FOR THE LOVE OF SPORTS: May 2009

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Lions suck, Steelers awesome

good stuff from yahoo! sports....

Surprise, surprise: The Lions and Steelers do things differently

By MJD

Larry Foote (notes), who spent last season with the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers, just got his first taste of action with the Detroit Lions. This might come as a shock to you, but the six-time world champion Steelers and the perennially downtrodden Lions take a different approach to things. From MLive.com:

"There are a lot of curse words going on," Foote told Matt Shepard on WDFN-AM Detroit. "I think I heard more f-bombs in one day than I have in five years."
[...]
"It's a lot different from Pittsburgh," Foote said. "I don't know if it was the new coaches or the new staff, but it was military style yesterday. Pittsburgh is a little bit more laid back."

I guess that stands to reason. More f-bombs are required in Detroit because there are more players who are f-bomb-ing terrible at playing f-bomb-ing football.

Still, just because that's how the Lions do it, it doesn't mean that that's the wrong way to do it. With Pittsburgh, you have mostly veteran guys who know what they're doing, and they don't need to be screamed at like children. And if someone does get out of line, there are veteran players to set him straight. They can afford to take a more relaxed approach in May.

With Detroit, it's a whole different culture. It's more of a blank slate; with younger players, worse players and players who require more coaching (or the repeated and bloodthirsty screaming of profanity, as the case may be). There's a reason that new defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham and his shooting glasses need to yell four-letter words other than "Pull!"

Enjoy your new culture, Larry Foote.