No Sacks, No Problem(!)

Stating the obvious, Carson Palmer is not Tom Brady, and the Bengals are not the Pats. I don't think there is any ONE thing the Steelers, or any team, need to do to beat New England. A lot of good things need to happen on both sides of the ball and on special teams. To me, the most impressive and most relevant thing the Steelers did in Cincy was how the offense controlled the ball on long drives. You won't beat New England by scoring less than 27-30 points and if you can limit them to six or seven possessions (Cincy had six), then you have a chance to hold them to three or four touchdowns.

That's exactly what I think this Steelers offense can do, even with a very average o-line.That's why a balanced offense is so important. We don't have the o-line capable of pounding the run down the field. What we do have are a lot of different weapons and a quarterback who can move the chains and get the ball into the end zone (barring brain-cramp interceptions in the red zone) against any team.

Defensively you can't give Brady the same looks. He has too good an offensive line and too much time to pick you apart. You have to mix it up and, as much as possible, keep him guessing. Yes, you have to punish receivers along with everyone else, but I think you have to get Brady on the ground or be in his face, somehow, some way, enough times to end a few drives quickly.  We have enough defensive versatility to do this. The Steelers match up against New England as well as anybody, even Indianapolis, because we have enough playmakers on both sides of the ball to attack in a variety of ways. We will get a good test of offensive versatility against Baltimore but I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see us score 28 points or more. I think we'll win fairly easily by more than 10 points.

I know we have great defensive stats overall this year but that defensive no-show in Denver is still too fresh in my memory.  The D has not dominated the line of scrimmage since the Seattle game, and only once in the last four games. Even against Cincinnati, each of their three first-half possessions got into Pittsburgh territory, ending twice with red-zone field goals and once when they screwed up a second- and third-and-one from our 43-yard line. You would be lucky to hold the Patriots to 17 points in the same situation.  The defense needs to ramp up the emotion and aggression level and that should happen Monday.

The timing of this game is perfect. The defense has  shown some different looks and coped with a few key injuries, generally very well, but there is lots of room for improvement. Woodley absolutely needs to get some action soon. He is a playmaker, a guy who can make a difference physically a few times a game.  So can Anthony Smith and so can McFadden. I'm looking forward to seeing them all on the field at the same time along with Aaron Smith (I honestly don't think he will be ready Monday but he's a tough SOB so who knows) and a 100 per cent healthy Polamalu, and then we will see what this defense is really capable of.

 

Haven't heard that wolfpack and seems unlikely given the number of sideline catches we have seen Moss make and the simple out patterns that Welker has caught in addition to finding soft spots in the middle of zones. The only thing I've noticed is that Faulk seems to make most of his catches over the middle right in front of Brady as a dumpoff rather than out in the flat or on screens.

has caught the majority of his passes on the sides, I have him in fantasy and have watched just about every game, and I honestly can't remember a single catch over the middle that I have seen.

I Tivo Steelers' games and watch them afterwards  sans commercials, so I have been able to watch other fantasy games on sunday ticket.  I have moss and brady, so those games I watch, and let me tell you, it sickens me to have those guys in fantasy, because I root against them, even though the winner of my league gets 5K.  I wasn't kidding about my hate for this team.  I drafted Brady just because he was the best qb available at the time, never realizing how much my angst against him would grow.