Steeler vs. hated Ravens Review

Well, first of all, I meant that I wanted to take the over for the last game, not the under, so I'm both retarded and bad at proof reading.

Second of all, I thought the Steelers were going to come out firing, using their no huddle offense and as many receivers as they could muster (probably four, since a tailback would need to be kept in to block). They didn't.

As a matter of fact, I thought that this game was going to be one of those rare situations where one team would try to out-think or out-coach the other team and the results would be the opposite of what was expected. I thought that both offenses would go all pass wacky, which would shock the hell out of both defenses, and we'd have a high-scoring first half, followed by some excellent second half adjustments. Didn't happen, obviously.

But, if the hated Ravens had come out throwing like crazy, it eventually would have favored the Steelers. Big time. If we had a solution for Tony Romo and Matt Cassel in the spread offense, the high-flying antics of Philip Rivers and company, and were a couple of tipped balls away from shutting down Peyton Manning, then Joe Flacco and his unibrow don't scare me.

More to the point, no passing game in the NFL scares me. I'm working on something for the end of the season -- since, ya know, we have a bye and all -- about how truly amazing this defense is and how remarkable their season has been. Needless to say, I think they've been pretty friggin' awesome.

A Few Thoughts:

1. I read this, from a Steelers fan that e-mailed the ESPN.com blogger that writes about the AFC North: "When are teams going to learn that leaving games in the hands of the officials is not the way to win said games? If the Ravens stop the Steelers from driving 91.99 yards at the end of the game, then there's no chance of the officials deciding it was actually 92 yards instead." That's pretty much all the STFU that hated Ravens fans need to drink. How about your vaunted defense stops our offense for the first 91.99 of those yards before you bitch about the last .01? If the hated Ravens had stopped us at any point in that drive, there wouldn't be a controversial goal line play to discuss.
2. While we're at it, the refs just didn't call penalties in Sunday's game. I think that boils down to the fact that they could've called one on every play, so they just decided to back off. How many flags were there in the third and fourth quarters? One? Maybe? I think it might've been zero. Okay, I just looked it up. There were five. But, two of those were false starts.
3. I am still deeply concerned with Bitch Merger and his two bum hamstrings. Maybe it's just me, but I have this nagging feeling that a team that likes to run the ball and play defense shouldn't absolutely suck on special teams.

While we're at it, the other team that was succeeding with the, "play defense, run the ball, and do just enough to win the fourth quarter" strategy, the Tennessee Titans are next on the schedule.

They just lost to the Houston Texans of all teams. They were in a position to win heading into the game's final two minutes, but Kerry Collins overthrew his man. I don't care that Jeff Fisher needed balls like church bells to go for it on 4 and 3 when he could've just kicked a 49-yard field goal.

The point is that Ben Roethlisberger and company would have converted that fourth down and scored either a touchdown or the winning field goal with under a minute left to play. And, if they had kicked a field goal and made it -- who else is more clutch than Jeff Reed at this point? -- the defense would've held.

That's the big difference between the two teams. I was sure that the Steelers were going to score a touchdown and win, then hold the hated Ravens on their last drive. I was 100% sure of it. I wasn't even 70% sure that the Titans were going to pull out a victory on Sunday, even though they had a first down inside the opponent's 40.

They could come out fired up and beat us on Sunday, but I'm no longer scared of that Titans team in the least. I guess we'll find out what they're made of with the #1 seed on the line.

This Steelers team reminds me of the 2003 Patriots. They win close games, they play great defense, they play solid fundamental football. They hang around against good teams and find a way to win. They blow out bad teams, eventually pulling away in the fourth quarter.

They win ugly, but, damnit, they win. And, with a different guy stepping up as the hero each week, we're not putting too much of our mojo in one basket.