When we launched the site back in September, I had a great idea for a story: On the week of the regular season game against the Patriots, I would go to a local Patriots-support spot and interview New England fans about their impressions of the Steelers. My question was simple: To non-Pittsburgh fans, are the Steelers the bad guys?

The question probably stems from the fact that I grew up LOVING bad guys: Skeletor, Destro, Razor Ramon. And while it’d be easy for me to argue that it’s just because villains are generally written with more depth and nuance than your average hero, I’m gonna keep it real: Bad guys are cool. Always have been.

Of course, my reporter instincts weren’t as powerful as my desire to huddle up with a barful of Steelers fans for what I knew would be a hard-fought game with the defending world champs. I didn’t do the story, and resigned myself to not knowing the answer.

But then I read that Bengals right tackle Willie Anderson this week called the Steelers “the biggest, baddest and toughest team in football.” I can’t remember being this stoked since I saw “Payback.”

For those who don’t spend all their non-football time on low-rent cable movie channels, “Payback” is a Mel Gibson flick. In the movie, Mel plays Porter, a small-time gangster who is betrayed by his partner after a big-for-them score. Shot in the back and left for dead, Porter manages to survive, and—after a year plus of recovery—spends the rest of the movie seeking his share of the dough: $70,000. As he works his way around, Porter kills just about everybody, and won’t accept any sum other than his seventy grand.

Now, most people I know think “Payback” kinda sucks. And I’ll grant them a few points: Porter’s ability to survive pretty much everything—getting shot, getting run over by a car—is pretty ridiculous. It’s a little dumb. And it gave us Lucy Liu, not to mention the scene where she says “hubba hubba hubba” (Trust me, you’ve seen this. And you hate it, too).

But what’s awesome about “Payback” is that where Mel Gibson usually plays a sympathetic superhero, Porter’s a bad guy. If the storyline weren’t set up for you to root for him, he’d probably be considered the movie’s villain. But in “Payback,” you’re ON HIS SIDE. He kills people in cold blood, and it is AWESOME (and it’s supposed to be). He wreaks havoc on someone’s beach estate, and it is the greatest thing you have ever seen. And he keeps not dying, and it’s not like a video game boss that you have to kill six times; it’s like you’ve punched in a little UpUpDownDownLeftRightLeftRight action and your character is damned near invincible. It is, in a word, badass.

That’s what makes me so excited about this weekend’s playoff matchup with Cincinnati. As I lamented in my first column for the Ex-‘Burgher, the Bengals have spent the entire season as the nation’s darlings, an upstart team rising out of obscurity with an explosive offense and ostentatious players that make for great TV as they putt and pet footballs after each score. And when the Bengals defeated the Steelers in Pittsburgh on December 4, they celebrated as if they’d slain the AFC North dragon, exorcised their demons and laid their claim as the new kings of the division. Tailback Rudi Johnson indicated that everyone should get used to Cincinnati domination. Chad Johnson also indicated that a sea change had occurred, with the Steelers as obsolete as black-and-white television. T.J. Houshmanzadeh gave the Steelers the ultimate insult, using a Terrible Towel to shine his spikes during postgame. To the Bengals, it didn’t matter: They’d beaten the bad guys.

Unfortunately for the Cincy KittyCats, the Steelers decided to go all Razor Ramon on ‘em, shaking their arm from beneath the submission hold, jumping up and giving their remaining opponents a few kicks to the ribs. They did that little throw-the-toothpick-at-you move and gave the Bears, Vikings, Browns and Lions the Razor’s Edge. The Steelers wouldn’t die. And now, they look stronger than ever.

And this weekend? Just like the movie’s tagline, “Get Ready to Root for the Bad Guy.” It’s “Payback” time.

----Greg

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