"Stand in the place where you live, now face north. Think about direction, wonder why you haven't before." -R.E.M.

Down and Out?

10/23/2006 03:23 PM Filed in: Football

Willie Parker

Let’s not try and put a pretty coat of paint on what has essentially been a wreck of a season so far. If you’re a Pittsburgh Steelers fan you aren’t enjoying football very much right now. Why? Because we have found a different way to lose almost every week. That’s right, the reigning Super Bowl champions are an abysmal 2-4 after yesterday’s gut-wrenching loss to the Atlanta Falcons in overtime.

It’s not like we didn’t expect for the team to go over a few bumps along the road this year. After all, we lost of the greatest running backs to ever play the game (Jerome Bettis), our best trick play guru (Antwaan Randle El), and our star quarterback almost died in the off-season...twice! (For those of you who’ve been living in a cave, Roethlisberger was involved in brutal motorcycle accident this summer, and then had an emergency appendectomy two nights before the season opener.)

My hope was that after we nailed Kansas City last week 45-7, we’d tear off on a streak and never look back. Unfortunately we’re getting close to a point of no return. And yet...

I’m not ready to throw in the terrible towel. We should have won yesterday (we beat ourselves by turning the ball over three times, giving Atlanta 21 points) and the offense at least seems to be clicking. We have a game against Oakland this week, and I’m pretty sure I could beat that team using only myself and the children’s choir at church....they’re awful! Hopefully we’ll get things back on track and then head to Denver to tame those wild Broncos just like we did in last year’s playoffs. I think that’ll be the test: if we can stomp Oakland and put Denver away, I feel like we’ll regain control of our season.

And if we regain control of our season, I feel good about my chances of waving my terrible towel at the TV screen come Super Bowl XLI. Don’t count us out just yet...

***The author realizes that he repeatedly referred to the team as “we” throughout the article as if he personally had something to do with the outcome. Instead of chastising him, joshcrain.com requests that you continue to allow him the delusion of being a part of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Thank you for your cooperation.

Tags: Steelers, Pittsburgh, Ben Roethlisberger, Willie Parker