Steelers MMQB: NFL Offseason News

What We Learned This Week in the NFL Offseason:

NFL starts off the 4^th of July weekend with a host of PED suspensions
Giants Pierre-Pal injured in fireworks accident
Dumervil aiming for sack record and Super Bowl in Baltimore
Building the perfect quarterback
All-Modern Era Steelers

Many consider the 4^th of July holiday weekend being the apex of summer. From now on the vacations will be wrapping up, kids will be getting ready to go back to school and, more importantly, training camps will be opening up in a few short weeks.

I thought it was just vitamins, I swear

If you’re a player in the NFL and managed to escape this weekend without a suspension to start the season, congratulations. Some big-time names came out on Thursday as the NFL announced who has been popped for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances.

New York Jets Sheldon Richardson, former Defensive Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowler who has led the Jets in sacks the last season was suspended for violating the PED policy. He’ll miss the Jets’ first four games.

San Diego Chargers TE Antonio Gates, a potential HOF’er and Philip Rivers’ security blanket for the past ten years or so will also miss the first four games of the season for texting positive for PEDs. The Dallas Cowboys got popped for linebacker Rolando McClain and the Green Bay Packers will be without the services of DE Datone Jones for one game.

You’ll shoot your eye out

You see it happen on the news every year some jagoff sets his hand or worse on fire playing with fireworks he’s not qualified to play with. This year it happened to New York Giants Defensive End Jason Pierre-Paul.

NFL Media weasel Ian Rapoport reported that Saturday night, JPP suffered an injury to his hand whilst attempting to light fireworks in the name of our great country’s independence.

Here’s JPP’s Instagram video with his unamused son bragging about his U-Haul truck’s worth of fire power earlier in the day.

The Giants franchise tagged JPP this offseason and he has not signed the $14.8 million tender, which means he’s technically not under contract. Hopefully for JPP’s sake, his hand injury isn’t that serious.

Dumervil setting sights high

After being cut by the Denver Broncos in one of the most epically hilarious free agency fails involving a late fax, Elvis Dumervil has had a relatively quiet career so far with the Baltimore Ravens. He’s just ten sacks away from hitting the 100-mark for his career but you can hardly pick out any member of the Ravens defense because Terrell Suggs’ gums block everyone out in the team picture.

Now that Ray Lewis is gone from jumping on the pile after a play has been made and taking all the credit, Dumervil is enjoying a steady and low-key career of being one of the top 5 pass rushers in the league for sacks. Only Justin Houston and J.J. Watt had more sacks last season than Dumervil.

Dumervil told The Baltimore Sun during minicamp that if he breaks the single-season sack record held by Michael Strahan, that’ll mean the Ravens will be in the Super Bowl.

"“If I can hit that number, that’ll mean we’ll be in the Super Bowl for sure. You try to win games, you try to win championships. To me, there’s nothing more important, because you can have the stats and accolades, but if you’re sitting home, it really doesn’t do any justice.” – Elvis Dumervil"

The object would be to have more sacks than Flacco interceptions, Elvis. That will give you a better shot at the Super Bowl than just the sack record itself.

We can make him stronger, we have the technology

NFL senior media analyst Gil Brandt decided he was going to take a little bit of each of the top quarterbacks in the NFL to build himself the perfect quarterback. He decided that the perfect quarterback would have Aaron Rodgers’ accuracy, the toughness of Ben Roethlisberger, probably his improvisational skills as well.

The perfect quarterback would have the mental quickness of Peyton Manning, probably his comedic skills on top of that, the leadership ability of Tom Brady, he can lead people to do anything for him, can’t he? The perfect quarterback would also have the athleticism of Cam Newton, the touch of Drew Brees, the arm of Matthew Stafford, the running ability of Russell Wilson and the competitiveness of Andrew Luck.

Just left one thing out. Wouldn’t the perfect quarterback need to have the eliteness of Joe Flacco? Anyone? I know Jamison Hensley is with me on this one.

Steelers All-Modern Era lineup

Steelers writer Bob Labriola spent the last week or so assembling the complete lineup for the Steelers All-Modern Era Team. To avoid having any kind of debates on whether to take Bradshaw over Roethlisberger or Swan over Brown the team was built on the careers of Steelers players from 1992 until the present. The lineup is a fantasy football dream.

On offense the team is quarterbacked by Ben Roethlisberger. The offensive line consists of Marvel Smith, Maurkice Pouncey, Dermontti Dawson, Alan Faneca and Max Starks. Antonio Brown and Hines Ward are your receivers and Jerome Bettis and Le’Veon Bell are your running backs.

The specialists include Josh Miller at punter, Antwaan Randle El as kick returner, and Jeff Reed at kicker and Greg Warren as the long snapper. The defense will make you drool a bit. It features Rod Woodson, Ike Taylor, Carnell Lake and Troy Polamalu in the secondary. The linebackers are Greg Lloyd and James Harrison on the outside with James Farrior and Joey Porter on the inside.

The defensive line is comprised of Cameron Heyward and Aaron Smith on the ends with Big Snack Casey Hampton at nose tackle. I’d like to see that defense up against the Ravens and Patriots offense any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Next: Steelers TD Formula: Ben to Bryant