FanHouse CaseyHampton

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

One year removed from a 10-win season, and on the heels of a four-win effort, owner Randy Lerner decided change was in order. He fired head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Phil Savage and brought in Eric Mangini and George Kokonis.

If the first draft under the new leadership is any indication, the Browns will use the last weekend in April to restock the roster, and eschew high-priced, quick-fix free agents. The previous regime had a healthy mix of the two: Gary Baxter, Eric Steinbach, LeCharles Bentley and Donte' Stallworth were signed as free agents; Kamerion Wimbley, Joe Thomas and Brady Quinn were all high-round draft picks.

Last week, word leaked that the Ravens asked the league to not consider them for a prime-time game in Pittsburgh next season, presumably because they're 0-3 under such circumstances, and if pressed, would prefer to lose in front of a regional audience instead of national one. Fair enough.

The Steelers have $19 million in cap room with only a talented cornerback and a slew of mediocre or injury-prone linemen heading to free agency. So everything's great, right?

Well, take a look at this list of Steelers who are getting ready to head into the final year of their current contracts (thanks to davaughnci for pulling a list together over at Football's Future Forum): RB Willie Parker, LB James Harrison, WR Hines Ward, TE Heath Miller, C Justin Hartwig, S Ryan Clark, CB Deshea Townsend, DE Brett Keisel, NG Casey Hampton, K Jeff Reed.

Every week during the season we focused on an aspect of line play with Between The Lines. So for the Super Bowl, we're focusing on all aspects of the battle of the line of scrimmage. Today, we look at the Steelers' defense.

There have been many times this postseason when Larry Fitzgerald, Kurt Warner and the Cardinals offense have looked unstoppable. On Sunday, we'll find out how true that is. There many matchups to watch, but it's safe to say that if the Cardinals can block the Steelers' pass rush, they likely will pull off the upset. If they can't, Pittsburgh will be bringing its sixth Super Bowl trophy back to the Steel City.

Warner has averaged 286 yards passing per game this season, but now he'll be facing a defense that has allowed more than 300 yards of total offense only twice in 18 games. Warner and an offense with three 1,000-yard receivers will be one of the Steelers' D's toughest tests, but this is not a defense that is untested.

Every time you rewatch the Steelers-Ravens games from earlier this year, it's hard to not get even more excited about Act III.

You have the league's two best defenses facing off, and two offenses that will be trying to prove that they aren't over their head. You'll watch James Harrison try to terrorize Joe Flacco again, while Ed Reed will try to once again turn a game around with an interception.

And after charting every Ravens' offensive play from both games, it's clear that Baltimore is facing an uphill battle. For all the talk about Flacco's amazing success as a rookie, the Ravens finished 28th in the NFL in passing yardage this season, and while most teams have two or three significant receiving threats, Baltimore had only one receiver with more than 700 yards receiving.

But in rewatching the first two Steelers-Ravens games, there are some things Baltimore can take advantage of.

Mike Tomlin's weekly press conference began like any other random, mundane press conference with an NFL coach: review of the most recent game, rundown of the injuries, look ahead to the next opponent, answer mundane questions about why team had result it had in previous game, how will team prepare for next game, etc. etc. etc.

Then, out of nowhere, as Tomlin was set to answer any and all questions from the local scribes, he received a visit from Santa Claus. And what a visit it was.

It began with Santa handing out gifts, ranging from five pounds of raw meat for nose tackle Casey Hampton, to a copy of Jim Wexell's book for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, to a $300 million cash bailout for Pittsburgh's embarrassing major league baseball franchise, otherwise known as the Pirates.

After he handed out said gifts, Santa Claus voiced his displeasure over Lendale White and his stomping of the Terrible Towel following Sunday's game. Santa pulled out a picture of the Titans running back, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while singing a James Brown tune. If all of this wasn't enough for you -- and how could it be? -- the visit ended with Tomlin hauling in a pass from Santa, after Tomlin ran a crossing route in front of the Pittsburgh press corps.

I wish I was making all of that up. But, as you can see from the video at NFL.com ... I'm not. Frankly, I don't think my mind is warped enough to make that up.

So the NFL has robbed us of the usual late-season slate of Saturday afternoon games, but what they've given us in return is much, much better. Okay, not really -- for starters, as it currently stands, about 250 people get NFL Network, which means that a lot of you will be shut out of tonight's Ravens-Cowboys game.

Not only that, but most people who don't blog for a living have stuff to do on Saturday night. I suspect Roger Goodell doesn't care about such things.

Not to worry, though; the fine folks who bring us the NFL Network pregame show -- Rich Eisen, Steve Mariucci, Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk and Warren Sapp -- are all about making the experience a happy one. For all 250 of you (via Awful Announcing):



Wow. Warren Sapp is so fat that the fat house fun mirror makes him look skinny. Which, I think, means that Shaun Rogers and Casey Hampton would look like Rob and Fab. I'd pay to see that.

By the way, I'd love to see the CBS folks "accidentally" use the fat lens on broadcasting's moral beacon, Jim Nantz. I'm guessing he'd find it hilarious in much the same way Joe Buck loved Randy Moss' decision to pretend moon Packers' fans.

With attention spans dwindling, we forego full game-by-game previews to give you the essentials you need to know about every contest this glorious NFL weekend. Click here to go back in time.

The 1s

Cleveland at Cincinnati: So here are a few fun facts heading into the showdown of Team Zeros. Carson Palmer has more fumbles in three games (2) than touchdown passes (1). If you added up both Derek Anderson and Palmer's quarterback ratings, the number would still fall behind Philip Rivers, Kurt Warner and Jay Cutler, and would be just three points ahead of J.T. O'Sullivan and Tony Romo. Anderson's five interceptions are tied for the most in the league. Needless to say, this might not be the game you DVR in hopes of showing your son the proper way to play quarterback.

Pick: Cincinnati

Houston at Jacksonville: Is it fair to say that Houston is slowly taking the place of Arizona as "the team everyone picks as their preseason sleeper to the point that they're over-hyped and fall flat on their face?" The Texans limp in with the third worst quarterback in the league statistically and the third worst defense, going up against a Jacksonville team that just claimed their first victory in one of those "win or send all the ticket holders a free iPhone" games against the Colts. If there was ever a time for Maurice Jones-Drew and Fred Jones to make some magic happen, it is at home against Houston who is giving up 170.5 yards a game on the ground. You know what they call what I just did? Blogger research. It's tough to come by so enjoy the smell.

Pick: Jacksonville

It was already known that Steelers defensive tackle Casey Hampton suffered a groin injury in Sunday's loss at Philadelphia, and we knew there was a good chance it would keep him out of Monday night's game against division rival Baltimore. So, it wasn't much of a surprise when Head Coach Mike Tomlin ruled Hampton, a 4-time Pro Bowl selection, out for this weeks game.

It was, however, a gigantic surprise, and a pretty heavy punch to the gut, when Tomlin told the media that Starting running back Willie Parker has also been ruled out. Tomlin described Parker's injury as a "knee sprain," and that he suffered it late in the game on Sunday. A reporter asked Tomlin if it was an MCL sprain, and Tomlin responded by simply saying it was "a knee sprain" and that he'll be "week-to-week."

This is a huge loss for the Steelers' offense, but it's also a gigantic opportunity for first-round pick Rashard Mendenhall, who will be getting the bulk of the carries against an always tough Ravens defense. Mendenhall has been used sparingly over the first three weeks, and hasn't had a carry since the season opener against Houston.

Before the season there were two big concerns for most Steelers fans: could the offensive line keep Ben Roethlisberger alive and would the team's lack of depth on the defensive line come back to haunt it?

Well, we're three weeks into the season and Roethlisberger has had knee, shoulder and hand injuries thanks to 12 sacks and there's a pretty good chance the Steelers will take the field on Sunday with two of the three starting defensive linemen in street clothes.

There was no update on Monday, but when Casey Hampton limped off the field with a groin injury on Sunday, it led the coaching staff to speculate that he'll miss at least a few weeks. Brett Keisel is already out for a month or more with a calf injury which means Aaron Smith is all of a sudden the only healthy defensive line starter.