steelers were playing in Cincinnati in the AFC wildcard playoffs.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: They were trailing the Bengals in the final minute.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: Ben Rothesberger attempts to pass over the middle to Brown.
41:20
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't make the catch, but he is leveled by Bengals linebacker Vantez Berfecht.
41:25
SPEAKER_02: That hit draws a 15-yard penalty, which, in addition to an even stupider penalty from Pac-Man Jones, trying to punch one of our assistant coaches who was 40 yards away.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh, that gives the Steelers a shocking last second win.
41:37
SPEAKER_02: However, Brown was pretty hurt, so much so that he actually was not able to play the following week in the divisional round in Denver.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: So that concussion was pretty severe.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: And after that, A B goes full, like scorched earth crazy, ultimately burning all these bridges in Pittsburgh and Oakland and New England, getting in all kinds of legal trouble.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: And then finally, in what was probably his final ever act as a football player, although you never know.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: This is how I'm gonna quit my next job.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, rips off, rips off all his clothes and runs off the field mid-game as a season, uh, this past season as a game of a paybox.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to Antonio Brown's my job.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: It's like so the narrative here is you know, had he never been hit by perfect, A.
42:27
SPEAKER_02: B would have enjoyed a long and fruitful career in Pittsburgh.
42:29
SPEAKER_02: He would have been a stealer all-time great.
42:32
SPEAKER_02: One Pittsburgh sports media figure went as far as to say that A.
42:35
SPEAKER_02: B, quote, never smiled and went dark after that hit.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: So let's dig more into the reality of this one.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: And the reality is that A B had issues way before Montez Perfect hit him in that playoff game.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, you can trace it all the way back to his senior year of high school uh when he was sleeping on his friends' couches because he wasn't getting along with his family.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: He got a scholarship to Florida International and he was promptly expelled before he ever even played a game because of off-the-field behavior.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: He then winds up at Central Michigan where he had more behavior issue issues.
43:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, people always wonder, boy, how did the Steelers get him in the sixth round?
43:18
SPEAKER_02: That was such a steal.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, a big part of that was teams were wary of his off-the-field stuff.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: And he did have issues with the Steelers, too.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: I think the Steelers were just able to keep it under wraps for a long time.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: There's there's plenty of Pittsburgh media guys who are around the team a lot in the early 2010s that can verify that.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: Um we'll link Dejan Kovacevic did a podcast recently where he talked about that.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: Some of the stories he could tell from the early days that weren't really public.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: And and even still, there were incidents.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: There was the shouting match with Dick Lebeau in twenty twelve during a practice that did make headlines.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Ryan Clark said that he said, quote, I saw Troy Polomalo seriously get pissed off maybe twice, and this was one of those two times.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Troy actually went up to the coaches and wanted them to designate the receivers as live targets so that he could go so that he could go level Antonio Brown.
44:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is Troy Polomalo, probably the easiest going dude on the planet, literally uh asked the coaches if if they could make them live, and he was like heated, angry about it.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: He just wanted to take a shot at Brown.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh AB was late to meetings, he was late to public appearances.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: He supposedly got into a huge fight with Ben where they didn't speak for an entire offseason.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: I think as he starts to become more of a star player, he starts feeling more emboldened in his behavior.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: And for me, you know, people want to trace it back to the Berfect hit.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: I think you can trace a lot back to the game at Jacksonville in 2014.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: And that's a game that most people don't remember.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: But what happened in that game is the Sewers were up by one score real late in the game, and they just needed to run out the clock.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: But instead of taking a knee or running out the middle, they inexplicably threw a short pass to A B.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: And keep in mind this is a one-score game.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: If that pass is intercepted, then a win potentially turns into a loss.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: And it was kind of odd at the time that they called that play.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: And it came out later that the reason they did that was because A B had this streak going where he had at least five catches for 50 yards in like 30 plus straight games.
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Now that streak actually meant very little.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't an official NFL stat.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Like you cannot go into the NFL record and fact book and find any kind of stat for you know who's in second place on the five catches for 50 yard streak list.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: It's it's literally not an official stat.
45:56
SPEAKER_02: There's no roster bonus tied to it.
45:58
SPEAKER_02: I know, you know.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: There has to be.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: I always thought that forever that he had to have, there had to be some sort of money tied to that.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: There's other reasoned.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: Why would they write in uh uh five catches for 50 yards in consecutive games?
46:15
SPEAKER_01: No, not say just like you have to have so many catches to get a bonus, and he knows that he needs to average five a game or something like that to get that bonus.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you he has like if I make X amount of coaches, Captain Coaches, X amount of catches, I get X amount of dollars.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: Because I I I don't know.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: My my spidey senses tell me somehow this involves money.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't go this nuts over something this trivial unless it affected your bottom line, or you at least thought it did.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: But but you're you're literally so let's say that's true.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: Let's say he needed to average five catches a game to hit the bonus.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're talking about one catch.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: If he only catches four balls in that game, he could easily catch 12 in the next game.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Nobody said he was good at math, Tim.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: But I I think I think regardless, what here's what we do know.
47:13
SPEAKER_02: That that that's that mattered very much to A B, that streak of the the five catches for 50 yards.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: So much so that the Steelers actually surmise, the Steeler brain thrust.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: These are these are not dumb people, you know, Mike Tomlin and Todd Haley and Dick Lebeau, all the assistant coaches surmise that there's less risk in throwing that pass than there is in angering Antonio Brown.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: And and to me, that's that's really you know where you can trace things back to.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh kudos to Tomlin for kind of keeping the crazy inside for as long as he could before it really started to come out because John Gruden couldn't do it, Bill Belichick couldn't do it, Bruce Arians couldn't do it uh for very long.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: The idea that he was like this normal guy and Vontez Perfect hit him and then he went crazy, I think is just that doesn't mean that I totally agree with you.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: I think he just has had trouble the whole time and he kind of like when he needed, I think it's all about him getting paid.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: And when he got in the NFL, he was a sixth round pick and he realized I'm not gonna get paid until I get you know a certain level of success.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: And you know, this is and once he got that level of success, you know, he he okay, I made my money, and he kind of dropped his guar, you know, and the real A B came out, and what are you gonna do?
48:38
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: All right, the next one, Steve, you might disagree with me on this one, but it's the pirates are trying to win.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: So the narrative here is that the pirates are investing in scouting and developing players.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: They went out and hired Ben Terrington.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Look at look at what that guy did with the Red Sox.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, they started a rebuild after those three good seasons, but that's what a lot of teams in sports do when their windows close.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, also, I mean, the baseball economics are so unfair it makes it virtually impossible for them to compete anyway.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: And if they just had a salary cap in place like other leagues, then all of this would definitely turn around for the Pirates.
49:18
SPEAKER_02: And here's here's the reality.
49:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so this one I I I think you can have a false narrative where the narrative isn't completely false.
49:27
SPEAKER_02: Because it's very true here that that baseball's economic system is a joke, right?
49:34
SPEAKER_02: Baseball's economic system makes it very difficult for the small market teams to compete.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: The Yankees can go out and pay a free agent a ton of money, and if he's a bust, they just shrug and move on while teams like the Pirates just don't have that luxury.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: So uh it's not a completely false narrative.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: But that being said, you know, Tampa Bay, Oakland, Kansas City, all these other small market teams, Milwaukee, all these other small market teams have figured it out.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, is it super difficult for those teams to stay competitive with the likes of Boston or New York or LA or Chicago?
50:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: But they somehow find a way to do it.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: And then the idea too that a salary cap would fix everything.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I there there are still terribly run franchises uh in leagues where there are salary caps who lose more than they win.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: And I'd say no look no further than the NFL.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: Look at franchises like Detroit or Jacksonville or Miami or both of the New York teams.
50:32
unknown: Right?
50:32
SPEAKER_02: There's plenty of bad.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: What happened to Miami?
50:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, they just like I thought that guy had them finally on the right track, and then it's like, oh, okay, let's go crazy.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not because they're poorly run franchised like the pirates.
50:45
SPEAKER_02: Exactly, yeah.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: And and you know, so the pirates may not have a cap uh in place, but they do have revenue sharing, where the big market teams give a significant share of their revenues to the small market teams, and which the pirates are massive beneficiaries of, especially given that the revenue has gone up so much recently while the salaries have gone down.
51:05
SPEAKER_02: That's one of the big reasons why there's currently a lockout.
51:09
SPEAKER_02: The truth is that the Pittsburgh Pirates exist to enrich the owner.
51:14
SPEAKER_02: It's not for the community, even though the community paid for the stadium, which is one of the big revenue generators, there's really no motivation to win either.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, if we're really being honest, Bob Notting already gets revenue from TV and from the rich teams, like we said with the revenue sharing.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: I think the only big increase he would get if they failed a good team would possibly be more be more people coming to the games.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: But he already gets enough of that because of the aforementioned publicly financed stadium, which as you may recall, was sold to the taxpayers as a way for the pirates to be able to spend more money on players.
51:47
SPEAKER_02: The franchise is valued at over one billion dollars.
51:51
SPEAKER_02: I I'm not saying that Bob Nutting doesn't want to win.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: I to me, Steve, I look at it as like imagine if I got a puppy and I brought the puppy home and I didn't spend a whole lot of time training him or you know paying for uh obedience classes or anything like that.
52:13
SPEAKER_02: Now, might the dog still learn some tricks?
52:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: Might the dog, you know, go outside every once in a while to use the restroom, yeah.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: But more often than not, with the pirates, you're gonna have pee on the carpet.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: Do you need a rolled-up newspaper for for Bob Nutting to make them spend more money?
52:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't think the be all end all is to spend more money with them.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: I I it's just I don't know why they just uh like you said, there's other teams that like Tampa Bay seems to be pretty competitive.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Kansas City won a World Series and was competitive like another year or two.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like it can be done.
52:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just, you know, I don't know about the the revenue sharing is a joke.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: It's only a six percent, I think, luxury tax.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: So it's not that much money.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: And you have to remember the problem in baseball is is not there's no salary cap, is there's no true revenue sharing.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Like there's a tax on the salaries, but what does that matter when the yes network makes how many billions of dollars, when the Texas Rangers have, you know, like the Dodgers have how many billions of dollars?
53:26
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
53:27
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean anything when you when these other teams have off the books, not off the book, but revenue they they don't have to share with the rest of the league.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: And it's just, you know, the people whose salary have gone down are the rookies.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: That's where you're talking about that and playing games with service time and stuff.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: That I agree with the union, but the union don't care about the rookies because the unions run by you know agents and the veterans, you know, because the veterans, you know, it's mostly veterans that are in the union that vote.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: And they like it.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: I've said this a long time.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: There's this weird, I mean, I guess now they're arguing just how to split up the pie, maybe, but there's I always thought there was this weird like alliance between the big market teams and the union because the union wants the big market teams to keep spending and spending and spending because that's a bigger salary, and the agents want that too, you know, because you know, six or what I what's what's an agent take?
54:29
SPEAKER_01: 10, 20 percent?
54:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, 20% of a hundred thousand isn't as much as twenty percent of a million, you know.
54:36
SPEAKER_01: So if you increase all the salaries, the agents get more money, and then the players at the top get more money.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: So it's just like this weird system that feeds into just keeping things the way they are.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: Never mind the way the game is played has like gotten really boring.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: It's either strikeout or home run.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: So I if they lose enough viewers, if people don't come back this time, things will change, they'll have to change things.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I again I don't want to minimize how totally ridiculous and stupid and unfair the system that Major League Baseball has.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh why you would make a a sports league where it's that uh unfair competitively and then celebrate, oh, the Boston Red Sox finally won the World Series.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: And well, yeah, because they're one of you know six teams that have a huge advantage over everybody else.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's that's nonsense.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: The only thing you can compare it to is Europe, like the like that European soccer, like you know, all the teams at the top of those Premier Leagues are far and away make more money than even the middle of the road teams.
55:46
SPEAKER_01: And they won that's why they wanted to form that other league.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's all true.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: That being said, again, like we said, there's other teams that have figured it out.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: And this narrative that, oh, the the spunky pirates, they're just trying, they're really investing the money back in the team, and they're not.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: They're they're they're why they're terribly run.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, it's and like you said, Steve, it's not just about spending money, it's decisions.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: We did a whole episode about the 20 years where they where they didn't have a winning season and all just the the awful decisions that they made, and the just awful decisions they've made since those three good seasons that they had in the mid-2010s.
56:24
SPEAKER_02: It's it's just it's yeah, the the the narrative.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe they're finally stockpiling draft picks.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, draft picks in baseball are like I think a bigger crapshoot than draft picks in the NFL, but maybe if you get enough of them, it'll eventually turn out.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: So that's the only thing I think yeah, they might be able to turn things around for the Pirates.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: But once again, is it gonna be like the 2010s where it's just a three-year kind of flash in the pan and then they go back to stinking for six or seven years?
56:58
SPEAKER_02: So you know what franchise was really good at stockpiling draft picks recently?
57:02
SPEAKER_02: The Miami Dolphins.
57:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they were.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: All right.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, our next narrative is that, and Steve, I think this is one where I think you'll definitely disagree with me.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: The narrative is that the Steelers have a culture problem under Mike Tomlin.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: And so the narrative goes like this that the Pittsburgh Steelers, this once proud franchise, has become a laughing stock under Mike Tomlin.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: The players run amok, they dance on logos, they make fools of themselves on social media, they get in trouble off the field, they celebrate first downs while the clock is ticking down.
57:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is, man, this is just not the steeler way.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: We used to have players that brought pride to the city.
57:46
SPEAKER_02: Now we just have a bunch of guys who are a joke, and that's on Tomlin.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: Just wants to be buddy buddy with the players instead of laying down the law.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: So that's the narrative.
57:56
SPEAKER_02: Here's where I think the narrative falls apart a little bit.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: And this is this is what I always say is okay, the Steelers have all these, you know, locker room cancers and bad guys.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: So name all the guys on the 53-man roster that fit this description.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: And usually when you do that, it's usually like two or three guys at most that people can name.
58:21
SPEAKER_02: Right now, it's Juju and Chase Claypool.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: Before that, it was A B and Lev Bell, before that it was Garrett Blunt, etc.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: We rarely talk about the other 50 plus players on the team, many of whom are good teammates and leaders in the locker room and giving back to the community.
58:40
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, as long as there's two guys causing problems, then this narrative is that the whole team is, you know, full of clowns.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: Um here's another question.
58:50
SPEAKER_02: Did the Steelers have a culture problem in the 2000s when they had guys like Lexico Burris or Cedric Wilson or Richard Siegler, the guy that was running a prostitution ring while he's playing for the Steelers?
59:01
SPEAKER_02: How about in the how about in the 1990s when they had Bam Morris with his uh huge drug arrest or Eric Green or Greg Lloyd?
59:09
SPEAKER_02: Heck, let's go back to the 1970s when Ernie Holmes was shooting at a police helicopter and Mel Blunt was suing the team and most of the offensive line was juicing with steroids.
59:18
SPEAKER_02: Was that not a culture problem?
59:20
SPEAKER_02: Didn't Chuck Noel have a culture problem in the 1970s?
59:23
SPEAKER_02: I think the reality here is that the Steelers have had some bad actors over the years, and yeah, maybe in recent years they've had some really bad ones like the aforementioned Antonio Brown.
59:35
SPEAKER_02: But we also live in a time when football's covered 24-7 and when social media gives us all kinds of unfettered access into these players' lives, like we never had before, and sometimes it's not the picture that we, you know, maybe thought it was when we were idolizing them back in the day.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's always going to seem worse.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: But this idea that the Steelers are just, you know, this uh you know, joke of a franchise now with all these terrible guys, I I just don't think it holds water.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it holds some water, maybe a lot of water.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: I I I agree with you there there's always been bad people on the team, but like it seemed like when the Steelers have been successful, they've kind of chased those guys out.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like Plexico.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if Plexigo Burris was a bad guy, but he was kind of a goofball.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: And like the whole spiking the ball when he wasn't touched down, and but that's like on it.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: It's like he never like I don't remember him ever shooting it anyway.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: He shot himself, but that was in New York.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: So but you know, and it's always been like that too, where the stars of the team get away with, and that was even that goes back forever.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_01: Like the star, you know, if you're a star player or you know, a top starter, you can get away with a lot more than like a guy who's like if you're on the you know special teams or the practice squad, you screw up and that's fine, they're just gonna get rid of you and replace you.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_01: So you always had that dynamic going on, and that's on every team.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: But I will say this, I mean, maybe just because I don't follow the Patriots that closely, but you don't don't see this kind of stuff under Bill Belichick per se.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: But you do see it other places.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean you you do see like people act like goofballs, and maybe it's just like getting older too, like the culture in general, you know.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: Like I I I thought that for a while about Chase Claypool.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, I got wasn't there was that a game against the Colts where like he was on the sideline, he wasn't even like and like he just starts like clapping at some guy from the Colts or something, and then didn't Dallas was he the one that wanted to go stand on the star like Terrell Owens and like Connor had to stop him?
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, but like again, he goes back to you had one guy that wants to be an idiot and you had another guy that stops him.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: So I I don't know.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_01: Does that make it a whole culture problem?
1:02:06
SPEAKER_01: I think I I just I don't know, it just doesn't seem like sometimes they have very much discipline the last couple years, and then I I don't know that they and there were times they did, like I just think of that that team that won those Super Bowls and was so good from like 2004 to like 2010.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: There was definitely a different culture for that era of team, like you might have had like Chemo von Olhoffen literally said that like you might have a guy in here that acts like an idiot, but they'll get rid of him.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_01: So maybe it just depends on the group of players that are there at that moment and how much it's tolerated or not.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, well, didn't Devin Bush like post and like you said, like back way back when Devin Bush could have been looking at whatever crazy cat videos he was, and nobody would have known the difference.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_01: Right now he's posting them on the internet or having his dad, you know, oh you don't know his assign, you know.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: It's way worse with social media and and your family, you can't stop your family from posting stuff, I guess.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, look at Odell Beck and what happened with him in Cleveland.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it it it this is the kind of stuff that just didn't happen 20, 30 years ago with social media.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: And and yeah, you have guys that are I I think too, the winning, you know, you talked about those those teams that went to the Super Bowls in the 2000s.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: Winning takes a lot of that away.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: And they got rid of they got rid of Cedric Wilson after that, but then they kept James Harrison, who was like you know, acting all crazy.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: But once again, you know, Cedric Wilson was on a shorter leash than James Harris.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: He was expendable.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_01: He was expendable.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_02: Santonio Holmes got into a lot of trouble when Cower was still the coach and they kept him because he was a first-round draft pick.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's always going to be the case that you're gonna keep the guys that are good and you're gonna, you know, Richard Siegler is a prostitution ring guy.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was a nobody.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_02: They it was easy to get rid of him.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: So that that's that's natural.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_02: And and again, winning winning covers everything.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we talked earlier in the episode about Cower having the four playoff teams in his last nine years.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_02: Remember the late 90s that those teams, how bad some of those teams were?
1:04:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, the the one team and that won six games in 1999, they weren't very disciplined, the defense was terrible, and and people were saying that at the time, oh, this once proud franchise, and and these guys aren't even prepared for the game.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes when you just have bad teams, you have bad teams.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_02: And and the Steelers, I think the last few years have not had a great team, and it's been masked by the fact that they've gone to the playoffs a few times, but it has not been a great team.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_02: Definitely nowhere near those teams that they had in the in the 2000s.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_02: So I just think that um again, when you when you line up eras, when you compare stuff that was happening in the 70s, I I I don't think that it's a way bigger culture problem today than it might have been back then.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_01: I would say it's still a culture problem, though.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_01: Now maybe it's just been consistently bad the whole time, but it's definitely maybe it's just a problem with our culture, maybe.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a bigger issue.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_02: And your point about Belichick is is totally um true.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh I just don't I just don't know that it's fair to ever compare anything with Belichick.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know he might it I think he sweeps a lot of stuff under the rug, too.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_01: I think stuff happens and you just don't see it, you know.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_01: Like somehow he has it covered or look how quickly he got rid of Brown.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it you know, how long did Brown last there?
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: Right two weeks.
1:05:48
unknown: Right.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_02: So I I you know, if that's the gold standard, that's that's totally fair, and he's he's earned that.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_02: But uh to your point, I don't I it'd be I'd be hard pressed to Name one other team that you know is that has that clean of a track record.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_02: Alright, that's that's really all of our narratives.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: I I I had one last category, which really isn't um a false narrative, but it's kind of in the same ballpark, so I wanted to cover it at the end here.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: And and this I this I'm calling things that people selectively care about.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: And so what I'm talking about here is things that people seem to only really care about or make a big deal about when they happen to the non-Pittsburgh sports team.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_02: So I'll give you three really concrete examples here.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_02: Number one is the NFL overtime rules.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh this past January you had a ton of talk about that, especially after the uh Buffalo, Kansas City playoff game where the Bills never got the ball in overtime, and oh what a what a tragedy, and this shouldn't happen, and we need to alter the overtime rules.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: Of course, when Ben Rothesberger in the aforementioned Tim Tebow game never got to touch the ball in overtime, no one really cared then.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_02: And of course, that was the first time for the roles where you could kick a field goal and keep playing, and they changed those rules because Brett Favre never got to touch the ball in the 2009 NFC Championship game.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_02: But a few years before that, nobody cared that Tommy Maddox never got to touch the ball in the Tennessee playoff game that they lost.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_01: Nobody seemed to care this year when Kansas City threw an interception.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, you know, you're allowed to play defense.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: And and honestly, I I I wouldn't mind them going to like the college roles.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_02: I think that would be more equitable.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_02: But but again, it it's it's we only care when it happens in certain situations.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: And and and when Tim Tebow threw the 80-yard pass on the first play of overtime, it was oh my gosh, what a great play, what an all-time great moment.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_02: Nobody ever said, Oh, what a shame Ben never got the ball.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to if I was doing overtime, I'd like to see one 15-minute period in in the regular season, just one 15-minute period ends in a tie.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_01: In the postseason, one 15-minute period of regular football, not sudden death, and then after that you go to the college system, you know, of like 25, and then you, you know, at least then it'd be more like soccer, where it's like you have a period of overtime and then you have a shootout.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: So that's good.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_01: I would like that.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think in that way, you know, you could you could be aggressive, you could throw an interception, and as long as uh you know, even if it gets returned for a touchdown, you still have a chance.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_02: You know.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that would change a lot of things.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_02: But but regardless, again, nobody people are only going to care to do that if apparently it's not the stealer.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_02: So a a second really good example uh was when Major League Baseball changed the roles about taking out the guy at second base.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh, after Chase Utley slid into Ruben Tejada during the 2015 NL NLDS, Tejada got hurt.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_02: He couldn't play in the World Series that year, and everybody clutched their pearls and went crazy, and we can't have this anymore where guys just take out the feet of the defenseless second baseman or shortstop.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, literally that same season, the Cubs took out young Ho Kong at second base, literally knocked him out for the whole season in a in a year where the Pirates were uh 98 game winners and really needed that guy to compete with the the very team that took him out, but nobody really cared.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_02: Nobody really cared.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_02: Nobody really wanted to change the rules then.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until Ruben Tejada got taken out, then all of a sudden we have to do something.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's another pet peeve of mine.
1:10:00
SPEAKER_01: And Joe Madden, like the coach of the Cubs, like, oh, it's just good, clean, hard baseball.
1:10:05
SPEAKER_01: Was that good clean hard baseball?
1:10:07
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Ruben Tejada got hurt.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_01: I guess it wasn't good, clean, hard baseball then.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_02: And and like the the whole idea behind that play for decades, and that was a staple of baseball, was hey, I'm sliding into second, and oops, I accidentally hit you because you were there when I slid.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_02: And the and the play with Kung, I mean, you look at it, the guy doesn't even come close to second base.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_02: He literally just takes out, he just hurts a guy.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that that was ridiculous.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_01: That was that was all too because they went to instant replay, and they used to have a rule called the neighborhood rule.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_01: I guess it was a real like if you're just to like protect the shortstop, like if you're in the or second baseman, like if you're just kind of you didn't actually have to touch second base, you'd be like, okay, that guy's gonna be out, you can just throw the ball to first, and then they got rid of that, and it went, you know, because they went to EC, you have to touch the bag.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_01: And once they did that, then it was you know open season on people.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: So Yep.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_02: And and and the third example of people selectively caring about stuff would be Bounty Gate.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_02: If you if you remember Bounty Gate, was this is another thing that happened because of Brett Favre.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_02: So the Saints, the Saints had put a bounty out on Brett Favre in that same NFC championship game where he didn't get to touch the ball in overtime.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_02: And oh my gosh, I mean, the the media just fell over backwards.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_02: Um uh Peter King for Sports Illustrated, I I remember he actually went down to Mississippi just so he could hold Brett at night because he was so worried about him.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_02: I I'm I'm pretty sure that happened.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_02: And and of course, you know, we had to make a huge deal.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_02: The Saints had to be punished, their head coach had to be suspended for an entire year.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_02: We can't have this in the game.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_02: And literally one season before that, that was 2009.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_02: In 2008, the Baltimore Ravens, this wasn't now the Saints thing was alleged, and you know, they didn't they they had enough evidence and all that, but the Ravens It was a role.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_01: It was a role in 2008, too.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_01: You weren't allowed to do that.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you weren't allowed to do it.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_02: The Ravens publicly come out.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_02: Terrell Sugg publicly comes out and says they have a bounty on Heinz Ward.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_02: Literally announces it to the world.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_01: No, he said they had a bounty on uh Richard Mendenhall because they Ray Lewis separated his shoulder and Ray Lewis collected money on it.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm sure they had a bounty on Heinz Ward, too, and totally got away with it.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_01: Nothing was ever done about it, nobody cared.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_02: Nope, nope, no media, no media outrage, no, no John Harbaugh getting suspended for an entire season, nothing.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_02: Nothing was done.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_02: Just to hum, move on.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: But when it happens to Brad Favre, oh my gosh, we have to and and and these are all things, again, you know, like Steve and I said, we we think the overtime rule should be changed.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_02: I I agree with they shouldn't be able to take out the second baseman.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: And and bounties were a bad thing.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_02: Like these are not thing decisions we disagree with.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_02: It's the fact that people only cared at select times, and that's that's just annoying to me.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_02: Really annoying.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_02: And hypocritical.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's life.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, people don't it's all who it's being done to, you know.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_02: So that's our list.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_02: I have a few honorable mentions that I thought about covering.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one was uh the fall fall the narrative that Joe Paterno knew nothing.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_02: I thought that was way too weighty of an issue to just devote a small segment of an episode to and a whip huge can of worms to open, so I skipped that.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_02: Um the narrative that the Steelers pro the Steelers protested the National Anthem in Chicago.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_02: We talked about that in our uh soap opera season episode.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_02: That's a false narrative.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh the narrative that Art Rooney made the Steelers who they are, you know, that was really Art Rooney was a great guy and the Steelers exist because of him.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_02: But it was really his son Dan that turned the Steelers into a winner.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_02: And then I I had a couple of narratives that really aren't false, but like are no longer true.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_02: So for example, like Ben is a Ben Rothesberger is a bad guy, or Sidney Crosby is a crybaby.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_02: I think I think at one time, you know, those narratives definitely had merit.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_02: But those guys changed as they got older, and a lot of people just want to stick to this narrative from literally like 2006 of when they described guys.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_01: People aren't allowed any personal growth.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_02: So but I didn't include those because they're I mean, they were again, those are those are kind of narratives that don't fit anymore, but people cling to because they want to cling to.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_02: See you, anything I forgot.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, not that I can think of.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember like also in Bounty Gate, like the Saints like the week before.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_01: I think it was that's maybe the same.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_01: Did they play the San Francisco the week before?
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: In I don't know.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_01: They played San Francisco one year and literally jumped on Alex Smith's head like five times.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_01: It's like nice, nice.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_01: The NFL only cares about safety when it's not Alex Smith, apparently.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_01: But that's all I got.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I probably could have done a whole episode on just that selective category, but like I said, I just it wasn't it wasn't quite false narrative, but I f I thought it just kind of fit into the same sort of um territory, so I wanted to to include that.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_02: All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_02: Please check us out on the web or on social media.
1:15:42
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1:15:45
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1:15:48
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1:15:51
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time.