Texans at Steelers Review

In all honesty, there wasn't much not to like. I was actually fairly nervous about this game. I predicted 38-24, Steelers (pretty close, no?), but I really thought there was a chance it could go the other way.

A few thoughts...

1. The linebackers definitely stepped up, with Lamar Woodley being particularly impressive. They were all over the place, got to Schaub even when they were held, and, once again, I have to say that James Harrison is better than I give him credit for being. At some point, in my mind, he'll be so underrated that he's overrated, but we haven't reached that point yet.
2. Randy Cross and Gus Johnson were all over Marvel Smith's junk, but I thought he only did okay. Mario Williams is probably the second or third best end that he'll face over the course of the regular season, so that's good news, but he still allowed two sacks and was the man that let Williams through on the forced fumble.
3. The run blocking was phenomenal and the offensive line is way ahead of where I thought they'd be. That's good news. As Winston Wolf would say, "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks just yet," but it was a very impressive performance against a front seven that doesn't get the credit it deserves. The three guys they drafted in the first round on the defensive line the past few years are good players and DeMeco Ryans is no slouch. It's not like we pushed around a punch of... uh, pushovers... this afternoon. These guys are good and we made them look like our bitches.
4. Weidman summed the game up well about halfway through the fourth quarter when he said, "My God. I think the police are going to need to give the Texans a doll after this game and have them describe where the Steelers touched them." No real analysis there, just thought it was funny. "The bad men touched me there... and put their helmets there... and tackled me here..."
5. Mendenhall held onto the football and looked real good. If you noticed, on Fast Willie's last carry, he broke into the open, looked down the field, and said, "Fuck it. We're ahead by 25, I don't want to get hurt, and we have a damn good back-up. I'm going out of bounds." By the way, Fast Willie is back. If we had any doubts, he silenced each and every one of them today. What if we don't block as well next game? Uh... I believe I just said he silenced all doubts.
6. I think Dick LeBeau has more control over this team than everyone's letting on. Once we went into halftime with a 21-3 lead, I think LeBeau came up to Tomlin and said, "Cowher would run the ball roughly a hundred times in the second half in this situation. That's what we're going to do." It just seems like there's still a Cowher stamp on this team and that, if Tomlin had it his way, we'd have won 45-10. Just a feeling. I think that's why we're still running the 3-4 and why we came out and ran the ball in the red zone today. That's what Cowher would have done and LeBeau made sure his legacy was preserved.
7. Roethlisberger had only one incompletion, threw two touchdown passes, and only had 14 attempts. And we scored 38 points. That's Steelers football right there.
8. Even though Houston doesn't have a bad defense, we'll certainly face better defenses this year, so let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
9. But... today felt pretty damn good, didn't it?
10. I'm watching the Cowboys embarrass the Browns right now. So, they'll be fired up next week.