Super Bowl XLV: Fear the Beard

Fear. The. Beard.

Almost as fantastic as my hometown Steelers heading to Super Bowl XLV is the tremendous campaign that has been waged in honor of Brett Keisel's glorious hairy upside-down mountain. As a bearded man myself, I can only look and marvel at what the Diesel has been able to accomplish, both on the field and on the face. And so, a few "beardisms" in the run-up to the big game. Feel free to add yours:

• When Brett Keisel's beard gets tangled with Polamalu's hair in a defensive pile-up, Alec Guiness feels a great disturbance in The Force.

• Michael Scofield used a hair plucked from Brett Keisel's beard to escape Soma prison.

• Brett Keisel does not have to wipe his nose in the winter. Snot spontaneously combusts upon coming into contact with Brett Keisel's beard. This is also why Brett Keisel does not require a napkin while eating.

• Brett Keisel's beard once got into a fight with Polamalu's hair while on a fishing boat. The resulting shockwave carved the Marianas Trench.

• Hairs that fall when Brett Keisel combs his beard are capable of recording two sacks and a forced fumble in a Pop Warner game.

• HAVE YOU HEARD?!?!? BRETT KEISEL JUST SHAVED HIS BEARD! When he did, out popped Tupac, Biggie, Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, the Loch Ness Monster's dried-up skeleton, D.B. Cooper, a working magic lamp and a dodo (partial credit to my boy Shady on that one)

• Stroking Brett Keisel's beard can cure The Ninja.

• Brett Keisel once jumped into the ocean while on vacation in New England. The resulting wave killed George Clooney and Marky Mark in "The Perfect Storm."

• Brett Keisel doesn't, in fact, have a beard. What you see on his face is simply an extension of his indestructible skeleton, which is constructed of BEARDAMANTIUM.

• The world's greatest scientists were able to stretch out a single strand of Brett Keisel's beard until it was 727 feet high and 1,244 feet across. That strand now plays defense against the Colorado River, and is commonly referred to as "The Hoover Dam."

• If you want to secure America's borders... weave a fence out of Brett Keisel's beard.

• Brett Keisel's beard isn't into the whole brevity thing

• Brett Keisel's beard does not shave - it has attained the power of invisibility.

To the Steeler nation — at least the fellas, or perhaps the girls with too much testosterone — if you aren't sporting the whiskers already, BEARD UP. Throw your hairy support behind Big Ben, The Beard and the whole Steelers squidder!

To get you pumped up for the game, here's a beat I cooked up as a tribute to the late Myron Cope, whose Steelers won the AFC Championship on his birthday. Perfect. (Link will be active until Jan. 30)

No, Terrell Suggs, ^$%! YOU.

"Hey Pittsburgh... we're gonna fold like a motherf*cking paper crane."

Oh dear sweet Lord, I can't really explain how satisfying it was to watch my Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens yesterday. I'll be the first person to say that if Terrell Suggs was a Steeler, I would love him. But he's a Raven. So f*ck'im.

Maybe during the offseason, he can get a t-shirt made that shows him crying into his overapplied eyeblack. Seriously, when does caked-on eyeblack go from mildly intimidating... to makeup? Maybe we can get you a little lip gloss, too, and I'll start calling you "Terelle."

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge just called from 1940, and called that sh*t "an epic collapse."

Steelers vs. Packers: It Never Felt So Good to Be At .500

WHEW!

Getting back to .500 never felt as good as this. True, it was an ugly game in which the Packers racked up yards almost at the same clip as the Steelers (final count for Big Ben, I believe, is 503 yards, 3 TDs), Mike Tomlin called for an inexplicable onside kick just as the Steelers took a 2-point lead and then managed to put together a game-winning drive thanks mainly to the Packers being the most-penalized team in the NFL.

I can't discount Ben's lights-out passing day, but consider this: Roethlisberger is having a career stat year... and the Steelers are only 7-7. A significant portion of that can be attributed to defensive injuries and the Ignominious-Yet-Ubiquitous Late-Game Defensive Breakdown, but it also speaks to a real difficulty with the run game, despite having an able running and possible rising star in Rashard Mendenhall.

Two things that Joe Buck mentioned stand out to me today (which is rare; the only thing that usually stands out is my everpresent hate of Joe Buck): Ben's career year, and the fact that not a single Steelers cornerback has had an interception this season. Not a one of 'em. That's terrible. Some of it is attributable to Polamalu being gone. He causes all kinds of havoc and - when he's not getting the INTs - opens things up for other D-backs to get INTs.

Stan Savran is describing on 'Steel City Postgame' right now how, in a massively-convoluted way, the Steelers can still squeeze into the wild-card spot. If they can win out over Baltimore and Miami, they can hand 'em both important losses. They need Denver to lose (they play the Eagles next week), and they need Jacksonville to lose (they play the Pats to close out the season).

I really don't even wanna think about it, or do the math.

So, without further ado, my dream off-season:

Gots-to-Go Situations

• William Gay - I've heard his name called too many times this season giving up big plays. He blew tackles allll day today.

• Willie Colon and possibly Max Starks - Again, their names come up every single week. Starks had an especially bad game today and has been fair-to-middling this year, but Colon specializes in the late-game, momentum-killing penalty, whether it's a false start or holding.

Probably Going

• Willie Parker - I love him, but he just hasn't been the same since he broke that leg. I have a feeling he'll probably be gone after this year.

Off-Season Moves

• Trade some combination of Colon, William Gay and Limas Sweed for one solid offensive lineman. Sweed is young, and he might have an upside yet to come, despite his "Nice hands, feet" performance this year.

• Use the draft picks to try and pick up one more solid addition to the O-line.

• This will probably never happen, because it's not the Rooneys' style, but I really think they should try and throw some cash at a shutdown corner. It's probably going to be a tough year for that; I'll admit I don't know who may be available in the offseason... but they can't go back to the days where teams just abandoned the running game and passed all day on the secondary. Rodgers went wild on 'em all day today.

• I have no solution for the special teams. Steelers just can't seem to do special teams. My only recommendation is trading for Josh Cribbs, so he can't run back two kicks every single &$^!ing game.