5 Things the Steelers must do to return to the Super Bowl #1

No offense to Chris Hoke, who is definitely one of the best 1A options at Nose Tackle in the league, but he is not the run stopper that Casey Hampton is. We all saw what happened immediately after Aaron Smith went down for the year again this year. The Steelers run defense sagged. They were still better than most teams, but there was a definite decrease in productivity. Ziggy Hood got more and more play time and hopefully he'll prove to be a worthy successor for one of the aging linemen on the Steelers roster. The number one thing the Steelers must do to remain in competition for the Super Bowl next year is tag Casey Hampton as the franchise player. Yeah they'll have to pay him big money, but his nickname is big snack. Big money for big snack. But, that assures them of keeping the core of the defensive line together for 1 more year. If he breaks down this year, then they've only tied up 1 year's salary and don't have to give a signing bonus.
The bad thing is rumblings from the Big Snack, not his stomache, but from the rumor mill is that he does not want to tagged. Gee sorry, that's kinda why that's in place so teams don't lose a franchise player because he doesn't want to stay. Could be that he'll be a disruption if the Steelers do it, but he's been through 2 Super Bowls with most of these teammates and nothing in his past to make us think he'd be a disruptive force. So, re-sign Casey. Step #1.

The Steelers just secured next year's Super Bowl with this move.

Well, as you can tell I was on a hiatus for much of the last quarter of the season. Being a reporter and covering your favorite team would be quite hard for someone that feels about his teams like I do. You don't want to bash your team and even when there's a few wins amongst a bunch of losses you don't feel like writing about it, it also doesn't help too much when you get no comments on your articles. Anway, that move I discussed of course jokingly was the hiring of a new special teams coach, who strangely enough was fired by San Fran. Mike Tomlin must have seen something in an interview because he hired Al "Mount" Everest as the new coach. More details in another article. Interestingly, Bobby April, was an interviewee for the job also. Special teams coaches just go from place to place hoping their players have a good year. If not they move on to another team. When they make the whole Circuit they start on their second time around with a new coach. Stay tuned also for Who's fault was it, year end edition.

Thanks for hangin' in there with me and the blog.