Well, that was a tough game. Pittsburgh, as usual, absolutely dominated the clock, the play, and pretty much everything but the score. Mike Wallace’s hands turned to stone. Had he caught but three of the passes sent his way, any three, the game would have long been over. Todd Haley played Martyball about half the time, and Dwyer remarkably delivered. The dagger was the bust up the middle in the last minute.
Goddamn Ike Taylor finally shut somebody down, too. A.J. Green was virtually invisible tonight, and Dalton had nobody else to throw to. But for the two turnovers it might have been a shutout.
Also, the good news: nobody got hurt. That must be a first.
Eh, its hard to talk shit when your team is on the skids. It sucks, but it is what it is, despite some promising young talent on the Bengals, it looks like they might be taking a step back this season. I am so disappointed in our defense and their inability to get opposing offenses off the field on 3rd downs. I believe the Bengals are the worst in the NFL in that regard, and they aren’t far behind that on being able to convert on third downs on offense either. And that’s where they are losing games.
So, all game long I was humming a Blind Melon tune, but that’s just trivia since they laid the wood to the 'Skins today. Still, they managed to make it exciting, even with a two-plus score lead. Washington was driving, and I thought to myself that the impending collapse was due all the way to where they went for it on fourth down and failed. Part of watching a Steelers game is the absolutely certain belief that they never, ever have a game wrapped up.
But this one they did, and they looked pretty good doing it. If it’s the uniforms, they should wear the things the rest of the season. Whatever it takes.
I kept thinking of the Killer Bee sketch from SNL 70s era. One of the guys at the bar I went to (to watch) wore a throw-back jersey. I love my Steelers, but I don’t think that I could face being seen looking like that.
Time to throw those jerseys back a little farther, hope we never see them again.
Polamalu has already been ruled out for the next game. I’m surprised, pleasantly surprised, at how well Will Allen and Keenan Lewis played last week. A few of those supposed dropped passes were forced away by Lewis and Allen appeared to always be in position.
The RB battle looks intriguing, Dwyer clearly isn’t going to supplant Mendenhall but I hope they keep starting him and giving Mendenhall the recovery time for the stretch run. Put Redman in for short yardage again for a while, too bad he can’t play third downs and send Batch to the inactive list for a few games.
I’ll wait and see on Polamalu. He is getting old and all but he’ll be back in a couple of weeks and we’ll see how things go after that. I’m not writing him off yet. I was far more pessimistic about Harrison and he played really well last week, not much pass rushing but he held his gaps very well against the run game and freed up the safeties a lot. I think part of Polamalu’s problem is the way he trains - people who train with machines get hurt. Period. If you want to see the way a strength & conditioning program should be run go check out the Falcons.
First, the storm has put the Steelers at a sizeable disadvantage. They have to travel the day of the game because the hotel they were scheduled to stay in had no power. That’s a long trip before a game, and they’ll be dogs-ass tired when it starts. Huge disadvantage. Huge.
Second, Justin Tuck claimed that the Steelers’ offensive line “gets away with murder”, thus demonstrating that he might know how to play football but he doesn’t know anything else about it. The Steelers are one of the most heavily penalized teams in the league, the “Steelers get all the calls” bullshit notwithstanding. If I played for Pittsburgh I would retort by pointing out that Tuck is questioning the refs’ competence. Two can play the lobbying for calls in the press game.
Anyway, the Steelers need this game. They need a marquee win to kick start the second half run for the playoffs.
Justin Tuck’s comments won’t mean anything one way or the other. I think a big key in this game will be the interior lines for both sides. The Steeler front 3 have played poorly and the Giants are strong in the middle. That could set up a lot of bad things on play action if they don’t get their act together, especially Ziggy Hood. On the other side of the ball the Steelers will need to get something going in the middle if they want to neutralize the speed from the edge of the giants line though they’re quite active in the middle as well. Mike Adams has looked quite good on the right side since Gilbert went down; I expect we’ll see a lot of runs to the right in this one.
What Bill Leavy should have said on three truly horrific calls in the first half:
the Keenan Lewis Pass Interference: “Didn’t you guys get the memo? The Giants are supposed to win this game! They just had a flood, what are you, heartless? 41 yards, first down!”
The (Not Even Close) Ryan Clark Helmet-to-Helmet Call: “People have been saying I’m incompetent since you-know-when, I may as well live up to it. Half the distance, first down!”
The (Supposed) Ben Roethlisberger Fumble: “After further review, my crew and I don’t want to let the Steelers have all the calls, so Touchdown, Giants!”
The refs gave the Giants 14 points. Just gave them away. You thought Leavy was incompetent in the Super Bowl? That was amateur hour compared to today. And yet the Steelers still won. The Giants suck on ice, that division has to be by far the worst in football.
I don’t usually bust on the officiating, mainly because it’s pointless. But the calls against the Steelers in the first half that turned into 14 Giant points made me womder if the officials were told to give the gsme to the Giants.
I have to agree with each of your posts. The only call that i thought maybe could have gone either way was the “fumble”, but only because that call NEVER goes to the defense. If nothing else, that was the famous Tuck Rule, but in reality, the ball was in his hand moving forward through the entire motion. The motion sucked, but it wasn’t a fumble. Not according to every NFL game ive seen since the Patriots robbed the Raiders of a trip to the Super Bowl.
But even if you call that a fumble, how was that NOT a clip on NY at about the 15 yard line? Heath Miller is still out there looking for his teeth. Everyone knew it was a clip, everyone except the officials.
That was some record setting bad officiating.
The personal foul was a JOKE of a call. “Blow to the head?” really? Do officials get fined for sucking large elephant cock on national TV? That was a 3rd and goal, which would have forced a field goal. And THAT was set up by that god-awful pass interference call. The Steelers defender HIT the ball with his left hand. I don’t care if his right hand was readjusting the receivers jock, i’ve NEVER seen interferene called when the trailing hand of the defender hits the ball before getting to the receiver. NEVER.
Yep. An easy 14 point give-away by the refs. I just assumed since NY got hit with the hurricane, the league was going to ensure a Giant victory to make everyone in the NYC area feel good. Except even with all that help, the Steelers still beat the Giants. So the Steelers are really really good, or the Giants are very over-rated. Maybe a littl of both. But i have said it before and I’ll say it again. The Steelers got the best QB of the '04 draft by far, and the Giants and Eli Manning are such a terrible two-time Super Bowl winner. Eli is as over-rated as his brother.
The only good thing the Giants have done with Eli at QB is beat the 18-0 Patriots. I will always be grateful to the Giants for shutting that arrogant team up forever.
The Steelers, at 5-3, are sudenly looking good in the AFC. lets hope those 3 terrible conference losses don’t come bsck to bite them in the ass. (Denver, Oaklamd, Tennessee). Those are really bad losses.
Pittsburgh to NYC isn’t a long flight, and the Giants’ people had problems of their own due to the storm. They’re all professionals. The storm was a wash, no pun intended.
This. I’ve made this exact flight myself for business reasons and it is less than an hour.
Considerinf they are a charter, they probavly don’t have the security lines to wade through like is peasants do, so it’s a pretty smooth commute, assuming no weather. I have had commutes over two hours one way in my life, and that absolutely sucked. An hour eqch way would be a godsend.
I doubt the Steelers had any disadvantage over this. It would have probably been used as an excuse, though, if they lost. But not by the Steelers or Tomlin.
Who shows up tonight? The Steelers capable of blowing out a weak team or the ones who turn over the ball and lose a heartbreaker? As much as everything has been coming together I don’t think many of us are as confident as we would like heading into this one.
