"Hey, that's our job."Alright, it's late, I'm super tired and it's gonna be a long week. So let's make this fairly simple. The Steelers got a much needed win tonight to give us a two game lead in the AFC North, some reassurance that our offense is not completely worthless, another reminder of how dominating our defense can be, and some decent momentum to carry into this coming Sunday against the Patriots.
- Larry Foote (on crushing the Bengals playoff hopes)
Again, for the 2nd time in the course of one week, it wasn't the prettiest, but as the old adage goes - "a win is a win." We did a lot of things well, but also some things not so well. Here's my not-so-authoritative list of positives and negatives:
BUENO
- Hines "Balls of Steel" Ward ~ 11 catches for 90 yards and 2 TDs. Oh an by the way, with the 2nd TD he passed John Stallworth for the all time Steelers record for scores with 64. I hear he even pisses slag. Bravo Hines, well done...
- Larry Foote, The OG ~ 4 solo tackles (6 total), the team's only sack, and a forced fumble that led to points. Seemed like every down Foote was chasing Carson Palmer. We knew it wasn't going to be easy to get penetration against that Bungle Offensive Line. But Foote helped do just enough to keep the pressure on. That'll do Larry, that'll do...
- Overall Defensive Nastiness ~ Only 249 total yards allowed by the NFL's top Defense in this win. They held Rudi Johson and Kenny Watson to just 57 yards on 19 carries, TJ Douchemanzadeh to just 42 yards on 5 catches, and Chris Henry to just 32 yards on 2 catches. Yes Ocho Cinco caught 6 balls for 86 yards. But he did not score, and generally did not have the impact he typically could have. And to top it all off, we covered extremely well and got enough pressure on Carson Palmer so that he only completed 17 of his 44 (!!) passing attempts.
- No Sacks on Big Ben!!!!! ~ Well worthy of five exclamation points. In fact, here's five more - !!!!!
- Good Ben ~ We'll start here because I think the man had a better game than we'll give him credit for. Ben's stat line = 21/32 for 184 yards and 2 TDs. Rarely does Ben have to throw the ball 30+ times in a game. But having done that tonight, I think he did OK. Not great. Certainly not flawless. But OK. Plus, again showing he fears no man, he got a ballsy rushing TD for our 1st points of the night. All in all an acceptable performance. I guess he can stay...
- Bad Ben ~ The flip side of Big Ben's stat line = 2 INTs and his 2nd lowest passer rating of the season - 75.5 (72.9 low mark coming against the Cards). AND he consistently overthrew his receivers. As I said above, by no means did Ben play flawless. But I'm willing to overlook these foibles because we pulled out the win. Still, the Patriots will not let us off so easily. Just saying.
- Willie The Sure Handed ~ Oh wait, that's not right. 2 fumbles lost tonight for FWP. I don't know what to say about that. It definitely doesn't give me much confidence going into the biggest test of our season. Especially considering that aside from his two mistakes, he had 28 chances and could only amass 87 yards. These are just not FWP stats. Whatever his problem is he better figure it out. Willie - Like they said in the Disney classic DII: The Mighty Ducks, "You better get the damn magic..."
- Flag Me Again ~ 7 penalties for 37 yards. Not what I'd call mistake free. I'm alright with some of these. But Kendall Simmons - you asshole. What was the point of that meaningless display of machismo. Show that aggression on the next play. Not in between plays. Help us help you, man. Also, a 15 yard facemask penalty on Anthony Smith. Avoidable. A little more self-awareness might not hurt us...
So I ask you guys -- What did YOU think of the game? Good? Bad? Ugly (besides TJ Douchemanzadeh)?
PS - Hopefully this recap will not suck nearly as much after I've had a chance to scan the interwebs for more coverage and read over whatever it is that I just wrote...stay tuned. UPDATE: I read it again and I still don't know what the hell is going on here. Hopefully you guys understand me. Word.
GAME RECAPS:
[Behind The Steel Curtain]
[Blitzburgh Report]
[DC Steeler Nation]
[Die Hard Steel]
[Joey Porter's Pit Bulls]
[NFL From The Sidelines]
[NonStop Steelers]
[Pittsburgh Sports and Mini Ponies]
[Associated Press]
[Post-Gazette]
[SteelCityInsider]
[Steelers.com]
4 comments:
It was so nice being able to relax and watch the game, like you said. It's about time. Plus, I love to see them kick some Bengals ass.
The Steelers did everything I wanted to see in the game, but I was most happy about special teams. I thought we did an awesome job making tackles on kickoffs & punts. Again, we needed a win like this to give us some confidence to carry into next week. And I heart Hines Ward.
The only thing that drove me nuts was turnovers.
Otherwise I was pretty happy with the game, and was psyched to see Hines catch that record setting pass.
Oh, and frustrating the hell out of the Bungles was pretty fun too!
That's it for any remote hopes the Bungles had for getting back in the chase for the playoffs. It's the second straight year the Steelers have "eliminated" the Bungles.
Cotter, i have to kinda disagree with you on a couple of points:
1. Kendall didn't really do much at all on that 15-yarder penalty. In fact, he got way-layed by a Bungle defender and did little more than swat the guy's hands away. A BS call, as usual..
2. Anthony Smith DID grab whats-jis-face's mask. I admit that. But, the guy turned his head really sharply and quickly, selling the personal foul penalty instead of the five-yarder. So, i have to admit that was a mistake on Sandman's part, but not a stupid one.
I understand that you, as the blogger and good guy that you are have to go along with the party-line that all penalties called in a game are justified, but i personally don't believe that.
To be fair, the officials actually did lay off us in the second half. I'll even go so far as to say that the refs gave us a couple questionable calls(like the holding against Cinci in the fourth qtr. that gave us a first down) which helped us ice the game. I'll take it, of course, but the fact remains that refs are TOO involved in the games in the NFL.
I know i get wordy. I wish i could say i was sorry, but i'm not so i won't...lol
It WAS nice that we got to dominate them so completely. I thoroughly enjoyed wiping out Cincicrappi's playoff hopes for a third consecutive year. I never get tired of that, really :-)))
And the look of impotent anger on Douchemanzilly's face after whining to the refs all night just made me giddy. It's that kind of childish temperment that makes Stinkicrappi so amusing.
FWP needs to get rid of those rubber elbow-things. Seriously. Madden was right when he pointed out how slippery they get when it's wet out. Why nobody on our coaching staff figured that out is beyond me.
And why did we revert to "run-run-pass" in the fourth quarter? Granted, it ate up some time, but a few first downs and some movement down the field woulda been better than giving Stinkinnati so many chances.
Oh, Bungles: how we've missed ye!
What the eff happened to Duce Davenport last night? Woulda been nice if we still had that big, mean, tough kid John Kuhn on the roster to burn the clock, huh? Hey Tomlin: Since i KNOW you read this, you better get Owen Schmidtt from WVU next April. The guy has BROKEN 8 facemasks in practice and games, can run, catch and block and weighs 270!
And, lastly, i LIKE the fact that the surface at Heinz Field slows down opponents and ruins the timing of their recievers. It gives us a definitive advantage at home, IMHO.
I could say more. Believe it. But i'll leave off saying that i agree with Cotter that this was a good way to lead ino the game against the No Ethics Cheatriots.
May we smash and bash and bludgeon them into a shell of their overrayed selves.
Go Steelers. Kill Cheatriots. Beat the refs!
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