A Primer for Stillers.com Fans
We�ve received quite a bit of email from �new� fans who have recently discovered our 6-year old site. With that in mind, we�ve put together a short primer on Stillers.com, which should serve to inform you, the reader, about who we are and what we do.
As you�ve probably seen in our �About Us� page, our mission is to provide the fans with an "on-line view from inside the Blast Furnace" and a unique perspective of everything that involves our beloved Men of Steel, and to provide fellow fans with a forum for thorough, hard-hitting, no-fluff analysis and discussion of their favorite football team
The core competency of our staff is analytics. There are plenty of sites that provide stats, or perhaps a summary of what happened in the draft, or in the game, etc. Many of those sites have better stats and better compilations of raw data than this one. Again, that is not our core competency. Our approach to studying the Stillers revolves essentially around the model of Bloom�s Taxonomy�, which is a continuum of the following:
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- Knowledge |
(recall, recite) |
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- Comprehension |
(translate, interpret) |
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- Application |
(use methods, concepts, theories in new situations) |
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- Analysis |
(distinguish, compare, contrast) |
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- Synthesis |
(combine, create, construct) |
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- Evaluation |
(assess, judge, evaluate) |
Although evaluation is considered by Bloom to be the �highest� level, we�d argue that synthesis, in many instances, may very well be higher. At any rate, the objective of this site is to provide the reader with a high degree of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
How do we go about doing this? For starters, we here at Stillers.com take our Steeler football very seriously. Our slogan, �It�s not just a team, it�s a way of life�, is a heartfelt motto that unquestionably captures the way we follow Stiller football. Each of our writers spends considerable time analyzing and poring over the Stillers, as well as the rest of the NFL. In fact, sadly enough, we here at Stillers.com rarely get to participate in the typical beer guzzling and rowdy, good-natured behavior that occurs at Stiller �fan club� bars/restaurants all over the country, because we�re too busy analyzing the game and taking notes for our post-game reports. J
Furthermore, we here at Stillers.com view Stiller football as a process, not as a collection of isolated events. We therefore feel that, through our articles, the Stillers must be studied in the following manner: breadth, depth, and context.
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To put this in simple terms --- as an example a draw play, in and of itself, may be a perfectly adequate playcall. However, put in the context of a team coming out of its last timeout, on the opponent�s 8-yard line, after having just burned the same defense with the same RB on the same draw play, with only 20 seconds remaining in the game, is probably not a real savvy playcall when examined in breadth and depth within the context of that game situation (which, in case you didn�t recognize it, was the ending of the Fiasco in Cleveland back in '99).
We readily acknowledge that, because of this mindset of breadth, depth, and context, not everything comes out �peaches and cream� in our reports. And we realize there are plenty of Steeler sites that hold �virtual campfires�, with writers and board-posters sitting �round the fire, holding hands and singing �KoomBayAh�. It�s not our intent to be the skunk at the picnic, but at the same time we have an obligation to our readership to call a spade a spade, and to provide comprehensive reporting based on intensive analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. If this means that some of our reporting is �negative� or critical, so be it.
On top of that, there�s the occasional off-the-wall, or off-color, humor that appears here on this site. We hope it doesn�t offend anyone, but in this day of overly political correctness, we can�t please everyone. For every email complaint we get about such Stillers.com novelties as �The GilDong Report� and �Is Bill Cowher Really Dick Hatch�, we get five or ten emails lauding us. While we here at Stillers.com are all in favor of academic-style analyses, this is a fan site that we are promulgating, and therefore we will take the liberty to add humor, satire, and/or sarcasm to emphasize or add to our analyses.
For better or worse, this is our modus operandi. We sincerely hope that you find Stillers.com a useful, informative tool to enhance your experience as a fellow Stillers fan. Stillers.com -- �It�s not just a team, it�s a way of life!�
1 Adapted from: Bloom, B.S. (Ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals: Handbook I, cognitive domain. New York ; Toronto: Longmans, Green