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

When the Steelers have a poor tackling day they are a tough team to watch. According to PFF the Steelers had 17 missed tackles in the Eagles game. They had only hit double digits one other time this year and that was in the snow in Cleveland (another loss). I was constantly frustrated by the Steelers being unable to get Eagles players on the ground quickly, but did not realize exactly how the missed tackles were piling up until I saw the stats after the game. I hope this is something the Steelers can get cleaned up as a stretch of games against good teams will require it. Hopefully DeShon Elliott is back soon, as he has led some of the most textbook tackling I have seen in a while.

SOMETHING I’VE SOFTENED ON

The Steelers securing a playoff spot without winning. Some people were upset when the Steelers found their way into the playoffs this past weekend even though they lost their game. I will take this at this point in the regular season. I have gotten tired of waiting until the last week of the season to find out if the Steelers make the playoffs or not. We know now that they are in the playoffs no matter what. The only thing now is to figure out if they win the AFC North or are a wild card team. A win this week against the Ravens and the Steelers are AFC North champions, and everyone will forget about the game in Philadelphia last weekend.

SOMETHING THAT HASN’T CHANGED

The Steelers margin for error in games is small. Based on the style of play that Mike Tomlin chooses, it does not leave a lot of room for errors. It seems like the Steelers are always in games that hinge on just a couple of plays here and there. The philosophy of this team is to pound it out, keep the game close, and hope to make enough plays in the end to pull out the victory. This tends to bring a lot of victories to the Steelers, but the issue is it does not allow the team to have much margin for error. That was never more evident than this past week, when the Najee Harris fumble proved to be the pivotal point in the game. The Steelers went from being close to tying the game to giving the ball back to the Eagles who then were able to extend to a two-score lead the Steelers were never able to overcome.

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.