Take this article with a grain of salt; it is obviously meant to ruffle feathers. It’s a series on why every team sucks, so whatever. That isn’t the problem with this article.
The problem is the woefully inaccurate picture it paints of modern-day Pittsburgh. LET’S BREAK THIS SH*T DOWN, EH? (jump; strong language inside)
One of the first things they take issue with is the “Here we go” chant:
“HEY WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO (CLAP CLAP). Go to any Steelers bar and you will hear that chant—that breathtakingly dumb chant”
You know, as opposed to Jets or Eagles fans, who prove that they can correctly spell the name of their team. It’s a chant- who cares?
“And the worst part about Steelers fans is that they think you like them.”
No, we’ve actually had the internet for over a decade now and you have all made us well aware of how you feel about us.
“Most Steelers fans are supremely arrogant, mistaken in the belief that their town, their team, is far tougher than yours.”
Guilty as charged. Steeler fans ARE supremely arrogant overall. I’m no exception; I get caught up in it too.
“This team is a fucking museum.”
Oh, players aged. What a horrible place Pittsburgh is, unlike glorious [wherever this author is from] where the tap water is from the fountain of youth and players stay 26 years old forever. This is a legitimate concern from a football perspective, but this article surrendered talking about football a while ago now.
“Tebow owns you. Remember, this is the team that let Tim Tebow throw for 316 yards on it in the playoffs.”
Running out of things to criticize I see.
“5. Hear it from Steelers fans!”
In this section, we will see the 50/50 split between truth and “my dad is a Browns fan and he saw Pittsburgh once in 1985 and hated it”
“Have you met our fan base? We’re terrible people. We’re smug idiots who honestly believe we’re the league’s best franchise. “
Truth! Far too many people in Pittsburgh seriously believe the Steelers aren’t just one of 32 teams in the league; they’re somehow better and they are a model franchise. They aren’t. They’re another team competing for a trophy. They have better-than-average management.
“Everyone hates the Steelers because of the constant douchebaggery of their fans. This is not about being a rabid fan. Green Bay has rabid fans – and everyone loves Green Bay.”
The Bears would like a word.
“STEELER NATION, we say…honestly believing that people the world over just love the Steelers to pieces. LIE. The reason there are so many Steeler fans annoying you in your town is they moved there from Pittsburgh thirty years ago and bred like vermin. Moved, mind you, because THERE ARE NO JOBS IN PITTSBURGH.”
This is maybe the most incorrect point, and it is recurring throughout the article. In the 1980s, the steel industry fell on hard times, and Pittsburgh, being a steel town, predictably suffered. Many people moved away for the sake of a career, and they maintained their allegiance to Pittsburgh sports. For some reason I guess that’s bad, but whatever, we’re not really trying to make SENSE here. But just from basic writing and journalism, there is a clear issue here: People moved away thirty years ago (past tense!) because there are no jobs here (present tense!)
You really think we’ve just been sitting around doing nothing for thrity years? The steel industry faltered so now the whole city is an abandoned steel mill in a trailer park? Are there no universities here? Have the technology and medical industries taken leaps and bounds based on work in Pittsburgh? Go ahead and read this, because obviously in researching things for an article, Deadspin didn’t. What an embarrassment. Get an editorial process.
“There is no joy in being a Steeler fan”
You misspelled ‘Browns.’
“Most people hate the Steelers and it has nothing to do with what the team does, it’s because 75% of the fan base is made up of camo hatted truck drivin’ Appalachian dumbfucks.”
You were on the right track and you blew it. Surprising fact: most of Pittsburgh’s population is located in the metropolitan area, not in small mountain villages. HOW WEIRD.
“The same sect loves talking about how the organization does things “The Steeler Way” because this superficial bullshit has somehow become the rationale behind every decision the front office makes.”
Okay, there you go. The myth about us being special somehow, and not just another football team. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to dislike, and maybe you-
“Die Shitsburgh! Ooh look how clever we spelled it just how the jackasses pronounce it too. Fuck off stillrz! “
Wait, what. That is its own segment in the middle of this article. Huh?
“I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania which is a hillier version of Central Alabama.”
Says someone who has never been to central Alabama.
“God help up Dan Dierdorf says that Steeler fans travel well, I want to jump through the set and strangle them—STEELER FANS DON’T TRAVEL, BECAUSE TRAVEL CARRIES THE RISK OF OPENING YOUR MIND!!! All those Steeler fans already live in those cities because good luck finding a decent fucking job anywhere near Pittsburgh, especially if you came through shitty Western PA schools.”
Yeah I hate Dan Dierdorf too, but at least my school taught me how to use verb tenses, you neanderthal.
“Any time TV pundits talk about the Steelers, they have to reference their commitment to “Smashmouth Football.””
Blame the announcers, then. I didn’t start that. And guess what? It annoys everyone equally when the announcers react to the Steelers’ first pass completion of every game with the timeless, “Man these aren’t your dad’s Steelers! They throw footballs too! How about that?!”
“Firstly, most blue collar guys I know in the real world are pretty lazy and take a 15 minute break every hour.”
Just like the dude who put together this article.
“Listening to announcers love to squeal about “Ben” hanging onto the ball for too long and OMG LOOGIT HOW HE TURNS SOMETHING INTO NOTHING!!! NO OTHER QUARTERBACK IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE CAN DO WHAT HE JUST DID!!”
Again with the announcers? I don’t understand where you are going here.
“I think Tom Brady does just fine by doing the opposite: you know, correctly reading the defense and making quick, accurate passes.”
John Elway did just fine, too. You can play football more than one exact way.
“I’m a lifelong Steelers fan but nothing bothers me more about the fans than the holier-than-thou attitude.”
Back on track! This guy knows what’s up.
“Let’s be honest: if you are from Pittsburgh there is only one reason to root for the Steelers: They are not the Pirates.”
Nobody actually likes football or anything. Everything we do is based on the Pittsburgh Pirates, because that makes sense in the bizarre mind of the idiot who said this.
“[Ben] is ALWAYS hurt. The reason: Because he doesn’t throw the fucking ball. Oh sure, he hits a receiver with some autistic savant pass that should never be completed”
Yeah, screw that guy for doing his job and throwing the football to open receivers.
“but more often than not he gets sacked and the “pundits” decry the offensive line when it Ben’s fault.”
Ben completes more passes than he takes sacks. This is just a silly statement.
“Dick LeBeau is apparently a fucking legend and yet year after year QB’s pick apart the secondary. I swear the guy has to be senile, as he looks clueless trying to decipher his drunken/Alzheimer’s scribbles on the play card”
Forget the fact that they’re a top-2 defense every year, I SAW A PLAYER CATCH A PASS FOR A TOUCHDOWN DICK LEBEAU DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING.
“People fled the area in droves it lost 100,000s of people in the 70s and 80s for a reason: IT SUCKS. That’s why we all live in the past. Because that is all the city has, that and poverty and alcohol, which they drink at abandoned steel mills.”
These verb tenses again, that my shitty Western PA education taught me how to actually use and interpret! I guess everyone in the city just watches VHS recordings of games from the 70s, ignores the 05 and 08 championships, and again, an insultingly stupid portrayal of modern Pittsburgh. We’re working on curing diseases and disabilities but MY UNCLE WENT TO PITTSBURGH IN 1982 AND HE SAID THERE WERE HOMELESS PEOPLE WITH WHISKEY BOTTLES LYING IN THE STREET AND NO ONE COULD BREATHE BECAUSE THE AIR IS 85% COAL.
Also: The Waterfront was never developed, the cost of living is too prohibitive to afford anything but cheap liquor, and Lord Xenu sealed alien ghosts in volcanoes.
Look, some of these complaints are accurate. Mainly the ones about Steeler fans being arrogant. I get that. That’s fine. Success breeds two things: arrogant fans, and external hatred. Plenty of that is evident here. I bet there’s a similar issue in Boston, where all of their major sports teams have won championships in the past decade. That’s fine. I hate Boston fans, too. It’s okay.
What’s not okay is to just make up things about a city and its people. Pittsburgh has an excellent quality of living overall. There are very nice (even upscale!) neighborhoods just as much as there are Hill Districts (which, by the way, has begun improving). To say that Pittsburgh is just some awful little town that still lives in the Great Depression is lazy. There are a ton of creative things you could say about the actual Steelers (surprisingly few Ben-Rapistberger jokes) but instead, the only thing they consistently attack is the city itself. People who have been to Pittsburgh know it’s nice. People who haven’t since the mid-80s are quoted in this article.
I’m all for trash talk and hating other teams. But focusing on problems you made up for a city where the team plays is lazy and it doesn’t work. Detroit fell on hard economic times and the Red Wings won Stanley Cups. Even if half the stuff they made up about Pittsburgh were true, that would have nothing to do with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Normally I hate the awful homer Steeler fans as much as anyone else. But once I realize that those same exact people exist on the opposite end of the spectrum, I want to side with the entitled yinzers who think they’re better than everyone else. Because the representative group of “everyone else” is pretty embarrassing in their own right.
Now I’m going to back to work at the job I have even though I live in the apparently povery-stricken wasteland of western Pennsylvania.
