Cannon Firing Line
Bad Situation
By Ellis G. Cannon
PSR Publisher

I don't have football coaching handbooks from the 1960's handy, but either the idea of what Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin call "situational football" has been in the playbooks forever or it's new age coaching lingo meant to emphasize specific-and often decisive-situations that unfold in a game.

In other words, the ones like "third down" and "red zone play" highlighted in every post-game stat sheet and press conference.

Make no mistake, elementary to situational football is where the game is played. Field position is why special teams are so important. It's why a team would value a punter enough to package a trade for him in the fourth round. It's why punters are important, period.

In short, it's why the Steelers-just a couple years removed from having the luxury of a punter who didn't even know how to have a punt blocked-suffered a significant player and team injury when Dan Sepulveda went down with a season-ending ACL injury.

As an aside, and speaking of historical references, someone still needs to explain whether the ligament damaged by Sepulveda only started to show up in the human anatomy sometime after roughly 1970 or whether an untold number of players had such an injury-and often played with it-back to the beginning of sport without anyone knowing about it.

Or what the dynamics are that cause it. Sometimes we see it when there's absolutely no contact. Heck, Sepulveda suffered it when the punter's main job at camp is to look busy when doing nothing. And then there's the irony of Sepulveda's injury coming on the same day Nate McLouth made a circus catch at PNC Park, racing as hard as he could for about 50 feet directly toward a wall and stopping nearly on a dime after catching a ball over his shoulder, only to jog away without incident.

Back to situational football. Sepulveda had a solid rookie season, certainly one you could reasonably expect him to build on. He gave every confidence of a player projected to be employed in his craft for a decade or more. The punter's position, in short, was done, scratched off the list.

Those in the know routinely point out the jump between a player's first and second year is most telling. Sepulveda, off a season with 28 punts inside the 20 yard line, fit in that category, particularly after kicking in the most adverse weather, on fields that defied reality and following a line drive punt against Jacksonville in January that motivated his off-season.

That, and possibly winning the field position game, is not going to be part of the equation for this season's Steelers, at least in the form of Sepulveda. Assuming it will fall in place without him, or that it's all only about kicking a ball around, well, just isn't knowing the situation.

"Ellis Cannon's Sportsline Pittsburgh" airs weeknights from 6-8 p.m. on FM Newstalk 104.7. Ellis is also a regular contributor on "#1 Cochran Sports Showdown" aired Sundays at 11:35 p.m. on KDKA-TV.