Pittsburgh Purgatory

In the Jean Paul Sartre existentialist play "No Exit", there are three characters stuck together in hell with no way out.� They hate each other, yet are strangely attracted to each other, and ultimately find that they cannot escape each other.�

What's this have to do with the Stillers�?�

The play could just as well be called, "Rooney and the Stillers".� Here you have 3 characters -- Rooney, Cowher, and GM Kevin Colbert -- who find themselves entwined and tangled in a mess that only stubborn stupidity could have created.� Almost 4 years ago, Cowher was anointed by the Rooneys to be the most powerful man in the franchise, and then Colbert was hired to be the puppeteer GM.�

The three now are stuck together in a stinking quagmire with little hope and no exit.� There's no quagmire in Iraq, but there's undeniably one in Pittsburgh that has been festering for a couple years now.�

Rooney is in the middle of this mess and he has to be miserable.� In fact, he's so miserable that he's carping to the press about the snow-removal crew employed by the Jets in last week's blizzard.�

Rooney has a lot bigger fish to carp about.� He was snookered by Billy Cowher in March 1998, when Cowher threatened to jump ship to Cleveland -- a city that didn't even have an NFL franchise at the time.� Always terrified of change, Rooney caved in like Jason GilDong against a fullback, and lavished Cowher with one of the NFL's highest paid contracts.� �All Cowher has done since then is miss the playoffs 4 of 6 years, and in the one year that they had a shot at a ring, Cowher choked away a home-playoff game against a vastly inferior team.� Rooney has to also be steaming at the horrific amount of money he pissed away the past couple of years on players that Billy Cowher wanted -- no, make that, DEMANDED -- to keep.� Scott, Washington, GilDong, Miller, Fat Boy Bettis -- all grossly overpaid and none even remotely giving production that parallels one's pay.��

And here's why that burns up Rooney: the lavishing of veteran players goes entirely against the Rooney model of economic success.� You see, Rooney doesn't need a Super Bowl to make his millions.� Not by a long shot.� He's got a 5-year waiting list for season-tickets, so until things go into a total fiasco (ie, 4-12 record) for a few consecutive years, Rooney has guaranteed sellouts plus the largess of the NFL TV contract.� Rooney's optimal economic model calls for the team to have just enough talent to go 9-7 and play one home playoff game.� Anything else is just pure gravy piled atop the riches of the Rooney Empire.� Spending big money -- not just on contracts, but on the wining and dining of free agent players -- for a relatively small ROI (return on investment) from a Super Bowl win is nowhere in the Rooney model.� Rooney loves Cowher because of the stability Billy brings; Cowher is good enough to get 7, 8, or 9 wins most any year, and that's more than adequate to support the Rooney economic model.� But Rooney has to hate Cowher's ever-burgeoning ego, as well as Billy's continual quest for total control over all personnel issues, which has obviously been an overt failure.�

Then there's Billy Cowher.� Saddled with a horrific history of failure and gross underachievement in the playoffs, Little Billy nevertheless preens and thumps his chest as though he's the greatest thing since Vince Lombardi.� This season, he had a roster that was literally gift wrapped for 11-12 wins, and despite the fewest injuries of any team in the league, ground it into the muck with a series of coaching blunders more befitting a soccer mom volunteering to coach her son's 8-year old soccer team.� While most teams were preparing for the rigors of the season, Billy conducted his annual country club session at Latrobe.� He then broke camp without a clue in the world in terms of how both his offense and would attack.� He stuck with badly under-performing vets the entire season -- even well after his team was out of playoff contention -- while promising youngsters sat the pine, all so that Billy could stubbornly boost his ego and his won-loss record at the expense of long-term player development.� Cowher is easily the most content and complacent coach in the entire NFL.� His salary is among the top 5 or 6 coaches in the entire league, and in an environment of a feeble, timid local media and an owner who is literally terrified of change, Cowher can coast along in the sea of mediocrity for several more years, soaking up millions of millions of dollars in the process.�

Then there's Colbert.� As the least powerful, he's a bit of the odd man out here, but certainly not devoid of blame.� Although he's subservient to Cowshit, Colbert evidently has no spine.� This is why he has done nothing to dissuade Rooney from pissing away millions by overpaying to keep Billy's stable of favorites, nor has Colbert forcibly moved to cut the wheat from the chaff by discarding aging veterans that clearly have no purpose and no utility on this football team.� When Colbert has attempted to act like a GM and add some players to the roster, his efforts have consisted of little more than perusing the laughable roster of the Detroit Lions -- from whence he came -- and then dialing their number and adding a Larry Tharpe, a Ron Rivers, a Clint Kreiwalt, a Jeff "The Savior" Hartings, et al.� Colbert had a chance last offseason to add a huge piece to the Stiller puzzle by signing FA safety Dex Jackson.� Colbert had the deal nearly completed, but played fiddle faddle and failed to seal the deal, allowing the fish to get away to the lowly Cardinals.� This horrendous blunder was a grave example of the law of unintended consequences, as the Stillers then felt they had to trade the farm away to move up in the draft to select safety Troy Pola.� The draft, in and of itself, has been a very lukewarm venture for Colbert.� He's gotten some good talent in rounds 1 and 2 -- which is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel -- �but has killed this team by getting next to nothing in rounds 3-7 during four years of drafting.� You can be sure that Colbert isn't too fond of playing chogie boy to a dullard like Billy Cowher, but his total lack of doing anything worthwhile during his tenure in Pittsburgh precludes him from quitting and getting another GM job. �Nor can Colbert afford to be fired by Rooney, because, again, his resume with the Stillers and Lions will hardly draw interest -- but plenty of laughter -- around the NFL.�

So here you have the three of them -- the stubborn, stingy owner; the smug, stubborn, underachieving coach; and the subservient, spineless GM -- all joined together on an underachieving football team that cannot cut the apron strings with their favorite core group of overpaid, underachieving players. �They all see the problems that need to be fixed, but part of the problems is within this triumvirate themselves.� They aren't willing to make the changes that need to be made with player personnel, and they certainly aren't willing to fire one another or themselves.� And that's what Sartre was talking about.� There is no exit.�

�

"We are here forever," Inez says at the end of "No Exit".�

"Forever," Estella says.� "My God, how funny.� Forever."� ��

"Forever and ever and ever," Garcin says.�

(Long pause)� "Well, well, " Garcin says, "let's get on with it."�

(Special thanks to Joe Posnaski for the inspiration for this article.)�

(Still Mill and Stillers.com -- the only nationally read coverage on the Pittsburgh Stillers that has accurately predicted the how's and the why's of the past 3 Stiller playoff losses�.)