Loose Slag from The Still Mill
- The Stillers abject failure to take advantage of the expansion draft has been gnawing at me all week. This was a once-in-a-decade opportunity to rid the team of an overpaid, under-productive salary cap burden. Sure, the Stillers put Troy Edwards on the list, but Troy ($1.4M) is hardly a dead-weight on the team's sal-cap, and, in fact, is one of the team's best impact players. The other "expansioneers" were all low-paid stiffs that the Texans won't want anyway�.Witman, Duffy, Schneck, and Jackwell. Capers may bring Schneck in for a look at long-snapper, but otherwise Capers isn't going to waste any time with the rest of this pile of garbage'. This list shows the Stillers front office had no clue as to what the real purpose this expansion list could mean to a team's salary cap. The Stillers stodgy front office viewed this as an exercise of simply putting lousy, unwanted players (except for Edwards) on the list -- players who were probably going to get axed anyway. Instead, the real pot of gold -- which the front office so imbecilicly missed -- was putting an over-paid stiff on the list and getting 100% cap relief, which has never been available to a team and never will be, unless another unlikely expansion draft occurs. That stiff was none other than Mark Bruener, the slow, clodhopping, overpaid oaf who is scheduled to eat $5.385M of the team's cap this upcoming season. I say again -- $5.385 million dollars. Over $5M for an injury-prone, slowpoke TE who averages 17 catches a season. We'll never hear the end of the caterwauling about "how great Bruener is as a blocker", but fact is we rushed for 158 and 151 yards against the Ravens without him. Maybe Capers wouldn't have been foolish enough to take Bruener off our hands, but we myopically never gave Capers that chance.
- Quiz question.�� Below are pictures of two football players. One is Pitt fullback Dustin Picciotti, who is listed at 6-3, 255. The other is Jerome Bettis, who is listed at 5-11, 255. Which one is closer to 255?� Which one is closer to 300?�
- The Stillers' front office is about to embark on the worst disaster since the Titanic hit a large iceberg and sank. Most people have read the ridiculous articles about the Stillers wanting to sign Big Jason GilDong before he hits the free agent market. It's ridiculous enough that the team wants to re-sign the weakest of their four starting LBs. It's even more absurd that the team wants to "beat the market" by signing him before the free agency period begins. It was foolish to do this last year in the case of the Tubby Tailback, Jerome Bettis, but it is 10 times more foolish in the case of The Paper Tiger, Jason GilDong. Big Jason has twice before tested the free agent market, and he got a grand total of zero offers. Combined. This isn't a player who is respected around the league in terms of where it counts -- money. The Dong has fooled the pro bowl voters with all his hype, but previously he hasn't fooled a single person who has access to payroll checks, except for the Stillers. Let The Gilded Dong test the market, and let's see what the market bears. Paying a weak, sorry quitter like GilDong who is outrageously soft, an annual sum of $5M is absolutely ludicrous. Equally ludicrous is the fact that the Stillers -- never one to use a coy poker face -- have openly stated they want to make GilDong the team's highest paid player.�� Imagine that, paying a pansy who is, at most, the team's 17th best player, the highest salary out of the entire roster.� Even more ludicrous is the fact that the Stillers already have a LB ready to step into his place. Goes by the name of Clark Haggans -- a much tougher player at the point of attack, and a player who had a better senior year at CSU than Joey Porter did at the same school. Haggans has a cap hit of only $400K next year, which would be about $4 MILLION LESS than what Gildong will tie up. When you can replace a player and get 98% of his production at a savings of $4M, it's fiscally asinine to refuse to do so.
- At the same time, the Stillers appear perfectly content to allow ILB Earl Holmes -- only the teams' leading tackler the past three seasons -- to walk in free agency. In his place, the team claims they'll start the undersized weakling, John Fiala. Holmes isn't worth $6M per year, but at the same time this is a tremendously productive tackling machine who has personally spearheaded the Stillers run-stuffing the past 3 seasons. It wasn't that long ago that members of the Fat Levon Kirkland Overeaters Fan Club claimed that "Holmes will get buried without Kirkland being next to him." Funny -- Holmes played alongside a rookie the entire season, yet finished 7th in the conference in tackles and once again led his team in tackles.
- It's amusing that the team is so casual and carefree about the prospects of losing Holmes, while at the same time clutching on to Mark Bruener for dear life. If Holmes is a "2-down player", as the team has claimed, what does that make the $6M man, Mark Bruener ?? A one-down player?�� Holmes is a player who produces all over the field on a vast majority of plays in which he's on the field. Bruener is a slowpoke TE who takes a seat any time the team goes to 3 & 4 WR sets, and rarely ever touches the ball in what is a highly productive position on most every other team in the NFL. In fact, when the team gets behind, especially in the 2nd half, Bruener becomes a NO down player.�� �
- I'll bet a dollar to a donut that anyone who is down on Clark Haggans as a LB, is among the same group of geniuses who spent last offseason muttering that Amos Zereoue is "too small to play in the NFL" and "isn't capable of playing well at this level". Haggans, like Zereoue in his first two NFL seasons, suffers from only 1 fault. It's called bench rot. Isn't it amazing -- the correlation between finally getting a chance to play, and then producing�? I'm trying to recall the last athlete who was able to produce from the bench�
- If anyone is wondering whom the Stillers best two special teams cover-men were last year, they were Amos Zereoue and Richard Huntley. This certainly doesn't absolve the dim-bulbed Bill Cowher from blame, but it is interesting to note this fact�
- Speaking of opportunities and production, it was only a few years ago that the Pirates acquired Brian Giles for reliever Ricardo Rincon. Giles was basically given away because, sitting on the bench as the Indians' 4th OF, he "wasn't producing". Since his arrival in Pittsburgh in '99 and consequently becoming a starter, all Giles has done is average 37 HR, 115 RBI, and a .313 BA per year over the past 3 seasons. Like the story of Amoz Zereoue, remember this before dismissing Clark Haggans.
- By the way, John Fiala, who the team is claiming will be their starting ILB should Holmes depart, was the captain of the worst special teams in the entire NFL this past season.
- Although the Rams lost to the Pats, keep in mind that the Rams did not blow a home game the way Bill Cowhead perennially has. The crowd noise and not having to travel all favor the home team in the conference playoffs�.large advantages that Cowher nonetheless has been thoroughly incapable of taking advantage of.