It was just two weeks ago - I was watching the game. I tried blocking it out of my memory, but no dice. I figure the next best thing is to inflict it on everyone else.
But baseball is not football.
I wore a cup when i played cricket, but not rugby, because the usefulness of a cup is, to a considerable extent, determined by the type of movement and the type of contact involved in the sport. In sports where there is constant running and contact between players, a cup can get jostled out of place to the extent that it not only inhibits the movement required to compete, but also becomes a liability for the very parts of the body that it is designed to protect.
At least it wasn’t a horsecollar tackle. You can get a penalty for that.
I wore a cup in hockey but not in rugby. Standing in front of the net while a defenceman tees one up from the point makes even the protected areas feel vulnerable. Never would have crossed my mind to wear one for rugby. On the other hand I never had to tape my ears down for a hockey game. 
Cody Wallace seems like a moron. His first start and there were two plays he could be facing fines on and his explanation is just foolish. Can’t expect much from the fourth-string I guess.
I never wore one playing schoolboy rugby either. There were always a couple of guys whose mothers would get them these ridiculous SuperHyperNeoElasticSomething jockstraps and cups before the season and nobody ever wore one for more than one practice. Our shower area was always full of abandoned cups that weren’t really good for anything except throwing at each other.
ETA: I didn’t wear a jock either, which wasn’t really unusual at that level.
You might call it a horsedick tackle, except, with the prevalence of Sugar Frosted Anabolic Steroids on every pro-athlete’s breakfast table, the term is probably very inapt.
With the Miami victory against the Patsies, the Steelers are officially eliminated from playoff contention.
Still, three games remain. I hope they play them with some pride, whatever else happens.
An interesting match-up tonight will be the Steeler d-line against their offense. The Bengals have really played well lately even with their starting LT filling in at Guard. That could actually have been an advantage for us since he was still playing guard with the technique of a tackle; the Colts didn’t have a 3-gap who could expose it but the Steelers do! It might be moot though since Zeitler (who I thought played great in the first game against them) is rumoured to be returning tonight.
McLendon is probably out tonight so look for a confident Bengals line to press the inside lanes early and try and set up some outside runs for big gains like they did to the Colts. They’ll have to have Polamalu in gap busting mode tonight; he’s one of the best at blowing up the inside gaps.
As a Broncos fan first (I like the Steelers, but I’ll always root for Denver first) I really hope the Steelers beat the Bengals tonight. The Dolphins already helped to take some of the sting out of the loss on Thursday to the Chargers and a Pittsburgh win over Cincinnati would help keep the playoff picture the same. Pittsburgh has had a bad year and some unfortunate injuries but I think the real problem has been Todd Haley and some atrocious playcalling.
I have to say, the Steelers are looking pretty good tonight. It just became 14-0 as I post this.
It’s now 21-0.
How did these Steelers manage to lose 8 games? They look much better than the Bengals.
Injuries and learning curve for the young guys were big reasons. They lost the signal callers on both sides of the ball in the opener with season ending injuries. It’s a big hurdle to overcome.
Haley didn’t suddenly learn to call a game tonight; the pieces haven’t been in place to execute the whole playbook.
It seemed to me the Steelers were in a no-huddle for a significant portion of the game. I think the best thing Haley has done all year is to remove himself from the play calling.
Guess what? Pittsburgh has a non-zero chance of making the playoffs. It would take nothing short of a miracle and is patently absurd, but here it is:
a) The Steelers win out- possible against a weakened Packers team and the Browns
b) Baltimore loses 2 of 3 (remaining games: @Detroit, New England, @Cincinnati)- possible, all tough games
c) The Jets lose against Cleveland at the Meadowlands- possible, Geno Smith is very erratic
d) The Dolphins lose at Buffalo- possible, they lost to them in Miami earlier this year
AND
e) The Dolphins and Jets TIE in their last game against each other
Yeah, that last one is so unlikely that if you bet that and it hit you’d be able to retire. I’m thinking it’s not going to happen.
But, until and unless those things come to pass, I’m not giving up. I thought the Steelers were dead earlier today, but as it turns out they are only mostly dead. It’s too bad they couldn’t play like they did tonight all season, just two more shoulda-been wins and we’re not having this discussion. They played like the Steelers of old and the indomitable Bengals were dominated like the Bungles of old.
Then again, you can’t start out 0-4 and expect miracles. You can’t blow a win in the last 2 minutes at home in the snow to Miami. And, most importantly, you can’t make Todd Haley the offensive coordinator. The good news about (almost certainly) missing the playoffs is that he’ll be gone. That’s about it.
They were in no huddle but those plays are still designed by Haley.
I’m going to call that dead but still warm. I’m not stopping by for a neener-neener though- I’d like to toast to your dedication as a fan. I know what it’s like, I’ve been there plenty of times. Here’s to next year!
Haha, toasting the dedication of a Steelers fan. Oh no, they lost a few games. You must be really hardcore to hang in there instead of jumping ship at the second loss like the rest of the fair weather hilljacks.
That cheap shot to the punter (yeah, a cheap shot, led with his helmet to other guy’s face) was a pussy move. I hope he gets fined more than Tomlin for that.
Otherwise, I liked most of what I saw from the Steelers last night. At least they seemed to have an actual game plan. The Bengals didn’t even seem to have a game plan! Man, the AFC North is a stink fish pot this year.
I agree that was a blatant cheap shot. I cannot imagine why it didn’t get flagged…perhaps Hochuli’s biceps blinded him to the play. Some pretty shitty officiating overall, but the special teams breakdowns were what really put the Bengals in a big hole early and took them off schedule on offense.
What really ticked me off was watching how effective the Steelers were running the no-huddle and how infuriatingly slow the Bengals offense was in comparison, even while the game was still within reach in the middle of the second half. There was ZERO urgency on the part of the Bengals offense. They just kept lollygagging around like there was all the time in the world.
And I also hated the way the Bengals didn’t even try to score any points at the end of the first half. They had two timeouts and a minute and a half and were down three scores!
It was like “Oh, it’s okay, we don’t need to score here, we get the ball back to start the second half, so let’s just go into the locker room and talk about it”.
Simply inexcusable. But…good win, Steelers. We got manhandled for most of the game up front where it matters most. Injuries are really piling up for the Bengals.
Is this the new meme? It’s cheap if the Steelers did it?
It was a clean hit. The guy was getting back into the play, he wasn’t paying attention, and he paid for it. When the Steeler hit him he caught him leading with his arms into the chest, he never left his feet, he didn’t lead with his head, and the punter was not “defenseless”. If you’re going to be acting like a football player it behooves you to know where you are. Nobody else got caught out like that.
You guys really need to figure out what “leading with your head” and “helmet-to-helmet” means. Truth is, by your criteria every play has multiple helmet-to-helmet hits between the offensive and defensive lines alone.
The punter is automatically defenceless. Which is a stupid rule in my opinion but will probably lead to a fine anyway.
Also worth noting the Dolphins had a coach on the field who inadvertently tripped an official last week. $10,000 fine for him.