ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? Monday night game vs Baltimore. Does Weirddave still post round these parts? I’d love to hear him to try to muster some smack with the way the Ravens are playing this year.
Yeah, the Bungholes played like the Bungles of old. A first-place team? Maybe in the standings, but that won’t last.
In the first half I was watching Chad Johnson getting open at will, and I was wondering where the pass defense went. I guess they were just taking the first half off, because they really clamped down in the second half.
Bring on the hapless Ratbirds. Easy win next week.
Woohoo! They made me nervous the first quarter, but they picked it up and did the job.
Being in Cruces, I got the Eagles game as well. The Steelers game would’ve been nice, but the Eagles game was amusing.
That was absolute domination. Apart from the first two drives, the Steelers defense was awesome. It seemed that the success that the Bengals had on the opening two drives was staunched by putting the rookie McFadden in. Houshmanzadeh didn’t really seem to do a whole lot after that, and so went the Bengals offense.
What the fuck was the checkmark on Chad Johnson’s little chart for the Jacksonville game? He was clowned in that game. The Bengals have won several of their games coming from behind, or in squeakers, but they haven’t won any against teams with winning records. So they are squeaking it out against losing teams, and you can’t keep that up for long. Despite Randy Cross’ prediction, I think this loss will hurt the Bengals pretty deeply. They were simply manhandled.
Another observation: Cowher’s little talk with the refs seemed to have worked fairly well. They were giving us a good rogering with several of those 15 yard penalty calls (especially the “taunting” call and the unnecessary roughness call, but they appeared to knock it off after that.
Jerome Bettis can still run the ball. Willie Parker found something again today too, although what was that falling down business when Roethlisberger is out there blocking for you?
All we have to do is avoid having any letdowns against a potentially soft patch in the schedule over the next few weeks. One plus is that next week is a Monday night game, so they’ll be up for that.
Also, Randy Cross is a fucking idiot. How many times did he talk about a 17 point swing? Um, fool? You can’t score more than 7 points on one drive. Having a touchdown overturned, dropping a pass and missing a field goal means you missed out on 7 points, not 17.
The highs and lows of the Steel running attack is a problem, but it was a good problem today. Let’s see some consistancy guys! I want to see a division like we had in the 70s when one game separated Houston, Pitt, CincyNasty, and the KardiaK Kids at the end of the year. Strongest division of the NFL virtually every year.
In other NFL news, did anyone else see how Dallas shut down Alexander and still lost? 
FWIW, I’m pretty sure Parker dove so he wouldn’t go out of bounds…he wanted to make sure he got a good gain, but didn’t stop the clock. I thought it was a pretty heads-up play…
I won’t look too closely at the divisional records until after the MNF Jets Falcons game, but there were a bunch of interesting developments that jumped out at me.
The AFC North, for example, got shut out against what was the worst division in football, the NFC North, with the Browns and Ravens losing to the Lions and Bears respectively. That does not bode well for the quality of the AFC North.
Nice win over the Bengals; the team just plays better for Roethlisberger, no?
I see Miller is continuing to play well, which makes me happy. (Loved that pickup for you guys…I would have much prefered the Jets took him instead of trading down for the world’s worst kicker.) One point of interest about the AFC North is the abundance of name tight ends…assuming Winslow ever ends up making a name for himself, that is. I’m a big fan of quality tight end play. How’s he looking? (I don’t see the games.) In particular, how’s he looking on run, pass, and YAC blocking?
And of course, the smack talk update:
All Steelers WRs: 6 receiving TDs
Plaxico Burress: 5 receiving TDs
And yet, Chad Johnson is still saying the Bengals are the better team. Oh well. I’ve read stranger opinions around here.
As for Burress, he may well have finally grown up, or he may have found a team which was a better fit. After all, St. Louis thought Bettis was a lousy running back.
CJ
Not really so heads up. He went down untouched and slid out of bounds. From NFL.com’s play by play, highlighting added by me:
The play by play is wrong…the clock kept running after that play. (I think they stopped it for a sec, realized he stayed in bounds, and then wound it).
No. He went out of bounds. The ref signaled so by waving both hands above his head at the end of the play. Otherwise the play would not have been stopped until he was touched, and he was never touched, right? If he had stayed in bounds, he could have gotten up and run again.
You may be confused about the clock stoppage anyway. In the NFL, the clock does not stop in the fourth quarter when a player goes out of bounds until the last five minutes of the game. Whether he had stayed in bounds or gone out at that point, it makes no real difference to the game clock.
The real point is that Parker was so gassed at that point that he could not get it up enough to run out a play on which Roethlisberger was out there risking himself to block. Instead, he simply flopped on the field and out of bounds. Sure, he had run for 131 yards at that point, but I would hope that our primary running back could do 131 yards without flopping around on the field.
Well slap my ass and call me one. 
The clock stops on all out of bounds plays during the game, but it is only paused until the refs spot the ball, and then they wind up the 25 second clock. And of course, as you pointed out, in the last five minutes of the fourth (and the second? anybody know?) going out of bounds stops the clock completely.
From NFL.com under rules.
Under heading TIMING, point #8:
“With the exception of the last two minutes of the first half and the last five minutes of the second half, the game clock will be restarted following a kickoff return, a player going out of bounds on a play from scrimmage, or after declined penalties when appropriate on the referee’s signal.”
If I make an observation on tonight’s MNF game:
As of this writing, the Jets have had four posessions, and Vinnie Flintaverte has fumbled away the rock three times. If Edwards doesn’t put Bollinger for the next series, then…well…I don’t know. I couldn’t actually consider him a worse head coach then I already do now, so I guess I’d just shake my head in wry amusement.
Ahh…and there he is, back in again. Three-and-out.
:shakes head in wry amusement:
I had drinks with a friend over the weekend. Eventually the PSU game came on and we started talking sports. I mentioned that I was disappointed that the Steelers were on MNF because I usually couldn’t stay up long enough to watch the entire game. He said “yeah, but it is cool because this is the first time in years that they have been on.”
Huh? I know my memory is shite, but I’m pretty darn sure that this isn’t so.
Anyone know what statistic he was trying to think of?
He has no clue what he’s talking about. We usually have at least one MNF game a season. This year we have three. We played San Diego on 10th of October and on November 28th we play the Colts.
It was a weird thing for him to say, but come to think of it, I think it may have been a few years since we’ve had a home MNF game.
The Bengals didn’t look altogether that sharp again today, against the Packers! If Cincinatti weren’t playing losers nearly every week, they would not be 6-2. The Packers were in a position to tie the game at the end, and the Packers suck - really bad. Lucky bungholes.