Brett Keisel ready again for game action

[hawaiiansteel]

Keisel ready for game action

Posted by Teresa Varley on August 15, 2012

http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/brett-keisel-beard.jpg

Defensive end Brett Keisel missed the Eagles game because of the birth of his third child, son William Atticus, but will be back in action on Sunday night against the Colts.

“I am excited to get a game in,” said Keisel. “We get to play in front of our fans. It’s going to be exciting.”

The defense will face quarterback Andrew Luck, the number one overall pick in the draft, as well the Colts offensive coordinator, Bruce Arians.

“I hope we can get after him,” said Keisel of Luck. “I am sure Bruce has a good idea of what we run here. He is a great quarterback, a lot of potential. Hopefully we can rattle him a little bit.”

Luck came out firing in the Colts preseason opener against the St. Louis Rams, throwing a 63-yard touchdown pass to Donald Brown on his first pass of the game.

“It was impressive,” said Keisel of the rookies overall performance. “A lot of it was short, quick things. But to score on your first pass has to be a good thing. He is a great quarterback. That is why he was a first pick.”

* * *
Keisel is hoping the birth of his son is a good omen for the team.

When his oldest son Jacob was born the team won Super Bowl XLIII. The year his daughter Grace was born the Steelers lost in Super Bowl XLV.

“Every time we have had a kid we went to the Super Bowl so I want that trend to continue,” said Keisel, who said William and his wife Sarah are doing well. “I had my son we won Super Bowl XLIII. I had a daughter we lost Super Bowl XLV. So I had another son because I wanted us to win.”

http://blog.steelers.com/2012/08/15/keisel-ready-for-game-action/

[Oviedo]

Kiesel is one of my favorite Steelers in the past decade. Great guy who is much better than he got credit for.

[flippy]

Kiesel is one of my favorite Steelers in the past decade. Great guy who is much better than he got credit for.

The first time I saw Keisel cover a kickoff and beat every guy down the field, I knew he was special.

I always wished we woulda let him play OLB cause he's got a pretty rare combo of size and speed. You could really see it when he came in for Kimo as a situational 3rd down pass rusher.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure Lebeau really leveraged Keisel's full potential. He made him more into a clogger instead of a penetrator. Keisel still gets as much pressure as anyone even though that's not his main responsibility.

Given the way our DLine came out and played at the start of last game, I wouldn't be against trying to move Keisel to OLB to replace Harrison early on in the season. I think he might do a better job than Worldis or Carter.

He's a good enough athlete. And that would be a path to get the best 11 guys on the field in James absence.

[BradshawsHairdresser]

Kiesel is ready, but is his beard ready?

[Oviedo]

The first time I saw Keisel cover a kickoff and beat every guy down the field, I knew he was special.

I always wished we woulda let him play OLB cause he's got a pretty rare combo of size and speed. You could really see it when he came in for Kimo as a situational 3rd down pass rusher.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure Lebeau really leveraged Keisel's full potential. He made him more into a clogger instead of a penetrator. Keisel still gets as much pressure as anyone even though that's not his main responsibility.

Given the way our DLine came out and played at the start of last game, I wouldn't be against trying to move Keisel to OLB to replace Harrison early on in the season. I think he might do a better job than Worldis or Carter.

He's a good enough athlete. And that would be a path to get the best 11 guys on the field in James absence.

I totally agree that the 3-4 scheme has held back Kiesel just like it has all of our defensive linemen.

[feltdizz]

I like Keisel but I think age may be catching up to him...

he always has a few jokes about how old we are but last year they weren't as funny because they had too much truth in them.

[phillyesq]

I totally agree that the 3-4 scheme has held back Kiesel just like it has all of our defensive linemen.

It never seemed to hold back Aaron Smith or Casey Hampton.

[Slapstick]

It never seemed to hold back Aaron Smith or Casey Hampton.

It didn't hold Keisel back either...he made it to the Pro Bowl, though he had to drop out due to injury...

[Oviedo]

It never seemed to hold back Aaron Smith or Casey Hampton.

Really? You really think Aaron Smith couldn't have gotten significantly more sacks if he was turned lose to go after the QB? I think he would have gotten more of the the recognition he deserved versus dancing with OL to hold them. Same with Kiesel. On another team he is good for 5-6 sacks per year.

[phillyesq]

Really? You really think Aaron Smith couldn't have gotten significantly more sacks if he was turned lose to go after the QB? I think he would have gotten more of the the recognition he deserved versus dancing with OL to hold them. Same with Kiesel. On another team he is good for 5-6 sacks per year.

Smith played during a time when there were more balanced offenses in the league, and he absolutely destroyed the running game. He also had a few seasons with 8 sacks. He didn't just "dance" with lineman -- he blew them up and demanded double teams. Did you ever watch him play?

Might he have had a few more sacks in another system? Maybe. But to suggest that he was "held back" when he was a key component of a defense that won 2 SBs simply makes no sense.

[Eddie Spaghetti]

Kiesel is one of my favorite Steelers in the past decade. Great guy who is much better than he got credit for.

I wasn't aware one could have a favorite replaceable carbon unit.

as to the diesel, I am very happy with what saint lebeau managed to extract from a 7th round draft choice. Maybe some here should take the blinders off and see the other side. Not a lot of 7th rounders go to the pro bowl and have the kind of career kiesel has had. I would bet my mortgage he would say dick lebeau had a huge hand in that as opposed to saying he was under utilized.

forest for the trees I suppose.

[hawaiiansteel]

Steelers Super Bowl Bound? Brett Keisel’s New Baby and What He Means for the 2012 Steelers

by Rebecca Rollett on Aug 16, 2012

http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/5064063/GYI0063174146.jpg

This morning I checked out the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and buried in a Ray Fittipaldo article about Cameron Heyward I found the following:

Another baby, another bowl?

Keisel didn't exactly predict another trip to the Super Bowl for the Steelers Wednesday, but he has good reason to believe it might happen.

You see, every time Keisel welcomes a new child the Steelers win the AFC championship..."It's amazing," Keisel said. "Every time we've had a kid we've gone to the Super Bowl, so I want that trend to continue."

Keisel said the pressure is on William.

"I had my son, we won Super Bowl XLIII," he said. "I had my daughter and we lost the Super Bowl. I had another son and I expect us to win it."

First and foremost, in my official capacity as the distaff representative of the BTSC writers, I wish to congratulate Brett Keisel and his wife and welcome the newest Keisel into the world. I noted The Diesel's absence in the Eagles game, which Mike Tomlin said was for "family reasons." You can’t get much more family-related than a new addition to it.

Keisel's remarks got me thinking about sports superstitions, and I decided a quick article about some of the more bizarre ones might be fun. (To clarify, I don’t think Keisel’s correlation of his newborns with Super Bowls is bizarre at all. He’s way too large and strong a guy for me to suggest such a thing! But there is the issue of whether correlation equals causation...)

I’m only going to deal with the superstitions of players. Fan superstitions are a whole different subject, and we’ve had some amusing threads about what people do to allegedly change the luck during a game or season. For example, I have carefully archived the Terrible Towel I took to Baltimore for last season’s opening game. That’s not superstition, though, just good sense : )

Many (perhaps even most) players have game-day routines they don’t mess with.

According to Fact Monster, the most superstitious players are baseball players, and it’s easy to see why. But one of the items they mentioned for football players is interesting:

It's bad luck for a professional football player to take a new number when he is traded to another team.

I always assumed the reason players preferred to keep their old numbers was rather like the way everyone heads to the same chair at the dinner table, akin to a cow going to its accustomed stall. But I do recall Limas Sweed, during the 2010 off-season, asking for and getting a new number, in the hopes it would change his luck. And it did—he promptly tore his Achilles in the off-season. Luck is like that—it's probably best to specify good luck.

The article also states "a mascot is an important good luck symbol." Which makes me wonder about Steely McBeam and why they didn’t deep-six him after the 2009 season. It would have been the perfect opportunity!

Another superstition which crosses sports boundaries is the playoff beard. As Joseph Lin says in a Time article about sports superstitions,

Most notably — especially for a sport that prides itself on its clean-cut image — tennis great Bjorn Borg would grow out his beard for Wimbledon. The tradition resulted in five consecutive tournament wins from 1976-1980. Perhaps the World Anti-Doping Agency should add Rogaine to its list of performance-enhancing drugs.

Brett Keisel is, of course, is the front-runner in the history of the world for playoff beards. But something went wrong last year. I have a feeling he started it too soon, or too late, or accidentally let his wife touch it with a razor in early January.

Lin also mentions the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, and we could add to it the Madden jinx. Fortunately no Steelers have been featured recently. Lin writes:

SI tried to address the topic in a January 2002 issue. The magazine interviewed sports psychologist Jim Loehr who called the jinx "a failure to efficiently metabolize heightened expectations." In layman’s terms, the ‘jinxed’ cover subjects merely choked under the extra attention.

Don’t you love the way psychologists talk? It makes everything sound so scientific and important. I think I will use that line the next time someone in my chorus messes up in rehearsal.

Then there is the superstition which, as a Momma, I can’t approve—the don’t-wash-the-uniform/socks/underwear superstition. My son-in-law left his hockey bag behind once after visiting us, and I saw it and just chucked it in a cupboard until he asked me to bring it with me the next time I visited. It turned out there was a pair of used socks in it (and probably had been a good many pairs of used socks in it at one time or another.) When I opened the bag I almost passed out. It smelled like a cheese had died in unfortunate circumstances. I can’t imagine what the locker rooms smell like if many of the guys feel that way.

On the other hand, the author of an article on the AskMen website who was apparently too ashamed of it to append his name told the following story:

The reverse can be true as well. Minnie Minoso once blamed his uniform after going hitless in a game for the White Sox. As a result he showered with the uniform on following the game, and the next day he had three hits and was joined by the rest of his teammates fully clothed in the post-game shower.

And finally, let’s move from the gross to the really gross. In his article on the Top 15 Sports Superstitions for The Sports Bloc, author Thomas Armstrong gave the following his No. 1 pick:

1. Juan Manuel Marquez

Think urinating on your hands is bad? Juan Manuel Marquez used to drink his own urine. Marquez believed that drinking your own urine had tremendous health benefits and would aid in the recovery from intense workouts. Marquez has since stopped drinking his own urine from the recommendations of doctors.

There are other sports superstitions/rituals even less appropriate to a family-oriented website. One might argue BTSC doesn’t exactly fit this description, but since I’m writing in my Momma Rollett persona I’m going to leave it at that.

So in closing I will only say, "Go, Baby Keisel!"

http://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2012/8/16/3247557/steelers-super-bowl-brett-keisel-baby-sports-superstitions#storyjump

[Oviedo]

I wasn't aware one could have a favorite replaceable carbon unit.

as to the diesel, I am very happy with what saint lebeau managed to extract from a 7th round draft choice. Maybe some here should take the blinders off and see the other side. Not a lot of 7th rounders go to the pro bowl and have the kind of career kiesel has had. I would bet my mortgage he would say dick lebeau had a huge hand in that as opposed to saying he was under utilized.

forest for the trees I suppose.

You just get new favorites when they are replaced because you realize they are just temporary employees.

[Eddie Spaghetti]

You just get new favorites when they are replaced because you realize they are just temporary employees.

must be pretty cool to gaze down upon the great unwashed from your perch high up in the ivory tower.

I hope I never view the game the way you do.