The title “My Worthless 2 Cents” that I came up with isn’t one I feel I can take full credit for, but is a story in itself, so here it is. I was in the 8th grade at the time, and found myself tagging along with my older sister (a senior in high school), as she was a part of the high school theatre group who would work as ushers for local community theatre productions. Working as an usher at a production of “Harvey”, the dad for one of my baseball friends came up to me at intermission and handed me two pennies and asked me to go back to the dressing area and find the lead actor in the play. I was to give him the pennies and tell him “this is from the guy with the big nostrils, giving you his two cents worth”. I thought this was funny so I agreed to do it, especially since I knew the two were friends. I go to the dressing room and deliver the message and the “gift”. The response I was given was even better. The actor told me to return the pennies and I was to “tell the guy with the big nostrils to take his worthless 2 cents and shove them right up his big nostrils”. So that’s it. This is my 2 cents after sitting on the latest Steelers game for a bit. This is quite the opposite of my Knee Jerk Reaction article, so I get to bring everything full circle. You might tell me to take my worthless two cents and shove them up my nostrils, and that’s okay, because we are friends and I don’t look at it as personal.

I am going to break things down into three categories: One, something I feel stronger about. Two, something I have softened on a bit. Three, something that didn’t really change.

SOMETHING I FEEL STRONGER ABOUT

For teams to win in today’s NFL a lot of things have to go right. The Steelers had a lot of good things in this past game. They led in a lot of the statistical categories that normally equate to a victory. However, the Steelers did not secure that victory. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why and my conclusion is that there were several little things that went wrong and happened at the wrong time. There were some physical errors made by players, some mental errors made by players, some bad play calling by the coaching staff, and some questionable philosophy based on the scoreboard and time left in the game made by the coaching staff. Typically none of these things by themselves would lose a game when the Steelers led so many of the statistical categories. Unfortunately for the Steelers, this was a perfect storm of items that occurred that did not allow the Steelers to win. It happens. I don’t like it, but it happens.

SOMETHING I’VE SOFTENED ON

I was struggling to come up with something for this section and suddenly it dawned on me. I have softened on my criticism of Art Rooney II. The past two years I feel like during the season there have been times where he has been front and center, and that is not where I want an owner to be during the season. This season I have heard nor seen very little of AR2, and I guess it comes as no surprise then that I am not on a ledge the way I can be during the season. I wonder if these two things go hand in hand? When all the fans are on the ledge does AR2 come out to try to calm things? I’m not really sure, but I will say it has been nice to have that piece of stress not present this season.

SOMETHING THAT HASN’T CHANGED

I despise Thursday night football. I have never enjoyed it. The only time football should be played on a Thursday is on Thanksgiving Day. Other than that, games should happen on Sunday and on Monday night. It’s not just that I don’t like when the Steelers play on Thursday night, I hate all football on Thursday night. I don’t even watch 2/3 of the games that happen on Thursday nights. I hate that it messes with my fantasy football. I know I’m at odds with my brother Dave on this, but I wish the league would go back to the way it used to be and get rid of football on Thursday nights. When I’m the NFL commissioner it’s the first thing I’m going to do.

There you have it. My worthless 2 cents. Maybe you liked it, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you want to tell me to shove my worthless two cents up my big nostrils. Maybe you have your own worthless 2 cents you would like to share. If so please feel free to share it in the comments below, I might look at it and tell you to shove it up your big nostrils…but that’s okay, because we are still friends.