Fan Frustration

Call me old fashioned, but I like when my teams win. And not just win, but win easily. Comfortably.  And call me spoiled, but I expect the football teams that I follow (Notre Dame in College Football and the Steelers in the NFL) to win. A lot.  When you support two teams of this caliber, you become accustomed to winning. Granted, there is the occasional blip or two but for the most part you can generally bank on the likes of the Steelers to be in the hunt for a championship when the playoffs roll around (maybe not so much Notre Dame)

In Notre Dame’s case, their campaign to date has been underwhelming. An electric home win over arch rival Michigan aside, Notre Dame have been flat. And as much as I love them, I don’t think they deserve to be ranked at #8 nationally. Back to back games against unranked opponents that should have been easy wins were a lot closer than desired. The Defense has been stout, creating key turnovers whereas offense the offense has been far from impressive, save for a few big plays. The Irish will be tested in 2 weeks’ time when the 7^th ranked Stanford come to South Bend. If they want to have any hope of being considered in the same sentence as Clemson and Alabama.  From a fans perspective, we should have blown out Ball State and Vanderbilt. We showed have buried them. But instead we had to watch a Quarterback consistently miss throws and act exasperated about it. Just imagine how we feel watching you buddy.

As for the Steelers, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on in Pittsburgh but it is not good.  All I know is that they have aged me immeasurably after the past two weeks. After an antagonizing week one display in a wet and windy Cleveland we all expected a drastic improvement in their home opener. That never materialized. A shell-shocked secondary gave up 3 passing touchdowns in the 1st quarter and wasn’t much better from then on.  Mahomes had receivers open all day. The Steelers pulled it back through Big Ben’s fantastic play and grit, but ultimately fell short. The fans weren’t the only ones frustrated by the subpar performance. Star receiver Antonio Brown was seen heatedly expressing himself to his Offensive Coordinator on the side-line, clearly unhappy with either the play calling or the teams overall performance. Browns absence from the team facilities on Monday only served to further reveal that all is not well within the Steelers.  The Steelers are one of the league’s most reliable and rocksteady team, but one or two more losses and the season could be over before it really even got a chance to begin.

As a diehard fan I’ll still watch and support my teams, even if they continue to play average to poor football. Even though I’m frustrated, I’m still a fan. And that’s what real fans do.