U mad, bro?: Readers welcome ’25 with familiar angst over Steelers, media coverage, College Football Playoff
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The first “U mad, bro?” of 2025 appears to be very similar to what we saw a lot of in 2024: Pittsburgh Steelers fans complaining about the state of the team.
Or, Steelers fans complaining about me complaining about the state of the team — with just a pinch of Penguins and college football sprinkled into the mix.
Happy New Year! Same as the old year!
This guy wasn’t wild about the column I wrote about the prospect of the Steelers likely visiting Houston or Baltimore in the first round of the playoffs.
So you (and rightfully so certainly) have lambasted the Steelers over the years for this terrible playoff win drought. Now you're making fun of a scenario where they beat the Texans? So now it's not about winning in playoffs, has to be on your terms? ????
— 1933 Black and Gold (@Steelers4evr) December 31, 2024
Yes.
That's your prerogative, you do you. But me personally, I've bashed them for this drought also. If they win one this year I'm certainly giving them credit. If not I'm a hypocrite. No bueno.
— 1933 Black and Gold (@Steelers4evr) December 31, 2024
Obviously, I was being (somewhat) facetious in my reply to you. The point of my column wasn’t to say, “A playoff win doesn’t count.” The point was to say a win in Baltimore would be a much greater punctuation mark on the season than a win against an equally limping Houston team — a much better way to end the drought.
Jake isn’t exactly painting a pretty outlook for the rest of the Steelers’ season.
If we beat a floundering Houston team just to get trampled by a real team then that would show this team isn’t really ready for a playoff game. But I guarantee if we play Houston we will come out slow, and stroud will look like Brady against this Swiss cheese secondary
— ER_Junkie (@JakeDom21) December 30, 2024
As the Steelers have frequently proven in the playoffs since 2016, Stroud doesn’t even have to look like Tom Brady. He just needs to look like Blake Bortles.
Here is an exchange with someone that I had about the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” quest to determine who everyone on the Steelers’ defense is complaining about when it comes to blowing assignments.
They aren’t. They are involved with a PR campaign for the NFL.
— The Kraken (@TheKrak95059118) December 27, 2024
Thank you for piercing through my intricately woven tapestry of sarcasm.
Game recognizes game.
— The Kraken (@TheKrak95059118) December 27, 2024
Earlier this week, I posted a web poll about what would constitute a successful season for the Steelers. This guy didn’t like it.
Investigate where the Steelers staff under HC is at as per number of coaches and total salary allocation compared to rest of NFL and then ask hard questions about to Tomlin, Khan, and Art. Much more value and respect worthy than basic trolling fan questions.
— You Know It’s Tru Tho (@know_tru) December 30, 2024
How is it trolling? Who is being trolled here, exactly? And what are you expecting from your Woodward and Bernstein-esque demands? You know Khan doesn’t talk during the season, and Art only talks to the beat writers at the end of the year, right?
Seriously, do you think an expose suggesting that the Steelers are misallocating their money by spending too much on a head coach with seven years of mediocre results and not enough on the assistant coaching staff is going to … what? “Shame” Rooney into changing his ways? Pfft! How long have you been following this team?
Do you think that will embarrass Tomlin into reshaping his staff or redistributing the coaching duties and responsibilities or something?
Ha! That’s cute. Your idealism by way of “Big J journalism” rock-throwing is precious.
And, again, it’s just a web poll. Lighten up, Francis.
More sports
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John sent a message in response to my column about the College Football Playoff.
Not shocked that Tim likes expanded playoffs and crap football games. Expanded playoffs was done for money and money alone. If it was about competition, they would have picked better teams and we would have had better games. They did not and fans suffered through crap due to ????
— John Marion (@logano22fortheW) December 29, 2024
1. Clemson, Arizona State and Boise State weren’t “picked.” They got in — and/or got byes — by virtue of conference wins. That diluted the seeding, thus underscoring my overarching complaint about the bloated conferences.
2. I said go with eight teams (or 16), not 12.
3. The games won’t be that bad in the first round every year. As I pointed out in the column, this was a fluky, unsettled year in college football to start this new format. I bet you at least one or two upsets occur from road teams in the first round next year.
Finally, on Monday, I was hosting on 105.9 The X when an angry caller about the Penguins blurted out that the team should host one game a year where all the proceeds go to charity.
Meanwhile, this listener had a great idea as to what charity that should be.
@TimBenzPGH I think the charity of choice should be The Human Fund.
— Newman (@jmerranko) December 30, 2024
Ah, yes! The Human Fund: “Money … for people.”
Good idea. Personally, though, I think the charity should be the Pittsburgh Pirates. Maybe they could finally afford that first baseman they’ve been looking for.
That has a certain understated stupidity.
Listen: Tim Benz and Matt Williamson discuss the struggling Steelers on 105.9 The X