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

Football players need to be allowed to play football. We saw yet again this weekend some terrible officiating, and while I will not say the officiating cost the Steelers the game I will say that it makes watching the game very frustrating. Word has it that the league office did not think there should have been a penalty on Minkah for unnecessary roughness, but that doesn’t do much good to hear on Monday when it does nothing to change the call that happened on Sunday. The NFL will not do anything to try to fix the fact that these calls are being messed up during games. I get why they don’t, because NFL football is a huge draw, and why mess with something that is such a cash cow. I just feel that at some point the fans are going to rebel against the NFL, and when they do I’m worried that the NFL will not be prepared to make the necessary changes.

SOMETHING I’VE SOFTENED ON

Justin Fields. He gained a lot of respect from me this weekend. He had a typical Justin Fields moment when he took that big sack and fumbled the ball away, and I wondered if that might be the point where he started handing the job back over to Russell Wilson. He changed my mind on that the next three possessions when he led the Steelers to touchdowns on all three of them. This was not what I was used to seeing from Fields in Chicago. He was able to get by the mistake and do what he needed to do to rally the team. I am now very comfortable if he remains the starting quarterback for the rest of the season.

SOMETHING THAT HASN’T CHANGED

The Steelers lose 1 or 2 games every year to inferior teams. You can typically pick them out on the schedule as to when they may happen. The tough part this time was that the Steelers did not get blown out, and were in the game all the way to the end. The loss was still hard to swallow, but as Coach Tomlin said he could appreciate the fight but couldn’t celebrate it because of the outcome.

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.