According to the guys at footballoutisders.com, Pittsburgh had the 17th most difficult schedule in the league, while Seattle had the easiest schedule (by a lot). However, they’ve also pointed out that that’s not an indictment of Seattle’s chances, since beating the crap out of bad teams is more indicative of playoff success than winning tough games against good teams.
I’m not following. Why would that be so?
I’m having trouble parsing this sentence. You like receivers who block, just not those who block well? There are few things I like better in football than seeing a WR lay out a DB.
While I am a bit dubious about this metric (the STOMP/GUT ratio), I do know that I am more nervous when Steeler teams play down to their opponents. As I noted earlier in this year, the Steelers did not do that this year. They put people away handily.
Does anyone have a link to the strength of schedule for past Superbowl winners? One would imagine a higher STOMP/GUT ratio would correlate with a low strength of schedule, so Superbowl winners should typically have a low strength of schedule for the year, no?
Follow the (second) link in the post to which you replied.
I found this article from five years ago, just before the Giants-Ravens Super Bowl. As you can see from the lists at the bottom, Super Bowl teams do tend to have easy schedules. However, that list is somewhat tainted, since they neglected to remove each Super Bowl team’s own games from their opponents’ strength of schedule numbers. That is, of course their opponents will tend to have lower aggregate winning percentages, since their schedules all include games against 13-win juggernauts.
That said, even if you corrected for that phenomenon, Super Bowl teams would still tend to have unusually weak schedules.
Excellent point, and one I’ve seen mentioned recently somewhere else by either you or Omni.
I’m fully in agreement on this concept, but conventional wisdom is not on our side. Why is that? Why does nobody ever consider removing the team you’re try to quantify?
Also, I sometimes feel like taking it a step further, though I never even do the work to take the first step. A team that starts 6-2 and then finishes 8-8 was a more formidable opponent in the first half of the season, no? So I’d like a true strength of schedule to be the records of all opponents at the time they were faced, minus any games against the team in question.
So, for example, the second Steelers-Bengals game, pull out the first Steelers matchup from the Bengals record at the time of the game and add in just that number. Lather, rinse, repeat, and you have the true strength of schedule.
I always feel like I’m missing something, though, because nobody ever does anything like this. Is there any reason other than laziness that I’m just not thinking of?
I read his original statement to mean that he thought Ward blocked dirty.
Ward rocks. Period. I just love watching him play. I don’t honestly know how one could NOT like him.
He must be pretty popular in Pittsburgh since they already named the stadium for him!
I’d like to apologize to all you Steelers fans.
I’m not a big sports-minded guy, altho’ I’ve found that I can watch most major sports on TV without getting too bored. However, I’ve found myself rooting for the Seahawks for one reason, and one reason only: the relentless, almost exclusive, attention to the Steelers in this game.
Sometimes, it’s like the other team doesn’t even exist. It’s all talk about the Steelers, about their pounding of Denver, and oh, by the way, Jerome Bettis is from Detroit. Steelers as the top story, then mention Seattle sometime in the second half hour. This’ll get Cowher into the Hall of Fame for sure! Seattle? Oh, they’ll be crushed. (I can GUARENTEE you that the Steelers aren’t thinking that way.)
This is not the team’s fault. They’re just getting caught in the backlash. It’s the media’s. I’m sorry that they have to suffer for the mindlessness of the national press.
You could be a Ravens fan and watch him pop up grinning after making huge catches against your favorite team year after year. I respect the hell out of him, but I won’t like him until he changes teams or retires.
I can see your point, Enginerd. 
My favorite thing about him is when he makes the huge catch, gets absolutely CRUSHED by a defensive player, and STILL pops up grinning. 
Yes, Heinz 57 has indeed been upgraded to Hines 86.
I like the fact that Hines is always smiling. It seems that even when he gets creamed by a 300lb DB he jumps right up and dances around and smiles like it didn’t bother him in the least.
Can’t wait till next Sunday.
My sister met him and had her picture taken with him. She said he was very nice!
Speaking of little dances, I loved that little kicking step Bettis was doing during the AFC championship in the end zone. Go Steelers!
does the Happy Snoopy dance
I simply can’t imagine a 300 pound defensive back. Levon Kirkland played linebacker at 300 lbs, but any other defensive player I can think of who goes 3 bills is on the line. D-backs are closer to 200 than 300.
And part of the reason Ward does that is because he knows it gets to the defenders.
The day (was it 2001? or 2002? a few years ago) when Ward clobbered the bejeezus out of Cleveland DB Earl Little and flat KO’d him (this 4 or 5 plays after Little told Ward he was “gonna kill him”) – that was the day I realized that Ward was my favorite Steeler.
I’m still giddy from last Sunday. Since tickets to the SuperBowl are between $2300 and $20K, and I can’t pay that, I am doing the next best thing: I’m headed to the Motherland to a SB party with a bunch of the guys I grew up with up in Pgh. I fully expect that if the Steelers win that I will go to jail that night. Some things in life just can’t be avoided and I think I need to embrace the idea ahead of time, and be the best drunk in public / disturbing the peace idiot that I can be. I’ll work on the plan this week.
Unless your Terrible Towel is beach-sized and made of cashmere, please try to pass out somewhere indoors and warm. Because, as you know, Pittsburgh in February is nothing to sneeze at – not without risking pneumonia, anyway.
Oh, well, that sounds like as good and safe an idea as any. Enjoy your drunken, disorderly revelries, then! 
I don’t think this song has been posted yet. What is it with Steelers fans and songs/song parodies?
Nooooo! I haven’t gone a day without hearing that song at least once over the past week or so. I liked it at first…
I agree. It’s fun at first; then it turns into an earworm if ever there was one.
Pittsburgh really has gone crazy and the infection runs deep. I was watching the local PBS station yesterday and even they were promoting some special Super Bowl coverage starting today.
Go Steelers!
CJ