Sunday’s Steelers/Cowboys game was both the most-anticipated — other than by pockets of especially masochistic Lions fans — and most exciting NFL match-up of the day. Still, there probably wasn’t much more to write about it than there is about any other NFL game. A recap of the big plays, some react quotes, something on how it impacts divisional races or whatever, one of those ellipses-separated factoid-and-injury bits afterwards…obviously, it’s been done. It gets done every week, for every game.

For instance: the AP write-up by Alan Robinson, via Yahoo. It is what it is: something written by a probably somewhat tired someone on a short deadline for low-ish pay. But it’s actually pretty good: there’s some craft to the description, it’s structured well (and just a little bit unconventionally), the writer got some good quotes. I’m not a journalism professor or former journalism student or really even much of a freelance journalist, all told. But I know enough to know that Robinson’s piece doesn’t bore me. It’s about delivering information, and it does that. You get the “Player In Question isn’t a winner/quit/” or “Player In Question is the consummate champion/dedicated this game to an ailing toddler” stuff from columnists. The news comes via articles like this. It might not be enough to keep newspapers afloat for another decade or so, but it works well enough.

Also, you know what is not missing from that piece? Non-news. Yes, that means the reader misses out on the spice of potentially insightful editorializing, but the positive side of that absence is that we also don’t get the glutinous, chemical-tasting high fructose corn syrup that defines this room-temp chunkling of un-bylined non-news that showed up in ESPN.com’s news feed yesterday in the wake of the Steelers’ comeback win.

With the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ 20-13 win over the Dallas Cowboys, Samuel Louis Charles of North Miami Beach, Fla., has reached 25 straight wins in ESPN’s Streak For The Cash game. The pick was worth $1 million.

The victory didn’t come easily for Charles, who registered himself as Bigsam1122. The Steelers trailed the Cowboys for much of the game and were in trouble late…

Charles’ 24-pick streak began with a Tampa Bay Rays victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series. Since then, Bigsam1122’s wins have come exclusively on college football, NFL and NBA action. Ironically, he started the Streak For The Cash game with five straight losses.

Which, you have to admit: that is a very rich irony! To reiterate, I’m in no position to be anyone’s journalism critic, but even by the standards of a mostly shameless network that regularly gives air time to both “The Budweiser Hot Seat” and a scowling, maroon-faced Bobby Knight, this bit of self-advertorial just seems pretty corny. You could argue newsworthiness in the same way that someone hitting a $50,000 halfcourt shot or whatever is newsworthy, but there are just too many interlocking cheesinesses at play here.