The Force Was Weak in this One

That's how it's done!

As one friend of Keller's and mine made sure to point out, this game was meaningless. Well, that might have been true for us, but not so much for the Force. The South division loves three-way ties, and this loss bounced the Force down to 3rd place, tied with NOLA and Tampa Bay. One more slip down, and they don't go to the playoffs - and they have to play NOLA next week.

So, what I'm getting at is, even Debbie Downer above can't take this victory away from us by saying it was meaningless for both teams and Georgia just laid down. They needed this win, and they dropped the ball - literally and figuratively.

I'm not 100% sure if Georgia played really sloppy, or if the Power just made them look that way, because this game was pretty firmly in Pittsburgh's hands the whole game.

Hines came out and showed fully what he's capable of - finally. He was 21 for 30, threw for 266 yards, 6 touchdowns and - yes - zero interceptions. That's as close to perfect as we're likely to see. He was confident, took his time (without over doing it) and made the connections. This includes making a perfect pass after a touchdown up to the luxury boxes to none other than Hines Ward. Hines to Hines reception. Love it.

Receiving was mainly the Joystick and Superman show. Both of them counted for 4 touchdowns - Washington straight up and Berry got two in the air and two on the ground. Joystick was textbook all night, fielding them cleanly, whereas Berry pulled them off with style. On one of his touchdowns, the crowd all turned against him and started booing. Berry flashed that grin of his and lifted his jersey, showing the Superman logo beneath.

The big stars of the evening, however, were on defense. This is what won us the game, even more than the near-flawless performances on offense. Georgia only converted 5 of 9 3rd downs, and we fully stopped them on all 3 4ths. Christian Wise continued to make himself my favorite member of the defense (sorry, Gingabread. You still rock.) He hauled in two big interceptions that the offense was able to convert into points (one TD and one FG) and would have had another, had it not been called back.

The only downsides on the evening were familiar - albeit, watered down - ones: Kicking and stupid mistakes. The latter came during the longest, most annoying series of downs in the game. Coverage was blown, and Georgia returned a kickoff to the 2. What should have been a quick score after that dragged on forever. First, they completed the pass for the TD...but got called for offensive pass interference. Then they threw for the TD and...got called for offensive pass interference. They completed a pass (finally), almost got there and then blew the next three tries. So where was the mistake for us? Well, after that first pass, Williams got way too chippy, threw a punch and got ejected from the game. In most games, a defensive loss like that coulda killed us, but thankfully the team picked up the slack.

Kicking. Well, what can I say? It's not a Power review if I don't bitch about kicking. Boyer got the boot, and a new booter was called in. His name is...screw it, who cares? As the announcers said, he probably won't be here next week (and then they gave out the coach's email address.) Sure, he made all but one PAT and converted a FG...but his kickoffs were weak as hell. To put it in perspective, Berry was averaging about 15 yards a return. CJ Johnson, on the other hand, averaged over 30. This was because Nobody-Ass McKickypants never even made the net in this game and dropped all his kicks right in Johnson's hands.

Oh well - we beat the tar out of them (58-41.) At one point, we hit exactly a 31 point lead, and it was nice to know that only one team had ever come back from that.

Us.

Elsewhere in the league

• For some reason, still unknown, the league decided to show Cleveland/Utah as the featured game this week, and as I suspected, it wasn't really exciting at all. Utah completely stomped the Gladiators, and ended their hopes of the playoffs. 83-63 Blaze
• The game they didn't show - and the Ustream feed cut out on - was the Rattlers at the Talons, both looking for first place. These teams are super well matched, and now stand at a win a piece - and as mentioned, will likely meet in the playoffs at some point. The final, that I would have loved to have watched, was 62-61 Talons.
• The game of Orlando at Jacksonville was never in question, despite the possibility of the Preds pulling an upset against one of their hated rivals. In the end, the Sharks pulled off the win 48-30 and secured a place in the post season again.
• The Voodoo should have won in Tampa Bay, and they didn't give up without a fight. This battle went to OT, where the excitement didn't stop. NOLA won the toss and quickly went 0-3 on their attempts. Rocco made one last all-or-nothing Hail Mary to Bush for the TD. Tampa Bay responded by quickly moving back down the field themselves. The gutsy call was to go for 2. Complete it, they win. Miss, they lose. They made it, and the game ended 78-77 TB.
• The less said about the Shock at Command, the better. The Shock were a team hoping for the playoffs, and would have made it in nearly any other division and in any other year with their record. This week, they won by one point (49-48) to the worst team in the league because of a missed FG. Pathetic.
• Chicago pulled off a win for their morale against the Mustangs, 57-54.
• Finally, the Sabercats hosted the Barnstormers. There is a lot of speculation that aging great Mark Greib might retire after this season (though, he's kinda the Favre of the AFL), and if so, this might have been his last home game with the Cats. Well, good for him, they pulled it off 57-48.