It is entirely possible I may actually watch a little of the Hall of Fame Game — beyond the first quarter — just to see Tyler Palko on the field in a New Orleans Saints uniform.

The former West Allegheny High School and Pitt star quarterback will play some time in the second half when the New Orleans Saints play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.

Drew Brees will start for the Saints and play a series or two. Backup QB Jamie Martin will finish the first half. In the second half, Palko and Jason Fife, who are battling for the No. 3 job, will split time.

“It’s accurate to say that those live snaps you receive at quarterback over the period of four or five games are very important,” Saints coach Sean Payton said.

Last year when the Saints won the NFC South Division and advanced to the NFC Championship Game, they kept only two quarterbacks most of the year (Brees, a first-team All-Pro last year, and Martin, a journeyman who’s only started eight games in his 12-year pro career.

New Orleans Coach Sean Payton seems to really want Palko to succeed.

There are some other youngsters to watch: second-year receiver Lance Moore could end up being the punt/kick returner; Rutgers free-agent cornerback Joe Porter has impressed while Payton mentioned Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko, another undrafted rookie.

Payton’s eyes lit up when he spoke of Palko’s passing background at Pitt, which is interesting because should the Saints lose Brees, their season figures to go downhill fast. Jamie Martin is the backup, but he isn’t physically imposing.

At the very least, Payton seems to believe Palko could become a solid back-up. Palko performed well in minicamps, but has made some mistakes in training camp. Big shock, it came from trying to do too much.

Often, he has struggled to decide where to throw before being forced to scramble out of the pocket. On one such occasion, as he rolled frantically to his right, the lefty attempted to flip a short backhanded pass about 10-yards down field, then watched it get intercepted and returned to the end zone.

“He’s had a lot thrown at him. … He’s probably pushed it a little bit to try to make plays,” Payton said after a recent practice. “He’s handled the installation well, but like any young quarterback, there is a lot going on in their minds and it’s moving pretty quickly. You just hope each practice he gets better.”

…

Payton did not seem terribly disturbed by Palko’s botched, desperate, backhanded pass, considering that it happened early in training camp. But Palko will need to avoid making the same mistakes twice.

“That indiscriminate decision where you are trying to force something can be common with young quarterbacks – and you have to eliminate them,” Payton said.

There are some habits that take a while to shake.

I’m sure tomorrow we can expect a story or two about Palko coming to play the team he grew up watching. The usual cliches are expected to be overused.

…because of this baby.

Stopped at Dick’s today and picked it up. Along with some Gold 1A lot passes (which are free from a friend), Saturdays and the occasional Wednesday are going to be a ton of fun. If you come visit, maybe you’ll get a free burger or dog out of it…we’ll be the ones huddled around the white Jeep Liberty.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just not getting enough sleep. It’s hard to be a sportswriter in the late summer when the baseball team sucks and there’s no training camp. So I’m willing to pardon a little stupidity.

While I had been a bit distracted, last week Bob Smizik wrote a piece ripping into Pitt’s home football schedule this year. To some degree, everyone has. Pitt fans and ticket-holders (including myself) have been mocking a lousy, uninteresting home schedule where the marquee game is against Navy. And that was moved to Wednesday night to make it a real pain. It’s such an easy target, no one can resist trashing it and pitying the fans who actually get season tickets.

Since it was Smizik, though, he did it in a way that ensured pissing off Pitt fans. He started by imagining an ultimatum from Penn State for a 3-for-2 deal. It was a lazy column, that didn’t involve much work. Frankly, typical Smizik effort, but hey there are only so many ways to complain about the Pirates by the end of July.

A good amount of the irritation, though, seemed to be from being reminded of it — by Smizik. The overall schedule is fine, but there is nothing about the home slate that makes anyone think they need to circle the dates. Not really sure why the Big East has put Pitt with such an unbalanced Big East schedule with Louisville and WVU (and to a lesser extent with Rutgers) as both being either home or away in the same year. It could be argued that it gives Pitt a better chance at the Big East title in even numbered years, but that presupposes a lot of foresight by the Big East and that Pitt will be in a position to challenge in those years.

Then Paul Zeise got in trouble for comments he made regarding Michael Vick, dog fighting allegations and suggesting that Vick would have been better off committing rape rather than doing dog fighting. Rape was apparently the wrong crime to compare. Everything else is acceptable.

Plus, Vick could have been accused of murdering a stripper, blowing up a shopping mall or funneling his Nike money to Al Qaeda, and people wouldn’t have been even 1% as outraged as they are about the dogfighting allegations. You can get away with just about anything these days; just don’t tick off dog lovers.

Suggesting rape or pedophilia seem to be about the only comparisons not allowed.

The funny thing is that Zeise probably wasn’t wrong. Anyone else remember when Sebastian Janikowski was arrested for possessing the date rape drug, GHB? What was he planning to do with that? He never suffered major repercussions for that, professionally.

Just not the men’s team. The Maggie Dixon Classic, for those of you who didn’t catch the AP stories, will be a women’s tournament that is played annually at Madison Square Garden.

“The Garden approached us last year, but we felt that the first one should be at West Point,” Pitt men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon said. “The next one should be at Madison Square Garden since that’s where all of basketball starts.”

The second annual Maggie Dixon Classic will be played Dec. 8 at the Garden with a women’s basketball doubleheader featuring Rutgers, Duke, Pitt and Army. It is the first women’s doubleheader there since 1981, when Rutgers, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion and Cheyney State took part.

Glad to see the women’s team is at least participating.

The 2007 Pitt Football Media Guide has been released and is available to download.

Get reading.

The PittBlather site has been up and posting for a year today. Disturbingly, that means a little obligatory self-congratulations and reflection. It seems to be a blogospheric thing where you point out the anniversary of not getting sick of continually posting and updating your blog. I am a bit of a traditionalist.

It’s safe to say this has been a 12 month period of tremendous upheaval and change on so many levels for me. From the new site, becoming an editor/blogger for FanHouse at AOL, a house fire, Dennis joining the ‘Blather, new son, heart issues for the infant, frightening veneer of credibility being attached to me, some new opportunities and possibilities that appear to be opening up for me.

There’s a reason I don’t like to get reflective. There’s been a lot of s**t the last year and I honestly hadn’t thought much about all of it in one period until I started writing this. Yeesh.

So much of the good has happened because of this blog. It really is stunning. I owe everyone who comments or just reads a great deal. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, even if this has been a labor of love.

One of the big things I’m very happy about is still not needing a registration system for comments. That’s something I just don’t like having to do on other sites, and hated the idea of having to do it here. Thankfully between the spam filters, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of you don’t put me in a position where I have to consider it, the commenting system remains in place. Only 3 bans in the 12 month period is completely in the tolerable area.

The blog since the move to its own site last August has steadily increased in popularity. For the year, the site has averaged over 1,000 unique visitors a day. Most encouraging is that the past two months — some of the deadest times for college sports has seen the 2nd and 4th most hits this year. To actually see more hits in the summer than during the seasons is something (or it could just be reflective of how disappointed and depressed everyone was over the football team). When the blog first started, it was a shock when the hit count went over 100 for the day.

Here’s hoping for a football and basketball season that actually exceed expectations. Thanks once more to everyone.

He’ll get another chance — next year.

Fields has been suspended for the football season for violating team policy, Panthers coach Dave Wannstedt announced Tuesday.

“Although we have suspended Elijah for the season, he will remain part of our program and practice,” Wannstedt said in a statement. “We will continue to demand that he work hard on the field and in the classroom so that he can be an important part of our program’s future.”

Of course, that depends on Fields actually showing up and working. Something that it seems he has shown little commitment to actually doing.

He has some incredible talent. He flashed it in the spring where he missed a series of practices, had a brief suspension and still looked phenomenal in the Blue-Gold game. He doesn’t seem to care about the rest — academics, practice, conditioning, the future.
This suspension has been rumored all summer. Heck, Orson at EDSBS was probably hinting at it earlier yesterday (item #6).

Pitt seems to be all they can to help the kid. If he doesn’t want the help and the opportunity, though, there’s not much to be done.

I’m guessing Safety becomes a bigger priority in recruiting at this point.