A few observations about the Chargers games, some notes about the upcoming game, and a couple unique takes from going-ons from around the league.

-This has been beaten to death, but you have to give credit to the offensive line. They did a great job in opening up holes for the running game. They may very well have turned a corner since last year. Even when Mendenhall didn’t have huge holes to run through he looked good. He was making cuts to find open spots and getting a fair amount of yards after the first hit.
Arians also did a great job. I like the use of the 2 trick plays because it helps to keep the defense honest. Not to mention a 66.7% 3rd down conversion rate is pretty good.
-Ben continued to look good like a HOFer.  Holmes is definitely getting a lot of the defense’s attention which is helping to get Miller and Ward open down field.
-It was good to see Reed nail the long field goal.  His face on the sidelines told the story of how badly he needed to make a long-distant clutch field goal.
-On the defensive end of things, our run defense was great (16 yards for the whole game is insane) & Harrison did a good job pass-rushing getting 2 sacks and forcing a fumble to end the game.

Gold stars for: Mendenhall, the entire offensive line, Arians, Roethlisberger, and the run defense.

-Logan’s fumble was bad and it helped to open the flood gates in the Chargers attempt of a comeback. The whistle certainly should’ve been blown before he was stripped of the ball, but regardless you cannot let something like that happen at that juncture in the game.  Football is often about will power and you can’t depend on the refs to always make the "right" call. 
-Our 4th quarter pass defense wasn’t looking good….again.  Granted with one of the 3 TD’s they let up San Diego had a shortened field, but they only managed to stop the Chargers 2 out of 5 drives. And one of those was with 46 seconds left, no time outs, and the chargers were down by 2 scores. I have a feeling that getting Troy back will help remedy the situation.  Not only is he the MVP of our defense, but also we only have 5 "good" DB’s without him.  Not a lot of depth if we want to use a dime package, prevent, or sub a person out if they’re tired. It makes me nervous incase another DB gets injured.

Running an extra lap in practice: Logan, our 4th quarter defense

Things to take with a grain of salt:
-With Logan’s 2nd fumble (which happens to be the same number of times Burnett fumbled in preseason) and his lack of touchdowns so far, some people are getting impatient and calling for Burnett to get another shot. But let’s look a few stats. Burnett has fumbled 2 times out of his 4 returns in preseason. Logan has fumbled twice out of his TWENTY-SIX returns…not counting preseason. Not too bad. Now for the TD’s. In 2008 there were 2 KR/PR who had 3 td’s for the entire season. 2007, there were 3 that had 3 td’s and one with 6 td’s (devin hester). 2006, 1 with 3 td’s and Hester with 5. 2005, no one had 3 td’s or more. 2004, 1 had 4 td’s and one had 3 td’s. So it’s safe to say, if Logan makes an avg of 1 TD per 5 games he’ll easily be one of the best returners in the league this year. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened this week since it seems Detroit has one of the worst kick and punt coverage teams in the league right now.
The offensive line has looked pretty good this entire year with pass protection and we have done decently well in the running game against the Bengals and Bears. It also seems that the Titans just flat out have a great run defense this year (no running back has had more than 46 yards against them so far). But I wouldn’t be too quick to expect this from our running game every week. The Chargers have a pretty atrocious run defense, especially since they’re missing their usual NT. They currently rank 28th in the nfl in rushing defense and the worst yds/carry any running back had against them was the Raiders’ McFadden with 4.0.

-I really hope Kemoeatu is okay. He’ll probably play since he had a full practice on Friday and is listed as probable. But he didn’t look good at all when he came back into the game after his injury and it would really hurt us if he has some long term effects. Speaking of injuries, Polamalu will probably be back week 6. I’m VERY happy to see we get him back before the Vikings, barring a setback.

Looking forward to next week:
-the lions pass defense has looked kinda rough recently. Plus, they’re missing a fair number of players on defense (3 outta their 4 starting dline) and I’m hoping the Steelers can capitalize on that.
-I’m disappointed that Stafford probably won’t be playing this week. His team has a fair number of sacks and interceptions with him at QB. The veteran Qb, regardless how past his peak he is, will probably make less mistakes than his rookie counterpart.
-the lions lean on Kevin Smith for a lot of their offensive production. The key to winning will definitely evolve around stopping him. Ike Taylor will face another challenge this week playing across from Calvin Johnson.

Some thoughts from around the league:
-Favre is playing great right now. Kinda reminds you of last year, right? A lot of the experts out there have been saying Childress is a genius for bringing him outta retirement. But it was never a question if Favre would get back to playing well. I’m curious what he’s going to do in December when the games seem to matter a little more, when that weather gets cold, and (assuming they make the playoffs) in the playoffs when every play is magnified.  Remembering last year, Favre fell apart after about week 12 (their 11th game).  People seemed to blame it on his injury and although I’m not his trainer, I’m betting his injury probably happened due to his age and lack of offseason conditioning. This offseason he got a year older, came back even more out of shape, and had major offseason surgery.  I wonder when he’ll start to struggle this year.

-High draft picks are commodities that are not to be wasted.  The reason why some teams seem to be perpetually bad while others are always good often has a lot to do with who the team spends their draft picks on. This preseason, there has been a lot of criticism about some of the steelers draft picks from the 2008 class (warranted or unwarranted). But you have to be thankful the Steelers usually manage to use their high draft picks on people who buy into their team concept and don’t create serious problems on or off the field (at least while they’re with the steelers). Yes, sometimes it takes a player a little longer to pan out than others and some are busts. But we don’t run into situations where the guy we drafted sits out for most of training camp, then shows up over weight and breaks his foot…probably because he’s overweight.  Or a guy who sits out 4 games of the regular season because he wants to be paid more than a player drafted higher and playing the same position…because he "deserves" it.  It’s just one more example of how the steeler’s organization is the best run in football.