The Immigrant Song

-this post is dedicated to my good friends Tony and A Dawg, two men who equate Zeppelin and Steeler dominance to life staples, such as oxygen and beer .

"...we come from the land of the ice and the snow..."

As a fan of an NFL franchise, life is fairly simple from September to January. The goals are clear and uncomplicated. The tangled web of life is circumvented every Sunday, as your focus and priorities are defined. You want your team to play well. By playing well, they win games. By winning enough games, they win their division. By winning even more game, they earn home field slots for the playoffs. So, as our beloved Black and Gold move towards yet another divisional title, and yet another home playoff berth, they do so while becoming one of the NFL's elite invasionary forces.



no caption necessary

The Steelers rolled their road record to a lofty 5-1 yesterday with the 33-10 pasting of the resident AFC boogeymen, the New England Patriots. Although the Minneapolis franchise wears the Viking horns, it's the vessel from the Allegheny that rows ashore, steals your possessions, burns your fields, and yes, has their way with your women without extending the courtesy of foreplay or even cuddling. While the Tennesee Titans wield the NFL's best road record, nobody comes a-marauding with more blatant defiance and irreverence than Mike Tomlin's battalion of bastard butchers.

When Bill Beli-cheat gazes into his crystal ball of illegal Sony video footage, he will see James Harrison's extended middle finger waving in his smug face. Last night's crushing was as big a win as any under Mike Tomlin, as the Steelers gather more confidence by slugging the biggest bully on the block right in his choppers. My brother Wayne would call this a Scott Farkus moment. (editor's note: Wayne has now seen "A Christmas Story" 389 times and shows no visible signs of slowing down any time soon.)

Farkus would later mentor Belichick on the art of being an asshole

The Steelers enter the final quarter of the regular season with a record of 9 wins and 3 losses, alone atop the AFC North, much like their circumstances from exactly one year ago. These would be the only similarities between the two teams. The 2007 Steelers entered the final quarter sliding faster than the value of your 401K, with critical injuries on both sides of the ball, a special teams best described as comical, and a rookie coach who was still learning on the job. The 2008 version is riding into the final turn with a stellar defense, a solid special teams, an offense that is slowly finding it's rhythm, and a coach that is gaining confidence and poise by the week. Most importantly, the team is finally finding it's swagger as it comes out of New England playing a complete game in all phases. This final quarter is going to show just how dominant this team could be.

Quick Hitters:

• The Large One was a few drops away from what could have been a big day statistically. The Nate Washington dropped TD was inexcusable.


• 11 years ago, Tony, his cousin Jake, and I discussed this young stud linebacker named Vrabel while watching a game against the Patriots. Oh, that young stud wore a black jersey that day.


• Game balls to Silver Back, Polamalu, Hampton, Ben, FWP/M. Moore, and of course, Mitch Berger for punting longer than 21 yards.


• Another shout to all Bethel Park grads, as their team prepares to now do battle with the Hoth Ice Raiders to decide the Inter Planetary Championships!