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 the right up those big nostrils”. So that’s it. This is my 2 cents after sitting on the latest Steelers game for a bit. 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

I do not trust the TV networks, or the NFL to ever give me the information that I need to know if the correct call was made or not. I ranted about this so much to Dave during the game that he did an article on just the Puka Nacua catch that I think wasn’t actually a catch. FOX had no problem at the end of the game showing time and time again the 4th and 1 Kenny Pickett sneak. Multiple angles, all the way from Kenny starting to the ground, to guys getting up off the ground. Yet on the Nacua “catch” they had one angle (which was a good angle), but as soon as the toes of the 2nd foot hit the ground, they stopped the tape and wouldn’t show what happened with the rest of the foot. I contend that it was not a toe tap, nor a toe drag as hated former Cowgirl, “Moose” Johnson kept stating but actually Nacua’s foot continued to the ground and hit the out of bounds marker, which should have made this an incomplete pass. No problem, just go to NFL.com and get another look at the play. EERRRRR! WRONG! They cut the video a quarter of a second shorter from what FOX showed. I spent a bunch of time yesterday looking for video of the catch extended to where the play was over and the players were out of bounds. No luck anywhere. I know it exists and if it shows a catch I would eat crow, tip my hat to Mr. Nacua and say “Nice Catch”. But unfortunately neither FOX, nor the NFL want us to see that. Why? I think they don’t want us to see how that call was botched.

SOMETHING I’VE SOFTENED ON

It pains me to say it, because it’s not so much that I softened on this as much as I have come to grips with it. Matt Canada will finish the year as the Steelers Offensive Coordinator, as long as the wheels don’t totally fall off this already running on flats offense. I did like some of the play calls and route combinations this game. I am still perplexed that three times in this game after a 6 to 8 yard gain on first down I turned to my son Kyle and said “this will be a slow developing run play that goes nowhere” and I was correct all three times I said it. I predicted the play and so did the Defensive Coordinator for the Rams, because they stuffed it every time. The Steelers were less predictable than they had been, but there is still work to do in this area. My point is, that with the improvement, Matt Canada is probably 99.5% safe in his position for the rest of the season. I will no longer be stating publicly to “Fire Canada”, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking it to myself (or yelling it at the TV).

SOMETHING THAT HASN’T CHANGED

I am not ready to anoint Kenny Pickett as a star QB and the franchise QB the Steelers are looking for. Please do not take this the wrong way. I love Kenneth Shane Pickett. He has a lot of the qualities I am looking for in a good QB. There are still are a few headscratchers in his game that I feel are holding him back and are the type of things that could keep him from being in the uppermost tier of QB’s in the league. His movement in or escaping the pocket still leaves much to be desired. In particular I hate the spin back and left move he does. Too may times it ends with him in more of a predicament than he would have been in had he just taken one slide step left. Deal breaker? No, but is something he must continue to work on. I think most Steeler fans will agree that we love 4th quarter “Clutch” Kenny, I just wish we didn’t have to always wait until the 4th quarter to see that Kenny Pickett. I am staying patient, but still want to see progress, especially in handling pressure.

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.