Tag Archives: steelers

Blue-Collar Super Bowl Threatened by Strict Shift Supervisors

sbxlv.pngDALLAS–This year’s Super Bowl, already billed as the most blue-collar Big Game ever, may be jeopardized by supervisors at some of the players’ day jobs. Members of both the Steelers and Packers may miss the game due to employment obligations.

“I wanna get to Dallas ASAP, but my manager’s been riding my ass for months,” said Pittsburgh running back Rashard Mendenhall in a phone interview from a Firestone plant in Beaver Falls, PA. “He’s saying I might have to cover some shifts that weekend, since Charlie in receiving broke his leg and Tony’s on Guard duty this month, and we got this huge shipment of whitewalls coming in. I’d just call in but I used my last sick day the Monday after we beat the Ravens.”

Mendenhall could not address any follow-up questions because his 15-minute smoke break had ended. “You ain’t gettin’ paid to goldbrick,” said Mendenhall’s supervisor, Frank Lichtman, before hanging up the phone.

In total, the Steelers have six players who can’t commit to making a trip to the Super Bowl “until I can swap some shifts,” three who are “just hopin’ my boss don’t pull a fast one,” and two more who say, “it depends on if I can get some overtime this week, man.” This puts a serious damper on the championship hopes of a team already dealing with injuries. Three-fifths of Pittsburgh’s offensive line was lost for the season by a tragic heat-tapping accident down at The Mill.

Green Bay has fewer issues with securing time off, since most of their players work at the team’s eponymous meat packing business. However, an outbreak of e. coli at the facility last month caused several players to lose significant muscle mass. Others have had to play through an as-yet unidentified neurological disease that may be cause by incidental ingestion of porcine spinal fluid when operating the assembly line’s “brain hose.”

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers, now 30 pounds lighter than he was at the beginning of the season, has called on the plant to provide workers with face masks, which could cut down on such outbreaks. Such a move angrily dismissed by his shift supervisor, Chuck Nelson. “You think we’re made a money over here, mister?”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has asked managers to “take it easy” on Super Bowl-bound employees this week, though he added, “We all know how important it is to get the JL-157 line out the door this week.”

Rex Ryan, Master Motivator

rex.jpgNo, I don’t think the AFC Championship is gonna be a letdown game at all. Whoever wins this wins a trip to the Super Bowl. You can’t get up for that, might as well quit football right now.

Sure, we’re not trash-talking the Steelers like we did the Patriots, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get motivated for this game. My tactic is tell my team that Pittsburgh is full of bad guys. Like really, really bad guys, and we gotta get em and throw em in jail.

What kind of bad guys? I dunno, maybe bank robbers, or ninjas. Every time you tackle them, they get one Jail Point. If you tackle somebody 10 times, they gotta go to jail. Jail is either gonna be the locker room or this really big rock. We haven’t decided yet.

And I’m gonna tell my men that the hash marks are deadly poisonous snakes, and if you step on em, you’re dead. And also the end zone is lava, but if you go in there while holding a football, it can’t hurt you. Oh, and you’re totally safe if you’re standing on the sidelines, but if someone comes off of the field and touches you, you have to stay frozen for like five minutes.

Why are we gonna win this game? Because we got a great defense, we got a great ground game, we’ve got a lot of last-minute wins under our belt, and also the commissioner told me totally get a pizza party if we win this game.

What’s that? Ben Roethlisberger called no-backsies-no-givesies? You can’t do that before the game starts! That butthead!

2010 AFC North Preview, by Big Dawg

With the NFL season about to kickoff, Scratchbomb has asked a few luminaries to give us their takes on the upcoming football season. Next up, Cleveland Browns superfan John “Big Dawg” Thompson.

browns.jpgWho, me? You’re not gonna ask somebody from somewhere else?

You’re goddamn serious? *sigh* Okay, great here we go. Whoopee.

Yeah, I’m excited about this season. Gonna be great watching Jake Delhomme do the…thing…with the football. Mike Holmgren should be able to, um, do some things with this…team.

Gonna be tough, of course. The Ravens have Joe Flacco and Ray Lewis and Ray Rice, but we’ve got Colt McCoy!

And the Steelers have won two Super Bowls in the last five seasons and Troy Polamalu looks healthy again. But hey, Cleveland’s got Bobby Engram.

And the Bengals have T.O. and Ochocinco and Carson Palmer, but the Browns…the Browns have…

FUCK YOU! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO ASK ME TO DO THIS?! FUCK YOU IN HALF! YOU SEE THIS DOG MASK? IT ISN’T A MASK ANYMORE! I GOT PLASTIC SURGERY TO MAKE MY FACE LOOK LIKE THIS! I DID THIS FOR A FOOTBALL TEAM! A HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FOOTBALL TEAM! WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

At least Cleveland still has the best basketball player in the world. OH WAIT, NO WE DON’T. HE SHIT ALL OVER US TO PLAY SECOND FIDDLE IN MIAMI. LEBRON WOULD RATHER BE #2 THERE THAN #1 HERE. THANK GOD WE DON’T HAVE A HOCKEY TEAM, BECAUSE THEY’D JUST SHIT ALL OVER MY DREAMS, TOO!

WHY DO YOU THINK I GOT CAUGHT ON A DUI RAP LAST YEAR? I JUST WANT THIS VALE OF TEARS TO END! LET ME DIE AND COME BACK AS AN ASSHOLE COWBOYS FAN AND MAYBE I’LL KNOW HAPPINESS IN THE NEXT LIFE! ARRRRRRRRRGH!

You know what, though, I think Josh Cribbs is gonna have a monster year, I can just feel it.