Yes … I’ve sensed your concern for my opinion by the way you focus on my posts. I remember the 80s well and have no more desire to relive that period in our football history than you do. Yes, I am concerned about our losses to substandard teams. I’m also aware that we are just two years removed from our last Super Bowl. So, Chicken Little, I think it’s a bit soon to declare that the sky is falling. But if you must, bob, by all means … carry on. Clearly, we are not going to achieve a meeting of the minds. And I take comfort in that.

Yes, a better offense would have produced a playoff berth this season. Duh. I think we all know that … which is exactly your problem. You’re under the illusion that no one else grasps that the defense topped the league while the offense failed to perform to expectations. And no matter how many times the rest of us criticize Ben or the offense or some of Tomlin’s decisionmaking, it’s never enough for you unless we hate them with the same doggedness you display. Sorry … not happening.

I’m not blind, nor an amnesiac–I remember Cowher’s flaws as well as his successes. And I don’t live in a fantasy world where my team is dirt unless they win the Super Bowl every year.

“We” merely means I identify as part of a collective. The organization includes owners, coaches, players, and fans. Without fans, the organization–owners, coaches, players, and so on–would not exist. I am one with the Steelers, the Crimson Tide, Americans, women, writers, and people who love Jack Bauer. When it comes to worship, however, I limit myself to God.

After six seasons, Mike Tomlin is coaching his own team. And the spoiling of Ben Roethlisberger took place on Bill Cowher’s watch, a criticism I’m able to make while still maintaining my affection for Cowher. Somehow I think you’re confusing objectivity with superiority in thinking that because you criticize the current coaching staff and players it makes you wiser than the rest of us. No … it just makes you hypercritical.

Sounds to me like you’re the one with the sensitivity issue. I asked a simple question: You constantly characterize yourself as a Steelers observer. Are you a fan of the team, or not? If you actually absorbed my posts, you’d see I’m both a diehard fan and objective critic. In fact, I posted the other day that the best thing for Pittsburgh would be for the Ravens to win the Lombardi on Joe Flacco’s arm. Great cure for complacency in the team and the QB.

It’s one thing to be objective about your team’s faults. It’s another to simply dislike the current coach and QB, and to act as the resident curmudgeon.

You refer to yourself as a longtime Steelers observer, but I’m curious to know whether you’re a fan of the team or just a critic. While I agree with many of your observations, your comment here on special teams doesn’t stand up. Coaches make lateral moves for a variety of reasons. And no matter how stable the life of a head coach in Pittsburgh, it’s never been a comfortable place for special teams coaches. Cowher was especially rough on his ST coaches, going through four in his tenure, firing one and having two make lateral moves to escape him.