Forget about the missed field goal and the missed call and confront this truth:
The 2013 Steelers never were a playoff team.
They just weren't good enough, not even in an AFC where there's mediocrity after Denver and New England.
The Steelers are sitting out the postseason on merit. Fixing that is not a complicated issue. It all starts on defense.
For all the groaning about Todd Haley, the Steelers could win 10 games if the 2013 offense came back intact.
It won't, of course. Emmanuel Sanders is likely to leave as a free agent, which will require getting another receiver. But what they have is basically good enough to at least reach the playoffs.
A team with a franchise quarterback always has a chance, and the Steelers still have Ben Roethlisberger. Fix the defense, and the Steelers are back in the playoffs.
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--LESS STATIC?
Sports talk 93.7 The Fan (KDKA-FM) rolls out its new lineup Monday, reflecting changes that have been in the works for two months.
Paul Alexander and Vinnie Richichi have exited the station after nearly four years on staff. The changes were made with at least one eye on finances. Several CBS-owned stations cut personnel at the end of the calendar year, and The Fan also dropped a couple of producers.
Richichi's departure ends an awkward midday partnership with Ron Cook that never worked. The two had strikingly different approaches to the show. For a time, it seemed as though management saw their squabbles as some sort of Felix/Oscar odd coupling.
But it was apparent there was no underlying good nature to the conflict. It was simply a case of two hosts who didn't enjoy working together.
Andrew Fillipponi takes over as Cook's partner, and that will be a totally different dynamic. Fillipponi prepares diligently, has a lot of opinions and confidence in them. Richichi, who took a more seat-of-the-pants approach, wasn't as committed and tended not to take things quite so seriously.
(Richichi has been doing some fill-in work on KDKA-AM and could be a potentially comfortable fit there).
These shotgun marriages don't always take. All three of The Fan's original teams have been dissolved because of dissension, so it will be interesting to see how this pairing goes as the partners start sharing 20 hours a week together.
If there's a surprise, it's that program director Ryan Maguire says the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift will remain live and local. When the station has Pitt basketball or Pirates play-by-play in the evening, the 6 to 10 p.m. show hosted by Colin Dunlap will be bumped to a later time for post-game discussion.
When the normal schedule holds, Maguire says the station will fill 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. by using its roster of part-timers, specifically mentioning Tab Douglas and Paul Zeise.
There's an easy alternative The Fan is not choosing. Pittsburgh native Scott Ferrall does a 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. national show for CBS that could be easily plugged into a time slot that rarely generates much revenue on the local level.
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--JUST CHILLING
Today's projected arctic temperatures in Green Bay are a reminder of the classic line Jack Buck had when he broadcast the original Ice Bowl on CBS: "I'm going to take a bite of my coffee."
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