BTSC Steelers Six Pack: Week 6 Friday Edition

A quick six pack here before taking off back to my native Texas for a week, my first trip back in over three years.

IX -Here's your NFL Week 6 TV Distribution Map. Last week lots of regions lucked out; this week, unless you're in the southeast, Appalachia or Pennsylvania, you're finally getting your money's worth out of Sunday Ticket or heading to the local watering hole.

X -On a similar topic, sad, the seventh straight home blackout for the Cincinnati Bengals. At first thought I was really unimpressed with Bengals fans, than I remembered they've only had one home game this year, and that there's nothing unreasonable about fans not showing up to the Bengals' final four home games in 2010. This week? Indianapolis is coming to town. I suppose that should mean Colts fans should be able to join forces with Bengals fans to fill up the stadium, but um, Colts fans are not exactly engaged right now. Anyway, that streak ends the following Cincy home game, a Nov. 13 matchup with the Steelers that Pittsburgh fans will descend upon.

XIII - Rashean Mathis loves playing against the Steelers. I'm thinking -- or perhaps hoping -- that Ben Roethlisberger has ridden himself of the turnover bug already and is ready to play clean football for at least another week.

IX - I made a quick mention of it this, and Dale Lolley also devoted a column this week to highlighting the great work being done by Antonio Brown in the return game. Lolley made a good observation about Tennessee kicking away from Brown after the first quarter. Brown had this to say about that; Mike Tomlin chimed in with a slightly different take: 

"It just shows the respect I'm earning, the reputation I'm building. I know they're going to slip up at some time and that's when I'm going to make a big play."

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin doesn't think other opponents will show Brown as much respect, at least not yet.

"I don't know if he's done enough to dictate that at this point," Tomlin said. "He hasn't even gone to the house. I think they are going to kick it to him."

Awesome. Love Brown's cockyness, but only because I know Tomlin is right there waiting to remind him he is still green and a looong way from proving to the world that he's as good as he thinks/knows he is.

XL - Terrible Towel Talk, Epsidoe 7 was recorded late Wednesday night. Frank Mineo and I had some audio issues in the first 40 minutes, but it was fun to welcome Anthony Defeo on for a good 15 minutes or so after he called in. In Part 2 of the show, I said goodbye to Frank and Anthony and welcomed Tyler Bleszinski, founder and Editor-in-Chief of SB Nation to talk about the television show Breaking Bad. Spoiler Alert: if you haven't seen all of Season 4, which ended Sunday night, you probably don't want to listen. We planned to talk for about 20 minutes; naturally that extended to well over 40 minutes. Good stuff though.  You can listen to just Part 2 on Soundcloud.

XLIII - Sticking with the audio theme, I joined Lance Williams of Steel Curtain Radio for a few minutes Thursday night to preview the Steelers-Jaguars game and to talk about the season-long bet we made before the Tennessee Titans game last week. Over 150 shows in, SCR is having none of the technical difficulties that we've been grappling with :) Fun, as always, to talk to Lance for a few minutes.