Hi. I’m Sean and I’m a Steelerholic.

(Audience: HIIIII SEAN)

Thanks.

DO YOU MOTHERFUCKERS REALIZE THAT I KNOW THE GUY WHO PAINTED THE STEELER COUNTRY BANNER IN THE ’70S!?!??!

(audience gasps)

*I start shaking…someone starts a Here We Go Steelers chant to give me my fix and stave off the withdrawal*

Guhhh…thanks everybody. Just a case of the Steelerium tremens.

Well…I mean I don’t know him, but he’s on a message board and…well…I feel like I know him, ok?

Whatever. I was born in Pittsburgh and…you don’t pick a favorite team if you are in Pittsburgh. Sure, I liked Barry Sanders and Chris Warren…yeah, for real, Chris Warren…but my team was the Steelers and that was not an option. Yeah, I remember losing to the Chargers in the 1994 AFCCG when I was 10. It was really nice that day. And then the deja vu the next year against Indianapolis. And losing the Super Bowl to Dallas on Neil O’Donnell’s interceptions. But I never hated Neil O’Donnell. He took us to the Super Bowl! I remember seeing the trade for Jerome Bettis in the newspaper and I was pumped. This guy was a star! We don’t acquire stars in free agency let alone in trades. I don’t know if I was old enough to get an erection but I certainly tried. Probably was. What was I, 11? I don’t know. Whatever.

The Bettis era lead to two more heartbreaking defeats in conference championship games but I still never caught the doom and glooms. I knew we needed a QB and was sad to see the team pass on Pennington to get a guy I had never heard of who looked kind of like an alien. But when 2004 came around and we all just knew we would take Rivers or Roethlisberger if they lasted to us in the draft…that was a good feeling. I remembered that 7-5 season that ended at 7-9 after a big win over Jacksonville. I remember having to actually work up a goal of keeping Jamal Lewis under 2,000 yards as motivation to get into a meaningless game at the end of a 6 win season. But there was some fucking EXCITEMENT over this draft. And when I went into an IUP library to use a computer and saw that we got Roeth, I was PUMPED. I forgot that I just pulled my groin throwing javelins and kind of missed a little bit with the Tiger Balm and that my balls felt like Beirut for a good 15 minutes. That’s what we needed fuckers! A QB!

And then Maddox got hurt and Ben came in and you knew they might have something. And then we went 15-1. And killed the Eagles. And the Pats**. And then we sucked against the Jets. And the Pats**. But right before that gay penalty on Aaron Smith, I thought we were coming back and winning that game. Another AFCCG loss. A fucking nother one! This one sucked. I mean, this was our year. The next year? We didn’t look that great. Sure, we ran the table on some bad teams. We still had to beat the Colts. Wait a fucking minute, we beat the Colts? Peyton Manning? We beat them?!?!?!?

Did anyone think we were losing to Denver? I didn’t. And we didn’t because fuck Denver. Same thing about Seattle. Who thought we were losing that game?

Since then, I’ve pretty much thought that we’re taking every game we play in. Don’t care who the opponent is. We’re taking that game. This year…I thought the same thing. Even when we were losing to Baltimore. And Green Bay. And when it was 31-25. Didn’t you think the Steelers were converting on that drive? I did.

So now what? Super Bowl losses suck. There is no “great season!” for me. It’s Super Bowl or bust. So I’ve been shaking a lot recently. Biting my nails. Cutting myself. Not washing the cuts and allowing them to get infected.

And no matter what you guys say, there is no rehab for this condition. I just hope that I can survive until next season. Whenever that may be.