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Fitzgerald cream of Pittsburgh receiving crop

By John Steigerwald, FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, December 28, 2002
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Forget Plax and Hines.

The best wide receiver now playing in Pittsburgh is Pitt's Larry Fitzgerald. OK, maybe that's a little strong. Let's qualify it. Larry Fitzgerald has more talent for catching a football than any receiver in town, including anybody on the Steelers. He may have a lot to learn about route running and blocking to become the complete receiver that Hines Ward is, but Fitzgerald is the least likely receiver in town to drop a ball and the most likely to make a spectacular catch.

    Did you see the catch he made Thursday night in the Insight Bowl?

    Play-by-play announcers and even former players working as analysts have driven me crazy for years, by over using the word "great" in describing a catch. A guy jumps barely high enough to slip the Sunday Trib under his feet and some of these guys fall out of the booth in their exuberance to praise a catch that, if it were not made, would qualify as a drop. At least half of the catches that we're told are "great" have more to do with the quarterback than the receiver. Fitzgerald's touchdown catch against Oregon State was, by any definition, a great catch. It was his best of the year. Just as important as his big play ability is the fact that Fitzgerald almost never drops a ball he should catch. He could play in the NFL tomorrow. The "great' news for Pitt is that he plans to stay there for four years. If he does, you may have the privilege of watching the number one pick in the 2006 NFL draft playing at Heinz Field for the next three years.

  • If  I could only watch one bowl game next week, it wouldn't be the Fiesta Bowl. If you're excited about two teams playing for a "championship" that is bestowed by a bunch of overweight sportswriters, be my guest. I'll take the Orange Bowl, which has USC's Carson Palmer and Iowa's Brad Banks, the most exciting quarterbacks in college football, going head to head. That's not to say that Miami vs. Ohio State won't be a good game. It's just that it's only a championship game if you accept it as such. Sorry, but I don't.

  • After the loss to the Steelers Monday night, some of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sounded a lot like the Steelers following some of their losses this season. Wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson said, "We can't afford to have the ball on the five yard line and cough it up both times and then throw an interception for a touchdown. We won't go anywhere doing that." No, Keyshawn, you won't, but those turnovers didn't just happen. The Steelers forced them. Football's funny that way.

  • Buccaneers fans, of course, are blaming the loss mostly on Shaun King, the quarterback who had thrown one pass all season and hadn't started a game in two years. He made a major contribution, no doubt, but here's what St. Petersburg Times columnist Gary Shelton wrote Tuesday morning: "Go ahead. Yell about King. Maybe it will keep your mind off the things that are really wrong. The important topic is this: the Bucs appear to be a flawed, wounded team in need of a road map. And gloves."  King had a bad game Monday night and Brad Johnson might not have coughed it up as much, but King wasn't any worse than the Bucs' offensive and defensive lines. He never had a chance. Of course, the Steelers had something to do with that.

  • The Yankees did it again. After signing the best player in Japan, Hideki Matsui, to a $21 million deal last week, they followed that up by making a $32 million deal with Jose Contreras, the Cuban defector who may be the best amateur pitcher in the world.  Good for Jose. He escaped a communist hellhole and realized the ultimate benefit of the free enterprise system. Too bad that, in the process, he became one more example of what a joke Major League Baseball is.

  • If you are living in fear of the distinct possibility that the Steelers could run into Rich Gannon and the Oakland Raiders in the playoffs, calm down. Despite his 43 completions and 403 yards passing, Gannon did not have a great game here back on September 15th.

        He wasn't the best quarterback on the field that night.

        Kordell Stewart was. Gannon threw two interceptions inside the five yard line( both of which were worse than the pick Stewart threw  that got him benched the next week against Cleveland) and was not able to generate a touchdown in the second half. His 63 passes produced one touchdown. Stewart made one major mistake-a lost fumble on the Raiders' three. Gannon didn't kill the Steelers that night, fumbles did. Amos Zereoue, Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress all lost fumbles in the second half, after Stewart had moved them into Raiders' territory.

  • Do you think Jets quarterback Chad Pennington is a can't-miss superstar? If so, I have two words for you. Brian Griese.

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