November 11, 2007

Ben Roethlisberger Is The Rain King...


It wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but a win is a win. And this one means just a little something more - that at 7-2, the Steelers have a full 2 game lead in the AFC North. In otherwords, today we separated the men from the Browns. Plus, the Bungles pulled off a win against the Ravens. So I'd say all is pretty much right with the world.

Yes, there were a lot of negatives. Two kick returns totaling 190 yards and basically two TDs1 and a costly pick deep in our own territory, which promptly turned into 7 points. But after netting 0 TDs in the 1st half, despite 172 yards of offense, the Steelers came out in the 2nd half and showed all the doubters that we are not just a team that plays from ahead. AND Big Ben showed everyone that sometimes you've gotta run 30 yards for a score yourself. Do what you have to do to win. That's the measure of a champion, and Big Ben (Godsend) sure did it today.

Some of the other men who contributed memorable moments (in no particular order):

  • Tyrone Carter -- Really liked that hurting you put on Kellen Winslow Jr. He and probably most of the Browns fans will try and find a way to make that seem dirty. But the only thing dirty about it was Winslow's jersey after he got up. Way to make an impression on the game buddy, cause we know you didn't do shit on special teams. Still waiting for this hit to show up on Youtube...

  • Anthony "Sandman" Smith -- Good stop on Jamal Lewis down near the goal line. Like I said on Friday, if we were to be successful, it was important not to let Jamal Lewis pound the ball in. Plus, I saw you sneak in on a couple other plays. 5 total tackles for the game, not too shabby. And by the way, that visor is like, so hot right now...

  • "Face Me" Ike Taylor -- Braylon Edwards stat line today = 1 catch, 16 yards...and yes, 1 TD. Considering the guy averages 5.25 receptions a game and about 92 yards, with 9 TDs, I'd say 1 catch for 16 yards reflects some pretty solid coverage...

  • James "Silverback" Harrison -- Only 3 tackles on the game, but one big ass forced fumble (not to mention other one that wasn't recovered). It's ok man, you played the game of your life on Monday. I ain't gonna fault you for having less steam only 6 days later...(please note the sarcasm)

  • Brett Keisel -- Knocking down a Horse Balls pass on a big 3rd down, bravo. Way to use those fundamentals. I'll bet your high school coach would be proud. Goal for next week - try and get a sack...actually, that goes for you and the rest of the defense. See below...

  • Hines "Psycho" Ward -- Let the Browns fans talk all they want about you being a dirty player. If dirty means 7 catches for 81 yards, a TD and a 2 point conversion, then I don't want you to be clean. You do what you gotta do brotha'...

  • Heath. Miller. Touchdown. -- Clearly Big Ben reads One For The Other Thumb, because on Friday, when I said get the ball to Heath Miller, he clearly took note. 5 catches, including a stellar TD grab for the go-ahead score in the 4th, and 71 yards receiving. Unsung offensive hero? Just might be...

  • Sir Fast William Everette Parker -- Not as dominant a performance as we usually can expect when FWP gets 25 carries, but 105 yards beats the shit out of 42 yards. We can't win 'em without the run, and FWP IS the Pittsburgh running game. PS - this marked FWP's 19th career 100+ yard game2 (his 6th this season) and gave him 768 yards on the year3.

  • Wings to Go --Yes, I'd also like to thank Wings to Go for providing some much needed nourishment about mid-way through the 3rd quarter. Too bad I ordered it at the beginning of the 2nd quarter...a whole hour and 15 minutes earlier. Note to self - Wings to go = bunch of dicks, probably Giants fans...
But like I said earlier, this day belonged to Big Ben. In this, a bounceback year, he's continued game after game to show us all why he is a championship caliber quarterback. Ben went 23/34 today, for 278 yards and 2 TDs (we're not talking about that INT anymore), improving his QB rating on the season to 111.9 4. Through 9 games, Ben has thrown for 1742 yards and 20 TDs, despite being sacked 19 times. He has emerged ladies and gentleman, and not just as a QB, but as a leader. Not much has really been made of Ben's leadership this year, but if you read SI, like I do, you would have read about how Ben is intimately involved in the offensive game plan, runs the offense virtually by his lonesome, and has become THE voice in the locker room. He's carried us to 7-2 thus far, and I have little doubt that he can lead us to a strong finish and likely a division title.

That all said, I don't need to tell you again that this was not a flawless performance for the team. I won't spend a whole lot of space here expounding on our shortcomings today, but I will say this:
  1. Special Teams has GOT to improve. What happened today was an embarrassment5. Joshua Cribbs is no slouch, but we have consistently shit the bed on kick coverage this season, and this is the last thing you want to drag an otherwise spotless team down. Tomlin, bring out the taser. I don't care what you do, but get these guys in line for Christ's sake. Sort it out.

  2. 0 Sacks, guys? 0? Silverback had 3.5 himself on Monday night and not one of you can register 1 today? Against a Browns line that was missing one of it's key starting guards? To be fair, we did a much better job in the 2nd half. But otherwise, we looked like we were going to let Horse Balls have his way with us. I applaud the respect LeBeau & Co. showed the "new look" Browns. But I'm sure I wasn't the only one that noticed a marked difference between the Defensive dominance in the 2nd half and the less than whelming 1st half. Bring the pressure. Bring the heat. Bring the pain...

  3. Take a guess at what else I'm going to say here...Yep, Offensive Line play. It was pretty much shite again today, as Kendall Simmons and his band of merry men let the Browns D (if you can call it that) sack Ben 4 times, and hurry him many others. I don't care how good Ben is at avoiding the rush, and we all know he's a beast, if you're not out there protecting him, what are you doing? Listen, even Horse Balls has only been sacked 8 times on the season, but yet Ben's been sacked 19 times? In fact, if numbers do it for you - Ben's the only QB besides the inimitable Damon Huard (sarcasm is thick today) and David Garrard, the injured (yes, I could do better, oh well), to have been sacked more than 15 times. I don't know what else to say?
So yeah, it was a sloppy win. But that doesn't mean we were totally inept. I applaud the effort today. A year ago, that 1st half performance would have pretty much doomed us to a loss, but not this year.

Next week, let's try to accentuate the positive, and minimize our opponent's kick return yardage, shall we? Thanks. And PS - For the Browns fans who wanna talk shit about how dirty the Steelers are - I noticed a certain Sean Jones put what I saw to be a late hit on Willie Parker out of bounds. Don't think I'm not paying attention to this now. Call us classless again.

GAME RECAPS:
[Behind The Steel Curtain]
[DC Steeler Nation]
[Die Hard Steel]
[Joey Porter's Pit Bulls]
[Pittsburgh Sports and Mini Ponies]
[The Blitzburgh Report]

[Associated Press]
[Post-Gazette]
[Tribune-Review]
[New York Times]
[ESPN]
[SteelCityInsider]
[Yahoo! Sports]
[SI.com]

FOOTNOTES:
1 -- One legitimate run back for a score and one that set up a whopping 3 yard drive for a Lawrence Vickers score
2 -- See FWP Career Stats
3 -- 2nd in the league right now
4 -- Yes, this is a bullshit statistic but if it puts Ben 2nd only to Tom Brady, you bet I'm gonna mention it
5 -- I saw you Andre Frazier. Way to whiff on that TD return...

Ballhype: hype it up!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, stepping on guys after a play is over is really classy. Glad the refs caught that one.

And I love the DBs -- who did nothing to stop Edwards's amazing catch -- jawing with him before the play was correctly ruled a TD.

Shut up about class.

domski43 said...

chris...lets NOT stop talking about class, its really a hot issue this season. if being classless means running up scores and having records like the patriots or the steelers...i want to be the first in line to be called classless. the browns were very classy today, and you should be proud, but you lost..again! at least you guys are getting better. by the way, brady quinn looked hot on the sideline.

Anonymous said...

Funny how Brown-Stain fans can be so oblivious to reality. Nobody "steppped on" your running back, cheese. He stepped "over" him. It was clear in the replay.

Not that Jamal Lewis did you guys any favors today. He dropped an easy pass and gave up the ball in ugly fashion. Granted, Silverback ripped it out of his hands, but he still lost it. Was that because he got "stepped on"? No.

The Poop-stains did pretty poorly today, really. Only the first quarter gave them any offensive production, and one of those TDs was a gift from the Steeler's weak-ass special teams. If Pittsburgh had a decent ST game the Stains would've only had 7 points all night.

Think about it:

2 (two) first downs in the ENTIRE SECOND HALF! Ouch.

Lucky for the Poops that Pittsburgh's special teams coverage was crap or it woulda been a blowout in the second half. At least the Stillers pulled it off.

Great job by Ben. I was super-critical of him early in the year after the losses but he has totally redeemed himself and more. It was a real treat to see us come back from a deficit. In the Cowher era (and i hate to admit it) we probably would have lost that game. Kudos to Arians and Tomlin for a well-coached day. Except, of course, for STs. F*ckers.

Pittsburgh needs to take a play out of the NE Cheatriot playbook and use some starters on special teams. Or, as Cotter brilliantly recommended: use tasers (bro).

I don't know what the Poops were thinking. They were taunting and goading the Steelers all through the first quarter. A bad idea. Period. Why give the home team that much motivation to kick your ass? Granted, they came close to pulling it off, but in the end taunting the Steelers was a mistake on their part. Had they kept their mouths shut and kept playing offense it might have been very, very different for them.

That kickoff return for a TD should have been a TD for Pittsburgh. How Andre Frazier lost his feet there is still beyond me. And i'm not as convinced that it was as much Cribbs' return ability on that play as pure, dumb luck and terrible, terrible coverage by the Steelers. There is a difference.

I still give the Stains credit, mostly. Except for that last kneel-down by our Stillers they played a respectable game. If this wasn't their first taste of success in a decade they might have won, but in the end their immaturity and over-excitability cost them.

We won't see them in post-season play because they won't be there.

BTW- i sorta called the score. if those two returns had been covered it woulda been 31-14 Pittsburgh. Oh well.

Unknown said...

@ Tobiathan:

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

Don't worry about all the hypotheticals, and stick to the facts: the two teams were VERY evenly matched.

I'm ready for a playoff rematch.

domski43 said...

Chris..i'll give it to the browns for outstanding special teams play, but if you go to any website with the game stats you will see that pittsburgh had just about double the amount of total yards and time of possession than queefland. And while the steelers OFFENSE was scoring 22 points in the second half, queefland didnt have a first down until their final drive, which ended...well... you know how it ended. But, phil dawson sure is classy!

Anonymous said...

Dear Chris:

No playoffs for the Poop-stain Brown-marks. None. Nix. Nada. Nyet. Nein. Nothing. Not yours: NO!

They'll never make it. That team has nothing like the mental fortitude to win enough football to see the playoffs. They were stuffed in the second half and only a series of entirely fortuitous circumstances allowed them to even have a shot at TYING the game, much less winning. Besides, they were stupid enough to talk enough smack to the Stillers to get the other team mad enough to whoop 'em. Brilliant!

If they DID squeak in like yer pee-bug into a drunk chick on a sloppy Saturday night they'll meet up with one of the lower-tier teams from the West or South in the Wild-Card round, not Pittsburgh in the Divisional(Indy hust lost to SD). And they'd never get out of that round anymore than you get out of yer mom's basement.

But thanx for playin'!

Love,

Your Big Bad Steeltown Daddy,

Tobiathan

Anonymous said...

Funny, but it just occured to me that Silverbach has forced five(5) fumble is less that a week.

his stat line for the previous SIX DAYS:

12 tackles
3.5 sacks
1 interception
5 forced fumbles
4 fumble recoveries

And that's less than a week, folks!