The Steelers also not quite what they were last week.
Gutsy call to decide to play only one quarter. Last week’s “ let’s play all four quarters” was more fun, I gotta say. But thank you Football-gods for a ( not a reflection of the game) win.
How in the actual fuck did they win that game? They were dead in the water for 51 minutes and then that happened.
Watching this team is exhausting and hazardous to my health.
What a comeback. Everyone was shaky at times, but they pulled it off.
I wish I could erase the first half of that game from my memory. Can’t believe they found a way to win that one.
I continue to believe that Ben Roethlisberger is an amazing athlete. He is not as fundamentally sound as Tom Brady, but if my team needs to drive the length of the field with 1:22 remaining and no timeouts, I want Ben instead of Brady.
It is amazing that he continues to play with confidence after 3 INTs (and it should have been 4). And he played through Conner’s two nearly fatal dropped balls. The first drop caused a turnover on downs and the second could have be demoralising but was not.
Ben is a ball-flinging chunk of meat that somehow wins a lot of football games.
Choose any one (1) regular season loss that can be blamed on refs and strike it from the record. (Hey, it goes both ways.)
Oh, and the Jags’ offense sucks.
Yep. No skill that somehow influences the outcome of the games he somehow miraculously wins.
I’m not a Steelers fan but sometimes I’m in awe of his performance on the field. It shouldn’t work but does.
I think Ben’s best attribute (over his career) is that he moves so well in the pocket. Maybe I’m biased, but I think he might be the best ever at his ability to sense the pressure around him and simply step to where he is safe without panicking.
But that first half against the Jags, brutal. Hard to imagine a worse performance, which I suppose makes the 4th quarter all the more remarkable.
Broncos…
What a soul-crushing loss that was. And worse is that to win the division they need to win 3 of the next 5, which means they have to beat the Raiders, Bengals, and one of the following 3 teams:
Chargers
Saints
Patriots
They needed this win. Counting on the Rats to help out isn’t a good strategy, though they may oblige. Brutal loss today. Brutal.
Steelers probably will make playoffs. But it’s hard to see them do anything but one-and-done. It is amazing how variable they are, not just between but within games.
What a terrible loss. And that ending was absurd.
That said, the refs missed a blatant false start on the first touchdown and a blatant block in the back on the punt return touchdown, so there’s 12 points right there. It’s tough to beat that when you’re already playing a tough playoff-caliber team.
But Pittsburgh gets all the calls, right? Bah.
Anyway, they now have to hope the Rats lose a few or they have to beat the Bengals and Raiders in addition to either the Saints or the Patriots. Two weeks they should have won and didn’t.
It’s not a false start if the Chargers throw a long touchdown. Ask SenorBeef.
How hard is it to just watch the ball and not jump offsides??
Blown calls are part of the game, and they’re even less a part of the game than they used to be. Once a team starts blaming losing on the officiating, they’re making excuses for poor performance, which is what the Steelers are doing now. They were out-coached and out-played in the second half. In the Tomlin era, the Steelers have had stretches in which they’ve played exceptionally well, only to be followed by games in which they inexplicably show up unprepared to play against mediocre or even poor teams. Or as in last night’s case, they play a great first half of football, followed by a bad second half. I think that as long as Tomlin is coach, the Steelers will be good, they will be competitive, but they’ll never quite be as good as they could be.
officiating aside, when a team gives up (in the second half): 250+ yards, 26 points, and 2 2-PT conversions, and only score 7 points and gain 103 yards, they are not going to win many games
I think both of these things are easily met expectations. The Ravens aren’t all that good, and the Bengals fucking suck.