The Breakfast Blend...the best part of waking up

By Willie Mullen

The Steelers, Thursday Night Football, Cincinnati Bearcats and Tiger Woods

Here's my take on this morning's headlines:

• The Pittsburgh Steelers will not repeat as Super Bowl champions.  In fact, the Steelers will not even return to the playoffs following last nights 13-6 loss to the Cleveland Browns.  Pittsburgh entered this season with hopes of another deep playoff run but things just went wrong for Mike Tomlin's crew.  When a team as talented as the Steelers has a disappointing season, it's pretty easy to pinpoint what exactly went wrong.  Here are three reasons the Steelers are 6-7 and will be watching the postseason:


• It's really, really hard to play every week as the defending champs.  When the schedule comes out, teams circle a game with the Steelers because it is their chance to prove themselves to the rest of the league.  When you are the best, you get everyone's best game and the Steelers faced "A-games" all season long.
• The biggest issue with last year's team was the offensive line and that group was not much better this season.  Sure, Ben Roethlisberger tends to hold-on to the ball a little long but he has been under pressure virtually every time he dropped back to pass.  Against the Browns, Ben was sacked eight times.  It's safe to say the Steelers will use their first round pick on an offensive lineman.
• Most importantly, injuries are the great equalizer in the NFL and the Steelers had to overcome huge losses.  Defensive end Aaron Smith was lost for the season in October and he is the best lineman on the roster.  Both Big Ben and Hines Ward have been banged up.  But the injury to Troy Polamalu is the biggest of them all.  Polamalu put on one of the season's best performances in the first half of the Steelers' opening game but hurt his knee and has played sparingly since Week 1.

              Pittsburgh will be back next season ready to make another run at championship #7.  Until then, Indianapolis and New England will battle for "Team of the Decade" honors.

• The NFL has to reconsider Thursday Night Football, Thanksgiving Day aside.  Teams are simply not ready to play four days after a game.  Some of it has to do with a lack of preparation time but the main reason is health.  How can the NFL realistically expect a running back to take a 40-carry pounding in the span of four days?  Players' bodies need more than four days to recover and the result is an average product on the field.  Thursday night has given us these dandies: 13-6, 24-17, 19-13 and 13-6.  Furthermore, teams struggle on the back-end of a Thursday game, as 10 days is too long of a lay-off.  Following the first two Thursday night games, the four teams combined to go 0-4 and just 2-5 if you include Thanksgiving Day.  Maybe this season has featured lousy teams but anyone who watches a Thursday game can tell you the quality of the game does not compare to the Sunday version.  I enjoy an early start to the NFL weekend but there has to be a better alternative.  If the NFL waited until the end of the college football season, it could have four Saturday night games and they could even do a double-header.  TV ratings in general are low on Saturday night but I'm confident plenty of NFL fans would tune-in to watch a far better product.

• It sounds as though the Cincinnati Bearcats feel betrayed by former head coach Brian Kelly.  Several team leaders sounded-off last night following the teams' awards banquet and few had kind words for the new Notre Dame coach.  "Before our big game...to have [Kelly] turn his back on us after we've come this far, the player's are disappointed," said TE Ben Guidugli.  "We were the one's out there playing every snap, [Kelly] was just calling the plays," added DL Alex Daniels.  It's easy to understand their resentment as the coach "abandoned" the team before their BCS game against the Florida Gators.  But it is unfair to blame Kelly; after all, this is how the system works.  The time between now and the end of bowl season is extremely important for recruiting purposes so Kelly did what he had to in order to put himself in the best position to succeed at Notre Dame from day one.  It's not fair to the young men who have worked so hard to be left without a coach before their biggest game but that is way college football operates in 2009.  At least Cincy star wide receiver Mardy Gilyard reminded us what college football is all about when he said, "College football is a business but Cincinnati is still Cincinnati without B.K."  You're right, Mardy.  Coaches and players come and go but the university marches on.

• My buddy Alan sent me a story about the Tiger Woods saga that is worth passing on.  Popular blog Deadspin shed some light on the lifestyle of pro athletes and, while it is not overly surprising, the "it won't happen to me" attitude of public figures never ceases to amaze me.  I'm sure you will enjoy the story...if you can get past the picture at the top of the article.