Well, if I had written a preview, it basically would have said: "We're boned. I'm sorry. We're going to lose to the hated Ravens." The best angle I would have had would have been if the Pens had lost on Saturday night. My thinking was that the Pens lost Friday and Pitt shot themselves in the foot on Friday. There was no way that the Steelers were going to lose on Sunday if the Pens lost Saturday, because God wouldn't do that to me. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the Pens won on Saturday, so that left the door open for God to only mostly ruin my weekend of sports, which He did.
Not upset. I had a great weekend otherwise. Just saying that He mostly ruined it. And mostly ruined is still partly alive. I also went 1-3 in my four fantasy leagues, but those games weren't officially decided until Monday night anyway, so that doesn't really count.
The good news is that I had a great weekend otherwise, the Pens crushed the Rangers, Pitt can still (technically) win the Big East, the Steelers can still (technically) get in the playoffs, and I can still (technically) make the playoffs in 3 out of 4 fantasy leagues. All good things.
I don't understand why some people are coming down on Dennis Dixon. He's a third string quarterback for a reason. He hadn't played a meaningful game since November 2007 for a reason. That wasn't Stanford he was up against, that was a very good hated Ravens defense. He had half a week of practice and didn't know for sure if he was starting until Friday. I thought he did well for 65 minutes, then just made a bad read. And Baltimore had a good scheme set up.
But, the game turned on that one play and there's nothing that can be done about it. Dixon could work on that in practice this week, but it looks like Ben Roethlisberger will be back against Oakland, so what's the point?
I'm also not sure why anyone -- Hines Ward in particular -- was questioning why Ben wasn't able to play. Something was up with his brain. The brain is delicate. The brain is important. If the doctor says that a violent collision (like, say, one that you'd encounter 60 times a game on a football field) could end your life or give you serious neural issues, you take a break. Just like with Ryan Clark, the win wasn't worth someone's life.
Just like every other week, I didn't think the Steelers looked bad, I thought they looked good. They failed to make some plays, sure, but you'll always have that. I thought they moved the ball well. I thought they opened up some extraordinary holes for Mendenhall when the hated Ravens were putting eight guys in the box because they didn't fear Dixon. I was impressed by the fact that Dixon was not sacked. I was impressed by the fact that, once again, we knocked Joe Flacco's dick into his watch pocket. I thought the coverage units were solid. The one big return got called back. The coverage units still make me nervous, but I think they'll be much better with Rocky Boiman and Anthony Madison in there. I think Vulva is awesome. I think Stefan Logan... well, I still can't figure out why Stefan Logan isn't living up to the preseason hype.
I also think that we wouldn't have needed overtime if we had run a draw play on 2nd and 10 and then gone for the first down on 3rd and 6 or 7. Going deep on first down, then again on second, then running a draw play to keep something bad from happening because you don't have faith in your quarterback is not the way to operate that last drive. You went into the series knowing you didn't have faith in your quarterback. If you're going to run a fraidy-cat, safe play, run it on second down -- or on first down, then second down -- and give yourself a more manageable third down situation.
But, the game turned on that interception. And we wouldn't have lost to Chicago if Jeff Reed had made those two kicks. And we wouldn't lost to the Bengals the first time if a third string fullback hadn't converted on 4th and 11. And we wouldn't have lost to the Chiefs without them turning all of those crazy, big plays. So, really we should be 10-1.
Well, we could also be 4-7. Maybe we don't get the coin toss against Tennessee. Maybe Stafford plays instead of Culpepper, Calvin Johnson doesn't get hurt, and Culpepper doesn't get sacked three times to end the game. Maybe we don't get those two defensive touchdowns and everyone looks at the kickoff return by Percy Harvin as the play that killed the season.
The point is that the margin for error in the NFL is very, very slim. When you lean on your defense as much as we do, it gets slimmer and slimmer. Therefore, we should focus on becoming an offensive juggernaut. The two teams that are undefeated right now have amazing offenses. The 10-1 Vikings are second in the league in scoring.
The issue there is that we're not set up to be that kind of team. So, we live and die by whether or not we make those key plays. We look ahead and see Josh Cribbs and Ted Ginn on the schedule and hold our collective breaths.
It has been a weird season. We have underperformed. We have struggled in all facets of the game, but at different times. We've lost five games by a combined 18 points. We haven't played a complete game as a team for the full 60 minutes.
This could mean that the best is yet to come, but it could also mean that our luck has run out.
We'll know more in eight days. By then, we'll have played Oakland and Cleveland. If we lose either of those games, we won't be mathmatically eliminated from the playoffs, but we'll be effectively eliminated from the playoffs. After those two games, we'll have a better idea of what it means now that we're 8-5. Or 7-6. Or 6-7. Yikes, I hope not 7-6 or 6-7.
The wild card race is crazy. There are tons of teams in the mix. And we have a head-to-head tiebreaker over three of them. So, the season is far from over, but we've definitely given ourselves a very small margin for error.
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