It’s the most wonderful time of the year – Steelers Week! It’s so utterly fantastic that it gets to happen twice.
I love it for many reasons but most of all because the Ravens and Steelers just hate each other. Of course you couldn’t have written a better batch of storylines leading into this Sunday’s Prime-Time tilt with the biggest being the AFC North crown on the line. The Ravens want a two game advantage (due to tiebreaker) and the Steelers want revenge after a Week Four defeat. Both teams have identical records. Both teams should bring their best game this weekend as the rest of the world watches what a real rivalry should look like.
So, as you settle into your favorite spot to watch the carnage unfold let me give you a little extra fuel to get the hate flowing against the Black and Gold. I’ve chosen my ten reasons why I hate the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Get ready to take a huge swig of Hater-Ade.
10- Bandwagon Fans
You will notice after closer review of this list that much of my concern falls squarely on the shoulders of those that support the Steelers. However for this entry I focus on those members of Steeler Nation who have never even stepped foot inside Pittsburgh yet adorn their doughy bodies with Black and Gold.
These fans are often the most obnoxious of the lot and will be the first to proclaim loudly and with poor grammar and sentence structure the awesomeness of Steeltown.I give you a pass if you are a displaced fan since anyone with two active brain cells left Pittsburgh a long time ago. But those from Maryland, who latched on to the gravy train after the Colts left are some of the worst offenders. Show some civic pride or at the very least a spine. I still cheer for the Orioles even though they are run by a man who could teach a fish to drown. The test of the true fan is enduring the lows, which make the highs that much sweeter.
9-”The Chin”
I admit that if Bill Cowher coached my favorite team I’d absolutely love the guy. But I can’t really admit that even though I just did. I may as well as state that Mike Krzyzewski is the greatest college coach of all-time too and I’d rather see him guide the Terps than Gary.
Blasphemy!
But this post isn’t about being logical it’s about emotional, irrational hatred.
So, screw the Chin. The guy obviously had some sort of respitory problem because he was never afraid to let the spit fly. He spit on his players, he spit on officials and he’d usually spit all over himself. He wore a continual scowl on his mug like he had just consumed a crate of onions. And now I have the pleasure of watching him every week give his “analysis” on CBS sports. This usually consists of him joining the half-hearted chucklefest and picking the Steelers every week.
By the way what is it with all these ex-Steelers in the media? Cowher I get to a degree but Mark Malone and Merril Hoge? The pain will stop just as soon as he takes the Carolina Panthers job and then I can hear all of Steeler Nation proclaim him as a traitor.
Maybe he really is Sgt. Slaughter?
8-Sixburgh
The Steelers are the only NFL team to have won six championships. I get it and you should be proud of it. It’s the first thing that any novice Steelers fan goes to when they see opposing colors.
But Baltimore has a proud football heritage too and even though I can’t blame Pittsburgh in any way it’s that history that’s been robbed from me and every other Baltimore sports fan that won’t ever return.
The Baltimore Colts won NFL championships in 1958 and 59. They also won Super Bowl V and of course the Ravens won the 2000 crown. That’s Four. If I wanted to stretch it to professional football then let’s not forget the USFL championship in 1985 and the CFL Grey Cup in 1995. That’s six and it’s the best comparison I can give because for 12 years we were forced to settle for something less than the NFL.
Despite all this history we weren’t mandated a team by the league but we were used by the NFL so the owners could use the town as leverage time and again to put more money in their pockets. Media types always seem to forget Baltimore football history when they call a Ravens game. As if the Ravens are an expansion team and the Colts actually wore Blue helmets.
7-Close Wins / Lucky Breaks
The Steelers are kings of the 17-14 victory. They always seem to do just enough to get by, which can frustrating as hell to watch. I know I biased because I want to see them lose. But they always seem to get a break.
Sometimes ”fate” steps in and two calls get blown that help give you a Super Bowl title. Or maybe you could just look over this season’s schedule. A questionable call against Miami goes Pittsburgh’s way to set up a game winning field goal and just last week Steve Johnson blames God for not hauling in a would be game winner.
I know the Steeler faithful are whining about their team currently being unfairly targeted by the officials and they may have a point. But if you look at the ledger over time the Steelers have gotten so many more calls than most teams.
I still haven’t gotten over the Holmes “touchdown” in 2008.
See another break.
6-Spoiled Fans
I’ve started to see this attitude creep into our fan base over the past few seasons and I don’t like it. View any Steelers Message board and you’ll find some dope that thinks Ben Roethlisberger is a bad quarterback or that Mike Tomlin couldn’t coach his way out of a bathroom stall.
Poor you! My team’s not flawless like when I play Madden on the TV box. Join the club. Every NFL team has it’s faults. Let’s also not forget when you play other professional clubs they are trying to win too.
Winning isn’t a birthright.
5-Steely McBeam
Imagine if Bill Cowher and Marge Simpson had a child, that child would be Steely McBeam. What’s even more hilarious to me is that Steely isn’t some longtime costumed hero, he was created and named in 2007 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Steelers.
And that’s what they came up with?
But it gets better. The name has meaning. Steely of course for his dark penetrating eyes. Um, no that would be for the now non-existent industrial heritage. The “Mc” would be to represent the Rooney family’s Irish ancestry. And lastly the “Beam” would be after Mr. Rooney’s favorite beverage.
Great, so a mascot that appears at charitable functions and children’s events is named after alcohol. Not surprised.
4-Morally Superior Fans
My workplace is infested with Steeler fans mainly because there are no jobs in Pennsylvania. So I’ve had plenty of discussions about the Ravens and Steelers rivalry over the years. But regardless of the season the conversation always takes an odd left turn. “Well you know the Steelers always do the right thing.” Oh, do you mean drafting and player evaluation. Sure they do a great job. “No”, my Steeler friend would say ,”They don’t just draft well, they draft men of character. You’d never see a player like Ray Lewis on my team.” Mind you this was the same year Pittsburgh drafted Santonio Holmes – a man who was arrested twice in the span of 22 days in two cities. Once I reminded my friend of this fact he changed the subject.
To their credit the Steelers finally did trade Holmes - after four years and a Super Bowl championship that his catch helped deliver of course.
So if you think you’re team is morally better than all others you’re either six years old or an idiot.
3-Ben Roethlisberger
This guy may know how to play football but he doesn’t make many sound decisions off the field. He may decide to go for a Bike ride or get a little too “handsy” with the locals – you just never know what that scruffy scamp will get himself into.
For years I heard from Steeler fans who claimed “Big Ben” sightings at the (insert club here) and they all said that the same thing. He was a jerky, douchebag who hit on their girlfriends and basically walked around like the Prince of Pittsburgh. So his recent troubles aren’t all that surprising.
I did have to laugh at my Steeler friends once again though. They were so angry at their hero that they thought he might be traded. After I stopped laughing I told them that there was no way he’d be moved and I could give them a hundred reasons why. Way too much money invested in this guy and he can throw a football. If he didn’t have that skill set he’d have been gone yesterday.
Those same people applauded the four game suspension and those same people were excited that they didn’t have to watch the Charlie Batch experiment anymore after the Ravens beat them at the Big Ketchup bottle.
“You wouldn’t have won if Ben would have played.” “We’ll never know because he was suspended for trying to dip his pen where it didn’t belong.”
Did you all forget why he wasn’t in uniform that quickly?
2-The Towel
This yellow rally rag has taken a life of it’s own over the past thirty plus years. I really don’t care about it at all. It’s just a towel used to cheer on your team. It has black letters on it. It’s not bad. I imagine it could have other uses too.
But say that to a Steelers fan and it’s as if I punched their grandmother in the mouth and stole her Primanti sandwich. The towel is the Pittsburgh equivalent of the Shroud of Turin. It’s just ridiculous.
But there is a curse.
For he who steps on the towel of might shall meet his doom on the field of green.
From Earnest Byner to T.J. to Keith Bulluck – all who desecrate the towel must pay in the end and of course lose to the Steelers. It is divinely decreed by the football gods. Which makes me now hate it because it implies the favored nation status of the Steelers in the football world.
You see why Baltimore fans are so upset about the Purple towels set to be handed out for this Sunday Night. We don’t need to copy that!
1-Hines Ward
Public Enemy #1 or as I like to call him the Bill Laimbeer of football.
I admit he does his job well. He gets under the skin of the opposition and he’s intelligent enough to skate the line between legal and illegal. He says all the right things to the press. He claims ignorance as to any wrongdoing and there is always that smile. The smile that says I’ve got everyone fooled and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Even this week he wanted to drag the Ravens Head coach into the mix with his assertion that the Coach doesn’t like him and that he gave him a “fake handshake” last time out. Always stirring it up and trying to make something out of nothing.
I’ll admit he’s a great blocker but now that he has that reputation it means he’ll never get called for another Holding penalty the rest of his career. Sort of like Dennis Rodman who once he became reputed as a great defender was then licensed to clutch and grab instead of actually defending other players.
Sorry Hiney, you don’t get voted dirtiest player by your peers by accident. They aren’t all jealous that you play clean and to the whistle all the time.
I will give you this, no one has shut you up yet but there’s always this week.
In closing I quote the great newscaster Wes Mantooth who said, “From deep down in my stomach, with every inch of me, I pure straight up hate you. but goddammit I do respect you.”
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