@hoorta said:

I'll grant you the Steelers are a little more secure, but you have about a million or two frontrunners on the bandwagon right about now I'd say.

You're right, unfortunately. Any successful team will get its share of bandwagoners. They're scum, and they'll flock to whoever is hot at the moment. As a Steelers fan, I wish that we had a few million fewer fans. It's easy to be a Steelers fan right now, and bandwagoners are frankly embarrasing. I am always suspicious of anyone who claims to be a Steelers fan but has no ties to Pittsburgh or Western PA. If you're a Steelers fan, 30 years old or older, and don't know what Bubby Brister's actual first name is, then you're probably a bandwagoner.

The Browns fan base right now consists of true Browns fans. If the Browns win a SB or two in the next few years, there will be many Browns bandwagoners. You'll see first hand how pathetic they are.

@ithika said:

But lets look at PA pro sports in general. How are those Pirates doing? Or that NBA team you have the 76ers? They both blow cock and always will! You can have your glory in the NFL right now really its all you have in pro sports because of the Rooneys, I feel sorry for you! Baseball season is right around the corner and the Pirates will once again be one of the shittiest teams in baseball history. While your sixers continue to suck and don't make the post season. We've got King James, and a great Cavs team, the Indians and a young and up and coming team in the Cincy Reds. You've got the Stoolers! Have fun waiting to root on a competitive team until Sept you DOUCHE BAG!

Pittsburgh is a football and hockey town. Baseball is a distant third and, with the exception of the 1979 team, has been since the death of Clemente. The Pirates weren't even all that popular relative to the Steelers even when they were good in the late eighties / early ninties. Despite that, the Pirates have the historical edge on the Indians and have won three World Series' since the last Indians title. Basketball isn't even on the radar in Pittsburgh, and people certainly don't consider the 76ers to be the local team. The Cavs are the geographically closest team, and few care about them one way or the other.

Here's a tip- when you're arguing football, baseball and basketball are irrelevant.

@pumpkin-eater said:

Um... why, if he batted the ball with his elbow, would if fly forward? Do you know nothing about the mechanics of throwing a football?

No. Please explain them to me, preferably through the use of mathematical proofs. Meanwhile, I'll watch the clip of Warner batting the ball forward.

AdaM said:

71 inch HD replay says I'm right.

Wishful thinking says you're right.

AdaM said:

His arm.

Started to move forward.

With complete control.

It's hard to have complete control when you're batting the football with your elbow.

As for missing the football as a prop call- I guess that evens out not calling Warner for removing his helmet to argue his first fumble.

@playgroundlegend said:

When the youtube vid comes out im posting it in this thread... that last Cardinals play was a forward pass. Worst call in history!!

Does anyone disagree, because I really would like to hear the logic behind it.

Watch the clip that was posted. Woodley clearly hits Warner when his arm is cocked back. The ball is rolling around when his arm was moving forward- from that angle it doesn't even look like the ball was in his hand at the time. The ball went forward because Warner batted it with his arm. It clearly looks like a fumble from that angle, and I can see why they didn't do a field review (remember, there was a booth review). I'm surprised that they didn't do a field review just to remove all doubt, although even if they did do so people would still say that the Steelers paid them off. Remember, a call that goes in the Steelers favor is by definition incorrect and crooked.

@yeahdaisafuturehofer... said:

What is wrong with doing something that wasn't illegal?

People dislike Bonds becuase he did something people with morales and respect for rules didn't do.

People dislike Bonds because his use of PEDs helped him break individual records. Baseball is an individual stat driven game. Doing something that makes people question the validity of records, especially home run records, is the cardinal sin, because in the end baseball is more about individual performance than it is about winning. 61 homeruns in a season used to be a hallowed number, as did 755 career homeruns. Now 61 has been surpassed numerous times and 755 has been toppled. The people who did so were probably using PEDs, bringing their validity into question. That throws baseball fans into a tizzy. They no longer have hallowed homerun numbers, and they're not sure how to react. 73 and 762 will never be fully respected. Nevertheless, they still exist in the books, devaluing 61 and 755. That's the essence of the Bonds hatred. Bonds, along with McGwire and Sosa, stained baseball's religion.

Football is totally different. It's about teams winning and losing. Unlike baseball, which is essentially a series of one-on-one duals between a pitcher and a batter, Football is a pure team sport. Individual statistics are much more difficult to evaluate becuase each individual's statistics are intrinsically tied to the performance of his other teammates. Thus, there are no magic numbers in football other than number of Lombardis and 19-0. PED use is rampant in the league, but no one really cares. It doesn't diminish the game, because the widespread use essentially levels the playing field. The new stats produced eclipses some of the older stats, but that's not really that important.

The ridiculous thing about this ESPN article is that they take two year old news and re-release it during the AFCC, hoping that people will think that it's a new story. It insinuates that the Dr. supplied the Steelers with HGH, but neither states that flat out nor seeks to prove it. It's basically a trumped up piece of fluff designed to make ESPN the story. I think that it damages ESPN's credibility. They've released sensationalist stories late in the playoffs about teams still in the playoffs for two years in a row. The Walsh story was false, and the Steelers story is nothing but years old insinuations. ESPN is swiftly becoming E! SPN.

Scott Player said:

this is a screen shot of second effort after already being down on the ground.

his knee was already down by contact 1 yard short, but heck the cowardly ref never blew the whistle and upon further review who knows? but all of America knows they witnessed the BullShit Call!

He was still in the air when this photo was taken. Watch the play live. The "second effort" that you describe is after his legs are already on the ground. The only reason that this play is controversial at all is that the ref hesitated in making the call.

I am somewhat sympathetic to the push-off call. There was contact both ways on that play. Regardless, that play came midway through the first half. You can't pin a loss on a questionable call in the first quarter. The other "controversies" are teapot tempests stirred up by sensationalist sports "journalists" looking for an angle to press after a crappy superbowl and carried on by jealous fans of other teams.

@dtbh said:

We don't even have the Cavs over the Steeler fans. Their entire fan base is frontrunners, so many of them are laying claim to the Cavs as well. Just watch as the Steeler fan base grows yet again this week because of the frontrunners.

Maybe the frontrunner fans root for the Steelers and the Cavs, but who gives a damn about the front runners? They're worthless.

The real reason that you can't hold the Cavs over the true Steelers fans is that the true Steelers fan base doesn't care about basketball. Bringing up the Cavs would be completely pointless.

Pittsburgh is a football and hockey town with baseball a distant third. Basketball doesn't even register.

@eqrulz101 said:

And the steeler pukes come out in force trying to explain how everybody under the sun that watched the game today is wrong and that was a legit game and a legit call. LMFAO you guys are blind and stupid if you believe that. Ofcourse if it was my team I wouldnt want to believe they was a bunch of cheaters either but the rest of the world can see the truth. The Rooneys being involed in gambling makes perfect sense. Only way to explain the bull shit calls I have seen watching steeler games. The refs were bought and paid for, no doubt about it, you guys coming on here and trying to explain it away does nothing. Anybody that watched that game knows that was a bullshit call. Two booth reviews, both unmistakably wrong and both in favor for the steelers. Ya that game wasnt rigged.

Why do you even bother caring about the NFL if you think it's rigged?