Pittsburgh Steelers: Getting to Know Defensive End Chris Carter

 From the first moment you talk to former Fresno State defensive end Chris Carter you realize just how excited he is just to be able to play at the next level. He's up front, honest, and candid about his workouts prior to the draft as well as the emotional roller coaster he and his family went through on draft day.



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I talked to Carter about where some of the scouts, who saw him on his pro day, thought he might land. "Some told me late second round, others said some time in the third round," Carter told me. So you can imagine his heart beginning to drop and his frustrations growing when the second round, then the third, then the fourth came and went.

"I didn't know what to think," Carter said. "I started to wonder if my name would be called at all."

When the phone rang and Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was on the other end, Carter did something he didn't expect himself to do. "The tears just started flowing," he told me with a laugh. "I'm a defensive end, I'm supposed to hit people and make them cry but here I was with tears running down my face."

But before Steeler fans begin to think he's a softy, you might want to think again. Carter is explosive off the ball and was a huge playmaker for Pat Hill and the Bulldogs at the defensive end position. His quickness allowed him to be one of the fastest at his position in Fresno State football history.

I asked Carter to describe himself to Steeler fans who have never seen or heard of him before. He used words like 'explosive,' 'tough,' and 'hard worker.' Those who know Carter or who have had the chance to play alongside him know those words sum him up nicely.

He's not the biggest lineman in the draft and he may not even be the best, but this is an athlete who Tomlin is going to be able to put to good use.

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Super Bowl XLV: Breaking Down the Green Bay Packers' Offense

 

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It's the morning after Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers celebrated a Super Bowl Championship at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. A week that couldn't go any worse for the host city, seem to finish with a bang thanks to a great game from the Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

While there are those that are going to break down the game from every angle they can find, I'm only here to give you one angle and one angle alone, the Packers' offense.

Rodgers, the Super Bowl XLV MVP, couldn't have played any better and the Packers couldn't have asked for any more from him. Well, maybe with the exception of two touchdown passes dropped by wide receivers Jordy Nelson and James Jones respectively.

Catch those two passes and there is no drama late in the fourth quarter.

The first half belonged to the Packers. Though the offense put up just seven points in the first half, they did their job in wearing down the Steelers' defense.

What follows is each series from the Packers' offense and how they looked after each drive. We'll look at key plays, we'll look at a change in momentum, and we'll take a look at a few plays that could have made the outcome of the game completely different.

So, if you're ready, let's get after it.

Series 1: 6 plays 35 yards 2:00

After a muffed punt that the Packers could have lost and a play that could have damaged any chance of winning the game at all, Green Bay went six plays, used two minutes of the clock, but really never got anything done. They were trying to run the ball against the best run defense in the NFL and Rodgers completed just one of four passes.

Series 2: 9 plays 80 yards 4:33

If the Packers needed their first drive to get warmed up, it must have worked because their second drive looked nothing short of methodical. Rodgers was able to get his passes complete to Nelson, Corey Hall, and Brandon Jackson and they were also able to run the ball with a rookie running back.

On a bid third down play, Rodgers threw an absolutely perfect 29-yard touchdown pass to Nelson to put Green Bay on the board first.

Series 3: 4 plays 9 yards 1:31

The Pittsburgh Steelers seemed to figure out that putting pressure on the Packers' quarterback was the key to keeping him off balance and off the field. Two of three passes put them a yard short of the first down marker and they were forced to punt the ball back to the Steelers.

Series 4: 4 plays 53 yards 2:04

The Packers' defense steps up and picks off Roethlisberger for the second time on the night, the first of which was returned for a touchdown. Rodgers takes his team 53 yards down the field on just four plays and hit Greg Jennings from 21-yards out to give the Packers a 21-3 lead with just over two minutes to go in the half.

Halftime

Through the first half of play, the Packers had the game well in hand and Rodgers was leading the way. He had completed 11-of-16 passes for 137 yards and two touchdowns. This was all Green Bay, at least we thought.

Series 5: 4 plays 4 yards 2:31

This was as sloppy as the Packers had looked all night. They hadn't been penalized on offense to this point but they were flagged twice in one drive. Once for holding on the first play of the drive and again for a false start. The momentum was shifting and it looked like Green Bay was going in the wrong direction.

Series 6: 4 plays -3 yards 1:12

The Steelers stepped up the pressure with blitzes through the Packers offensive line and it threw Rodgers completely off balance. A would have been touchdown dropped by Nelson was followed by a sack on third down sending the Green Bay offense off the field as fast as they came on.

Series 7: 4 plays 19 yards 2:06

This was a drive that looked promising right from the start after a 17-yard completion to Jordy Nelson into Pittsburgh territory but that was the only good thing for the Packers. A three yard loss on a run by Starks and a dropped pass ended any hope of putting a little distance between themselves and the Steelers.

Series 8: 3 plays 0 yards :16

Green Bay looked to be abandoning their run game after three straight incomplete passes from Aaron Rodgers. They had proven they could run against Pittsburgh, but with the Steelers climbing back into the game, Rodgers was trying to do it himself.

Series 9: 8 plays 55 yards 2:56

Another Steelers' turnover game the Packers new life and not a moment too soon. Though Rodgers completed just four-of-eight passes in the drive including another dropped pass from Jordy Nelson, Rodgers was able to complete a big third down pass, again to Nelson, for 38 yards and hit Greg Jennings with his second touchdown catch of the night from eight yards out.

Series 10: 11 plays 70 yards 5:22

Two big passes from Rodgers to Brandon Jennings for 34 yards and James Jones for 21 yards seem to set the tone for a game winning drive for the Packers. They couldn't put the ball in the end zone, but a chip-shot field goal put the Packers up six with just over two minutes to go.

It would prove to be the nail in the coffin for the Steelers as Green Bay's defense stepped up and made sure Ben Roethlisberger didn't have one more miraculous drive under his belt.

There's no question the game's most valuable player belonged to Aaron Roders who threw for 304 yards and three touchdowns completing 24-of-39 passes on the night. He could have easily had more than 400 yards through the air but he'll easily take a Super Bowl ring and a celebration with his teammates over improving his numbers just a little bit more.

Next to all that, what Rodgers may take even more solise in is going back to Green Bay and hearing Packer fans say, "Brett who?"

Super Bowl XLV: Cowboys Stadium Readies For Their One, and Only, Super Bowl

When the NFL awarded Jerry Jones and Cowboys Stadium Super Bowl XLV, the cities of Dallas, Forth Worth, and Arlington especially were ecstatic. They were ready to show they could be the best host city that's ever been.

The restaurants, bars, and clubs knew they be packed with patrons and celebrities alike. They didn't want to disappoint, they wanted to be ready.

Jones told the media just weeks prior to the big game that he wanted this to be the biggest Super Bowl party that anyone had ever seen. He wanted to break records and be remembered for the most attendance every in a Super Bowl game.

One week prior to the game, there was a buzz in the air and you could feel it. This town was ready.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to intervene and throw the biggest curveball that this area had seen in more than a decade.

On Tuesday, ice, sleet, and snow made roads treacherous to drive on and it closed the two major airports in town. Delaying fans and NFL workers alike coming in from out of town.

The temperatures stayed below freezing through Wednesday and Thursday. Media members and players staying in Dallas and Fort Worth found it hard to impossible to get from where their hotels to Cowboys Stadium for any media events. But that wasn't the worst of it.

According to a source I spoke to on Wednesday told me the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth, the team hotel for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was losing power every 15 minutes, making it difficult for anyone to keep their laptops or phones charged and available for anyone to contact them.

They weren't the only ones having problems.

Marty Caswell of 1090 AM in San Diego tweeted on Friday, "the NFL Media hotel in Dallas is canceling their own shuttles to airport & impossible to get a cab. Getting out will be futile." When I asked Caswell where exactly they were saying she responded, "we are in Dallas. I think. Or the North Pole."

She's not the only member of the media who's experienced problems since coming in to town. I talked to CBS Sports' Mike Freeman who had plenty of complaints about the roadways around the Dallas area.

At one point, though sarcastic, Freeman said "let's have the Super Bowl in Green Bay. Seriously. Green Bay knows what a snow plow looks like."

But the roads weren't the only problem the visiting media, as well as the teams playing in the big game, were having. Freeman told me the heat in the hotel he was staying at, though he didn't disclose the name of the hotel, had lost power as well as heat more than a few times on Friday. To top that out, the elevators quit working as well.

The conversation between he and I turned to the city refusing to use salt to melt the ice on the roads to make them a little safer for those traveling on them. A response to that popular question was given by a spokesperson from Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) who said, "it's corrosive and it's bad for the environment."

Out of all the answers that could have been given, that one was probably the worst.

Drivers in Dallas, Fort Worth, and points in between found it difficult to gain any traction on the freeways as well as the side streets which were virtually ignored by any of the sand trucks being used in the area.

This city was supposed to put on a good show for those coming in from out of town. What they did was fail miserably and the ones left to blame is TxDOT themselves. While the argument can be made that the state of Texas will not invest in snow plows that would never be used more than one or two times a year, there's no excuse to at least not be ready for a weather system we all knew was coming.

A week prior to the arctic cold front was to move through the area, meteorologists warned that it was very possible this was going to come in and it was going to make driving conditions difficult to say the least.

This was a weather system that was predicted and yet there was no effort made by the city to be ready for it. The Super Bowl was the biggest event this town had seen in quite some time, next to the American League Championship series that featured the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees.

Restaurants and other business were counting on big crowds and a large influx of cash from out of town visitors to the area. Because of the slow timed response from the city crews, some of those businesses either had to shut down or saw a very small number of customers. What was supposed to be an economic boom for this town because an economic drop through the floor.

So, the heavy snow fell just 48 hours prior to Super Bowl Sunday, cabs and hotel shuttles ground to a halt. The media who were expected to gain audio quotes to be transcribed for print, instead were stuck in their hotels unable to do anything at all.

The talk at that point centered around whether Dallas would ever get another Super Bowl because of the failure of the city to make absolutely sure they were ready for anything.

As the sun finally made an appearance and the snow on the ground began to slowly melt, it finally started to look like things were looking up. The roads were beginning to thaw out and the driving conditions started to become a little better than the last 72 hours.

But just when you thought all might be well leading up to Sunday, insult was added to an already devastating injury.

Snow and ice that was melting from the roof of Cowboys Stadium, came sliding off and fell to the ground below, injuring seven contracted workers from the NFL.

If there ever was a straw to break the camel's back, this was it. If their fate wasn't sealed for ever getting a Super Bowl, this freak event most likely might have done the trick.

While TxDOT finally did bring more than 50 snow plow trucks into the area from west Texas, it was too little too late. The damage was already done and the reputation of Dallas as host city was already more than tarnished.

For those that believe Jerry Jones has enough pull to bring the Super Bowl back to his stadium and the city of Arlington, what has transpired over the last five days might be enough for them to turn him down before Jones ever gets his full speech out.

This city failed and did so miserably. It's no fault to Jones or Cowboys Stadium, or even the city crews who were called upon to work around the clock to try and clear the roadways. They received their marching orders far too late.

There is absolutely no excuse to not at least have the trucks in and ready for whatever showed up. They had ample time and ample warning of this storm system and yet they didn't respond until it was already too late.

As far as not throwing salt down to melt the ice before bad became worse, the environment was a bigger issue to them than the safety of their citizens or to ensure safe passage for those that traveled here to work on the biggest game of the NFL season.

To wrap up all of this in a neat little bow, I think I'll let Mike Freeman say exactly what a lot of the media, and out of town fans, think of Dallas after this past week.

"New motto for Dallas Super Bowl: rolling blackouts, unpaved roads, and falling ice...We Are Dallas. Come see us!"

You better enjoy this Super Bowl while it's here, because it's highly unlikely this city will ever see one again.


Follow CBS Sports' Mike Freeman on Twitter

Super Bowl XLV: Media, Fans Facing Treacherous Conditions Just Days Before The Big Game

From all the complaining that has gone on throughout this week, you'd think there was going to be a boycott of Super Bowl XLV here in Arlington, Texas. You would have thought the out of town media members were going to pack up their things and go home, if the game wasn't moved to a city where they wouldn't have to wear parkas and gloves just to stay warm.

But we here in north Texas wanted to make the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers feel right at home. Apparently Mother Nature is a football fan and loves these two teams. Why else would the weather, and the temperatures, absolutely suck over the last four days and counting?

On Tuesday, the Dallas/Ft Worth metro-plex had an arctic storm system blow through that brought sleet, driving snow, and below freezing temperatures. Mix those together and you have icy streets that are hard to walk on let alone drive on, not to mention below zero wind chills.

That set off a firestorm of complaints from the media members that traveled here from out of town. I will grant them that this isn't exactly the kind of weather any of us want to see for the big game either, but we didn't flip a switch and make sure it was nice and cold for the game's arrival.

While most us that live in this area don't understand the complaints from those that get to stay in nice hotels and have nice accomodations, you may not know the whole story. Reporters are having to deal with icy streets which make it hard for them to walk where they need to go. Not only that, but according to a source I spoke to, there have already been injuries to a few different media members that have required medical attention.

This is the information you won't hear and this is why we've heard so many complaints about the weather since the out of town media began arriving sometime on Monday night into Tuesday when this storm first rolled through.

At Pittsburgh Steelers' team hotel in Fort Worth, this same source told me the hotel would either lose power or have brownouts every 15 minutes. That would make it difficult to almost impossible for cell phones to remain charged as well as laptops running for stories that needed to be filed for local newspapers.

No one is going to tell this story because most publications know they're not going to get any sympathy from fans because they may not believe that these nice hotels are having these kind of problems.

To add insult to injury, six inches of snow on Thursday night into Friday made for an even more dangerous situation for those trying to make their way to radio row at Cowboys Stadium.

Conditions on every freeway and every side street has made commuting around the metroplex almost impossible. Cars are getting stuck and having to be pulled out, even police cars and emergency vehicles are finding it difficult to go where they're needed.

For those that wonder why there are so many complaints coming from the media here in the Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex, you'll understand why these aren't the best working conditions around.

The ice is still hanging around and even though there is more than six inches of fluffy snow on the ground, underneath that is the same dangerous layer of ice that's been hanging around since early Tuesday morning.

Having the Super Bowl in Dallas, or Arlington as it were, is looking a lot worse as the days go on. Schools have been closed for four days straight and the roadways haven't been treated the way they should be because Texas Department of Transportation won't use salt to melt the ice because, as one spokesperson told the local news, "it's bad for the evironment."

So before we start taking shots at the media for complaining even though they get to cover the biggest game of the NFL season, you might want to remember the conditions they're having to deal with just leaving their hotel rooms.

This isn't the most thankful job around and some might call it a "cush job," but it's a job none the less. With the conditions outside, it's making that job even more difficult.

If the NFL is hesitant to give Dallas another Super Bowl, you'll understand why this weather and the road conditions would lead them to that conclusion.

Unless the ice and snow melts between Friday afternoon and Saturday, it could make the drive, and walk, to Cowboys Stadium, an event in itself. The game might not be the biggest story on Super Bowl Sunday, it very well could be the weather and lack of readiness by the city crews.

Jerry Jones doesn't want to be knows as having the Super Bowl in his stadium during some of the worst conditions that's ever been seen a week before the big game. Unfortunately, it's something he may not be able to get away from.