Keisel 3:16... I Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription is More Beard

• When the Packers hold 'Game Night' and play Clue, there is only one suspect: Brett Keisel, in the backfield, with the beard.

• If Bam Morris had Brett Keisel's beard, he would have had a much better place to hide all that weed.

• If Neil O'Donnell had Brett Keisel's beard, no one would know who the f*ck Larry Brown is.

• Legend has it that Brett Keisel's beard is what enabled Cortes to conquer ancient Mexico. The Aztecs mistook it for their supreme god, Keizelcoatl.

• Sidney Crosby's Frito Bandito pube-'stache wants to be Brett Keisel's beard when it grows up.

• Brett Keisel's beard can fold a piece of paper in half eight times.

• Brett Keisel's beard is so frightening, it's not a beard. It's a feard.

• If Bill Buckner had Brett Keisel's beard... ironically, no one would know who Bill Buckner was. Kind of funny how that one works.

• SPOILER ALERT: In the season finale of "Big Love," Brett Keisel's beard beats up Bill Paxton and takes all his wives.

• If Stringer Bell had Brett Keisel's beard, Brother Mouzone really would be selling beanpies. In a wheelchair.

• Brett Keisel's beard once appeared on NBC's "Minute to Win It." In 27 seconds, it kicked Guy Fieri's stupid bi-colored, tri-pronged beard's ass, took his girl and ate his food.

• Brett Keisel cannot braid his beard. If he does, he will spontaneously sprout two large horns and spend Super Bowl week pillaging the greater Arlington area.

• While at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg befriended a janitor who was fired from the Steelers' training facility for locker-room theft. The man sold Zuckerberg a single hair from Brett Keisel's beard, which he ground into powder and snorted. Two hours later, he created Facebook.

Super Bowl Week: Oh, the Irony...

I find it highly ironic that Matt Hasselbeck is involved in this "anti-pornography" Super Bowl party. Particularly when you consider that the only redeeming thing about him is how badly I want to see a picture of his sister-in-law's breasts. (In a lovely case of double-irony, that's also the only redeeming thing about her.)

My Brett Keisel Beardisms Beat Your Brett Keisel Beardisms' Ass and Took Their Lunch Money

Oh, really? Brett Keisel's beard could kick Chuck Norris's beard's ass? Wooow. Took you half an hour to think that one up? STEP YOUR GAME UP.

• Some states execute death-row inmates with the electric chair. In Utah, they rub a balloon on Brett Keisel's beard and touch your nose.

• "In my country, I see great men with great beard. Brett Keisel beard is greatest beard of ages. Thanks, Dan." - Evgeni Malkin

• Filtered tap water is not clean enough for Brett Keisel's beard. Brett Keisel's beard makes its own water. The hardest part is keeping the oxygen in the bowl.

• Schindler saved all those Jews by hiding them in Brett Keisel's beard. But Steven Spielberg on his high horse, he won't make a movie about a heroic hair mountain. That's racist.

• If you have five dollars and Brett Keisel's beard has five dollars, Brett Keisel's beard has more money than you. In fact, now Brett Keisel's beard has ten dollars. Punk.

• If Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears had Brett Keisel's beard, they wouldn't have been so embarassed by those paparazzi shots.

• Brett Keisel's beard's favorite movies are "To Kill a Mockingbeard," "Beard Science," "Beard and Present Danger" and "The Big Lebeardski." And "Rocky IV."

• If Brett Keisel's beard had a voice, it would sound like a combination of Darth Vader, Barry White, Howlin' Wolf and Godzilla.

• When Brett Keisel braids his beard, every Norwegian woman in a 99-mile radius simultaneously becomes sexually excited.

• A foolish man once tried to produce a likeness of Brett Keisel's beard using a Wooly Willy. A bolt of lightning struck his left testicle. Brett Keisel's beard does not tolerate such insolence.

• Brett Keisel's beard can watch '60 Minutes' in 20 minutes.

• "Damn, that thing is hairy." - Signed, 1970s Porn Stars

• "Brett Keisel's beard is out of control." - Sincerely, the 1992 L.A. Riots

• If Abraham Lincoln had Brett Keisel's beard... well... he'd still be dead, but you see where I'm going with this: Brett Keisel's beard can deflect bullets.

• "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy beard. Thy facial hair come, thy will be done, in Arlington as it is in Pittsburgh. In the name of Keisel's Beard, Omar Epps and the Rooney Family. Fear the beard. Amen."

• When Aaron Rodgers' beard saw Brett Keisel's beard, it ran to Mississippi, grabbed a clipboard and hid in Brett Favre's 5'o'clock shadow for three years.

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)

Steelers vs. Browns: The End of the Season is Nigh...

The proper words fail me...

So much for any chance of a Steelers Super Bowl repeat.

I started getting that sinking feeling last week with the Oakland loss. It was a slight tickle in the back of my brain when we dropped one to Kansas City, but I wrote that off as a fluke, even though really it was yet another case of Defense - Polamalu = FUBAR. And you could even rationalize The Big Gradkowski's win, what with the CBS commentators yapping on and on about Oakland being a real scrapper of a team.

But a loss to the always-hated-but-more-recently-not-even-so-much-of-a-rival-anymore Cleveland Browns, in which Roethlisberger was sacked five times in the first half? In which the Steelers put up a pathetic six points against the worst team in the NFL?

Unacceptable. To be perfectly honest, I can't even give an intelligent account of why I think they lost the game. I was too busy watching the Penguins come back twice against Montreal. And I gotta say, with the Steelers season basically over at this point barring at least three miracles, including a Lost-style plane crash involving the entire Baltimore Ravens team and David Garrard lapsing into a spontaneous sleep-induced coma, it's nice to have hockey. I haven't watched it since I was probably 15, and got back into it during the Stanley Cup runs.

As for the Steelers, I'm not sure what to say. It will be great to have Polamalu back next season, but he's getting older, and with two knee injuries in one season, I hate to say it, but I don't know how much longer he can be freewheeling around like a maniac. They have to get better players for the secondary. Bryant McFadden was a great corner during the Super Bowl run, and unfortunately, Ike Taylor's star-turn year in 2008 looks to have been a high-water mark. Tyrone Carter has done his best to try and fill Polamalu's shoes, but he's a second-stringer at best. William Gay? That's a gots-to-go situation. He fell apart trying to step up with Troy out.

On offense - and makes me weep to say it - I think Fast Willie Pee is probably moving on in one way or another. I love him, and he made me scream like a little girl in Super Bowl XL, but since the broken leg, he's just not the same. Mendenhall stepped up just the way we all hoped he would, and I'd love to see Colbert pick up a big bruiser-style back to set up Mendenhall and Moore. The receiving game is solid. I don't know if Hines is going to retire or not, but Mike Wallace and Santonio have the potential to be the best wideout combo in the league, between their shared speed and skill.

What I'd hope for in the off-season:

• At least one solid O-lineman to shore things up. Get Willie Colon outta there.

• A bigass running back, like Lendale White or Brandon Jacobs (and not ONE of them, one LIKE them)

• Help in the secondary

I've come to the unfortunate realization that the Steelers' special teams is just fucked. No matter what. They just can't get it done. I have no possible solution.

With the injuries, it's hard to call this a "hangover" season. The Steelers are just a mediocre team in a year when there are a lot of better-than-average teams, particularly in the AFC.

GO PENS!!!