The Hot Seat

One would hope that the principle of “you win some, you lose some” would make things fairly equitable around my house with regards to the fortunes of NFL franchises embraced by the various family members. But alas, while last week was my turn to exult and my wife Nanshe’s turn to gnash teeth, rather than this week sending me down and her up it deal both of us buckets of fandom-lemons too rotten to even make lemonade, as the Steelers fell to the Browns without managing to scare up a single TD, while the Giants found the endzone plenty of times last night but still lost the shoot-out against the Eagles. (And, to mix my fruit-aphors even more, I know this is going to sound like sour grapes, but LeSean Jackson? With all his high-steppin’ backwards into the end zone and such-like? I kind of want to punch him in the face.)

The latest Steel City debacle was ameliorated somewhat for my wife, however, due to the fact that she absolutely cleaned everyone’s clock in the football pick ‘em pool. She called all of Sunday’s games correctly except for one, and whether the Cards win or lose tonight (and Nanshe says they’ll win, so if you still haven’t spoken to your bookie, I’m just sayin’ …) no one else in the pool can catch her, so she’s already been declared the weekly winner. For those keeping detailed score that means she leads me on weeks at the top of the football pool, two to zero.

In any case, as far as the implications of records within the sport itself, the G-Men’s post-season hopes are dimming rapidly but they are showing some serious defensive weakness as the season rolls along, so it’s not like they are dropping heartbreaker games and squandering a real chance at a championship run. Even if the Giants somehow managed to steal the wildcard, if they win out from now on and Dallas shoots themselves in the foot (as usual), I’m reasonably certain New York wouldn’t make it past the first round. So I’m still pulling for them but motivated much more by loyalty than expectations.

I’m more concerned about the Steelers, honestly, and not just because they have the capacity to break Nanshe’s heart (although that’s certainly a factor). When a team loses five in a row, and there’s no obvious scapegoat to be found amongst the players, it’s inevitable that the coach would start to come under scrutiny. Which would really bum me out in the case of the Steelers, because I like Mike Tomlin. He seems like a solid guy, and he’s just about my age and not incidentally went to me and my wife’s alma mater, so he feels practically like family. He coached the team to the Superbowl and won it last year, so I sincerely hope that earns him some leeway, up to and including taking the second half of the 2009 season as a mulligan.


For what it’s worth, I haven’t heard anything in the sports commentary scuttlebutt about Tomlin being on the hot seat per se, but it’s just something that bugs me as a possibility. And it’s strange because I normally don’t feel so protective of NFL coaches, not even for my beloved Giants. I still remember the glory days of Bill Parcells in New York in the 80’s, and he obviously got to leave on his own terms, but other than that I’ve never been particularly concerned about the coach one way or the other, because it’s the team and the players on the field that I root for. Except, apparently, Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Here’s hoping I can keep rooting for him for a while longer.