Steelers vs. Lions Review

Well, I was in Seattle and didn't catch the game because I was taking a tour of Underground Seattle.

It's actually a very cool tourism destination with enough different, fun things to do that pretty much anyone can go there and find something interesting to occupy their time. They're still bitter about that whole Super Bowl XL thing (which the Steelers won, by the way), which isn't cool, but I ran into a lot of very nice people and had a ton of great food.

From what I heard, the Steelers looked great in the first three quarters, then almost choked everything away in the fourth quarter. The hell you say! The more I think about it, the more I think the theories that I have about the Steeler defense are correct.

I would like to take this opportunity to also point out that star defensive lineman and former Pro Bowler Aaron Smith was placed on injured reserve today.

That doesn't help, but it may be helpful to get some youth infused on that line, see what Ziggy Hood can do, or possibly Nick Eason. I think there will be a dropoff, of course, because Aaron Smith is really, really good at what he does. But the silver lining there is that both Hood and Eason are about 15 years younger than Smith, so at least they'll be consistent. They'll be consistently worse than Smith at the beginning of the game, but they'll still have plenty left in the tank in the fourth quarter.

This is not to say that we should hope that all members of the over 30 gang get hurt, it's just to say that Smith getting hurt now and getting put on IR now will suck less than, say, him getting hurt and getting put on IR towards the end of the 2007 season. That was disastrous. This is just highly inconvenient. And, who knows, if Hood goes in and plays great, that could mean that the 2009 draft class was a success. Mendenhall is starting to bail out the 2008 class, Vulva, Gay, and Timmons (sounds like a malpractice firm that only goes after OBGYNs) bailed out the 2007 class, and Hood, Joe Burnett, and Mike Wallace could make the 2009 class not so bad.

Ultimately, the personality of the team is changing. Tomlin has said numerous times that every season is different, every season has its own personality, and everything develops in its own time.

This team is very different from the 2008 team, obviously, but we're not sure what the personality of it is yet. All I know is that we aren't likely to see another 13-9 victory or a 10-6 victory, or a 15-6 loss. We have already allowed 20 or more points in a game three times (three times in a row, actually) and we only did that five times total in 2008. But, we've also scored 28 or more points twice (again, in a row) and we only did that four times all of last season.

The team is changing, the personality is forming, and we should have a better idea of where they are and what they're like by the time the bye week rolls around.

It'll be interesting to see how they deal with a fiesty, but crappy adversary (Cleveland) and a team that has looked great so far but maybe leans on the running game too much and won't be able to count on their quarterback as the season wears on (Minnesota).

After that, we get a frisky Broncos team and a revenge game against the Bengals. The next month or so will determine the course of the season and the personality of the team. I'm looking forward to seeing how they respond and how everything shakes out.

I'm really, really scared that it might be bad, but I'm looking forward to it.