Just Watch the Game Blog

In the early days of this site, we had a hell of a debate about President Obama and his use (over-use, in my opinion) of the teleprompter.

I was accused of nitpicking when I said that, for a guy who was supposed to be America’s Next Great Orator, he sure was dependent on the prompter.

I made a good living using a teleprompter, but I also had to do a lot of work without it and I pointed out that I knew a lot of people who worked in TV who were exposed as frauds if/when they were caught without a teleprompter to read.

Obama–with his over-dependence on the prompter–was exposing himself as a fraud.

I also was impolite enough to point out that George W. Bush was ridiculed for not being a good speaker but that he didn’t depend on a prompter as much as Obama–who was elected in large part because of his great speechifying.

Well guess who’s finally come to realize that what I was saying six months ago is true—-Mr. Thrill Up His Leg himself.

Chris Matthews says Obama needs to lose the teleprompter and says it’s his “menace”.

Being right all the time can get kind of boring, you know?

Lots of football players played the last  games of their careers last night and Joe Butler of Metro Index Scouting says that they should have some place to go.

Losing your season opener in overtime is never a good thing.

Or is it? I think Pitt is a better team today than it was last night at 8:00. Tino Sunseri was a better quarterback at 10:30 last night than he was at 8:30.

It will never get tougher for Pitt this season than it was last night in Utah.

It’s easy to see why Utah now has an 18 game winning streak at home. That is one tough place to play and it was an especially tough place for a kid to start his first college game at quarterback.

Pitt’s offensive line didn’t have a good night. There were way too many false start penalties, but, with that crowd and Sunseri’s and their inexperience it’s not surprising.

And it’s not just the five-yard penalties that hurt the offense. The fear of getting one causes offensive linemen to be a little less aggressive coming off the ball and that’s going to effect the running game even more than the passing game.

The loss last night shouldn’t drop Pitt in the stupid polls but it probably will and it doesn’t matter. Pitt is better prepared for the rest of the season because of that loss than it would have been by a 54-3 win over Younstown State.

I thought Charlie Batch was the guy who shouldn’t play because he might get hurt.

And isn’t Dennis Dixon the guy with the skinniest legs in NFL history, whose coach said that he was worried about him being broken in half?

And which quarterback looks like he’s going to be out for a while with a knee injury? The 250 pound guy with the size 17 shoes.

One of the biggest myths in football is that small guys are more likely to get hurt. The people who get hurt most often are the people who get hit most often. It’s a lot tougher to line up a guy like Dixon than it is to line up a guy the size of Byron Leftwich.

Dixon is so skinny, I think he may end up being the exception to the rule, though. But I’d still be willing to bet that, if he gets hurt, it won’t be downfield. It will be while he’s in the pocket.

So, who should start a week from Sunday against the Falcons? The guy who should have been groomed as the starter from the beginning, Charlie Batch.

Pitt plays Utah tonight.

Penn State plays Youngstown State on Saturday.

Here’s my question for you if you’re a Pitt fan:

Which would you rather see, an exciting, high scoring double overtime loss to Utah tonight or a 56-3 win over Cupcake State at Heinz Field on Saturday?

If you’re a Penn State fan:

Would you rather see Penn State beat YSU 63-10 on Saturday or see an exciting, double overtime loss to Utah on the road?

Forget the stupid poll ramifications. I’m not interested in that nonsense.

I’m talking about you as a football fan. Would you rather see your team play in an exciting, evenly matched game and lose or watch it beat a hopelessly over matched opponent?

Call me crazy, but if I were a Pitt fan, I would much rather see a competitive loss to a real team than a blowout over a cupcake.

If the polls and the idiotic BCS system have made it so you’d rather see your team beat Youngstown 63-0 than see it lose to Utah 42-41 in double OT, that should be all the argument anybody needs for getting rid of them.

I’m really looking forward to watching Pitt tonight. The Steelers game will be on the DVR. If Pitt were playing Youngstown, I’d choose the Steelers pathetic fourth preseason game because I’d be expecting it to be more entertaining.

Pitt fans and local football fans who wouldn’t necessarily refer to themselves as Pitt fans yet tend to have short memories.

They don’t realize that it was not that long ago–before Walt Harris resurrected the program–when there was actually serious discussion about Pitt joining the MAC or some other lesser conference.

There may not have been any serious discussion about that coming from the athletic department or the chancellor’s office but there were lots of people in town who thought it was time for Pitt to just give up on the idea of maintaining a big time football program.

Harris was run out of town unfairly and the fans haven’t had a lot of patience for Dave Wannstedt.

His teams have lost a few games that they should have won, but he has the Pitt program in the best shape that it has been in since Foge Fazio left in the early ’80s.

I think tonight is Wannstedt’s biggest game since taking over as head coach.

That doesn’t necessarily make it a must win because winning the Big East is still the most important thing, but this is the year when Pitt is supposed to establish itself as a legitimate top 10 team.

Not top 20.

Not top 25.  Top 10.

And a loss tonight will stir up all the critics and change the entire dynamic of the season.

It’s the toughest opener Pitt has had in a long, long time and it won’t be easy and Pitt is the underdog, but it’s time for a Wannstedt team to show that it has become what he promised it would become.

By the way, it occured to me the other day that I have never heard anybody say a bad word about Dave Wannstedt the person. Not one.

I’ve never heard a complaint from anybody in the media who felt he or she was mistreated and I’ve never heard stories about unhappy assistants.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some negative stories out there, but the fact that I’ve yet to hear one tells me what a solid guy he is.

Despite my serious libertarian leanings, I could be talked into being in favor of a ban on fantasy football, but I know I’m in the minority on that one, too.  (I’m wondering, do fantasy players wear game jerseys while they’re setting their lineups and pouring over the stats?)

Anyway, here are some fantasy tips from a real, live scout–Joe Butler of Metro Index.

I seem to remember a lot of people—including Bill Clinton–insinuating that people like Rush Limbaugh and other right wing radio hate mongers should take some responsibility for Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing.

What are the chances of them saying the same thing about Al Gore’s responsibility for this whacko who held people hostage at the Discovery Channel?

Joe Butler of Metro Index Scouting has some thoughts on Peter King’s prediction that the Steelers will win the Super Bowl and he did some college and high school scouting for you.

USA Today has a cover story today on what could become a major problem for the NFL.

Fans are beginning to think that going to NFL games isn’t worth the hassle when they can stay home and watch their 60 inch, high definition TV.

I’ve never believed watching a game on TV was better then being there and HD hasn’t changed my mind.

I would always rather be there, but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s worth the hassle that begins with paying $65 for a seat next to a guy who will be puking on himself in the middle of the second quarter and then sitting in post game traffic for 45 minutes.

The USA Today story talks about ways that the NFL is trying to compete with the home experience.

Sorry, but I just don’t get it.

When I go to a game, I’m not sitting there wondering what’s happening in other games and I don’t need a special screen to show me six different replays of the play that I just saw.

Being in the middle of the crowd and being part of the spectacle is what got me interested in sports.

Are the fantasy geeks responsible for this need to enhance the game experience?

When I was a true fan (a long time ago), I could never imagine, as I sat there and watched Terry Bradshaw throwing to Lynn Swann, feeling a desperate need to know how many catches Paul Warfield had for the Dolphins.

The game was enough.

If NFL fans are so much in need of other-than-the-game stimulation, that doesn’t say much for the product that’s on the field.

Has the NFL product become so boring and predictable that fans have to have a stake in the games in order to stay interested?

Maybe, instead of thinking about all the electronic and digital ways to keep fans at the stadium entertained, the NFL should start looking at ways to make the games more exciting.

I’ve been in favor of eliminating the goal posts for years. Field goals are boring and no goal posts would create a lot more exciting goal line stands.

I would also limit substitution and take the speaker out of the players’ helmets.

Dime defenses that were invented to cancel out five wide receiver sets have turned the NFL into a dink and dunk league.

As I’ve pointed out here before, according to the NFL’s official play by play sheet, 56 of the 62 completions in last season’s Super Bowl were officially classified as short.

I think the NFL should also copy the Canadian League and reduce the time between plays from 45 seconds to 20 and stop the clock on every dead ball in the last three minutes to reduce the number of games that end with quarterbacks genuflecting.

The need for the electronic distractions would be reduced if there were fewer TV timeouts and the networks wised up and started sneaking 20 or 30 second commercials into the game during natural delays instead of making people at the stadium sit during a 2 1/2/ minute commercial break while the people at home, who are supposed to be watching the commercials, are switching to the other game.

The ball is only in play for about 8 minutes out of the three to three and a hlf hours that it takes to complete an NFL  game.

That leaves a lot of time for fans in the stadium to fixate on their cell phones and agonize over not knowing how their fantasy teams are doing.

Drop the puck.