Is Dookie coming back?

What about tatum bell he is sitting around on his arse?

That was a nail biter and yes, you guys pulled it out in the ned. Over on my blog a lot of Ravens fans said the Steelers were lucky. I say that the good teams always get lucky and that is part of the reason the Steelers are still a better team than the Ravens. We always find a stupid way to lose, be it a dumb penalty or a few poor plays to doom us when we definitely had the chance to pull this one out. However, it shows that there’s not a huge a gap between these two teams as there was last season, and if you guys think that the AFC North title is firmly in the graps of the Steelers, take a look at your hellacious schedule, beginning next week in Jacksonville. You guys deserve props for your win last night dammit!), but we’ll be waiting in Baltimore for you later this season.

Great to see so many posts on your Open Thread. This was my first attempt at an Open Thread and we had 370 comments, which was huge for us, being new to this. Once again, you have a great blog going over here and pretty sharp fans compared to most of the other tems’ blogs. Good luck to you guys, but not so much for your team. Feel bad about the injuries and hope everyone gets healthy asap. Peace.

…on a hard-fought win. Last night, I was saying that the Steelers “got lucky” and the Ravens “deserved” to win. In all honesty, the Steelers earned it. That’s why we watch football. We can say what we want about big plays, but one big play can negate an entire game of disciplined, solid football.

I think that even Steelers fans have to give the Ravens credit. At the beginning of the season, no one would have thought that the Ravens could challenge the Steelers. Now, I’m just looking forward to our next game. The Ravens played an incredibly solid game, but in the end, the Steelers made the big plays. Again, that’s the reason that I love football and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

the Special Teams Unit. Those guys have turned a weakness into a strength! It’s easy for some teams to overlook special teams but the Steelers have been so shaky for so long that I truly appreciate the improvement we’ve seen this year. Particularly when field position played such an important part in last night’s game.

I also give Props to the Ravens who finally appear to have a quarterback and a head coach. By next year these guys are going to be serious contenders for the division title and maybe even a conference title. My general dislike for the Ravens makes it hard to say that, but the truth is that our teams are more similar in mentality than we’d like to admit. Hopefully we’ll have many more years of competitive football while the Ohio contingent in the division continues to implode!

What can I say, that game was the worst and the best. the first half had me feeling physically sick. When we got going in the second with the no-huddle (thanks BEN!) I started to breath again and when Harrison caused the fumble and Woodley ran it in I jumped out of the chair so high I popped the button on my shorts half way across the damn room. Congrats to the Steelers for pulling that one out and hope the best for all of our fallen players.

Random thoughts:

Congrats to the Ravens on having a valid offense – damnit!
Congrats to Ben for taking the game in his hands.
Thanks to Jeff Reed for being the man!
Worried about defense against screens and the pass. Some of those drives we let get in there just looked too easy for the Ravens, but I’m sure they’ll work on that.

One day I hope to be in a situation where I can get online with yall and watch the game – but it’s Still great to read the comments after.

This wek is going to be interesting to see the roster moves made – I’m guessing we’ll see Russell back on the active and who on the line?

Gongrats to the Steelers on a hard fought win!! Talk about a bruiser. Great Job by the Ravens and their Rookie quarterback. Although, I’m still calling him Joey Flaco.

So much to cheer about, so much to lament. How about that Defense? My game ball is unstiched and split between them and M&M (Maweldy More) who came off the bench and performed like a hero. I think we will see some good things out of him as FWP heals.

I agree with a couple of the coments about Bruce Arians. I’m not a fan of his, or coach Z for that matter, in the first place. There we were in overtime trying to establish the run with our last running back. Run-run-pass, rinse and repeat (As Blitz put it). It would sure help the ulcer to have a second and one. You don’t suppose that Arians still works for the Brownies do you? Kind of supplimenting his income? To put Bruce’s performance in perspective, you only had to look across the field last night and see what a great offensive coordinator was doing with a rookie quarterback. Enough said.

Our injuries are mounting men. And you know the game with the Jags is going to be as physical as last night if not more. We need to do some extra stretching for that game and maybe go back to the old days when the players wore giant pads everywhere they could fit them.

Hmmm…..Coach Tomlin. What to think. I used to be a big fan. But listening to the comentators babel about his command of the English language last night I was left wondering if this guy is all talk. Just before the Steelers went to the no huddle, there was a camera shot of our bench and we could see Ben going to Tomlin and talking to him. Later, after the game, in his interview, Ben said he asked for the no huddle. I’m left feeling that Tomlin had no answers himself. I’m wondering if he isn’t freezing up? Just standing there on the sidelines praying for a miricle. I’m seriously in doubt about his ability to diagnose, adjust, adapt, teach and inspire.

I thought I saw Stapleton’s jersey last night. Got sidetracked and forgot to look for him again though. Did he look good? Anyone?

Last shout out goes to Big Ben for getting fed up and stepping in and proposing the no huddle. There was a shot of the bench around then and Big Ben and his offense were talking about the next series. Great leadership. Great save. I guess being a leader doesn’t just mean for the men on the field. I have the feeling that Ben lead his coaches to a win too.

I couldn’t join the fun because I don’t have espn, and I had to conserve bandwidth on my DSL to watch the game. Crazy game all around. So how do you counter the blitz? You play no huddle, get 3 step passes to your backs and other recievers, you run draws, reverses and screens. I think I saw all of that other than screens last night. I can’t say it all worked, but at least the coaching staff showed that they knew what to do. I’ll give Arians a C- on the game, but only because he’s currently in the special ed class where effort counts more than execution.

We have a lot of drama this season, and it actually makes for good football. I can’t believe how many injuries we’re having as a team this early. Hopefully a we’ll survive a softer Jacksonville next week and get more healthy (esp Hampton and FWP) from the bye. I’m actually excited to see Gary Russell next week, and we might see a different, but still good 1-2 punch with him and Parker. I’d love to hear Jacksonville’s reaction to a fresh Russell slamming into them when they’re thinking they’re getting a banged up Steelers team. I want to see us run the ball down their throats 35 times.

I’m not sure who will replace Simmons on the roster. We only have 8 linemen now, and one of them is the worthlessly green Hills. In particular, we need some help on the interior, where we have don’t have any backups (unless you count noodle-limbed Essex). We could solve this by moving Colon inside and starting our 6th (or 4th) best OL, Starks, at RT either this week or during the bye, in which case we’d pick up Parquet from the the PS. Since that probably won’t happen, I wouldn’t be opposed anymore to giving Bentley a look, or for giving Tampa their pick back for Mahan, lol. The good news is that we had 7 quality (if not outstanding) linemen, so there really shouldn’t be a big dropoff losing Simmons, and we saw that.

Our running game was surprising consistent. No it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t 12 runs for 20 yards, either. We gained positive yards on most plays, even if it was just 2. 3rd and 6 is much better than 3rd and 11, which we’ve seen a lot in previous games against the Ravens. You can say what you want about the pass protection, but there is no doubt that the line is tougher this year than last.

I like Tomlin, even if he’s still learning. I see his fingerprints on the defense: setting the tone and giving LeBeau general points of emphasis like playing the pass better and limiting the big plays. I also give a lot of credit to him for the special teams. He tried something last year and it didn’t work. He figured something out this year, though, because he took what was a huge glaring weakness and made it a strength. Our return game still sucks, but our coverage has been fanstastic. We stopped them inside the 20 several times, and the only good return they had was sprung by multiple penalties. And Reed, man. He hasn’t missed a makeable FG since 2006. Tomlin needs to work out the offense, but I’ve seen enough so far to be patient.

Did Troy Polamalu play this well in ‘04 and ’05? He may be our best coverage DB. He made 2 really good plays on deep balls that showed his range and his ball skills, although I guess he bit on the PA on that TD. I’ve thought he was overrated at times, but he might be underrated now. He’s playing great against the run and the pass, something very few safeties can say. On the other hand, it was vintage Ike Taylor to stand and watch Mason make a spectacular catch and wave his arms incomplete. That was his best play on the ball all night. I don’t care how fast he is, or how well he can run with WR’s, he gives up on plays and doesn’t play the ball. That’s why he’s not a pro-bowler, not because of his hands.

It’s such an advantage to have 2 great pass rushers in Harrison and Woodley. They really complement each other. They are defeating blocks, not just fooling people with the scheme to come in unblocked. That opens up other opportunities when we do give a fancy blitz, like on Timmons’ sack. Harrison is really benefitting from the matchups though – he’s gotten 2 overmatched green OT’s while Woodley has to fight solid vets like Adam Terry and Eric Winston. Still, both are well on the their way to double digits sacks. I think we can lay the “not getting enough pressure” argument to rest for the next few years.

1) Arians has figured nothing out. The no huddle was lobbied for by Ben. He calls the plays not BA. BA and Z are lost in the Cleveland wilderness.
2) What’s with the time out calls by the bench with the Steelers lined up and running a play? In the first half they had a good running play negated by a bench time out call. In the second half Moore scored an apparent TD on a toss to the RB that was negated because the bench called a TO. We ended without a TD and an OT game because of that!
3) I didn’t hear Stapletons name called all night long. I used to hear Simmons once a quarter.While the OL still looked horrible in the second half, no sacks with Stapleton in the game. Been telling you guys about him since preseason last year!
4) Jury is in on 94. Timmons is a player. Disappointed he got run over at the goal line but redeemed himself with a HUGE sack late in game. Jury is out on Mendenhall. Hope he is man enough to play in the NFL.
5) Punting almost killed them in this game as Berger was consistently out kicked. Hurts the Steelers that as thin as we are on both lines that we wasted a draft pick (actually 2 because we traded up) on a punter that tore an mcl. Not a stellar move by the FO at this point in time.
6) Very nervous about this line and the rest of the schedule. Jax, NE, NYG, SD, Balt, and others are licking their chops. BA and Z need to fix it NOW.

Did anyone notice the horrilbe coin flip going into overtime. The referee heard the
Ravens call “tails”. He took his oversized coin and basically dropped it with the “tails side” face up. It landed flatly and they Ravens won the toss. If you recorded the game go back and listen to James Farrior. You can hear him cussing at the referee that it wasn’t even a “F*ckin” flip.

I don’t think there was any maliciousness on the Ref’s part but there certainly was a failure to keep the coin toss random.

Once again……., he is the worse stinken’ OC in the league. He needs to be canned and we need to air the ball out a little more. Why have all those talented receivers if you are not going to use them?

Blitzburgh wrote:

"…QB sneak it for 3 yards or so if teams are going to continue blitzing like that…Those yards told me that perhaps in fact we were actually going to try something….ANYTHING…new to get things on track offensively. "

And on the very next play – 38 yard TD pass from Big Ben to Santono.

Good call Blitz, and Big Ben. Give him all the credit in the world. After turning it over in the first half with that awful INT trying to tuck the ball, which gave all the momentum and field position to the Ravens for quite a while, Big Ben comes back big time.

Ben reads the riot act to the offense at halftime, demands the no-huddle, and the result is a TD. Way to go Big Ben Roethlisberger showing leadership!

Great defense especially the front 7, and Troy, against a very competitive Ravens team with a solid performance from Flacco. All the time while the Steelers offense was sputtering. What can you say about Harrison and Woodley other than their combined stat line for the night:

18 tackles, 4 sacks, 4 quarterback hurries, 2 forced Flacco fumbles, 1 TD. WOWSERS

Also: JEFF REED = MONEY

2 TDs in 15 seconds. Rallying from 10 down with 20 minutes left in the game. No sacks against in the 2nd half. All against a tough and fiercely competitive defense.

Great teams find a way to win, they win ugly, they overcome adversity and win. All the credit in the world to this team. Should be a heck of a season.

All ready is.