I’m a big FWP fan. I think he can still do great things once this O-line gets straightened out. More often than not, I’ve got his back.

But there were a few plays where he either got through the line, or had a chance to bounce it outside… and he looked slow. He just didn’t look like he knew where to go. He had openings, but he didn’t hit them very fast.

Collinsworth is such a drama mama, and combined with the constant camera following whoever screwed up for minutes and minutes after the screw up (in this case, Ward) is just further evidence of the feminization of NFL broadcasts. Making mountains out of molehills!

Make it stop!

People screw up sometimes. Then they either suck it up and move on, or they wallow in it. Hines Ward wasn’t wallowing in it, but Collinsworth and the NBC A/V booth were determined to ignore the other hour of playing time and pin the whole thing on one play. Sheesh.

Let’s put a wig on Collinsworth and let him be the ubiquitous sideline cutie asking the fluff questions.

Now that I’m done with my rant, Nice Going, Steelers!

That says it all.

First off, F*** the Madden cover, from now on no more Steelers on the cover, no matter how cool it looks, never ever again, period. Polamalu was an animal and only one of those penalties he was called for was legit. While watching Polamalu play I was like “Damn this is just too good to be true, he’s the best I’ve seen him…I wonder how long he’ll be hurt for?” Ok so it wasn’t exactly like that, but I was waiting for him to go down and sure enough…If it truly is 3-6 weeks this is gonna be rough, but our D is clearly good enough to cope.

Other observations: Parker only fueled the Redman fire. Only two runs did he look any way near as good as his old self. Didn’t help that the O-Line was barely doing anything for him.

Speaking of which the O-line was fantastic in pass protection. I’d say 3, maybe 4 sacks are on BB.

On the matter of BB, what a guy. Just a machine in the clutch. I wanted Arians’ head after that Hail Mary cause I knew that was going to happen (sorry to sound like whiny little bastard, claiming to have forseen everything, but I swear to you that’s what went through my head.)

Holmes, Ward, Miller, Wallace, and MeMo all get major props, Holmes most of all. Ward’s fumble was just one of those plays. Cedric Griffin just made a real nice play, nothing you can do about it.

Defense was inconsistent on 3rd downs, there was a drop off once Troy was out, but it’s not as evident as it would’ve been a couple years ago.

Dick Lebeau was surprisingly conservative in the blitzing factor, but revved it up near the end and it payed off. Not good to see back-to-back blown coverages on the only Titan’s TD of the night.

Danny Sepulveda=Stud

We may just have to accept that we’re going to be a passing team this year. We’ll see how Ben comes out of it. MeMo might as well be the starting running back if that’s the kind of games we’re seeing from him though. Still, it’s too early to judge, and the Titans D w/ or w/o Haynesworth is still formidable.

Good, game. We’re picking off right where we left off. Though Troy might miss some weeks, we can overcome his injury, though it’ll be rough, this defense is good enough.

And on one last somber note: God Bless America and the Victims and Heroes of 9/11/01.

Sorry to be the dark cloud here, but Wex just confirmed on Twitter that Troy will be out at least 4 weeks…

Anyone have one?

finally got to finish watching the game

heart is POUNDING

what a game

thought we were over all this heart attack stuff…

Who is our ‘Official Short Yardage’ Running Back?

Willie Parker?

Same problem as last year!

I’m not complaining that we won, but we need to do something. We need a short yardage back!!!

After the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 13-10 overtime victory over the Tennessee Titans on Thursday night, coach Mike Tomlin told reporters that safety Troy Polamalu had suffered an MCL sprain. While doctors are still evaluating the injury, right now the speculation is that he will miss 3-6 weeks due to the injury.

Tomlin confirmed that there is still a chance there is a more serious injury in the knee (read: torn ligament), and that doctors are still looking at the film. Expect a better diagnosis tomorrow following an MRI.

When last seen, Frank was in the Tank, being unable to block a DB or pretty much anyone else out there tonight. I think Tomlin benched him after about three plays. And it doesn’t look good for Troy. Not gonna be an easy year, that’s for sure; but a win is a win!

Random thoughts…

• Can we PLEASE give Redman a try at least as a short yardage runner? This short down situation is getting ridiculous.

• Running attack: I noticed FWP was sitting a lot in the end of the game. Don’t know if he was not 100% or what, but it did seem we had a little more success without him.

• Frank the Tank was no help. Time to park him in the garage and see what Redzone Redman can do.

• Logan makes kickoffs and punts fun to watch. I just keep expecting him to break one.

• I’m not going to hate on Ben. He held the ball too much again, and it cost us three. He DOES need to find a balance. But, I believed he was going to get us down there in the 4th quarter and again in over time. He drives me nuts, and I am usually hoarse by the end of the game… but I wouldn’t trade him for anyone. He just wins, is all…

• I felt sick for Hines. Especially since I was screaming for him to run it into the end zone. When he fumbled, it would have been easy to say he should have hit the ground and let us kick three… but I confess, I was as caught up in the moment as he was… and if I can’t think clearly from the couch with no one chasing me, it is unrealistic to expect the world’s most competitive receiver to take a knee.

• Is it just me, or did Collinsworth sound downright upset that the Titans weren’t blitzing. Like they were going to cost him $1000 on the game, or something. Over all, I actually liked him better than madden. But I do think he was pulling for the Titans. Probably all those years at Cincy…

• Losing Troy hurts. He was the only one playing in the first quarter — the rest of the team was sleep-walking.

Last year we had 2 critical fundamental problems, running and run blocking. We had also one minor fundamental problem wich was Ben’s holding too much to the ball and yes, we couldnt punt, but that was caused by Sepulveda’s injury so I wont count it.
So basically we just needed to fix 3 things, OL, Ben’s turnovers n excessive ball holding and a bit more of OL.
It is clear right now that we have exactly the same fundamental flaws of last year. We didnt resolve any of those 3. And I find it very annoying to say the least.
Our team overall looks better though, we have a serious WR depth, DB depth, a new TE who can really block, C Davis out, Sepulveda back, Mendenhall fresh and thursty, etc. .
But so what? WHY did the staff let the running get to this point?? This is serious shit guys, we wont win another SB playing last years football, lets face it. WE cant depend on our D forever. Even if Ben has a terrific year, even if our WR have a terrific year, I doubt we will get to the SB one dimensional ’cause things looks even worse running this year. Its early, but I hope Tomlin is not satisfied with the lack of OL and running improvement ’cause he surely was satisfied with the OL prior to this game resigning everyone (how ridiculous is that?) .
Call me a perfectionist but I hate Arians and Zierlein to an almost irreational extent. . ..

.
The Titans went 14-2 last year for good reasons. They have a very tough defense. We should have expected to see our running game struggle against them. It should be also be noted that Essex still needs some experience to gel with the rest of the line. And Frank Summers is super green at his position. All in all, the offensive line did a much better job in this year’s first game than last year’s——and both games were against very tough defenses. Though Chicago has a very tough defense, I think that our OL will show improvement against them.

First, though, congrats to the Steelers on another gutsy win. It’s such a pleasure to root for a team with so much character. And heal fast, Mr. Polamalu. We love you, and next to Ben you’re our most indispensable player…

As for the run game, the thing that stood out to me last night, besides the lack of a push that many of you have mentioned, was how fast Tennessee’s safeties showed up in the box. On many of the run plays, they simply had too many guys near the LOS for us to block. I don’t know if that’s because BA is tipping his hat by formation, if Ben’s not checking out of run plays when he should (or conversely is checking into them when he shouldn’t) or if we’re not running enough play-action. Whatever it is, there were too many instances where, in our one-back sets, Tennessee had a seven-on six or eight-on-seven advantage in the box. I don’t care who our o-linemen are, if we can’t do a better job of keeping the opposing safeties honest, we’ll never get the run game going. That falls on BA. It will be interesting to see how he handles it…

He looked absolutely electrifying. The first kick off return was absolutely absurd. He looks fast, and than he hits a switch and seems to be running faster than his feet can go. His jolts and stutter steps were confusing ST players all night.

I see no reason why this guy cannot return 2-3 TDs this season or have punters kicking away from him by the end of the year.

With the addition of him and Sepulveda back, its great to have our ST back.

Logan, and Sepuvalda, vastly improve a huge weakness with the team last year. Punt/kickoff returns are actually exciting now, and when the Steelers have to punt, I feel good about the chances. Last year it seemed every punt was a disaster.
How about when their punter (Heintrich) shanked it late in the game and it went out near the Titans’ sideline? I think it was 21 (Javon Ringer) who looked SO pissed off, like he was going to strangle the guy.
That was the Steelers last year all the time.

As for Willie and the run, Parker is often a guy that goes 1 yard, 1 yard, -2 yards, 25 yards. He broke off two longer runs, but the Steeler o-line wasn’t that great last year, and the Titans are very good at stopping the run.
But the Titans are a very good running time with a very good line, and Chris Johnson only got 57 yards on 15 carried (and two rushing first downs).
Way too early to make a season judgment on the Steeler running game and Parker based on playing a premier D in a super amped atmosphere.

Also, talking about Troy and videogames, that INT was right out of a videogame! in fact, if it had happened, I would have accused the game of cheating.
His loss is killer, but at least 3 of the next 5 opponents are the Bengals, Lions and Browns. His loss hurts against the Bears, and if he is sill out against the Chargers (man, I hate Rivers) that will be awful. but as long as he comes back at full health- maybe after the bye, the Monday night game against the Broncos he will make life miserable for whatever poor soul that trainwreck of a team has behind center.

Can he still do that? I’m not sure. It didn’t look like it last night. But Tennessee is very good and the season is young. I hope he finds his stride…

Did anybody else find it funny that he celebrated every catch enfatically??? He was pumped!

Saw Wallace several times.

But where in the world was Limas Sweed? Was he injured or something?

Sorry to anyone I pissed off. Just wanted to get in your heads.

You guys have alot of problems though on both sides of the ball. Passing game looked alright, but it was mainly because the Titans stopped rushing Ben for some reason. He will make some plays even when pressured, but will also not make some plays. However, when you give him 6-8 seconds, he is going to eat you alive.

Ben and your WR are really good, but without the support of your running game, especially against heavy pass rushing teams, you guys might struggle pretty badly on offense. Mendenhall looked so lost out there and maybe you guys should bring Redman back That hail mary at the end of the 2nd game was pointless and nearly cost you all the game. I can tell you this much, I bet Arians would not try that on the Ravens, cause you know Ed Reed would have put up 6.

Again, just like all of last year, you guys were outplayed on paper but came through and got it done. Did not like seeing Troy walk off the field and be out for 3-6 weeks cause he is the only player I really like on Pitt. Just an absolute animal and is the best open field tackler in the NFL, above Bob Sanders. I think he will be out 3 weeks way before he is out for 6 weeks. Too good of an athlete and a physical freak, will not be hurt that long.