Author: William DePaoli

Sidney Crosby: Welcome to Mario’s Lemieux’s world. Think back to the mid & late 80’s when Mario was clearly establishing himself as the greatest player in the game at that time. Yes even better than The Great One. Game after game Mario was getting hacked, cross-checked, and mugged all game from the opposing teams goons. Guess what, Mario like our young superstar Sidney Crosby had to defend his self. The team and management did nothing about it until the cup years. If Mario could have gotten the Wayne Gretzsky treatment (if you lay a finger on Gretz the whole Oilers team will be jumping the bench coming after you) maybe he doesn’t have the back problem’s he had and i guarntee you if Mario was 100% healthy in the 90’s this franchise ends up with 4 or 5 Stanley Cups instead of two. So you get my drift. Now don’tRead More »

Breaking news Craig Patrick has announced today that right winger Ziggy Palffy has retired from the game of hockey immediately. His contract will not count against the cap anymore…. Also the Pens have acquired defenseman Eric Cairns from Florida for a 6th round pick… more on Palffy and the pick up of Cairns in the morning

Bill Cowher the longest tenured coach with one team in the NFL, in his 14th year is one of the leagues most successfull coaches during that time. In 14 seasons Cowher has earned 10 playoff berths, 8 division titles , 1 super bowl ( 0-1 ) appearance and has reached the AFC Championship game 5 times compiling a record of 1-4. A record that gives him the name, a coach that can’t win the big game. Coach Cowher preaches hard work, dedication and you will play Steeler football. That means you play Bill Cowher football, old school kind of football. Coming into this season with Ben Roethlisberger being their franchise quarterback I wondered is Bill Cowher ever going to change his stubborn ways and let his franchise quarterback actually win games for him, instead of just letting him manage games. The first couple weeks were frustrating, when you see BenRead More »

Sunday January 22 Pittsburgh at Denver 3:00 p.m. Steelers 21 – Colts 18 No matter what station I tuned into this week, every so call expert was picking the Colts to defeat the Steelers. I didn’t have a problem with that at all, except for the fact many of them were saying the Steelers had absolutely no chance. That was very disturbing, many of those so called experts seem to forgot that Big Ben missed 4 weeks of the season. If he doesn’t miss that length of time this team finishes with a record around 14-2 – 13-3. This team is not your normal #6 seed and they proved it Sunday afternoon. Now to the game, Like I said coming into the playoffs for this team to go far into the playoffs Roethlisberger was going to have to be phenomenal and he has been just that. The Steelers attacked theRead More »

Like I said, Seattle and Denver would advance and they sure did. After a sluggish first half, then losing Shaun Alexander for the game, Seattle stayed focused and pulled out the victory. Redskins 10 – Seahawks 20 Denver wasn’t able to establish the run like I thought they were going to be able to, but Jake Plummer produced when they needed him to and the Broncos took advantage of the Patriots costly mistakes. The Patriots Reign at the top ends. Patriots 13 – Broncos 27 My predictions for Sundays matchup’s as follows, Steelers vs Colts 1 p.m.The Steelers get their second crack at the Colts after getting beaten in every aspect of the game 26-7 on week 12. This will be a much different game. The biggest matchup of the game will be Peyton Manning vs Troy Polamalu. In the week 12 meeting, Polamalu was very unpredictable and confused ManningRead More »

My predictions for this weekend as follows, Redskins at Seahwaks. Washington is peaking at the right time winning 6 in a row, after the tough win on the road against Tampa Bay last saturday. For the skins to be successfull, they will need to control the ball with Clinton Portis, and make a few big plays to stay in this game. Despite Seattle’s explosive and dynamic offense, the skins D will keep them in the game, but the the skins offense will struggle,and i dont see Mark Brunell making enough plays down field in the 4th quarter. That will be the difference in this game. Seahawks advance to the NFC Championship Redskins 17 – Seahawks 27 Patriots at Broncos The Patroits come into to Denver with tons of confidence and they have that swagger back that has brought them 3 superbowls in 4 seasons. The Pats take on a DenverRead More »

The question around town lately has been, whose the blame for this mess that is the Penguins. The obvious choice a month ago was Edzo with his firing, but as we have seen of late, he wasn’t the only problem. Half way through the season the Pens are at the bottom of the standings and I put the blame on Craig Patrick. Mario had faith in him and gave him sole control on who to bring in this summer, and what kind of team to construct in the new NHL. This offseason was Patrick’s dream, he had his CBA he wanted, the young stud superstar in Sidney Crosby, most of all he had money to spend with only 7 million committed to players going into the free agency period, with management saying there projected payroll was going to be around 30-33 million. Well Craig Patrick surely did spend that money,Read More »

The Pittsburgh Steelers come into the playoffs peaking and will be a darkhorse in the playoffs. It looks like to me that the bengals already won their own super bowl by getting to the playoffs for the first time since 1990. The Bengals run D is just awefull and i see a game resemblence to the first meeting between the two teams. The Key to advancing deep into the playoffs for this team is the play of Big Ben and Joey Porter. If Ben plays the way he did against the Browns this team will win the Super Bowl if he plays average this team doesn’t get past the first round. Joey Porter is the key for the playoffs , mark it down you read it here. This guy has had a average season, but he still can be dominating, i believe he will be in the playoffs, the playerRead More »