OK, I’ll be objective here because Baltimore has enough problems. With Kyle Boller going down for the season officially yesterday, the Ravens have no choice but to go with Joe Flacco. Following their disastrous season last year, they are now in the very dangerous position of starting a rookie on what appears to be a very poor team. The NFL has long had a reputation of eating its young at quarterback, very few people can step in under center in week 1 and make a go of it on a bad team.
I suspect that Flacco is going to be fighting for his life. If he makes it through his first season without wrecking the rest of his career or sustaining a severe injury, given the circumstances were I a Baltimore fan I would be ecstatic.
I honestly don’t see how they could win 6 games. Look at their schedule. Given the rivalry with Pittsburgh anything could happen in those games, the Bengals games are always crapshoots, but for the most part they play the same schedule as the Steelers (the entire NFC East), and that schedule has been called the hardest in NFL history by some.
It’s going to be a long year for Ravens fans. I can’t say that I feel too bad about that, but it’s going to be a long year for Steelers fans as well so there’s a certain (very small) amount of empathy there. Still, the Steelers have a better base to work with. The Ravens are simply hurting.
Boller was probably never quite as bad as people thought he was… and he was probably the best QB on that team, which tells you what sort of situation they’re in.
But I have to say: Haha, Joe Flacco.
A rat embarassment is my second favorite thing to watch during football season.
Is no one but me watching the game? We are looking pretty good. 21-3 at half time! Only one bad play by Ben, holding on a little long and getting the ball stripped from behind.
I couldn’t see the play at the beginning when they went for it on 4th down. (I started the game in a bar.) How close was it?
What’s not to love about this game? The biggest surprise for me has been the offensive line - wow! Marvel is back to form and Kemo is astounding in the run game. I think the biggest upgrade though has been at center. Last season every play required Faneca or Simmons to do double duty to help protect Mahan’s sorry ass, Hartwig doesn’t need so much help. Of course they’ll need to help him against guys like Jamal Williams but every team has to do that. Best of all there’s some depth on the line with Essex and Starks backing them up (I still think Starks should be the starter on the right side).
They had the first down but the refs made a bad call, so they made up for it with that lame-o pass interference call on Hines. That was a joke. What’s the rule now? If you get beat just fall down and it must be interference? It appears that the refs are every bit as rusty as some of the players.
I do have a question for all Steelers fans: did anybody miss Alan Faneca? The offensive line was beastly today, with only Mario Williams even remotely effective. Willie Parker was awesome today. The only issue I had with him was that he did the spin move so many times, when he hits a good defense he’s going to get killed doing that. Hopefully it’s not a habit he can’t shake.
The defense was typical of the Steelers, tough and fast. How many points did they give up? Only that interference call on Ryan Clark led to points. What a great pick by Lamarr Woodley.
That game was a bit of a joke. The next one against the Browns, if they play like they did today, should be equally so. SenorBeef better hope that some key Steelers go down or the Brownies are going to be in the hurt locker.
I watched the Cleveland game and their run defense was non-existent, it’ll be interesting to see what they could do in the coming week to fix their issues. The one thing they have going for them is Shaun Rogers is a load in the middle, it’ll take two guys to take care of him but once past him the linebackers did a terrible job taking care of their gaps.
Is Heath Miller the most underrated TE in the AFC? I can’t remember the last time I saw him drop a pass or fumble, all that and a solid blocker to boot!
The D looked good. As much as I like Larry Foote though I’d say his starting days are numbered, Timmons is just too explosive to stay a back up for long. Woodley and Silverback look like the second coming of Porter/Gildon on the outside. Hell even Nick Eason played well today. Great start for the whole unit.
As much as I hate seeing the Steelers with the target on their backs, with the Jaguars proving to be pretty inept against the Titans, Tom Brady out for the year, and Peyton about 14 minutes away from losing to a mediocre Bears team, how can the Steelers not be considered the team to beat in the AFC now?
I agree with you on both of those, I still feel he’s under-rated though. He wouldn’t be the right fit on every team in the league and he doesn’t put up Jason Witten-type numbers but he’s a perfect fit for the Steelers.
I’m glad we’re off to a good start and the Patriots will surely struggle (or at least not dominate) without Brady but I think teams like Indy, Jax, San Diego will still be formidable. This early in the season the offensive lines aren’t in rhythm yet, they and special teams always seem to be the last units to gel as the season wears on. One of the strengths for the Steelers this year, IMO, is the depth at most positions. The biggest hit last year came when Aaron Smith went down and suddenly the run D went to hell. They solidified that position by bringing back Orpheus Roye but it’s still an area of concern for me.
I certainly agree with you that he’s a perfect fit, but he is kind of the definition of a “system player”, so he isn’t really underrated. The true stars at a given position are the ones who would do well in any defensive or offensive system.
He’s very good in the red zone, and kinda useless between the twenties, which is perfect, since the Steelers’ plan is run-run-run and then throw it in the red zone.
Peyton hasn’t taken a snap since last season. Marvin Harrison hasn’t taken a snap since Week… 6ish. Dallas Clark went out in the first quarter. Frankly, I was surprised that the Colts’ offense didn’t look more rusty.
I was extremely surprised that the defense wasn’t able to shut down the Bears, especially with Sanders and Freeney healthy.
Still, I think the Colts are the team to beat in the AFC, though.
The Cowboys did look awfully good yesterday but I fault Crennel’s game plan as much as anything. Romo was provided with an obscene amount of time and, as either Joe or Troy noted, the OL at times seemed to be looking around for someone to block.
Peter King puts them in the SB this year. I remember the first time he did that… '93. They’re better than last year, what with Felix and Adam Jones, but last year much of their success was due to staying virtually injury-free until late in the year, at which point they began to falter precipitously. Terrence Newman is out and now Marion Barber’s hurting and an injury to his ribs definately impacts his particular style of gaining yards.
I like their chances now but will even more if the IR stays clean.
Meh. Quarterbacks seem to be a lot more adversely affected by rib bruises than running backs. Shaun Alexander had severely bruised ribs for half of his MVP season, IIRC, and he’s a pussy.
Anyway, I think the Cowboys are better able to make up for the loss of Newman than any other team in the league. Well, except the Pats, who don’t need depth at corner; they just plug in some second-day pick and he shuts down the best wideouts in the league.
It’s strange that you’d pick the run defense to comment on. Aside from the last quarter when they were tired and the game was practically over, they did far better than the pass defense, who at no point came close to doing anything productive.
I was especially impressed by the middle of the line - all the significant runs were outside. It looks like the new D-line is forming a solid wall up the gut - but then the play bounces outside where Wimbley has overpersued and blows containment and leaves the cutback wide open, or the other side where Old Man McGinnest (who actually wasn’t too bad yesterday) waddles in their general direction.
We’re going to have a very unusual ratio of rushing yards given up inside and outside - people won’t get anywhere rushing up the gut, most of the big runs are going to end up coming from the offensive left.
Shaun Rogers has been quite impressive so far. And without him, Detroit just gave up over 300 yards of rushing. Hmm…
I wouldn’t get cocky yet - if our opponents were reversed then the records would be too.
It wasn’t, actually.
Oh good, revert back to straw men that make you look stupid since I’ve debunked them multiple times already. If I were you, I’d just drop the whole issue in embarrassment.
Romeo’s game plan is almost always bad. He insisted on gutting the roster when he got here because all he can coach is the 3-4, but he runs his 3-4 just like a crappier version of the 4-3. One of the big upsides of the 3-4 is the flexibility it allows in game planning and creating the pass rush from unexpected places, but Romeo is always calling basic soft zone coverage plays which involve the ROLB rushing the left tackle just as if he were the RDE. If you’re doing that every play, you might as well run a 4-3 and do it better, especially if your ROLB is a one trick pass rushing pony.
But even then, he doesn’t give the D-line, who in that situation have to provide a greater pass rush than you typically expect in a 3-4, the ability to rush freely - they’re too often forced to maintain gaps and watch the draw and screen to pass rush effectively.
It’s even dumber because our secondary can’t cover anyone at this point - he tried to compensate for this in the game by at times rushing three and dropping eight - and it didn’t matter, everyone was wide open anyway. He didn’t bother to try the other approach - create some pressure and try to protect a weak secondary - because he’s a coward to the core and hates to take risks of any sort.
In fact, while there were many reasons, one of the big reasons he replaced his d-coordinator last year was because the coordinator was too aggressive. Romeo would often call his normal ineffective passive game plan and the coordinator would disobey and start running some aggressive plays. Romeo wouldn’t tolerate this, so now he’s got his own man there and that may mean that the Browns will never do any attacking on defense.
The lesson everyone seemed to take from last year’s relatively successful season was that Romeo was on the right track. That was dumb. The reason was that Romeo was made a lame duck, his power was taken away in regards to the offense, and so the offense flourished. His power remained with the defense, and so the defense failed. Everything free from Romeo blossomed while everything he touched wilted, and the lesson people took from this was that Romeo was the right man for the job. Idiots.
Without being snarky it’s a four-quarter game and the knock on Shaun Rogers has long been that he wears down fast so I was paying a lot of attention to how they would perform in the latter stages of the game and on long drives. They still had a chance (a long one but still…) to get back in that game but they couldn’t keep the Cowboys from running down the clock. Of course, after taking the field goal rather than going for it they probably did let down, that was stupid. Shaun Rogers is a beast and he’s the biggest concern I have when the Steelers play them. Wimbley hasn’t shown he can stand up to the run if teams go right at him and if a team can wear down Rogers there are big holes available in the middle. Having said all that, I don’t think it’s a good idea to read too much into the first game of the season. A win is nice but all the units are still learning to play together. The Browns will be tough on offense I think, the D still has personnel issues IMO, those are tough to correct mid-season.
Here’s a question for you. Whatever happened to LeCharles Bentley? I know about his injury issues but is he out of football altogether? I don’t remember him being released last year. I was wondering about that while watching the game.
