Steelers to Open Up in New England???

[SidSmythe]

New England hosts the Opener Sept 10th on a Thursday Night.

The Steelers are their only marque matchup at home next year with a very weak home schedule.
The Eagles, Bills and Dolphins are the Wild Card here.

BUT you know the NFL wants a Brady vs. Ben matchup and so do you and I.
I'd love to play N.E. early with our new defense. Play them in October/November like usual and I think they'll understand our defense much better by then.

[pfelix73]

Depending on what goes with deflate-gate, Belichick and/or Brady could be suspended early on too.

[SidSmythe]

Depending on what goes with deflate-gate, Belichick and/or Brady could be suspended early on too.

I'm betting nothing comes out of it .... no way the league is going to taint the Superbowl Championship.

[pfelix73]

I don't like Cris Collinsworth on NBC. However, what he said in the waning moments o SB 49 were enlightening. He mentioned something to the effect that let them enjoy it now because in a few weeks the hammer could be coming down depending on the investigation. Bob Costas interviewed Brady, and Collinsworth sounded to me like the interview brought in more questions than answers. We'll see. But it says in the rule book that games can CAN be vacated. I doubt they go as far as vacating the AFC Championship game and the SB, but since they have a track record of cheating, something along line of a suspension or 2 could be the next thing to happen. Fines and lost draft choices have already been levied against them before.. This whole thing of the their RB's not fumbling all season long is very strange.... something's up...

[Slapstick]

I'm betting nothing comes out of it .... no way the league is going to taint the Superbowl Championship.

It's already tainted...

[SidSmythe]

Bell could be out for that game. So the NFL must suspend Brady for 1 game

[feltdizz]

Bell is going to be the only player suspended for this game

[RuthlessBurgher]

Recent Football Gods Karma:

Wild Card Round: Lions got jobbed by officials, meaning the Cowboys won a game they likely should have lost.

Divisional Round: Dez Bryant's catch reversed by officials, meaning the Packers won a game they likely should have lost.

Conference Championship Round: Packers let an onside kick slip through their fingers and waste a 4 INT performance by their D, meaning the Seahawks won a game they likely should have lost.

Super Bowl Round: Seahawks coaches make the dumbest playcall imaginable on 2nd and goal from the 1 with Marshawn Lynch, meaning the Patriots won a game they likely should have lost.

In each case, the team that was exceptionally fortunate in one game, was exceptionally unfortunate in the next game. Since New England was the "exceptionally fortunate" team in this last game, I'd be happy to face them in their next game.

Beware of Karma from the Football Gods!

[steeler_fan_in_t.o.]

Recent Football Gods Karma:

Wild Card Round: Lions got jobbed by officials, meaning the Cowboys won a game they likely should have lost.

Divisional Round: Dez Bryant's catch reversed by officials, meaning the Packers won a game they likely should have lost.

Conference Championship Round: Packers let an onside kick slip through their fingers and waste a 4 INT performance by their D, meaning the Seahawks won a game they likely should have lost.

Super Bowl Round: Seahawks coaches make the dumbest playcall imaginable on 2nd and goal from the 1 with Marshawn Lynch, meaning the Patriots won a game they likely should have lost.

In each case, the team that was exceptionally fortunate in one game, was exceptionally unfortunate in the next game. Since New England was the "exceptionally fortunate" team in this last game, I'd be happy to face them in their next game.

Beware of Karma from the Football Gods!

So, using your logic, the Steelers win game one against New England next year as reward for Pete Carroll's horrible play call? I like it (as long as that is the last bit of karma gifting in this chain).

[7 UP]

Depending on what goes with deflate-gate, Belichick and/or Brady could be suspended early on too.

Dont hold your breath. I bet we have all heard the last of deflategate

[Starlifter]

playing NE is tough no matter when - but the season opener is bad for us. the last few years the steelers have not been very good in sept and have started slow. I believe bellichick would have the pats far more prepared and in shape.

[Shoe]

I'm betting nothing comes out of it .... no way the league is going to taint the Superbowl Championship.

How could it be though? The other 31 owners have been cheated by Belichick*, unless that Warren Sharp article has been debunked and I haven't seen it. Don't you think the owners will demand some retribution?

[B&GinNC]

How could it be though? The other 31 owners have been cheated by Belichick*, unless that Warren Sharp article has been debunked and I haven't seen it. Don't you think the owners will demand some retribution?

There have been several: (this was posted at Nate Silver's website FiveThirtyEight on January 2

Here were some of the responses to Sharp’s posts:

At Deadspin, statistics professors Gregory J. Matthews and (friend of FiveThirtyEight) Michael Lopez wrote a great, FireJoeMorgan-style, line-by-line takedown of Sharp’s most popular post. They refuted the 1-in-16,234 number (by Sharp’s own methodology it should be more like 1-in-297) and pointed out a massive data error in Sharp’s analysis of individual players (he mixed together some data that included special teams plays and some that excluded them). Matthews and Lopez also broke down team fumble rates by position, after which New England’s running backs and receivers don’t really look like major fumble-preventing outliers at all.
SoSH Football Central’s Daryl Sng broke down Sharp’s aforementioned data errors in even greater detail. After excluding kick and punt returns (which make no sense to include because teams don’t have any access to “K balls”) and correcting for Sharp’s original mishmash of regular-season and playoff data, the players in Sharp’s sample fumbled only about 23 percent more as non-Patriots, not 88 percent as was originally stated.
Political scholar Bill Herman also zeroed in on Sharp’s analysis of individual players’ fumble rates with the Patriots and other teams, identifying its aforementioned methodological errors. In addition, he looked at the six players featured in Michael Salfino’s Wall Street Journal article based on Sharp’s work, finding that their difference in fumbling was statistically significant. Of those six players (Danny Amendola, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Danny Woodhead, Wes Welker, Brandon LaFell and LeGarrette Blount), four were common to Sng’s dataset, but both analyses found a 23 percent increase in fumbling while playing for teams other than New England.
Like Matthews and Lopez, data analyst Tom Hayden repudiated Sharp’s assumption that his “plays per fumble” metric was normally distributed across NFL teams (a necessary condition for the 1-in-16,234 claim).
The harshest counterargument belonged to data scientist Drew Fustin. Fustin challenged Sharp’s choice to exclude dome teams (Sharp’s own post says outdoor teams barely fumble more often than those based in domes), instead looking at fumble rates across all teams in outdoor games only — whereupon the Patriots don’t even rank first in the NFL at fumble avoidance over the 2010-2014 period. He also questions whether Sharp’s decision to use that 2010-14 period was a case of cherry-picking the timeframe that would make the Patriots look most like an extreme outlier.

[Slapstick]

There have been several: (this was posted at Nate Silver's website FiveThirtyEight on January 2

Here were some of the responses to Sharp’s posts:

At Deadspin, statistics professors Gregory J. Matthews and (friend of FiveThirtyEight) Michael Lopez wrote a great, FireJoeMorgan-style, line-by-line takedown of Sharp’s most popular post. They refuted the 1-in-16,234 number (by Sharp’s own methodology it should be more like 1-in-297) and pointed out a massive data error in Sharp’s analysis of individual players (he mixed together some data that included special teams plays and some that excluded them). Matthews and Lopez also broke down team fumble rates by position, after which New England’s running backs and receivers don’t really look like major fumble-preventing outliers at all.
SoSH Football Central’s Daryl Sng broke down Sharp’s aforementioned data errors in even greater detail. After excluding kick and punt returns (which make no sense to include because teams don’t have any access to “K balls”) and correcting for Sharp’s original mishmash of regular-season and playoff data, the players in Sharp’s sample fumbled only about 23 percent more as non-Patriots, not 88 percent as was originally stated.
Political scholar Bill Herman also zeroed in on Sharp’s analysis of individual players’ fumble rates with the Patriots and other teams, identifying its aforementioned methodological errors. In addition, he looked at the six players featured in Michael Salfino’s Wall Street Journal article based on Sharp’s work, finding that their difference in fumbling was statistically significant. Of those six players (Danny Amendola, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Danny Woodhead, Wes Welker, Brandon LaFell and LeGarrette Blount), four were common to Sng’s dataset, but both analyses found a 23 percent increase in fumbling while playing for teams other than New England.
Like Matthews and Lopez, data analyst Tom Hayden repudiated Sharp’s assumption that his “plays per fumble” metric was normally distributed across NFL teams (a necessary condition for the 1-in-16,234 claim).
The harshest counterargument belonged to data scientist Drew Fustin. Fustin challenged Sharp’s choice to exclude dome teams (Sharp’s own post says outdoor teams barely fumble more often than those based in domes), instead looking at fumble rates across all teams in outdoor games only — whereupon the Patriots don’t even rank first in the NFL at fumble avoidance over the 2010-2014 period. He also questions whether Sharp’s decision to use that 2010-14 period was a case of cherry-picking the timeframe that would make the Patriots look most like an extreme outlier.

There are a lot of words here, but not a particularly good job of debunking...

For example:

Sharp’s own post says outdoor teams barely fumble more often than those based in domes

That is not what Sharp's post says.

Also:

both analyses found a 23 percent increase in fumbling while playing for teams other than New England

How does this serve to debunk Sharp's analysis? It's a matter of degree, but 23 percent is still a very significant statistical anomaly...

Or this:

instead looking at fumble rates across all teams in outdoor games only — whereupon the Patriots don’t even rank first in the NFL at fumble avoidance over the 2010-2014 period

Sharp has an answer for this to which I have seen no satisfactory explanation:

Yes, he said, the Falcons had a lower fumble rate than the Patriots, but more than half of their games are played in domes every year, so they have many fewer outdoor games.

[RuthlessBurgher]

playing NE is tough no matter when - but the season opener is bad for us. the last few years the steelers have not been very good in sept and have started slow. I believe bellichick would have the pats far more prepared and in shape.

This past season...

Pittsburgh started poorly at 3-3 and then heated up down the stretch with an 8-2 finish.

New England started poorly at 2-2 and then heated up down the stretch with a 10-2 finish.

Seattle started poorly at 3-3 and then heated up down the stretch with a 9-1 finish.

Just sayin'...