Ok so we lost to Cincinnati, the equivalent of get ice picked in the man zone while covered in honey and being eaten by fire ants (lil' shout out to Paul "Fitzy" Fitzgerald right there). Is the season over? No. Should we be worried? Yes. So w/o further ado I'll give you my thoughts on tonights debacle in the Jungle.

The people not running extra laps this week:

Ben Roethlisberger: Was solid again and would've had two TD's if it weren't for two huge mistakes by receivers.

Willie Parker: Looked as good as he has ever looked, running with sharp and explosive cuts.

Mike Wallace: Hats off to the rook who dominated the Bengals secondary for 100+ yards.

Hines Ward: Let's face it; is he ever in the dog house (screw you Cedric Griffin)? Props on 10,000 career yards.

Majority of the offensive line: Hartwig and Kemo failed on a key 3rd down and allowed Odom to break through for a sack. Otherwise the O-line was as good as I've ever seen them.

Ike Taylor: Came up with key coverage plays, and made some nice tackles.

Lawrence Timmons: Looked in good in just about everything he did.

Willie Gay: Had some real nice plays.

Stefan Logan: Consistently  nice returns.

Who's in the Dog house:

Santonio Holmes: A drop or two and a key miss communication leading to a defensive touchdown.

Limas Sweed: I can't keep defending this kid. Though the ground played better defense than any of the Bengal's DB's on that play, he should've had that.

Overall play in the 4th quarter: FAIL.

Bruce Arians or whatever coach made the decision to go for it on 4th down in the 1st half: I'll admit I was on board with it, but i hindsight, it ultimately cost us the game.

Statistically we dominated. There should of been no reason the Bengals were even in this game, but as anyone will tell you, the only stat that matters is what's on the scoreboard at the end of the week. What we lack as a team is the ability to just completely knock a team out. Every single game this year has been down to the wire. Why can't there just be a nice easy win? Blame it on the lack of Polamalu, blame it on bad breaks, but hey, in the end what's done is done. I don't even wanna know what kind of hell is going on in the Steeler's locker room right now, but adversity is the best motivation, and Mike Tomlin is no slouch. It's time to haul ass and get motivated because if there's no fire underneath our guys in the Black and Gold now, there never will be. And think, you could be a Redskins or Titans fan right now.

Keep your heads on straight, and Go Steelers.

-HSS.