Steelers Cut Jeff Reed; Future Of Ed Hardy Cleet Industry In Jeopardy

Bad news, operators of Pittsburgh-area bottleservice clubs: The Steelers have released Jeff Reed. In his place, the Steelers signed former Redskins and Cowboys kicker Shaun Suisham, who’s spent the past eight months as a free agent looking for work as part of a tongue twister.

There’s always an inherent risk when a team switches kickers, since individuals’ performances at the position can fluctuate wildly at random times, but Reed’s recent performance forced the Steelers’ hand here. Plus, even in the worst-case scenario, Suisham likely won’t be worse than Reed has been so far this year, just either the same or an obvious upgrade (hopefully the latter).

Reed’s tenure with the team has been more than productive, and he does have two Super Bowls on his resume, but after constant inexcusable missed field goals throughout the 2010 season, now’s as good a time as any to dust off the old “NFL is a business” cliches. I just hope Kevin Colbert remembered to pad the towel dispenser in the bathroom outside his office.

Saints 20, Steelers 10: Beloved Roethlisberger Falls To Hated City Of New Orleans

As far as Steeler losses go, losing to the Saints in New Orleans is about as digestible as they come; the Saints have struggled lately but they’re still the defending champs playing at home, plus it’s a non-conference game for the Steelers, and New Orleans is just about the least hateable fanbase in sports. I was still rooting for Pittsburgh, obviously, but if Roethlisberger had thrown a game-winning TD pass then ran around throwing Metal horns at the Superdome faithful, I’m positive my friends and I would’ve shared another awkward, unspoken “Why are we rooting for this A-hole again?” moment.

That’s not to say the manner of the Steelers’ loss wasn’t extremely frustrating. Between a failed First-and-Goal from the .000001 yard line, a terrible offensive pass interference call on Hines Ward that led to a missed 50-yard field goal, and the fourth fumble of Heath Miller’s career coming on the Saints’ 34, the Steelers left enough points on the field to sow a self-sustaining points farm. After the jump, let’s throw some blame around (or just hold onto the blame and take another sack):

Yahoo Is Pissed At Jeff Reed Too

The Yahoo Fantasy Community reacts to Jeff Reed’s performance against the Ravens:

Dang. Wonder how many people dropped Flozell Adams?

Ravens 17, Steelers 14: Whatta Great Day!

Nothing is more fun than gathering with a bunch of Pittsburgh friends to watch the Steelers miss two field goals and take 88 yards of penalties to lose at home to the Ravens by three points, followed by having to watch John Harbaugh and Ray Lewis jump into each others’ arms like they won the frickin’ Super Bowl.

That wasn’t sarcasm, I literally cannot think of one thing that is more fun than that. Wait! Never mind, I just thought of all other things. Disregard!

My full Recap of the Week’s NFL action can be looked at and very slightly chuckled at here:

bestweekever.tv/2010-10-04/nfl-week-4-recap-breast-cancer-awareness-week-goes-smoothly/

Steelers 15, Falcons 9 (OT): Ben WHO? Oh, The Really Good QB Who Could’ve Helped Today. Never Mind.

Thoughts on the Steelers’ 15-9 Week One win over the Falcons:

– It’d be instinctual to declare that Dennis Dixon played “well enough not to lose,” but in reality, despite his respectable 18-26, 236 yds, 1 Int statline, he didn’t play all that great. Granted, no one was expecting him to will the team to victory singlehandedly, but he did throw two other balls that should’ve easily been intercepted by the Falcons, in addition to at least three balls in the first half thrown right into the ground towards open receivers that would’ve gone for first downs.

Looking at the result, obviously, we have to say that Dixon played well enough for the Steelers to win, because they did. But if Atlanta hangs on to one of those INTs, we’re very likely looking at a flip-flopped score and saying the exact opposite about Dixon’s performance. He played ok, and will need to play a lot better against Tennessee next week.

– Did anyone have any confidence that the Steelers would pull this one off after Jeff Reed missed that 40-yard field goal? First off, I never entertained the possibility he’d miss from 40 yards in that situation — I tried to pretend I was nervous, like how I try to convince myself I’m nervous on planes, not because I’m scared but just because I don’t want to be a smug, overconfident D-bag then have something actually go wrong — but then sure enough, there went the kick wide right.

So how’d the team pull off the W after going 60 touchdown-less minutes and missing a deflating game-ending field goal? At least for today, the Steelers’ D reverted from the Polamalu-and-Smith-less “play well at times” defense of ’09 back to the “who cares what the O and special teams do, we’re just gonna win this” D of yesteryear. The defense gave up some yards, as all defenses will against competent NFL offenses, but they shut down the Falcons’ run game, they allowed no big plays, they dominated when the Falcons crossed the 50, and they pulled out a turnover at the absolute most opportune time. As frustrating as it was to watch successful quick-outs to Roddy White landing in rapid succession, the Steelers’ D played about as well as we could’ve expected a defense to play under today’s circumstances.

– It’s not even worth pointing out any more that James Harrison gets held on every play. Typing that is no more informative than just copying and pasting facts about the sport of football. James Harrison gets held constantly. A regulation football field is 100 yards long. Fortunately, the Steelers get one “Actually Call Holding On The Guy Holding Harrison” Card per game, and they used it at the perfect time. The picture on the card is the Monopoly guy with his arm wrapped around James Harrison’s neck.

Steelers Re-sign Hampton And Reed, Piss Off Steeler Fans Who Were Looking Forward To Getting Pissed

P-G:

The Steelers and nose tackle Casey Hampton have come to a three-year contract agreement worth $21.3 million this morning. The deal includes a signing bonus of $6.5 million.

The deal comes ahead of today’s 4 p.m. deadline in which the Steelers planned to make Hampton their franchise player.

The team also placed the franchise tag on kicker Jeff Reed, meaning he will earn $2,814,000 in 2010 — the average of the top five kickers in the NFL…

By placing the franchise tag on Reed, the Steelers virtually eliminated him from leaving in free agency. At the minimum, it would provide the Steelers with two first-round draft choices in return if he signs elsewhere.

Hampton’s officially locked up, and considering no one’s gonna give up two first round picks for a kicker (now that the Raiders have re-signed Janikowski), Jeff Reed’s as good as locked up too. I was initially reserved about a Hampton extension, even taking into account his 2010 performance and what he means to their 3-4 defense, but because of my anecdotal recollection of Hampton’s injury history, although a quick look at his numbers reveals that he’s played at least 15 games in four of the last five seasons, so perhaps my memory’s just a little fuzzy because Hampton’s absence is always so pronounced when it occurs, plus he’s really fat and it’s easy to picture him getting hurt. It’s a good deal, especially considering that his game doesn’t really depend on any skills that would deteriorate with advanced age — he’ll remain useful for the immediate future as long as he doesn’t tragically lose a ton of weight this offseason, or the Fat Boys miraculously get back together and offer him a cameo in their comeback film Fat Boys 2000: Fat Thing You Do. Both of these are unlikely.

Reed’s deal might be a little on the expensive side, and probably isn’t totally efficient in strict dollars-to-value terms, but it was a pretty necessary move for the Steelers. Kickers are similar to closers in baseball in many regards; they’re always readily available, their performances are erratic from year to year except in the most elite cases, and they’re usually not worth overpaying (as the Patriots proved with their hard-line Adam Vinatieri negotiations), but when your team has a crappy one, there’s just nothing more frustrating. Sometimes, especially in the case of a perennial contender like the Steelers, the certainty that comes with overpaying a known commodity like Reed just trumps any potential financial savings that come with drafting or signing a replacement, and since the franchise tag is only a one year ordeal, it at least buys the Steelers time to work out a long-term contract with Reed or formulate a Plan B if he continues holding out or sucks in 2010.

Overall, these were two moderately pricey but very necessary moves by the Steelers. GMing with your heart instead of your head is a recipe for disaster in any sport, but in the instances where legitimate value happens to overlap with likability — as with Hampton, Reed, and the case of Hines Ward before this — the team’s course of action becomes a no-brainer.

We can now resume focusing any Steeler anxiety we were wasting on these contract situations back onto Bruce Arians.

Gene Collier On Why The Jeff Reed Situation Is A Situation

I do spend an inordinate amount of time in this blogspace whining about professional sportswriters’ columns, but I don’t want to give the impression that that’s the only thing I do; sometimes, I whine about professional sportswriters’ columns while also swearing a lot. So I’m kind of a Renaissance Man (The movie with Danny DeVito. I am that movie, is my point).

No, but really, to prove that I’m not Complaineypants McWhinerson when it comes to other peoples’ columns, even though that is my legal name, I would like to call attention to Gene Collier’s excellent P-G column today about the apparent hypocrisy between the Steelers’ handling of the Jeff Reed situation versus the Santonio Holmes benching a season ago.

Personally, I’m not against the Steelers’ decision to dress Reed for the Minnesota game this weekend, and the team’s stance doesn’t appear to be egregiously unreasonable, but this decision taken in conjunction with the decision to bench Holmes a season ago after he was found to possess a small quantity of marijuana is more than a little eye-opening, and certainly calls for a better explanation than Mike Tomlin and the organization were willing to give.

At its heart, this story does continue to call into question the myth that the Steelers organization is somehow more noble than the rest of the league when it comes to character issues. They’re not the Bengals, and they never trip over their own feet Jerry Jones style to snap up ex-cons at a bargain price, but can we stop acting like this franchise is on some holy, untouchable pedestal when it comes to valuing some vague form of ‘integrity’ over practical football decisions?

Taking a moral stand is a lot easier when it doesn’t require signing a kicker for one week and depending on him to kick at Heinz Field against an unbeaten team in the midst of a tight division race. Plus he doesn’t have dreads.