Steelers vs. Browns Preview

Here's the deal. You know that D'Giorno commerical with the vampire and the girl in the peasant dress? The vampire comes up, goes in to suck her blood, then she offers him pizza and he freaks out because it's garlic pizza. Then he completely drops the vampire character, she drops the "girl in a peasant dress in a trance" and the commerical goes on. There's something about delivery or D'Giorno, then they're back in character, then they break it again. Then it's over.

My point is that they tried to do 6,315 different funny things in this commercial and all of them failed. Whereas when I watch a Vonage commercial, I laugh every time someone gets beaned by the Vonage box and the "Woo-hoo" music comes on. Even though I know what to expect, it's still satisfying.

When we play Cleveland, we know what to expect. Even though they've turned over their entire roster in the last three years, they're still Cleveland and we can expect them to deliver unlimited calls to the US and Canada for only $24.99 a month (Vonage! Sign up today!).

We know to expect that they'll try to run the ball and fail. We know they'll start to throw the ball after that. We know that we don't have anyone that can cover Winslow and Edwards. We know that they're going to trot out a back-up quarterback that no one had heard of to start against us behind a shitty offensive line.

Somehow, oddly, they never seem to know this. We therefore need to blitz the hell out of this Derek Anderson kid (I think that's his name, not sure. I did, after all, refer to Samkon Gado as Sakmon Kado last year). We need to let Porter loose. We need to tell him that we'll re-negotiate his contract and he'll make the Pro Bowl if he goes out and kills this kid on Thursday.

We need to do what Baltimore did to us. We need to do what we failed to do the first time we played the Browns. We need to do what we started doing, but then stopped, against Tampa. We need to pressure from the outside, then back off, then send delayed blitzes up the middle. We need to send Anthony Smith and Tyrone Carter on the blitz (yes, those are the starting safeties for the game). Bring more than they can block. Kill the head and the body will die.

If we hurt Anderson bad enough, either they'll send in Charlie Frye and all the lucky fans at home can play the Charlie Frye Drinking Game, or they'll put in Ken Dorsey. Anyone remember this crybaby from "Da U"? Man. I'd like to punch him in the head. And, the fact that I just threatened to punch him in the head made him wet himself. He's a sissy. Totally mamby pamby mama's boy. Anyone catch the BCS Game against The Ohio State University in 2002? He heard footsteps in the tunnel. Well, it makes sense that he would've heard footsteps in the tunnel. He also heard them on the sidelines. And in the shower. And in the sensory depravation chamber. He's soft. He needs to rub some dirt in it. Walk it off.

Wait. Then he'd hear footsteps.

In all seriousness, though, we need to crush these fuckers. I can't take another 21 point fourth quarter where we barely come back. Willie Parker should be able to get yards against a front seven that still doesn't have the proper personnel to run the 3-4. And, even though we're working with Sean Morrey as our third receiver, Ben should have a big day throwing against a secondary that's even more banged up than our receivers.

This is the game that defines the season. You knew we'd come back and beat up an overmatched Tampa team at home after we got humilated against the Hated Ravens. The real test is going to be whether or not we can beat a depleted Browns team with their back-up quarterback on four days rest.

The playoffs are a distant memory. I saw Cowher spitting a little on the sidelines in the Tampa game. If we can come out and kick hell out of Cleveland, we might be able to wake him up from his season-long slumber. When the year has ended (in December, not January or February), he'll look back on this game and smile. And spit. And he'll re-up his contract for another 5 years.

If not, well, I guess... Ken Whisenhunt has the respect of the players? God. I hope we hire Russ Grimm.