Just Watch the Game Blog

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.

There’s not enough Botox in the world to keep Nancy Pelosi from frowning about this: Gallup has some disastrous number for Democrats.

‘I never miss the NBC show, “America’s Got Talent”.  It’s not as good as “American Idol”, which is the most brilliantly conceived show in the history of television, but it’s close.

A couple of weeks ago, a 10 year-0ld girl from the North Hills of Pittsburgh, Jackie Evancho, put millions of people in shock with her performance.

It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on television.

Check out the link if you’ve never seen this kid and listen to her on some good speakers.

Last night she did it again only she was even better.

If you’re not blown away by this kid, check your pulse.

Now, just in case you’re wondering why I like these shows so much.

I stumbled upon American Idol four or five years ago while channel surfing.

I heard them introducing a 16 year old girl who was one of the 10 finalists. The theme for that night was old standards and this kid came out in front of an auditorium full of people and a live television audience of 20 million and absolutely killed “Teach Me Tonight.”

I assumed that she had probably never heard that song until she had to pick it from a list of songs that she could sing in the competition.

She didn’t win the title that year but it got me wanting to see more.

Maybe it’s because I worked in TV, but I’m just blown away by the people who come from nowhere–working as beauticians and bartenders—and have the guts to get up there on live TV and perform the way they do.

American Idol is the perfect TV show. It’s live. The music is good. It’s interactive–the viewers decide who wins, it’s competitive, it’s unpredictable and it has a soap opera element that keeps viewers coming back to see what happens each week. It also runs during two sweeps periods, February and May, which means tremendous ratings for Fox.

There is also the “Up Close and Personal” element that works so well for the Olympics. Each performer has his or her own story and the producers to a great job of getting the audience interested in the performers as people.

“America’s Got Talent” has many of the same elements with more variety. I think it’s a close second to “American Idol” only because I think too many of the dancers, magicians and other performers are boring.

Just check out Jackie Evancho.  You won’t be sorry. After she sang last night, they should have declared her the winner and said “See you next year.”

Wow.

Peter King is a thoughtful, analytical guy and in this week’s Sports Illustrated NFL Preview issue, he picks the Steelers to beat the Packers in the Super Bowl.

That’s a bold prediction and I wouldn’t expect to see one like it in too many other preview issues.

If I were forced to make a prediction right now, I’d go with 9-7 and no playoffs.

But, then I think that’s what I predicted in 2008.

One of the major–and most legitimate–complaints about local TV news is its insistence upon creating hysteria over a two inch snowfall.

Trust me. It embarrasses the meteorologists who are too often encouraged to emphasize the worst possible scenario and it embarrasses the anchors who have to lead their newscasts with a story about “possible accumulation.”

That same mentality exists at the network level. And we may have seen it during the oil spill.

It was a disaster and whether it was hyped or not–it still had a life changing effect on a lot of people. But, as bad as it was, it becomes more apparent every day that the national media exagerated the effects of the oil spill.

Head football coaches hate distractions.

They want their players to be able to devote 100% of their football attention to getting ready for the next game.

Ben Roethlisberger, who seemed to be having a great time on the sidelines yukking it up with “his guys” during the first three preseason games, should go out of his way to apologoize to them on his way out the door to serve his suspension.

His stupidity in Georgia had an effect on his team back in March, but it didn’t affect the football part of the team. It affected his teammates because it embarrassed a lot of them and put them in the position of having to either defend or condemn him. It was just one All Pro embarrassment.

Now, with The Great Quarterback Fiasco of 2010, we’re seeing the football results of his stupidity.

Maybe Byron Leftwich will come out in the opener against Atlanta and show that the preseason is overrated.

I think what fans and media tend to forget is the value that NFL coaches put on how a player performs in practice.

Maybe Mike Tomlin has seen enough good things from Leftwich in practice that he’s not as worried about his lack of playing time in the exhibition games as you think he should be.

Right now the consensus is that Tomlin has totally screwed up the quarterback situation and in 11 days we may or may not have proof that he did.

But, in the end, if the quarterback situation is screwed up, it’s nobody’s fault but Big Ben Roethlisberger’s.

I was one of the many who said back in April that the Steelers would be better off trading Roethlisberger because of the distraction issue. I’m not as sure now that that would have been a good idea.

Maybe it’s because training camp wasn’t the circus that I thought it would be and because Roethlisberger has handled himself so well.

But, with Tomlin turning the quarterback position into such a fiasco, you have to wonder a little bit if the Steelers might have been better off, at least in 2010, if they had made a trade and been forced to settle on a starting quarterback back in April.

If the guys who are here for the first four games can hold the fort and Roethlisberger comes back and plays as well as he did in the preseason, the Great Quaterback Fiasco of 2010 will be an instant footnote.

I still have a feeling, though, that, because of so many other issues, this is not going to be a good year to be the Steelers’ quarterback.

Joe Butler of Metro Index Scouting Service with some thoughts on this year’s Heisman Trophy candidates.

I’ve had the sneaking suspicion all summer that Charlie Batch is the Steelers’ second best quarterback and mentioned it in a few places.

Any time his name was brought up, he was dismissed because of his inability to stay healthy.

He’s done a good job every time he’s been called on to start for the Steelers (they won three of the four games he started) and I’ve always been impressed by how smooth he is in practice.

He just throws a nice ball. Not a canon for an arm but accurate with a quick release and he’s good at gaining extra time by moving around in the pocket.

He made what I thought was the best throw last night and it was only 15 or 20 yards in the air.

He had to step up and to his left to avoid the rush. The running back had been in the flat but, when he saw Batch scramble, turned and headed up the sideline.

Batch anticipated that and led him with a perfect touch pass over the defender’s head right into the receiver’s hands, who was able to catch it in stride.

I don’t care if it came against the Broncos 12th string. It was a great bit of ad libbing  and a perfect example of his visions and poise. And a perfect throw.

Leftwich has a cannon for an arm, but I have serious doubts about him being able to play more than a game or two before he’s taken off the field feet first. He may not be as brittle as Batch, but Batch can at least get out of his own way.

Dennis Dixon is black and he wears number 10, but he’s no Kordell Stewart.

Not even close. Those comparisons need to stop.

He doesn’t run as well and he doesn’t throw as well as Stewart and he looked like a rookie last night–not a third year player.

If the Steelers make the decision to go with the two quarterbacks who give them their best chance to win their first four games, they have to go with Batch and Leftwich–in that order.

I;ll be live on Channel 4’s Action Sports Sunday tonight at 11:30 talking about the Steelers game. Check it out.

Rand Paul, the Repulican candidate for Senate in Kentucky, took and continues to take a lot of heat for saying, shortly after he won the nomination, that he didn’t agree with the idea that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prevented a restaurant owner from refusing to serve blacks.

Of course, liberals jumped all over him and called him a racist because that’s what liberals do.

They refuse to consider the possibility that someone like Rand–a pretty smart guy–could see the danger in giving the government the right to tell you what you can or can’t do on or with your private property, or with whom you can and can not associate.

In Mississippi, after 30 years, a middle school is finally allowing blacks to run for class president.

A court order created the policy for the entire school district. That’s the government using its power to discriminate. That’s what the Civil Rights Act was intended to end–government discrimination.

But the people who refused to serve blacks in their restaurants were living under a government that sanctioned discrimination.

Paul’s point is that the government should not have the power to tell us who we can and can’t associate with because that power can be used for evil purposes, too.

The Jim Crow laws were proof of that.