I wondered a bit about this myself. The Steelers had first and goal on the three, with like a minute and a half left. Knowing the Patriots’ history, shouldn’t they have tried to kill some time here? Maybe run a play or two up the middle? You’re taking a bit of a risk, but balance that against what ended up happening. Basically, they were counting on a defensive hold after the TD, but if I were on the Steelers, I would have been nervous about that, given how Brady was moving the team.
Anyway, this would all be Monday morning quarterbacking, except that it’s actually Monday afternoon here.
If the Steelers had proven any ability to toy with the Patriots defense, perhaps one could talk about deferring scoring. (Of course, if you could toy with the defense, you wouldn’t find yourself needing a last second touchdown.) Particularly after having gotten fortunate with a fourth and 11 conversion, I don’t think you have the luxury of dictating when you score. The Steelers did a hundred things wrong yesterday, but this wasn’t one of them.
That’s ridiculous. First off, the play clock is 40 seconds long, not 50, which makes me suspicious of that entire article. If it is accurate, why wasn’t a delay of game penalty called at 14:10, instead of the false start 11 seconds later? Sounds fishy to me.
Also, the assumption that everything would have chugged along at a perfect 50-second offset the rest of the game is simplistic in the extreme. My first question would be about the last play before the 2:00 minute warning. Refresh my memory…who had the ball, what was the down and distance, and what time was on the game clock when the play ended?
It was a screw-up, but you can’t say the Steelers have any special right to complain because of how the end-game played out. If those 52 seconds hadn’t been added to the clock, the game would have been played differently, and we have no idea how (as Ellis pointed out). At the time of the mistake, it was just as likely to help the Steelers as the Patriots.
I was going to attribute our loss to our inability to run the ball and our inability to stop the underneath passing attack of the Patriots. At that point, we were up 13-10, so we may very well have objected at the time, had anybody noticed, but there was too much time left to carry the effects of that clock fuckup forward to the end of the game.
Our fucking coaching staff - the Patriots ate us up in Foxboro in the opening game of the 2002 season, IIRC, with that pussy little underneath passing shit. Yet we didn’t see it coming? FUCK! FUCK THE FORWARD PASS. We need to go back to the days of real football.
(Okay, just kidding about that, because the forward pass served us just fine when we had Bradshaw, Stallworth and Swann. But still, it is less manly than lining up and pounding the ball.)
Well, the Chargers manhandled the Patriots today, and the Patriots manhandled us last week. I’m definitely not looking forward to going to San Diego next week.
And take a look at the Bengal’s schedule this year. They may take the division from us.
I wouldn’t call a last second field goal a manhandling. I would call what the Chargers did to the Patriots today a manhandling, though.
Right now the Colts are the team to beat, but Pittsburgh will be there at the end, and they had the good fortune to get their one loss out of the way early so we’ll see how it goes at the end.
Cincy wasn’t very impressive at all with Houston. Ooh, they managed 16 points on one of the worst teams in the entire league. They’ve performed well so far this year, sure, but against low level opponents.
Palmer is vunerable. So is their D
San Diego is going to be a major player this year, I’d wager. Their first two disappointments have been followed by mangling the last two opponents.
The Manning boiz finally pulled out some numbers, but can their suporting cast…er… well, SUPPORT them down the line? The next few games will tell. Quite frankly, I think not.
Chargers vs Steelers in the AFC Championship game.
Well I sure hope that if we’re in the AFC championship again, we decide to actually show up. It’s emotionally draining to lose such a big game so often. Must be a Pennsylvania thing.
Yes, and if you look at the schedule I linked to, all but 4 of their games are against opponents they are entirely capable of beating. They play us twice, the Colts, and the Chiefs. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Bengals go 12-4 with the way they’ve been playing.
Mmm… maybe. Thing is, I know the NFL schedule pretty well myself (being a fantfootballer as well as a lifelong overly obsessive NFL fan), and I just don’t see the Cincy schedule as being that soft for them. Still, I’ve been proven wrong before. Any Given Sunday Rule™ and whotnot, ya know?
Now, tonight’s game should cement my view that it’s time for Brett to retire back to his p-row and go jugging for gar.* Could be wrong…
*Hoo, boy! He’ll have more fun that way, I gay run tee.
Did pretty good in the 4th quarter almost comeback, but he stunk it up for the first 3 quarters which put the team in that 4th quarter comeback mode in the first place. Mixed emotions, but I still think he stayed in the league one year too long.
CBS pregame on Sunday says the Steelers have no chance to win against the Chargers.
The Steelers beat up on the Patriots as bad as they got it in return; I think the Chargers exploited the Patriots’ soreness and their failure to look past the Steeler game.
With two weeks to concentrate on this game, I think it will be closer than the critics think.
I’m a little queay after watching “Inside the life of an NFL linebacker” (something like that), the Sam Huff parts were good but it was another “Ray Lewis is God” wankfest after the first few minutes. He’s the new Junior Seau, cursed with being the best player on a team in trouble.
Both teams have some amazing talent at key positions. If my years of NFL fandom has taught me anything, it’s that the Talents™ tend to “step it up” in performance when the challenge comes. Add to this mix the MNF mystique (all eyes on one game), and I think we have a toss up of a high scoring, hard hitting game.
Still, the Any Given Sunday (Monday) Rule™ may also call in its demands for worship and sacrifice.
Yeah, I’m REALLY looking forward to this MNF game.
The Chargers certainly look good this year, but Big Ben has looked good all year, and I am firmly in the camp that ANYONE would have had the passing performance he had against the Patriots, given the miserable play of the offensive line during that game. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Peyton Manning would not have had better stats in the same position as Ben had against the Pats.
However, the Steelers are rested, and I have faith. That, and the Steelers have an AMAZING MNF record.
So which word is it that Jeff Triplett is stymied by, do you think? “Indisputable?” Seems most likely. However, maybe it’s “video” he has trouble with. Although “evidence” appears to be absent from his vocabulary as well.
So which word is it that Jeff Triplett is stymied by, do you think? “Indisputable?” Seems most likely. However, maybe it’s “video” he has trouble with. Although “evidence” appears to be absent from his vocabulary as well.
How about that fair catch call? Even if the ref made the call properly, that’s a dumb rule. If the receiver muffs it, that ball should be live and the Steelers should’ve had it.
Yeah, it sounds like it was the correct application of a bad rule. I don’t see how he could have avoided interfering under that rule. I’d like to see what the exact rule is - I could almost envision a situation where the returner could bobble the fair catch into a cover player on purpose for the 15 yards.
