Mendenhall celebrates with Roethlisberger in the way he knows Ben prefers.
Which says nothing – “trendy” picks very rarely live up to expectations. If you can call the February game in September, you’ve pulled off an impressive move. Doubly so if you get the winner right, and if you hit the score on the nose then you deserve a game ball or something.
As we watched that live, we knew it would be brought up later. My brother in law said it best. “If your quarterback just got you to your third Super Bowl in six years, you’d hump him too.”'
Whoosh. 0:13.
I think last night’s game showed something I’ve suspected was a Pittsburgh weakness they may not recognize: Being too conservative after they get a lead. How else can you explain the extreme difference between the 1st and 2nd half?
The Jet’s offense finally woke up.
Their first drive they took over 9 minutes to go down and score a TD. The Jets only ran 13 plays in their next three drives. Towards the end of the half the Jet’s D was exhausted and the Steelers just ran right through them to get a TD. The last TD was the defense. If the Jet’s offense could have put something together in the first half, the game would have been a different story. The loss of Pouncey was huge, if he doesn’t heal up I don’t think the Steelers have much of a chance.
And I content the reason they “appeared” to wake up is because the Steelers defense got too conservative playing to protect their lead rather than playing to crush the Jets like they did in the first half.
Wow. I knew there’d be bad ‘seven’ puns in journalism, as I predicted earlier, but even I didn’t predict it would get this bad, this fast. Ugh.
Pouncey has a high ankle sprain. He’s stated publicly that he will definitely not miss the Super Bowl but I’ll only believe it when we hear it from Tomlin. We need him if we want any hope of running against Green Bay although Legursky might be more suited to matching up against Raji. Where we would miss Pouncey is against their linebackers in calling the protections and in second-level blocks if he has help with the Nose Tackle.
Hey! Welcome back SenorBeef. Haven’t seen your face around these parts since the Steelers Mendenhalled the Browns a few weeks back.
Eh, I was going to respond to your retardation in post 596, but I got lazy.
Dear Steelers,
I would like to thank you for stomping the Jets (with both feet). When we meet toe to toe, we are arch rivals, but I was rooting for you to nail those green bastards to the wall. The way you hobbled the Jets’ running game was a pleasure to behold - for a while it seemed like they wouldn’t even gain a foot, never mind a yard! Best of luck bringing the Packers to heel.
Sincerely,
A Patriots Fan
:dubious:
I knew exactly what you were talking about! That’s one of my favorite movies!
Pouncey’s highly probable absense is the reason why the Packers are favored. Vegas is factoring in at least 1 turnover due to the Legursky-Roethlisberger exchange, which has already been a problem. They’ll be better than they were, but not at a Super Bowl caliber level. Once I saw the play where he got injured, I couldn’t fully enjoy the game.
But if Pouncey somehow miraculously recovers, watch that line move.
The other thing that sucks about (potentially) losing Pouncey is it’s nice having Legursky in as the lead blocker when they run the ‘heavy’ goal line or short yardage plays.
That’s just wrong.
A bit on Pouncey’s ankle:
Apparently, he’s confident that he’ll be ready. I really hope so.
I hope so too. They took off his walking cast yesterday but it was too put it in a regular cast. Whether that’s good news or not I’m not qualified to guess at.
Thisarticle says Pouncey will miss the game.
No offense, JJ, but I think you think the average Super Bowl better is a lot more tuned in to player injuries than the betters actually are. As was said already, the line gets adjusted in order to equalize the money bet on each team. YMMV.