Ready or not, here it comes. Training camp is here. You can just taste the fresh sweat, hear the pads hitting, and feel the rookies' nervousness. Here's a few things that have happened already:

- I guess a few weeks is all Derrick Mason needs to talk himself out of retirement. So just forget everything we said before. We're not 100% sure if this is fact or not, considering it's coming from Playstation messsage boards, but one of the factors for him coming back was that he plans on donating over $100,000 to Steve McNair's charity during the season. If it's true, that's just awesome.

- Thankfully, Brett Favre is staying retired. Every Viking fan considers jumping off a bridge rather than watching their team be lead by Tavaris or Sage.

- Michael Vick follows the trend of throwing catch with high school players. As long as he's not throwing catch with Steelers' wide receivers, we'll be happy. Don't worry, we'll discuss our opinions on Vick and the Steelers later on.

- Every Steeler fan wants Limas to break out of his shell. Last year he made everything look at difficult as possible. But the Post-Gazette has confidence that he's a changed man. God, we hope so.

- The Trib brings up the salary issues for players in their final year of their contract this season. On that list: Ryan Clark, Casey Hampton, Justin Hartwig, Brett Keisel, Willie Parker, Jeff Reed, and Willie Colon. We'd rather procrastinate on thinking about that for awhile.

Somehow Norm pulled some strings and got access to the Bill's training camp. We aren't promising anything, but he might try to get some inside scoops, but we aren't counting on anything juicy. Cause really, who cares about the Bills anyway?

I was going to just add this recent interview Troy Polamalu did with Pittsburgh Magazine to a list of links, but after reading through it, it definitely deserves its own post.

The whole story is worth spending the time to read and goes deep into Polamalu's new role as a father, his faith, and of course, football.

We've always known that Polamalu was some sort of a brilliant philospher and the interview would seem to prove that. Obviously, his football IQ is higher than most players, but it's rare to see a rough and tumble football player so deep and so well spoken.

Here are some of the memorable quotes:

"Football is part of my life but not life itself," he says. "Football doesn't define me. It's what I do [and] how I carry out my faith."

"I think talking is overrated. Anybody in the world can talk about doing anything. The hardest thing is to do it."

"I spoke with Olympic gold-medal decathlete Bryan Clay at a Nike symposium. I approached him with a lot of questions about training and really took in what he had to say, because decathletes have to do every move and coordinate every energy system from sprints to hurdles to long jump, high jump, pole vault. An athlete like that can play in every sport."

"When I was watching the final Stanley Cup game, my heart was pounding - with 15 minutes in the game and we're up by two. That's too much time! Hockey is the greatest spectator sport ever. It's nonstop action. In the last minutes, holding my son in front of the TV, I said, "Son, you're going to watch history right now." I was so nervous. It was crazy! I can honestly tell you I was more nervous in those final moments than I was sitting on the sidelines in Tampa. Sid and Evgeni - they're so young, it's like having LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] in Pittsburgh - then to see them win it! That's why Pittsburghers are so passionate about sports. We have these teams that do well."

Also, I'm an avid reader of LGP, where a poster relays this awesome tidbit about Polamalu:

"my gf used to work at the cheesecake factor in ross park as a greeter while she was in nursing school and i was picking her up one day and troy walked in. he had a pick order under the name 'socrates' no lies. it wasn't ready when he came in so he sat next to a woman and talked to her for about 15 minutes and when he went to get his food he gave the manager 100 bucks and said it was for her families meal. he is the man"

Great interview, great person. If you are still undecided on a favorite Steelers, this post should solve that problem.

Signing one of the best all-around TEs in the league to a long-term deal is a great thing.

Big Money will be in Pittsburgh through the 2014 season, at least. Heath is in line to spend 10 seasons in Pittsburgh and may end up being a lifer.

The numbers? $35.3 million over six years plus a $12.5 million signing bonus.

We don't have any personal connection to any Steelers, but Miller is a guy who definitely deserves a payday. He goes about his job with a workman-like attitude and is one of the most dependable receivers on the team.

Oh, and suck it PFT!

When news broke of the civil lawsuit being filed against Ben Roethlisberger, Steeler fans didn't know what to do.

Some laughed off the charges as a money grab, some started calling the QB "Rapelisberger" and others were just plain stunned.

No matter which camp you were in, fans of the Steelers were united on one front: Steeler haters celebrating the charges got annoying. Fast.

Every time a Ravens blog made a joke about "Rapelisberger," it was like the charges were being announced all over again. It sucked seeing one of our favorite players get his name trashed and it sucked feeling like maybe the guy we've been rooting has been a bad dude this whole time.

After I've had some time to think about this whole sage, I realized that Steeler fans were long overdue to feel this type of torture. We made our own bed and our now getting what Ravens and Bengals fans probably feel is long overdue.

Read why after the jump....

Just a few things of note as training camp gets closer by the second. (By the way, Ziggy Hood signed today.)

• We've jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon. Be sure to follow us...we're looking forward to "tweeting" about the Stees and talking with yinz
• Check out the not-nearly finished "Best of" page located under the banner. If you are new to Blitzburgh Blog, that's the place to go to read some of our more popular articles and features.
  
• As always, if you have any suggestions or recommendations use the Skribit widget located on the righ of the page. You can either submit new ideas or vote on what others have posted. This helps us out a lot.
  
• This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is the best way to get in touch with us. Hit it up.

Yikes!

In a complaint that reads like the rape allegations made several years ago against NBA star Kobe Bryant, Harrah's employee Andrea McNulty alleges sexual assault against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in a lawsuit filed last week in Washoe County, Nevada.

But lawyer David Cornwell strongly denied the allegations Monday night, in a statement released to PFT.  "Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone; especially Andrea McNulty," Cornwell said.  

In the civil suit, which Cornwell confirms was served on Roethlisberger over the weekend and a copy of which our own Gregg Rosenthal has obtained, McNulty alleges that Roethlisberger asked her to come to his hotel room to fix the television, and that he thereafter forced her to have sex with him. 

Roethlisberger faces one civil count of assault, one civil count of sexual assault and battery, one civil count of false imprisonment, one civil count of false pretenses, one civil count of fraud, and one civil count of intentonal infliction of emtional distress.

Look, this is going to be a bad situation no matter what plays out from here. Roethlisberger could very easilly be the real victim here. Or everything this McNulty lady says could be true.

Either way, the guy's reputation is going to take a major hit for being brought up in a rape lawsuit.

A few things are curious about what has surfaced so far. First off, the alleged "incident" occurred in July 2008, so a full year ago...also after Roethlisberger's second Super Bowl win and now increased fame. Another thing - no criminal complaint was filed which would lead one to believe that there is no real evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. I've got no real knowledge of law outside of a few college classes, but usually the plantiff files any charge that has even a remote chance of sticking because it can always be dropped later.

We've got no insider knowledge and this is pretty much a he-said, she-said at this point. Anybody saying he is innocent or guilty is stupid. There's no way to tell, so the people of Cleveland and Baltimore can stop celebrating in the streets.

We'd much rather be talking about football than worrying about this crap. Hopefully everything works out and it all goes away soon.

Yuck.

UPDATE: Here's a few more thoughts...

Anybody can file a civil complaint for anything in a court of law (from what I understand...correct me if I'm wrong). In the case of a criminal act, there is as a burden of providing some evidence or proof before you can bring forth chargers. So, theoritically, this could be no more than a crazy woman out to make some easy cash. I don't mean to downplay the situation, but I believe false reports of rapes are much, much more common than ones that turn out to be true.

As a Penn State fan, I watched Austin Scott get the final nail in his coffin when he was accused of rape during his senior season. Fans, myself included, called for his head and Joe Paterno listened and dismissed Scott from the team. In the end, the courts cleared Scott of all charges and the woman who filed the complaint was found to have a history of false reporting. Things looked bad at the beginning and Austin ended up having his entire football career ruined by a lie.

Note: Rules of Steeler Nation is a semi-whenever series that profiles some unofficial "rules" that all Steeler fans seem to follow. Like it or not, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the New York Yankees of football and have become the standard bearers for fans in the NFL. Sadly, we don't feel like Steeler Nation always does a very good job. With great success comes great amounts of bandwagon fans who make a bad name for the rest of the fanbase. By taking a look at some of the "rules" most of our brother and sisters in black and gold tend to follow, hopefully we can become better. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility and with a sixth notch now our championship belt, we've got a lot of work to do.

Rule 2: Blame the offensive coordinator.

Rule 1 is always blame the QB, but if that fails there's an easy second target: the OC.

You aren't alone if some of your earliest memories are probably of your dad or uncles cursing out Mike Mularkey.

Aside from a turnover, the easiest way to draw the ire of a Steeler fan is to call a HB draw on 3rd and 18 or run 2 WR screens on back to back plays.

After the jump, we get into the Steelers' recent offensive coordinators and why they are enemy number two for Steeler Nation.

Derrick Mason won't be a thorn in the Steelers side anymore.

That was my first thought when I saw the news that Mason is retiring.

On a team full of idiots, Mason was one guy who I'd have loved to see on the Steelers. He was one of the most underrated WRs in the game in my eyes.

If you show his numbers to people, they would probably be stunned.

You could pencil him in for 80+ catches and 1,000 yards every year. And remember he did this playing in Tennessee and Baltimore, a pair of teams who won't get easilly confused with the '99 Rams.

So from a Steelers prespective, we're glad we don't have to deal with Mason anymore. But as football fans, we're sad to see him go.

He's one of the rare breeds of a WR who doesn't have a poor attitude or need the ball every down. A few years ago we wrote that his bones were due to turn to dust any minute, but there's no doubt he could put up Pro Bowl numbers again as a 35 year old.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are not "America's Team".

That title belongs to the Dallas Cowboys.

What? A Steelers blog claiming that the Steelers are aren't the king of the NFL world?

That's right. We say that Dallas is America's Team and we couldn't be happier about it.

Our favorite team is the Pittsburgh Steelers and no nicknames are necessary.

After the jump, we dive in to "America's Team" and why the Pittsburgh Steelers will never be the pride of the USA.

[Click here for a brief explanation on community projections.]

We last touched on Ben Roethlisberger's stat projection for 2009. Thanks to all the people who left their comments. Here's what we averaged out with for Roethlisberger.

16 G / 3,275 yards /  25 TD / 13 INT

Up next on the community projections is Willie Parker, a guy who many people love or hate.

This is just my perception of FWP through talking with fans, but Parker seems to have fallen out of favor with a lot of Steeler followers around here. Steeler fans love the big, bruising power running back and FWP is far from that. Fairly or not, he's gotten the repuatation that he is soft and can't get the hard yards.

I'd debate that, but that's another issue. For now, we're focusing on stats so here's FWP's:

A few things caught my eye here. First off, the average has steadily dipped each year. Second, from 2005-2007 you would be hard pressed to find a more consistent and better running back than Willie Parker. He was absolutely outstanding during that stretch and didn't get much recognition for it.

The big issue here is whether or not last season was an anomaly. Critics say Parker is getting old and is injured too often. FWP loyalists say he's had one injury plauged season in an otherwise productive career and will bounce back.

Which FWP shows up in 2009 will go a long way in determing the success of the Steelers.

For Parker, let's project games played, rushing yards, and TDs. Post your predictions in the comments.