Posts tagged HinesWard at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Hear that? It's the pitter-patter of fantasy football season approaching. Fantasy FanHouse is here to get you ready by previewing every team from a fantasy perspective.

Meet The ...
Most balanced offense in the NFL. With the addition of Rashard Mendenhall the Steelers now have a talented between the tackles runner to go with Fast Willie Parker. This is thunder and lightning to a higher level with the single-back abilities each guy has. They can go deep to Santonio Holmes, or to the reliable possession receiver Hines Ward. Add the extremely athletic 6'4" Limas Sweed to the fray to catch jump balls, and the very solid over-the-middle TE Heath Miller. Oh yeah, and Ben Roethlisberger is coming off easily the most prolific season of his career.

The Breakout
Really tough call here. Did Santonio already have his breakout season last year? (YES) Is Sweed really ready to have a good enough season to call it a breakout? (HMMM ... ) Hasn't Mendenhall received enough hype that he's accurately "rated" (as opposed to underrated or overrated)? I guess if pushed I'll go with Mendenhall. Ward seems a lot less ready to yield his spot outside than Fast Willie is in the backfield to me, plus Nate Washington clouds things at WR. Mendy (yeah, just made that up) will at least vulture the goal-line TDs and has enough speed to fully take over should Parker go down via injury.

It's the deadest part of the offseason, which means we'll be reading about things marginally related to football like top-50 players, doctored videos, visits to the Playboy Mansion, and, of course, Rodney Harrison, the NFL's dirtiest player.

While some NFL coaches agree that Harrison is one of the league's dirtiest players, ESPN.com's Mike Sando writes that there are plenty of other guys worthy of a little finger-pointing:

A review of data since 2001 shows Arizona Cardinals safety Adrian Wilson with a league-high 17 personal fouls. Harrison and New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith are tied for second with 14, followed by Patriots defensive lineman Richard Seymour (13), Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor (12), late Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor (12) and Cleveland Browns defensive lineman Shaun Rogers (11).

According to 11 of 18 head coaches who responded to Sando, Cowboys' safety Roy Williams finished second behind Harrison (interestingly, Wade Phillips voted for Williams. Twice.*), followed by Antonio Pierce, Hines Ward, Kevin Mawae and Olin Kreutz.

Former Patriots teammate Deion Branch "draws a line between Harrison's hard-nosed play" and, say, Travis Johnson talking smack over a dying Trent Green. Not sure anybody would disagree on that on.

Brandon Stokley, who said he would've "bet his life savings" on Harrison earning top honors, also singled out Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan "as a player with bad intentions." And I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean that in a topless, sausage-party, "what about the kids?" way.

* Joke. Coaches were only allowed to vote once.

About a year ago, fans in the greater Washington, DC area busted out the golf clap because not only had Tiger Woods saved the PGA's presence in the area, his tournament would replace the event formerly known as the Booz Allen, and before that, the Kemper Open.

In the first ever AT&T National, Woods finished sixth, seven shots behind winner K.J. Choi. This year, a week after having his second knee surgery in three months, doctors have advised Tiger to stay away from the event altogether. Which could mean we won't even see him golf-carting it around the property like he's Bobby Jones at the Masters.

Still, Woods seemed less concerned about taking it easy than the guys responsible for reconstructing his left leg:

"But who knows," said Woods, speaking in a conference call from his home in Orlando. "I don't listen to my doctors too well." ... "I'm in a straight leg brace," he said. "I'm letting everything calm down for three weeks post-op. Then I can start some weight bearing and gradually start putting weight on the knee and flexing it. I will be on crutches for those three weeks."

That said, Eldrick did admit that flying aggravates the injury, and the chance he shows up are pretty much nonexistent. Woods also discussed how he tried to mitigate the pain associated with the torn ACL, an injury he says occurred a year ago while jogging:

City residents flock to the streets to celebrate the news.

Earlier this year, I spent a few hundred words bellyaching about the sorry state of Pittsburgh sports radio. Specifically, the fact that village idiot/local ESPN radio "personality" Mark Madden earned a paycheck to spew invective while making everybody who listened to him dumber in the process.

For me, it was more a therapeutic rant than anything -- Madden generates ratings, and ratings, as we know, trump all. Or so the thinking went. Today, ESPN corporate made an exception:

"We've taken Mark off the air pursuant to our contractual rights," said Josh Krulewitz, the network's vice president for public relations. On his radio show Wednesday, Madden said the following about Sen. Kennedy, who days earlier had been diagnosed with brain cancer:

"I'm very disappointed to hear Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor. I always hoped Senator Kennedy would live long enough to be assassinated."

Madden was last heard on his show Thursday, the day before his comments appeared in the Post-Gazette.

For Madden, it couldn't have happened to a nicer jerk.

By now, most of us have heard Randy Pausch's story. He's a former Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall and given six months to live. Last week, he was featured on ABC, and during the interview we learned that he's a huge Steelers fan. After some phone calls, an ABC producer informed Pausch that he would get the chance to visit the team's South Side facilities.

Not only did he do the usual meet-and-greet, he also got to play catch with Hines Ward, successfully convert a field goal (maybe the Chiefs should think about signing him), and spend time with Ben Roethlisberger and the Rooneys.

For all the cynicism and vitriol that sometimes pervades the internets, particularly the blogosphere, Pausch's message helps keep things in perspective.

I'm dating myself, but in the late '90s, "Loveline" was a popular radio show before MTV eventually ruined it. Anyway, Dr. Drew often referred to the Law of Inverse Worth, which basically posited that bad things happen to good people. I'd say Pausch certainly qualifies.

His ABC interview after the jump.

As we wade through the third version of PatriotGate, now that Arlen Specter has learned that the Patriots taped four Steelers games, it's worth remembering that Hines Ward had spoken out about the Patriots' cheating back in September.

At the time Ward said:

"Oh, they knew ... They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field. They knew a lot of our calls. There's no question some of their players were calling out some of our stuff."

Kordell Stewart should be joining Willie Gary in that lawsuit. His career effectively was destroyed by that three INT AFC Championship game. A Pro Bowler in 2001, Stewart lost his starting job early the next season to Tommy Maddox. He got one more chance at a starting job in Chicago, but was out of the league by the 2005 season--if Stewart had led the Steelers to the 2001 Super Bowl, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have had a longer career.

The Steelers' front office may say it's no big deal, but some the players know better. If the Patriots were cheating, they weren't doing it if they didn't think it was going to help in some way. And why did Roger Goodell not mention these other games when he was announcing the Patriots' punishment back in September?

Mark Madden is to Pittsburgh sports radio what the Black Plague was to Europe in the late 1340s. But not as funny. The former WCW color commentator has made his living the last decade or so belching inanities on Pittsburgh radio's ESPN 1250. His shtick is a tired and predictable one, popularized by Skip Bayless: be contrarian -- even when faced with irrefutable facts -- and DO IT AS LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE.

The objective, obviously, is to get ratings, and that's exactly what Madden has done. Even at the expense of his integrity. Apparently fame, however regional, comes cheap these days. Which explains his long history of picking fights with local athletes.

It's worked with limited success. Madden was fired from WTAE-TV's Action Sports Sunday for his colorful remarks about several Steelers players, and more recently, he was very close to losing his radio gig for his controversial on-air behavior. Interestingly, when faced with the possibility of getting canned, the tough-guy radio persona gave way to the dutiful employee more willing to acquiesce than the French in World War II.

Madden has also feuded with Hines Ward, Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris, further bringing into question his credibility.

Notes on a trip to the Super Bowl.

I noted yesterday that Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor received the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, and it's an award Taylor deserves for his play on the field and his service to the community off the field.

But I had an opportunity to speak with all four Man of the Year Award finalists last week, and Steelers receiver Hines Ward was the one who most impressed me, especially with his work in South Korea, where he was born.

Ward, who has a Korean mother and an African-American father and moved to the United States as a young child, says he's trying to raise awareness of the discrimination that often faces biracial children in South Korea. Ward started the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation, which helps ethnically mixed children who face discrimination in South Korea, and he says he'll travel to South Korea this year and meet President Roh Moo-hyun.

If Ward travels to South Korea next year, I hope it's to play an NFL game. I asked him if an NFL game in South Korea would work, and he said, "It would be kind of awesome to play a regular season game in South Korea, but I'm not the commissioner."

I'm not the commissioner either, but I think it would be awesome, and I think the league should do it next year, while Ward is still an active player. If Ward retires without having played in his native land, the NFL has missed a major opportunity to expose its product to a lucrative market.

Heinz Field is routinely voted one of the worst surfaces in the NFL and for good reason: it hosts eight NFL regular season games, five or six college games, and the high school state finals. That's a lot of traffic for a (mostly) grass surface in the northern part of the country.

Every year the complaints on the playing conditions are promptly followed by the question: so, why not go to artificial turf? Steelers chairman Dan Rooney explains (again):

"Our No. 1 concern is the safety of our players," Rooney told the Tribune-Review on Friday. "We had the leading runner (Willie Parker) in the National Football League break his leg, and it had something to do with the (St. Louis) turf."

Gene Upshaw, Executive director of the NFL Players Association, said the team should install turf because the players "do not like the field." Rooney's response: "he's got his information wrong."

One player who likes the current set up is wide receiver Hines Ward.

"As a player, I like grass. I don't want to go to turf. I played on turf for about three years in Three Rivers (Stadium), and it took me a couple of years to get over that."

Ideally, the Steelers would be able to keep the grass surface at Heinz Field, but weather and usage have conspired against them. Either way, Rooney is expected to announce the team's playing-surface plans sometime next week.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is on the record as saying he thinks the Steelers need to get a tall wide receiver on the roster.

So how does the Steelers' No. 1 receiver, the (maybe) 6-foot-even Hines Ward, feel about that? Not good. In a story headlined Ward Blindsided by Big Ben's Comments, Ward strikes back:

"I don't hear Tom Brady or Peyton Manning asking for that," Ward said yesterday.

"I don't know, whatever he says. I have no idea. To me, it's a rare combination of receivers out there who are good and tall. We won a Super Bowl, we didn't have a tall receiver then. I don't see Tom Brady caring about who's tall or not. He got Randy this year, but he did it before without him. ...

"To me, I have enough problems to worry about than what Ben wants -- I can't give him the contract,'' Ward said, referring to Roethlisberger's wish to have a contract extension as soon as possible. "He wants a tall receiver? Why did we draft Santonio? ...

"I don't buy into the hype you have to be tall. You throw the ball up and give somebody a chance to make a play, I'll make as many catches as anyone.

I have to side with Ward here. It just doesn't make sense for Roethlisberger to open his mouth about what the Steelers need at wide receiver. The Steelers' receiving corps is good as is, and getting taller wouldn't necessarily mean getting better.