Phillyesq., can you help me sue Bouchette for plagiarizing from me? At least I had the decency to give Starlifter credit!

Quote Originally Posted by SanAntonioSteelerFan
It's not even football, it's just common sense.

If you've allocated a huge amount of resources to acquire a strategic asset, the only reasonable secondary strategy is one that makes sure enough of your other resources are allocated in support of that asset, to allow it to succeed. Thus is achievement of the organization's goals most effectively realized.

Doing otherwise is foolish.

Organization: Steelers. Goal: Superbowl. Resources: $$. And, duh, strategic asset: Ben.

Ben is the man. The only right thing to do is put things in place to help him succeed. FIRST step, at a MINIMUM, we need to protect him in the pocket. Many of us PREDICTED that the SB run this year would end early because of O-line associated injury to Ben. Is it so crazy to say, OK, THAT didn't work out ... let's see what happens when our franchise QB has more than a 3rd string O-line? How many of our O-line players this year would even have PLAYED on one of the other playoff teams squads, much less STARTED?

And it needs to be quick ... what are the Vegas odds that Ben doesn't last next season due to injury? The season after that? I'm thinking doing this through the draft might not even be enough, in terms of Ben's shelf life. Can we go out and buy him an O-line? Not the Steeler way to develop a team with high $$ free agents? I'd propose it just might be. Where does it say the Steeler way HAS to be "controlling the game on the ground", or "suffocating defense", or any of the other things we've become so comfortable saying? The Steeler way, after all and bottom line, is only one thing - winning. Sometimes nostalgic attachment to specific strategies we've used to achieve that in the past can be counterproductive.

As Starlifter said (best post I've read in a while!) - forget throwing $$ at defense ... under Goodell's legal defense-oriented long term plan for rules changes, football scores will approach basketball's, and defenses will inevitably become laughably irrelevant. Heck, we don't even have to wait to see that happen - THIS year's 31st and 32nd ranked defenses in the NFL aren't doing too badly ...

Oh, and I agree with everything I say!

Signed,

SASF (Send Ariens to San Francisco)