Yeah, I don’t get the whining on the kick return hold. It was so obvious to me that when it happened, I turned to my wife and said “this will be coming back…Massive holding”
You’re a better man than I am. When they failed to score a touchdown at the end of the first half, I thought it was all over. I figured it wouldn’t even matter if they made or missed the field goal attempt - I went out to split wood without bothering to watch it. I figured that it would be a fairly tight game, and giving away a touchdown out of sheer stupid, lazy, passive, not playing to the whistle said to me that the Steelers not only weren’t going to win, but did not deserve to. Twice in the first half, the Ravens gained advantage because the Steelers did not do the fundamental work of playing until the whistle blew.
I think it’s a sign of the degree to which this “Steelers get all the calls” bullshit has pervaded any discussion for anyone to point to that holding call on the punt return as either invalid or as causal in the Ravens loss. The fumble, the horrid pass that led to the interception and the botched center exchange clearly had a lot more to do with why the Ravens lost that game. Dropping passes also didn’t help. How on 3rd and forever they let Brown run right by them for a 58 yard pass, I’ll never figure out.
What really bothers me, and makes me supremely less optimistic about playing the Patriots (who I am assuming will be our opponent next week), is that we haven’t seemed to learn what I thought we had learned about the short passing game. We’re still trying to rely on the vertical passing game. This even though we clearly have a very suspect offensive line.
Further, we saw the fucking end-around not once, but twice! On both occasions, it brought drives to screeching halts - even if on the second attempt it actually could have worked if Wallace didn’t run himself right into the tackle. I say again that that page ought to be ripped from the playbook, and add that it should be coated in both hot pepper and poison ivy oils and crammed up Bruce Aryans ass.
Home game next week, baby!
Did you know that, including next week’s game, one-quarter of all AFC Championship games have been played in Pittsburgh? Did you know that the Steelers will have been in more than one-third of all AFC Championship games?
Here we go, Steelers, here we go!
Yeah, I’ve run those numbers before. It’s truly amazing. What’s even more amazing is if they won more AFC championship games at home, how many more SB’s they’d have been in.
The Steelers are the NY Yankees of the NFL’s Super Bowl era. And because of this, I’d like to see the Steelers scrap those terrible numbers on their uni’s and go back to the old 70’s era block numbers. Please! (I hate the slanted number look… it’s sloppy, and linemen especially look bad.)
Um, no.
The Yankees never genuinely sucked like the Steelers did for 40 years. The Steelers never blatantly tried to buy every superstar player in the league in an attempt to buy the championship. They didn’t fire their coach every other year for 20 years running. The Rooneys have class and were never thrown out of football for mob ties or convicted for illegal campaign contributions.
There’s no comparison.
Hey, Airman. I didn’t see a response, so I figured I’d bug you again. I still need to get an idea of what you enjoy to make good on my wager. Otherwise, I may resort to sending you Packer paraphernalia.
Man, I hate this. I am actually pulling for the Steelers to meet the Bears in the Super Bowl. I don’t really like either team, but think it would be fun to have two Tony Dungy proteges face each other in the Super Bowl. Plus two weeks without Rex Ryan as the focus would be a healthy bonus.
I don’t entirely understand all the Rex Ryan hate. He talks a lot to the media but for the most part it’s been pretty fun stuff. At least for me, he’s still in that early Chad Johnson phase where everyone realizes he’s a bit obnoxious but it’s not mean spirited and usually is pretty funny and original. Whereas Belichick is TO in that analogy.
Let’s take a minute to ponder how cool it will be to have Rex Ryan facing his fathers former team (and the team where he basically got his start as a boy) in the Super Bowl should the Bears and Jets meet up.
I agree, but with the late hit rules the way they are, you are looking at a 15 yard penalty most plays. If everyone on the field is standing around thinking it is an incomplete pass, and you dive for the ball, knock over a player, and run into the end zone, you will usually get an unsportsmanlike penalty handed to you and possibly a fine by the league office.
Play to the whistle? There are 70,000 fans screaming in an echo chamber. No way do you hear a whistle.
So what do I want to settle our wager…
You know what? Why don’t you sit on that for a while until we know who’s going to the Super Bowl? If it turns out Steelers-Packers we’ll go double or nothing. Any thoughts on that?
Man I hate Ben and Hines Ward.
We know. I sure am glad you dropped by to state the obvious.
So, are you enjoying the offseason? I ask because of this, in response to my comment about the impending implosion of the Bengals:
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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12898275&postcount=11)
I was going to wait for the postseason wrap-up to bring that up, but now’s as good a time as any. There’s more, of course, but it can wait. In the meantime, you may rest assured that I had many, many laughs at your expense this season, with many more to follow in the postseason and the years to come. Thanks for the entertainment.
I had a nightmare last night in which Santonio Holmes kills us on Sunday. I thought by posting this here, it prevents it from happening.
I never understood why we let him go. I didn’t think he did anything that egregious. I mean, Wallace is great, but Holmes is probably the best clutch receiver in football.
I know both teams are different now than they were a month ago, but I can’t help going back to the fact that Mendenhall had 99 yards on 17 carries when the Steelers played the Jets last time, and Wallace had over a hundred yards receiving as well. It was one of those games were it felt like we beat them everywhere but the scoreboard, IIRC.
I also remember really feeling like Lebeau held back all game, whereas we had thought going in that the Steelers ought to pressure Sanchez. Even so, he only ended up with 170 passing yards.
I’m not typically an optimistic guy when it comes to the Steelers, but it’s hard not to feel like the Steelers have a pretty good chance in this one.
Sounds like a plan. As collateral, after the Packers beat the Bears Sunday, I’ll root for the Steelers to pound the JETS. Good Luck.
I’ll happily eat crow: the experiment didn’t work. TO had a statistically good year, but it didn’t translate into wins. Chad disappeared, much like he does whenever the Bengals play the Steelers (paging Chris Henry, Steelers-killer). The OC is an ignoramus. Just because the Bengals addressed the lack of a downfield passing threat from last season with the death of Henry by signing TO doesn’t mean you get away from what got you into the playoffs last season, namely, running the damn football.
And the defense collapsed. And on and on.
I’d say so. Football Outsiders has the Steelers with a 64.1% chance of making the Super Bowl and a 37.1% chance of winning it out of the 4 remaining teams. While nothing is ironclad, I like those numbers.
That website has Mike Wallace as the #1 ranked receiver. Let’s hope he plays like it.
The Jets are in luck! I hear there are some great golfing opportunities on February 6th. LET’S GO STEELERS!!!