The updated word on the street is 12 weeks for rotator cuff surgery for Aaron Smith. It’ll be interesting to see if they IR him or keep his spot open. Ziggy Hood better hit the weights, Kirschke’s nursing a sore back too so the rookie’s going to have to hold the point a lot I think. I hope he’s ready.
They won’t be showing the Steelers locally this week. :mad:
I’d almost rather Troy sat out another week. I don’t think we’ll need him this week and an extra week might do him some good - next week will be tougher.
I agree that Polamalu will be more important next week. I think this week will be more of a tune-up for him to get him back to playing at game speed. Against the Vikings, Polamalu and Timmons will be crucial for containing the edges against Peterson. If they can keep him in the middle of the field they’ll be able to shut him down.
I’ve been watching film of Ziggy Hood against the Lions and he didn’t do too badly. He’s not ready to fill Aaron Smith’s shoes yet but he did fairly well. When Smith was in the game though he frequently occupies two blockers, Hood can’t do that and neither can the other back-ups except for Chris Hoke who can only be moved to End sparingly since he backs up Casey Hampton as well.
Mendenhall has had the flu this week so Willie Parker may get more of a chance to play than anticipated. It sounds like Rashard will play though.
Some surprises from the inactive list today. Kamerion Wimbley is out with the flu, that will temper the Browns pass rush quite a bit.
For the Steelers, Sweed and Carey Davis are out. I predict a lot of passing and running off the draw today. Maybe they think they can exploit a weakness in the depth of the Browns’ secondary. I dunno, I can’t see why they would sit Davis if they plan to run a lot, they can only motion Heath Miller to FB so many times without becoming predictable or limiting their options.
I only wish it were on here! :mad: I guess I could go into town and watch it at a bar, but I don’t feel like sitting in a loud place, spending too much money on bad food. I will have to monitor it on the web, I guess.
Woohoo! The day turned out pretty good for Pittsburg:
Steelers won
Ravens Lost
Bengals Lost
Browns Lost (of course, since Steelers won)
We are now tied for 1st!
Ravens put up one hell of a fight against the Vikings (although I napped through almost all of it.)
Both Parker and Mendenhall played today, how did they compare?
Mendenhall: Made the tough runs when it mattered (2 yard touchdown).
Parker: Fumbled a 2nd and 1 in mid-field.
Not to mention Mendenhall’s 17 carries for 62 yards compared to Parker’s 7 for 26. However, I think the most telling stat of the game is Ben’s 417 passing yards - those are Peyton Manning numbers. Where the hell is the run game?
All you need to know about Willie’s day is he caught a pass in wide open field, fell down all by himself, and then couldn’t get up. He looked like Liliputians were ratcheting him down as he tried to get up.
How 'bout those Steelers?
There are two things that I want to address about that game. First, that was a horrible call on the 1st down. I’ll be the first to admit that. It’s a stretch to say that it changed the outcome of the game, but it was as obvious a blown call as ever was.
Second, that sequence of turnovers was bizarre, in particular because they actually ruled a fumble on Mendenhall. He was stopped, he wasn’t fighting anymore, what was he supposed to do, try to roll off the guy he was on top of to make sure he was down? The fumble occurred while he was on his ass, about a long second after the play was clearly over. Next time he’d better do a “football move” or something lest he get hosed again.
Otherwise it was a pretty good game. It put the Steelers into a tie for 1st (strictly speaking, they’re still in 2nd, but this early in the season we’re not discussing tie-breakers) over the rapidly fading Ratbirds, and that’s always a plus.
That was. The Browns should have one of those super valuable league apology letters coming their way on Monday.
I agree on this as well. You could see that the ref was putting the whistle to his lips to whistle it dead, but was still waiting for something. If you’re lying on your back on someone else, and they’re holding you, your forward progress is pretty much stopped.
I don’t understand the overruling of Hines Ward’s 2nd TD. He catches the ball in the end zone. Falls down. Knee down. Rolls over and when he is 4 yards out of bounds drops the ball? He must “control the ball through the play”? WTF? For how long? Isn’t the play over when he has possession and is down in the endzone?
The announcers didn’t mention it, but the same thing happened on a sideline play that Tomlin challenged. The receiver caught the ball, feet inbounds, but he dropped it as he rolled out of bounds. They upheld that one.
I actually agreed with both calls. You’ve got to get up with the ball without letting it hit the ground. Hines Ward’s catch would have been okay (I assume) if he hadn’t let it hit the ground. The Browns receiver did let the ball move, but it didn’t hit the ground at any point.
Big game today guys. If we come to play, I think we have a chance. The Vikings have been good, but our defense is pretty good against the run and I’m also betting Favre will spend a little bit of time on his back today. I have people coming, so I won’t be posting - but at least it is on here this week.
Antoine Winfield is out, weakening an already iffy pass defense. The Steelers will be able to throw the ball all day as long as they keep Big Ben upright. I’ll take the Steelers in a mild upset.
Both teams playing it pretty safe so far. Nice to see Wallce finding a spot in the zone to exploit. As the Vikings adjust to that it may open up some other areas I hope. Our inability to run against a tough D allows them to cover the outside zones so well we aren’t getting the post patterns we’ve seen Ben go to so much lately. Everyone’s in the locker room adjusting and dissecting right now; second half will probably look like a different game.
On the Steelers boards there’s always a lot of complaining about James Farrior being too old and slow and I wonder what kind of crack these fuckheads are smoking. Farrior gets pressure with his hands in the QB’s line of sight, no roughing penalties, never misses tackles. Naturally he’s lost a step like Hines Ward undoubtedly has but they’re playing the way you want to see veteran players play. Those complaints piss me off. :mad:
That was one of the most disgraceful officiating performances I’ve ever seen. The officials should be arrested for robbery.
It was bad. I hope Mike Pereira will talk about that “tripping” call on Total Access this week because right now it looks indefensible and no one on either side of the ball wants to see the game determined by mistakes like that.
I do agree that there was no tripping.
But wow, what a game! Too much for my poor heart to take.
What calls did you have a problem with aside from the tripping? I agree that that one was a phantom call, but I don’t remember any others.