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Congrats on the win. I'll take ice cream with my humble pie.


"Dominate" is the right word for it. The Steelers consistently wanted it more throughout the game on special teams, offense, and defnese. They also proved a lot of people wrong not just regarding the final score but how the conclusion was reached. They did what they had to do to finally end Brady's ownership of the Pittsburgh Steelers. So how'd they do it?

Tom Brady showed up wearing #7 and the black and gold. Big Play Ben Roethlisberger did not show up. The New England defense did a nice job of containing TE Heath Miller, but that's after he burned the daylights out of the Pats in the opening drive. They did a nice job of taking away the deep ball, but that's because the Steelers didn't really try hard for the deep ball. The Pats did a nice job limiting the ground and pound game but that's only because the Steelers weren't trying to ground and pound it into the endzone. The Pittsburgh Steelers out-finessed the Patriot secondary, tearing them up with short and medium passes. Ben was going for first-down after first-down, and in doing so, kept control of the ball away from the Patriots offense.

On the other side of the ball, it was only the screen shots of Dick LeBeau that left me convinced he was even in attendance. Man-coverage in the backfield won the day for their defense against the Patriot offense. I'll say again; man-coverage. I said before(to the chagrin of many) that the Pats had the advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball. It was in the backfield where they beat the Pats, and the same is true on the defensive side of the ball. They out-skilled the New England WRs and TEs much like how their offense out-skilled the Patriot defense. Dick LeBeau beat Brady because he finally stopped "doing what (they) do". I think the last-two sacks had more to do with good coverage than the first sack by Woodley. As for that first sack by Woodley, notice how it actually came down the middle? Remember how someone kept saying that the key to getting to Brady is not to blitz from the edges?

I'll need to watch again to get a better feel for the gritty details, but I came away convinced that the supposedly rough-around-the-edges Steelers were more-polished than the Patriots. Congratulations on the win, hope you guys do well against your nemesis next week(as we host our buddies the Giants), and hope we get to do this again in January.

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