My First 100 Articles: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Five months ago, I stumbled across this site by accident.  It was just after the Steelers won the Super Bowl, and in my yearly ritual when the season ends,  I tried to figure out who the Steelers were going to draft.

So, I did a google search.  I am not sure how far down I was when I came across a mock draft where someone said the Steelers were going to draft a wide receiver.  I thought, "what an idiot", but I had the chance to leave a comment.  I thought, I have to.

I tried to leave a comment when this box popped up asking me if I wanted to write an article. 

Me?

I wrote for a Steelers site a few years ago, and really enjoyed it, so I thought, I can do this again.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Here I am now, 100 articles later, and I would like to review them the best way that I can.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The Good

Friends

I have met some really great people here on B/R. They are not only fans, but some of the guys that I believe, if we lived close together, would probably be friends.

TJ Jenkins—Started a couple months before me, but we climbed up the Steelers rankings together.  He hasn't been on in a while, and I miss his writing.  Look forward to you getting back TJ.

Tim Steelersfan—Love getting into arguments with this guy.  This guy is like the Swammy of the Steelers.  If you are going to argue with him, you better have stats ready.

Timothy Kessler—Great guy. Feel free to comment about him, but don't put words in his mouth or you are going to hear about it.

Todd Fleming—The guy lives in Korea, and is still ranked the No. 2 Steelers writer.

Jake Cole—Has been working his way up the Steelers rankings.

All of these guys are guaranteed to read every article I write, and always give me positive comments when I am right.  Just wanted to say thanks, you made my first 100 a lot of fun.

Articles

One of the things that I have found about writing articles, is that if you want to get a bunch of comments, the way to go about doing it is being controversial.

I have had four articles with over 100 comments.  All four articles are questioning Peyton Manning or the New England Patriots.

I would crack on people for blindly following their team, but since I do the same, why bother.

The Bad

Fair-Weather Writers

When CBSSports announced they were going to be hiring someone for each of the 32 NFL teams to cover their team, the writing on here was amazing.  I loved the fact that every day, when I signed on that there would be five or six new articles every time.

There were some great new writers, and they did a great job.  It was really making the offseason a lot of fun.

But when the competition ended, most of them went away, and have not been back.  I can understand why people would try to win that job.  It is a dream job.  I just thought if they really had the passion, and wanted to be a writer, they would have stayed.

Trolls

People that create profiles that write no articles, and just come on to bash people.  I am not going to mention any of them by name, you know who you are.

The Ugly

I am not going to do an ugly version today.  I have to say that my writing experience here on Bleacher Report has been more than I could have ever imagined. 

I would like to thank the guys in the Bleacher Report office. The editors, who are always willing to encourage and do a terrific job.

But there are two people that I would especially like to thank.  Even though I don't know if they will ever even read this.

Rory—Assignment Desk Editor—the link between for Bleacher and CBSSports.  Last week after the date where CBSSports had said they would let us know who won the competition, and were late, I sent him an e-mail asking if he had heard anything.

I didn't get back the typical form letter that I expected to get.  I actually got an e-mail from Rory explaining the situation.  It is nice that people actually care.  It is probably one of the reasons for the success of the site.

Zander—The Community GM—thank you and the rest of the guys for starting this site.  For people to be able to come here, share their thoughts, get into discussions with other fans.  It is amazing.  I have seen a number of other sites that try to do what they have done here on Bleacher, and no one is even close.  Thanks for letting me share my opinions.

Thanks a bunch, fellow Bleacher creatures.  You all made the first 100 amazing.  I look forward to the next 100, and the 100 after that, and the 100 after that...