According to Dale Lolley's always informative blog , receiver Cedric Wilson was arrested for a fight with his ex-girlfriend in a Pittsburgh restaurant. You may remember this same girlfriend had a standoff with police at Wilson's home a few months back.

Dale thinks, and I agree, that after this he is done as a Steeler. I think many of us thought he was likely done before this anyways because of his age, salary, and diminished role on the team.

Hey guys,

I'm going to have the opportunity to see Charlie Batch speak on Monday. He is talking about his experiences in football as well as some of his charitable work in the community. There is going to be a question and answer session.

So what should I ask him? I'm not sure how formal/informal this is going to be or whether he will be taking real serious questions about the Steelers (probably not) but I thought some of you may have ideas or questions you want answered.

A few thoughts on the game, especially for those that might've missed it.

• Charlie Batch was less than impressive for most of the game. He made really poor throws on multiple deep balls. The first one to Washington was way underthrown but we got lucky with the PI call. He did make a really nice throw to Santonio on the last drive but followed it up with a terrible throw when Washington streaked wide open deep over the middle. Instead of leading him to the sideline and away from the defense, Batch lobbed one high over the middle where the defense had time to get there.  The final INT was just a really bad decision, especially since he probably could've picked up 15 or 20 yards on the ground and gotten out of bounds.

• The defense was once again very shaky although give some credit to Ross, he looked really good and made some nice plays. Still unacceptable though. As was previously mentioned Woodley and Timmons looked pretty good. I would like to see Woodley get in there in pass rush situations more often.

• Najeh didn't look awful but he also doesn't inspire alot of hope for us having a good ground game in the playoffs. I was impressed with Gary Russel in the limited time he got in there. He hits the holes hard, falls forward, and doesn't go down so easily. I doubt he will get much work in the playoffs but I think he will be a part of our long term plans. Verron looked solid in his limited action, I would almost prefer him to Cary Davis at fullback.

• Great Tomlin coaching decision: The surprise onside kick. That play really shifted momentum and had we won that game it would've been a nice wave of momentum heading into the playoffs

• Horrible Tomlin coaching decision: Why oh why is Santonio playing?! We have zero chance of doing anything in the playoffs if he is hurt. He got dinged in the 3rd quarter and then Tomlin put him back in! It looked like he was fine but it was an unnecessary risk. Santonio's long touchdown was almost an exact replay of the Touchdown he had last year in overtime to beat the Bengals. I wouldn't mind seeing that play again next week.

• Really disappointed in Willie Reid who fumbled two kick returns (he was ruled down by contact after Tomlin challenged on the second). He had a chance to make an impression and didn't help himself. I would've liked to see him get some reps at WR. He was in there a few times but didn't get any balls thrown his way. No reason why he shouldn't have been getting looks while Santonio was resting. In other WR news Cedric made a great diving TD catch, nice to see him show up every now and then.

• The O-line was still shaky. Batch got rid of the ball quickly but still was stepping out of sacks on a few occasions. Again most of the pressure seemed to come up the middle while Starks  seemed to have another pretty good game. They even pulled him towards the end in favor of Essex.

I think that covers most of it, feel free to add your thoughts, questions and commments. Hope everyone has a fantastic new year. Don't forget to watch the Penguins on NBC tomorrow at 1 in the Winter Classic!

Pop in with your comments on the Steelers-Ravens game. We'll also be keeping an eye on the Chargers games to see if we can get some help from the Raiders.

As expected, the Steelers placed Willie Parker on Injured Reserve after breaking his leg on Thursday in St. Louis. As some on this site predicted, the Steelers have filled that roster spot with familiar face Verron Haynes.

While Najeh "Dookie" Davenport will clearly be taking most of the carries it is unclear where Haynes will fit in alongside Gary Russel and Cary Davis. Davis got some carries against St. Louis where he was the only other back on the squad who dressed. However Davis is also the fullback so I don't expect him to get alot of carries. Gary Russel is an intriguing option who many of us were high on going into this season. However he has seen very little action this year although a possibly meaningless game against Baltimore would be a good place to get him some carries. Verron Haynes has never been a feature type back that you want to get alot of carries. However he was a standout 3rd down back. With Davenport getting most of the 1st and 2nd down carries I wouldn't be suprised if Coach Tomlin looks to Haynes as the guy to help keep blitzers off of Ben on 3rd Down.  I'm not sure if Russel is ready to take over those duties. It also remains to be seen if both Haynes and Russel will be active on game days. What do you guys think?

Also I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a great new year! Its been fun watching this blog grow over the year and I'm glad all of you are a part of it. And of course good luck to SteelerinChicago and SteelerArk competing for the 2007 BTSC Fantasy Football Championship tonight!

This was mentioned below in the comments but I figured it deserved its own post on the front page.  Tonight's game will be broadcast on KDKA for cable folks in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Forest, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Venango, Washington and Westmoreland counties, along with Monongalia and Preston counties in West Virginia and Garrett County in Maryland. For more details on whether you'll get the game or not check the Post Gazette. Nationally it will be on NFL Network.  

If neither of those is an option you can watch the game online here .  I have no idea what the quality is like, but its certainly better than nothing.

Another option which Ed Bouchette actually brought up was to order NFL Network and then cancel it tomorrow. The cable companies should charge you a pro-rated charge which would only amount to a few dollars. I don't know how well that will work so don't yell at me if you ended up getting charged too much. Enjoy!

Hat tip to Kirk B in the comments section.

USA Today has a great read about a week in the life of Ben Roethlisberger.  They walk you through his preparation each day of the week.  Very interesting stuff. I'd love see more articles like this that really delve into the inner workings of a football team.  For example, did you know regardless of home or away games the Steelers all stay at a hotel on Saturday night before a Sunday game?

I think alot of reporters never tell these kind of stories because they're around the Steelers facility all day and so its pretty mundane for them.  But I think the average fan would love to hear about this kind of stuff. As sports blogging becomes more generally accepted I think we will start to see this kind of thing.  Its starting to happen already in the NHL with bloggers getting media credentials and access to players.  Maybe someday soon the NFL will allow this as well.  Or maybe I'll just have to find a way to get into a Steelers game some other way.

This Sunday's game is getting the NFL Replay treatment Tuesday night at 8PM ET. I'm sure it will be repeating throughout the week as well. These are always fun to watch, they cut out all the time in between plays and squeeze the whole game into an hour and a half.  There is also usually some interesting commentary spliced in from post-game press conferences and NFL Films footage.  I don't know if they'll have some of the sideline chatter during the game but I would be really interested to hear what was going on, and just what Tomlin's demeanor is on the sideline.