Pirates Crow Eating Thread (I hear crow is delicious) (Pittsburgh: law, vs.)

[erieguy]

I said "sports history" not "in sports". However, by your calculations theyre in the top 6 since 1980?Cant argue with that success.

Time will tell. If you're that confident lay some money down on them. I'll continue to bet against them until they prove otherwise. I hope they can turn it around but until they prove otherwise they're still 1-20 in only counting winning seasons. There's no prize for that.

[sskink]

Time will tell indeed.

I no longer bet on things I can't control, so I stick to poker these days. It's a karmic thing since I went 15-for-15 during a college bowl spree awhile back. I bought a car with those winnings and it was bad luck, lol.

[erieguy]

Congrats on the car. Sounds like hope is bigger than confidence when it comes to the Bucs, and I couldn't agree more.

I hope they turn it around.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by erieguy

Time will tell. If you're that confident lay some money down on them. I'll continue to bet against them until they prove otherwise. I hope they can turn it around but until they prove otherwise they're still 1-20 in only counting winning seasons. There's no prize for that.

Nobody ever suggested there was a prize for that.

What I want to know is the importance of 21 years in the scheme of things. I have no love for the ownership of this or any other pro sports franchise. But I do not see how you can reasonably blame Nutting for the 15 years prior to 2007. This regime had to pick up from 15 years of crap and they've turned it. Yes, they did it without paying crazy money to big names. To be sustainable, it is arguable that is the only way they could have done it.

The Pirates over history have a better ratio of winning seasons to losing than the Steelers, despite the 20 straight losers. The Steelers do have the edge in overall win/loss percentage. Which really isn't surprising given how many games baseball plays. You don't usually see the dominating winning percentage in baseball seasons that can happen in some football seasons. The Steelers were mainly unsuccessful in their earliest years. The Pirates were pretty successful early in the franchise, including 15 straight winning seasons about 100 years ago. That their overall record is still more winning than losing DESPITE the 20 crap seasons speaks to just how successful they've been over history.

What, you say that's not relevant now? It's no less relevant than singling out the particular 21 seasons when predicting the future....

[Herodotus]

Originally Posted by sskink

Four appearances since 1980. They're 2-2.

Meantime...
New England: 7 (3-4)
San Francisco 6 (5-1)
NY Giants 5 (4-1)
Denver 5 (2-3)
Washington 4 (3-1)

Other teams with at least 2 SB wins since 1980: Dallas, Washington, Baltimore, Oakland, Denver, Green Bay.

So, since Noll, the Steelers aren't even top 5 in the NFL. Question answered with actual facts, not homer emotion.

The Montreal Canadiens aren't relevant much these days either. Lots of banners though.



The Yankees won't be playing post-season baseball for only the 2nd time in past 17 years. That's continued, sustainble success. In that same time frame, Steelers have missed playoffs 7 times. So let's not talk about "arguably most successful franchise in sports" because that's just silly (not to mention the Steelers were as much as a joke as the Pirates pre-merger).



I never said or even intimated that the Bucs were the equal of the Steelers in terms of recent history. What I noted was that the Bucs are on the rise and should be competitive for the next few years, while the Steelers likely won't be. Get used to it.

Nice that you pick the time frame that works the least well for the Steelers. Why not start from 1992, which was Cowher's first year? The Steelers have been to the Super Bowl 3 times since 2005. How many times has Washington been there since then. Zero, the Skins have been a non factor since 1992. Even in the so called "awful 80's", the Steelers were in the playoffs 4 times, and made an appearance in the AFC Championship game. Compare that to Cleveland's last decade, with one winning season, and no playoff appearances. That is bad football, and a poorly run franchise.
Comparing the Steelers to the Yankees doesn't work either. The Yankees operate in a sport with no salary cap, and have huge financial advantage due to the large amount of money that they get from local broadcast rights. Compare the Steelers to other football teams.

[erieguy]

Rationalization and hope does not change their lack of success into success for the future. When they prove otherwise I will be happy to admit I'm wrong and I hope they prove me wrong but I don't see it happening. The first step will be getting through the wild card game...and its a crap shoot as to whether they can do that.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by erieguy

Rationalization and hope does not change their lack of success into success for the future. When they prove otherwise I will be happy to admit I'm wrong and I hope they prove me wrong but I don't see it happening. The first step will be getting through the wild card game...and its a crap shoot as to whether they can do that.

Yeah. It's a crap shoot for anyone when you figure a really good team wins 60% of the time and a really bad team wins 40% of the time. Basically a coin flip--regardless of the teams involved--to see who goes on.

I personally don't think we are as good as the Cardinals, Braves, or Dodgers this year. But we're looking at a small sample size of games in which anything can happen.

[EastEnder1974]

It's been 21 years people. Enjoy the ride and appreciate what we haven't been able to witness in a generation.

[sskink]

Originally Posted by Herodotus

Comparing the Steelers to the Yankees doesn't work either. The Yankees operate in a sport with no salary cap, and have huge financial advantage due to the large amount of money that they get from local broadcast rights. Compare the Steelers to other football teams.

I picked 17 years since that's the current ESPN SportsCenter/MLB.com meme on the Yankees. 17 years. Didn't choose it to intentionally make the Steelers look bad, so don't get your cherry-picking panties all in a bunch. But, since you brought up the point that football has a salary cap and MLB doesn't, it kinda makes what the Bucs are doing all that more impressive now, don't it?

I did compare football to football earlier when I noted the Steelers were the beneficiary of other teams in their division being exceptionally incompetent (which you helped point out with your Cleveland example) in the Cowher/Tomlin era. In Cowher's 16 years, the Bengals had ONE winning season, same as the "new" Browns. The "old" Browns/Ravens had 6 winning seasons and 10 losing. The Oilers and Jags had 4 during the 10 years they were in the AFC Central. In short, the Steelers were the class of a pretty bad division for most of those years. It certainly wasn't the AL East in terms of competitiveness. Or the NL Central for that matter. The Ravens emergence during Tomlin's reign has made it less a cake-walk.

If you'd like some real cherry picking, you'd better hope that the Steelers win at least 4 games this season, otherwise Hurdle will have a better W-L% than Tomlin since Hurdle arrived in 2011. And if they don't win four, I'll be sure to remind you of it.

[erieguy]

How many winning seasons and World Series wins/appearances does Hurdle have as a head coach/manager?