Nov 19, 2016 By John Steigerwald for The 5 min read

Bob Palko for Coach of the Year.

How about coach of the decade if not the century? Palko’s West Allegheny High School team had just scored a touchdown in overtime to get within one point of McKeesport Friday night.

It was the WPIAL 5A Championship game at Heinz Field. He could have used one of the WPIAL’s best kickers ever and kicked for the tie but he didn’t.

His quarterback Nick Ross ran in for the two points and Palko’s 8th WPIAL championship.

Often, in high school football, because of a shortage of good kickers, going for two is a safer proposition than kicking an extra point but that wasn’t the case for Palko.

He just decided to allow his season to be defined by one decision and it paid off. I’ll never understand why more coaches at every level don’t do this more often.

In the NFL’s sudden death system, at some point during overtime you are going to have to make a play – convert a long third or a fourth down. Stop your opponent on third-and-one.

When you have the ball and a chance to end it, why not go for it every time? Why put off having to make a play later just to maintain the tie? Go for two and send the other guys home.

— Two things will be missing from today’s Browns-Steelers game in Cleveland: old Municipal Stadium and a real NFL team.

The Browns are really bad and their stadium is nice but it’s a little too nice. SteelersBrowns in Cleveland used to be such an event. The black, old stadium had 83,000 in it and if you were lucky the game was played in December with lots of snow.

Temperatures in the 30s and high winds are expected in Cleveland today.

And congratulations to the Browns for not wimping out and putting a roof over their heads as the Lions, who also play near a lake, did. If you’re a Steelers fan, you’re probably glad that the Browns are 0-9 and one of the worst teams in NFL history.

Your team has a four-game losing streak to break and a division championship is still possible, but it’s days like today that make me go against Western Pennsylvania sports dogma and root for the Browns to become a great franchise again.

Imagine how much better the game would be if both teams showed up to play in the lake effect snow today with 8-1 records. The rivalry with the Ravens is a great one but it would be bumped to number two for the Steelers if the Browns ever become an elite team.

Nothing will ever be better than the Steelers playing the Browns on a cold, snowy December day in old, dark and ugly Municipal Stadium, but it would be nice to see the rivalry return some day.

— The NFL released the names of the 26 semi-finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week and one name that jumped out at me was Jimmy Johnson. How is it that he’s not already in? He won two Super Bowls as coach of the Cowboys, but he was the guy most responsible for building a dynasty that won three in four years. And if Johnson’s not in, how can anyone suggest that former Steelers coach Bill Cowher, who won one Super Bowl, should be?

— Speaking of the Steelers and Cowboys, last week’s game was one of the highest rated of the season. There were seven lead changes including four in the last eight minutes and it was probably the most entertaining game of the year. The Guardian used Steelers-Cowboys as part of its study to find a way to shorten NFL games and came up with some numbers that should get the attention of somebody in the league office.

“There were 13 scoring plays, the game took 3 hours, 18 minutes to complete on the Fox network. More than three hours of that time were consumed by replays, analysis, Erin Andrews’ sideline reports and, yes, roughly 110 commercialS.”

“Between the time the Steelers took a 12-3 lead with 1:13 left in the first quarter and the end of the quarter Sunday, there were 44 seconds of actual action – spread over 16 minutes of real time. Two of the six plays from scrimmage in that span were wiped out by penalties.”

The Guardian came up with lots of good suggestions for shortening the games. My two favorites were shortening the time between plays. Right now teams get 40 seconds. Canadian Football League teams seem to get by with 25. Also take less time on replays. If the replay makes it obvious to 15 million viewers that the officials missed a call -or didn’t – it shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds to figure it out and get on to the next play.

— Russell Wilson has thrown three interceptions in his last 16 regular season games. That’s insane.