Will the Real Bill Cowher Please Stand Up?

Time Warner Cable.  I don't like them.  Our cable and internet bill got reduced by $33 yesterday, so you'd think we'd be on good terms, but that was after I called about $7 increase in our bill which is 2 months removed from a $10 increase, and that was only one month after a $5 increase (if you're not keeping score, that's a total of $22 since the start of the year).  I was also advised to call again in September, as our "promotion" will expire and the bill will go up $23.

Our apartment complex will only let us get Time Warner (TW), so our hands are tied at the moment.  But that's not what this post is about.  As I call time and time again about a fluctuating bill, the good folks at TW pour salt on the wound with their recent ad campaign, or as I call it, the wussification of Bill Cowher.  Let's take a look*

*Apparently I can't embed Youtube videos posted by TW, no doubt just another cog in their sinister plan to further inconvenience their customers and the public at large.  So, my TW examples will be hyperlinks - but that's OK, just hit the "back" button to finish the reading and my page visits should increase!

What was that?  Who was that?  I'll tell you one thing, it wasn't Bill Cowher.  This is the face I remember from my childhood and teenage years:

Look at that scowl.  That's a face that could make a grown man cry.  That's the face that personified the 90's smash-mouth, defense-first, Pittsburgh Steelers.  Some say Cowher was overrated because he "only" won one Super Bowl.  I can think of a lot of great coaches that would like "one" Super Bowl Ring.  Ask Andy Reid.  Cowher also coached the same team for 15 years.  In today's NFL, coaches are lucky to make it to 5. For old-timers in Steelers nation, Cowher's teams were a throw-back to the 70's dynasty.  Young-bloods like me marveled at the fact that in a league that has so much personnel turnover and subsequent parody, he churned out Super Bowl contenders year after year like water.

But it wasn't just his record or his longevity that made Cowher awesome, it was the way he did it.  Pacing up the sidelines with his jaw jutted out, screaming at players, refs, water boys or anything with a pulse, spit flying everywhere with each word - it was like Mike Ditka 2.0.  You thought Mike Tomlin was out of hand stepping on the field during a Ravens game last season?  Cowher almost tackled a Jacksonville Jaguar defender that blocked a would-be, game-tying field goal on Monday Night Football:

The Steelers lost that game, but Cowher won my respect.  I mean, who does that?  

Time Warner is eroding that legacy with every goofy commercial Cowher appears in.  They're not even funny.  He's always soft spoken, jaw's always retracted, and I don't see one drop of spit fly from his mouth.  Or look at this Black Friday ad.  The real Bill Cowher would be spending his Black Friday figuring out how the Steelers could set the single-season team sack record by week 13.  Or re-evaluating coin-toss calling strategy.

I think my least favorite is the one where Todd Field (according to Wiki Answers) plays a psychic and predicts everything Bill Cowher tries to tell him about Time Warner Cable. By the end of the ad, coach Cowher seems terrified of the psychic.  I couldn't find the commercial online (which is probably a good thing, unless TW is lulling us into a false sense of security, part of their devious plan to somehow brainwash us), but here's a picture of the man who supposedly played the psychic:

Really?  Coach Cowher's afraid of him?  That's not the Bill Cowher I remember.  Back in the day, he would have just taken a Time Warner pamphlet and done this (skip to the 8:50-9:20 mark):

The man shoved a Polaroid of 12 Vikings players on the field into a referee's pocket!  (if you don't follow football, teams are only allowed 11, so that would have been a Vikings penalty).  Nobody does that these days!

I don't know who we're seeing in these commercials, but it's not the real Bill Cowher.  It's merely a shell of the most awesome NFL coach of the 90's.  I'm depressed just thinking about this... I need to see some more vintage Cowher...

Before he sported the more mainstream goatee,
Cowher rocked a 'stache like a boss! 

I hope whoever was on the receiving end of this butt-chewing
had a poncho, because a lot of spit is coming!

I'm pretty sure he's about to eat this referee

Phew, that's better!

Coach, if you're reading this (because I'm sure Bill Cowher has nothing better to do than look up blogs about himself all day) - stop.  I don't know what CBS is paying you, but surely it's enough where you don't need to embarrass yourself as Time Warner's slave monkey any longer.

Time Warner, leave coach alone.  I'll give you the $33 back if you stop making commercials with Bill Cowher in them.  There's no price tag I can put on that.