Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

The country will be debating the role of the federal government a lot for the next nine months.

I’ll be interested to hear if a politician is asked during the campaign if he/she thought that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison ever envisioned the federal government being involved in what school kids eat for lunch.

Michelle Obama and the Secretary of Agriculture announced new guidlines for school lunches today.

While they fight over the budget in Washington, maybe they can have a conversation about how many federal employees it will take to ensure that the kids at Penn Hills High School are drinking skim milk and not whole milk.

When did lunch become so tough?

When I was a kid, I took a brown bag. Inside the brown bag was a baloney or chipped ham sandwich, another sandwich bag with a few Wise potato chips and a sandwich bag with three or four of my Aunt Gertrude’s cookies.

My mother would work an apple in there once in a while and I almost always threw it away.

I seem to remember the other kids having the same kinds of things in their lunch bags.

No leafy vegetables (now required by Michelle Obama).

When I got home I was allowed to eat a few more cookies and then it was nothing until we sat down as a family to eat dinner.

I realize things have changed, but here’s something else I realize:

Kids aren’t getting fat from the food they eat at lunch.

They’re getting fat from eating too many meals away from home.

Go to any restaurant and see how busy it is between 5 and 6.

My family wasn’t rich but we weren’t poor, either. We probably ate no more than 20 meals out the entire time I was growing up.

There were no restaurants to take a family other than Eat ‘n Park (interestingly enough founded by my mother’s brother — my Unlce Larry.)

People ate at home. Mothers saw to it that we ate our leafy and un-leafy vegetables.

I don’t know what Mamie Eisenhower and Jackie Kennedy were doing back then but they weren’t worrying about what kids were eating.

It’s not just the kids who are fat. Look around. Everybody is fat.

I’m fat.

You’re probably fat.

I’m losing weight now. Charles Barkley got me with those Weightwatchers for Men ads.

I’m 15 pounds overweight because I had been eating like a pig. And I don’t go to school.

The kids are getting fat because their parents are fat and the parents are fat because they eat out too much.

So, if Michelle and Barack really want to do something for the children, they should send out the National Guard and shut down about 90% of the restaurants in  America.

Let’s hire federal agents to knock on people’s doors during the dinner hour and make sure that they’re eating home cooked meals.  No take out. No pizza.

The scary thing is, I think they might consider that if they thought they could get away with it.

It would make as much sense as spending billions of dollars supervising school cafeterias.

This is for the posters who like to make fun of Sidney Crosby for not playing because of a headache.

Non-hockey fans like to say there are too many games in an NHL season.

I never agreed with that, just as I never understood why anybody who likes baseball would complain about having the option of watching a game just about every night for six months.

The Penguins-Blues game tonight was a perfect example.

There was as much action and excitement in the third period and overtime of that game as there is/was in any Steelers game this season.

The Penguins won 3-2 in a shootout.

It was only 1/82nd of the season but it sure beat the hell out of watching the President make promises he can’t keep and talk about re-distributing the wealth.

When it comes time to vote for the Vezina Trophy, the voters should take a look at Marc Andre Fleury’s work tonight.

It was one of the best goaltending performances in Penguins history.

And, as they go to the all star break, the Penguins are looking like a serious Stanley Cup contender again.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama like to talk a lot about looking out for the less fortunate.

They think you should be forced to help out your fellow man.

But they (and Al Gore –remember him?– ) like to be charitable with your money- not their own.

“USA Today broke it down here. In 2007, the Obamas gave more than $240,000 to charity, about 5.7 percent of their income. The Bidens gave an average of $369 to charity a year for the decade before he moved to the Naval Observatory – about 0.3 percent of their income. Back in 1997, then veep Al Gore and his then wife Tipper gave $353.

Since becoming veep, Biden hasn’t become much more generous. In 2010, he gave $5,350, about 1.4 percent of income. That same year, Romney gave some $3 million. The national average is about three percent.”

The moral of the Mitt Romney tax return saga is –or should be — that how much money we make should be nobody’s business but our own and especially not the government’s.

If the fact that Rommney’s tax return took 550 pages isn’t enough to show how ridiculous our tax system is, we’re all doomed.

This comes courtesy of the Stats Guru of Uniontown, Dutch Wydo:

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The Bruce Arians offense saga

By Dutch Wydo

I figured I’d take the time to chime in on the Arians outing.

When it comes to the question of whether Arians should have been back, folks on both sides of the issue had real problems making their case and being 100% correct. Arians backers simply pointed to the number of Super bowl trips under his watch and were willing to overlook the Steelers offense that has underperformed their stats in the regular seasons. Meanwhile, Arians bashers were quick to point out the Steelers regular season offensive ranking in total points scored and then quickly credited the defense for the SB trips and ended their conversation.

But that is where the problem lies in this discussion. Yes, the Steelers offense has under achieved as an offense throughout the Arians era, but this has only happened in the regular season. What some have a very hard time coming to grips with is that once the post season began, the Steelers offense has consistently been one of the best.

Here are the playoff losses for each team in the past several years

Steelers

Den 29-23

GB  25-31

Jac 29-31

NEW England

NYJ 21-28

Bal 14-33

NYG 14-17

Ind 34-38

Indianapolis

Jets 17-16

NO   31-17

SD   31-17

SD   28-24

Pit  21-18

NE   24-14

NYJ  41-0

Colts have averaged just 15 points scored in 7 playoff losses.

Pats have averaged just 20 points scored in 4 playoff losses.

Steelers averaged 27 points scored in 3 playoff losses under Arians.

So as you can see, when the Colts lose in the playoffs, it is typically because their offense WAY UNDER PERFORMS based on their regular season play. You can also say the same for the Patriots as 3 of their 4 losses have come when they failed score more than 21 ( and they scored just 14 in 2 of their 4 losses).

I wonder if their team’s fans want a change in the offense after each one of those losses?

So while the Colts and Pats offenses have cost their team the right to advance in a number of post seasons, you would be hard pressed to blame the Steelers offense that has averaged a very good, 27 points per game.

In fact, the Steelers offense has been quite consistent in all post season games (even in 04 & 05 with Whiz) as their team has scored more than 20 points in 14 consecutive post season games (league record for a QB) under the heavily talented Roethlisberger. (yes, a couple of Defensive Touchdowns in the mix, but most of your annual playoff teams have a couple of those over the years)

When the Steelers lose a regular season game, the offense is often blamed and rightly so. But when those same critics try to parlay their arguments into the post season losses, they run smack into the information I provided above.

So what is a team to do?

It’s time for a change. The regular season points scored must begin to come up while an aging defense begins to give a bit. But there are still reasons to believe that had the Steelers not been on pace by week 12 for the fewest takeaways by any a defense in the history of the league, they might have scored a lot more points. After all, when a defense gets takeaways, they often provide short fields for their offense and quick scores. The Steelers offense did NOT have that luxury this year.

Furthermore, the Steelers were ranked 30th worst in average starting field position. In fact, their average starting field position In the SF game, was the worst of any team, in any game, since  1995. Blame Tomlin for that. He was simply outcoached in many aspects this year. But it is doubtful that many will call him out for it. Some Arians bashers also point to the Steelers rather mediocre red zone play as a reason to show him the door. But let us take a look at 4 of the top redzone offenses and see what they all have in common.

Top Red zone offenses (what do they have in common?)

1) Jets

2) Detroit

3) NE

4) NO

These great red zone offenses have a big tall, athletic WR or TE that can simply catch the ball in tight spaces by leaping over the top of the defender. The Steelers do not have a great red zone target like that at all. They do not have a basketball like player that can cause red zone matchup nightmares that Gronkowski, Burress, CJ, and Graham can cause.

Therefore, for the Steelers to improve in the red zone,  must improve their offensive line so that their power run game is more respected inside the red zone. That in turn will open up room for the receivers and TE Miller. But until they get a freakish player like the one’s mentioned above, don’t expect a top 5 red zone TD conversion pct anytime soon. They can be better, but they won’t be great in that area.

There is one case however to be made against Arians and his red zone offense. Arians offense is a big play offense and many of their scores are from outside the 20. But being a big play offense can often lead a team to be out of their element inside the red zone. But that is why the Steelers power run game needs to be more effective. A big play offense with a power run game would be deadly. Throw in a defense that that gets a bunch of takeaways and a head coach that doesn’t get outcoached, and well, you would have all the points you need.

My Two Cents

Thanks to poster GeeWhiz for the heads up on this look at the all too common modern sports fan:

(Rough language alert.)

This is a grown man who feels the need to wear his Ed Reed jersey when he’s watching a game on television.

But don’t let anybody tell you that there’s a problem in America with men refusing to grow up.

(I realize that, with Youtube, there’s always the possibility that it was staged, but my gut tells me this one is for real.)