Steelers vs. Jets Preview

I have to admit that I didn't really know too much about the Jets until I took a look at their depth chart. I knew that they currently stand at 1-8 and have pretty much been getting their asses kicked around the league thus far this season. But, I didn't know why they were 1-8 until I took a look at the depth chart.

The bottom line is that they're a shitty team. And, I can't really say for sure if their offense is shittier than their defense. I'd have to say their defense is worse because they do have Thomas Jones, Laverneous (I misspelled that, but I don't care) Coles, and Jericho Crotchery (or Crotchity or something). I know all those dudes are on someone's Fantasy team somewhere.

On defense? I know Darelle Revis because he played for Pitt, Hank Poteat (same reason - and he also played for the Steelers), and Bryan Thomas because I wanted us to take him in the 2002 draft (we took Kendall Simmons instead and it's a damn good thing because Thomas sucks balls).

Unless this is a let-down game because we just pretty much secured the division over the last three weeks, I can't see a way that this is anything other than an old-school shit-kicking of the Jets. Chad Pennington no longer starts for them, so they have Kellen Clemens behind center. He was drafted in the second round last year and has two touchdown passes and four interceptions in three games.

They're 29th in total offense and 30th in total defense. And, I would like to take this opportunity to add that they're dead last in rushing defense. Did you hear that, Tomlin? DEAD LAST IN RUSHING DEFENSE. But, they'll probably come out in an eight man front. No way we can run against that. I mean, it's not like our offensive line is considerably better at run blocking and their front seven is without their best player and sucks anyway. And, it's not like we've faced eight man fronts before and still been able to shove the ball down the other team's throat. Yeah. Really. Eight man front. Too much to deal with. If they come out geared towards stopping the run, we're just going to have to go to seven wide receivers and throw the ball as much as possible.

At any rate, there are only so many ways that I can say that they suck worse than the void of space and we don't. Then again, the Raiders were a profoundly sucky team last year and we still lost to them.

Things that will cause us to lose on Sunday:

1. Leon Washington has a day like Josh Cribbs had. Washington's really their most effective weapon and he's what I'm most worried about. In theory, Tomlin kicked everyone's ass at practice and we won't have to worry about special teams issues in this game. In theory.
2. They come out with five wide receivers and just start chucking the ball all over the place. And it works. I think there's a possibility that they come out with this strategy anyway, considering that they have nothing to lose and they need to give the home crowd hope, but I also don't think it's going to work because Clemens is still getting his sea legs. However, if it does work and they are actually able to score some points, we could be in deep shit. Because, ya know, we'll be passing a lot, too. Because, ya know, they're going to put eight guys in the box and we can't run the ball if that happens.
3. The offensive line plays as crappy in the passing game as they did against Cleveland. I'm still not convinced that Eric Mangini is as smart as everyone says, but I also think that he could come up with some pressure packages that will leave their linebackers free to tee off on Ben. And that scares me.
4. Ben gets hurt. Last season, there wasn't too much of a difference between Batch and Ben, so I really didn't care who was behind center. And there were several times that we rushed him back in when he wasn't ready. He has yet to play a full season, so you know the injury's coming soon. Just a question of when. He's too juiced into this offense right now and he's in too much of a zone. There isn't a suitable replacement for that, much as I love Batch.

One of the things I like about the 2007 Steelers, though, is that we seem to have a knack for kicking the shit out of teams that we're supposed to beat. Given that the Browns game was actually for the division and that they weren't as bad as they were when we played them to open the season, I'm not counting them as a team that we were supposed to beat (even though they are Cleveland, for God's sake... it's weird to think of them as even possibly being good).

I think we go in there, we get the job done, then we go home to play another really crappy team, this time on Monday Night Football at Heinz Field.

Prediction: Steelers 34, Jets 10