NBC Sports Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh Tuesday morning that getting back to where the offense should be for the postseason will require more from wide receiver Martavis Bryant, who had one catch for no gain in last week’s win in Cleveland.

“Not that I’m shying from saying this [to Bryant]. It comes from love,” Roethlisberger said. “He needs to understand that…at this time of year you have to toughen up. You have to make tough plays, you have to make tough catches and you have to find ways to do everything you can to help this team.
Love it. This is what makes Ben a premier quarterback. He’s padded his resume with franchise records, outrageous stats, and of course a few Super Bowl rings doesn’t hurt. 

This kind of leadership is what separates good from great. Love him or hate him, you can’t ignore Tom Brady’s intensity on the sidelines when he’s in the face of teammates and coaches. 

The quarterback is the first guy to get shit thrown his way when things are sour. The guys who own it and make sure to give every effort are the guys who become great leaders and ultimately hoist that trophy at the end of the year. 

  
As I watched Sunday’s game it seemed crazier and crazier that Antonio Brown, arguably the leagues best wide receiver, could catch 13 passes. As we head to the post season and better defenses key on the Steelers playmaker its already going to be difficult without Leveon Bell and now DeAngelo Williams. I applaud Ben’s awareness to also realize this and understand he’s going to need tge absolute best from plan B which includes Bryant as well Wheaton, DHB, and Heath. 

In other news we found out today that the red rocket won’t be ready come game time. 

On to Denver. 

I want so bad to be excited about this tweet.  I want to send a group text to all my friends from the attitude era and rub it in their face that the Pirates have the best announcer possible but I know I need to curb my enthusiasm because the Pirates management will blow it.

Bucco slobberknocker T-Shirts would sell themselves.  Every other fanbase would be stealing your games audio trying to recreate the next big meme.

Can you imagine a big game where the other team misses a full count fastball and walks the bases loaded for Cutch?

“Business is about to pick up”

Kang crushes one to dead center.

“Good god almighty!”

Pirates bring the bats out and are the middle of a snobberknocker and I would welcome our announcer showing compassion for the other teams pitcher.

“He’s got a family!”

Sadly I don’t think the Pirates brass have any sense to go out there and make the splash hire.  Why get a guy like Harry Caray, Bob Uecker, Jon Miller, Harry Kalas, or  Gary Thorne to provide the soundtrack when you finally win a World Series when you can settle for average?

Do we even need to discuss the endless opportunities if JR had the select BBQ sauce of the Steel City?

Do the deal Mr. Nutting

Boom, Steeler Nation’s most eloquent fan with his latest hot take.

Sure has come a far way since he wanted the fire Todd Haley, the guy who’s responsible for the third best offense this year without all his weapons.

I’ve seen some tweets out there saying Tomlin should be on the hot seat if he’s one and done again and I’ll say this.  When Snoop Dogg has anything bad to say about Mike Tomlin, they’ve waited too long to can him.

The Steelers dropped their own holiday video only days after the Penguins lit the lamp with their “Home Alone” parody.  While the hot take around the city focuses on the awful singing, we’re going to take it to the Next Level and question how no one stopped this when it got kinda, sorta, racist.

How the heck did this pass through quality control.  You have all the other racially mixed position groups having a holly-jolly time out there singing some good ole Christmas carols and then out of nowhere here come three Caucasians singing about how great a White Christmas would be.

Its a good thing these guys play in the whitest city in the NFL or else we might actually have some nutcases chirping about how White Christmas is the most festive micro aggression.  

This all comes back to my idea last week that companies need outrage police officers on payroll to point out any potential sources of social outrage. 

Side note, James Harrison with his face covered up like that is flat out terrifying.  Wouldn’t surprise me to find out that he’s got Santa hostage and won’t release him until he get’s all of Santa’s milk & cookies.

Yesterday we showed you the Penguins “Home Alone” parody.  It was that video that the new nickname for your Kessel/Malkin combo appropriately became “The Wet Bandits.”   Within hours  of that post, the two were lightin the lamp on multiple occasions.

If you’re keeping score at home, that makes the Penguins undefeated since we named Kessel & Malkin the Wet Bandits and each are averaging 2 goals a piece per game during that streak.

Print the shirts.

Bill Burr aced Thanksgiving when he taught us all how to make a pie crust and today, with the help of this guy we get some piano to accompany his golden pipes.  Any ordinary riff during his Monday Morning Podcast becomes extraordinary.  Hell, the MeUndies song almost makes me want to spend a small fortune on a single pair of underpants.

Bill brought the meaning of Christmas back to life an certainly inspires me to crusade against anyone offended by “Merry Christmas.”

Merry Christmas to a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jewwwww.

I don’t care, I don’t care if its offensive to youuuuuu.

It’s my holidayyyyy.

I like saying Merry Christmas to youuuuu.

Stop being a cunt and get over the Christmas treeeeeeeee.

Boom.  That right there is the soundtrack to my Christmas going forward.  We’re starting a new Thanksgiving tradition and changing my ringtone to that firejam so when I’m zipping through the mall like Seal Team 6 during the holidays that song might go off and start fixing a world overpopulated with hypersensitive holiday radicals.

Merry Christmas everyone.

MyFox8 A Boston man is taking the Elf on a Shelf tradition to a whole new level this year. The man posted to Craigslist offering to be a real-life Elf on a Shelf at events and holiday parties for just $100 an hour. “I will come to your holiday party dressed as the Elf on the Shelf and sit in any location you assign me while I stare emptily at your guests for the duration of the event,” he wrote. In the advertisement, the man notes that his services have been in high demand this season so he requires at least 48 hours notice. Nothing says happy holidays like a stranger in a onesie!

Creepiness notwithstanding this is absolutely the play this holiday season.  When I’m lucky enough to have a few rugrats running around getting together their Christmas lists I want the satisfaction that I did not raise a little mental midget whose actions and attitudes are the product of a stuffed elf on the shelf.

I want my little warriors to see a real life elf sitting on the mantle and say to themselves “oh shit, this guy reports directly to Santa, we better get out asses in gear.”  If parents are going to outsource raising their kids, studies have shown* its best to rely on a real life elf vs a stuffed one.

If however you’re the type to downvote creepy and upvote cute you could be like the dad over at That Dad Blog who has taken his ingenuity and photoshop skills to the next level to again bring Elf on a Shelf to life.

*By studies I meant “I think”

The video is filled with all kinds of “aw shucks these guys are funny” moments but the timing this season isn’t great when the teams already in free fall, having fired its coach and looking up a lot of teams including the stinkin Flyers.

One positive that did come out of this video however is that everyone’s favorite tag-team now has a name. Every great pairing needs a name, “Legion of Doom,” “Bash Brothers,” etc.   Hopefully naming these guys the “Wet Bandits” is all this team needs to make a run here.

Print the shirts.

Side note: Geno absolutely has a career in the Russian Syndicate, or at the very least, playing a convincing Russian crime boss in a movie down the road…

That delivery is flawless.  He makes Jon Malcovich from Rounders look like some Yinzer on the Southside impersonating a Russian.

Follow @theyuppieyinzer

After dismantling one of the leagues premier defenses playing with a lead your team your town, your Pittsburgh Steelers have moved into sixth place in the AFC.  With road games vs lousy divisional teams, the road to the playoffs appears to be clear.

If we’re being honest the Steelers scare the shit out of ever team in the playoffs.  They’re getting hot at the right time and are decently healthy.  Sure everyone would love to invite Le’Veon Bell to the touchdown party but the passing game is doing more than its share to be considered dominant.  If the Steelers could win the division and get that first playoff game at home, they become that much scarier but is it possible to jump the Bengals? Lets look.

Assuming the Steelers win out and Bengals lose out, that leaves both teams at 11-5.  Time to break the tie.

• Head-to-head – Steelers/Bengals split 1-1, onto the next one
• Winning % within the division – Both teams would finish 4-2, onto the next one.
• Winning % in common games – The common games are the 4 in the division (BAL & CLE), the AFC West and NFC West.  In those game, both the Steelers & Bengals are 9-3, onto the next one.
• Winning %  within the conference – Both teams would be 8-4 vs the AFC, onto the next one.
• Strength of victory – What does this even mean you ask? Just looking at a teams victories, who beat the better teams?

The teams the Bengals defeated have a combined winning percentage of .409.  The Steelers meanwhile have beaten teams with a combined winning percentage of .448 meaning the Steelers would win the division and host a first round playoff game.  The only way the Bengals could make up the 6 games is if the teams they beat had 6 more wins than teams the Steelers beat.  With 14 common opponents cancelling each other out that would mean the Bills would rattle off 6 wins in the last two weeks….

Get ready for a fun two weeks.  The formula for the Steelers is embarrass a team one week and unleash them on the Bengals the next and hope they avenge their loss with a Bungal beatdown.

The force has awaken

imgur

Here you go kids, here’s where you can fully see the value of an education.  Marketing is not a major, you can either do it or you cant.  You can waste 4 years learning about the 4 P’s of Marketing but when you’re sitting in an auditorium in your cap and gown did you really learn anything you didn’t already know?

No the real value is in Public Relations and Starbucks is taking up giant chunks of textbook space for years to come.  Some innocent designer drew up a cute polar bear wearing a festive holiday ribbon and some exec approved it.  It’s not their fault their naive brains didn’t see their polar bears had a Colombian necktie.

At that point the PR department made the moves to sabotage their Christmas cups with the hopes that that Christmas radicals would blow so much smoke out of their asses people would soon grow tired of Starbucks outrage and miss out on the dead polar bears to follow.

Unfortunately for Starbucks, the hyper sensitive social media era we live in doesn’t rest for anybody and now they have even more explaining to do.

The people who start all these public outcries are the real MVP’s here.  Someone out there is the real sicko who saw these Rorschach cookies and immediately jumped to Colombian necktie and yet somehow has passed the blame back to Starbucks.  Same can be said for the people who ultimately shut down Bud Light’s ‘Up for Whatever’ marketing campaign because they had a rapey thought in their brains.

These major companies need to do the same thing cops do when they put a prisoner to work on a case to get ‘inside the head of a criminal.’  Get some real sickos in the room who can point out any potential flaws and avoid another round of public shaming.