Some more thoughts from me about last night's joyous 28-10 victory by the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Denver Broncos.
* I actually really enjoyed the commentating by Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski last night. Gruden in particular. I said to my girlfriend, 'what game are you watching' when he was convinced that Rashard Mendenhall had fumbled inside the 5 yard line. But outside of that, I really enjoyed listening to him gush about the Steelers organization - from top to bottom. Sure, he and Jaws were going a little overboard in their praise of Ty Law and the rest of the Broncos over-hyped secondary, but generally speaking, I thought they were great - mostly because they couldn't stop with their effusive praise of the Steelers.
* Elvis Dumer-who? Max Starks gobbled up the 5'11" pass-rushing linebacker.
* Brett Keisel has matched his sack total from the previous two season combined (3) in his last two games.
* The Steelers set a franchise record last night by scoring 27 or more points for their fifth consecutive game.
* With his 3 touchdown passes last night, Big Ben increased his 2009 season total to 14. That puts him just 3 TDs shy of his total from last year, and 4 scores shy of his second highest total ever, 18, which he had in 2006.
* I didn't get to either of these two guys in last night's post, but kudos to Nick Eason and David Johnson for quietly having solid games. Eason was very active running from sideline to sideline, while Johnson did a mostly solid job blocking for Rashard Mendenhall.
* Mentioning David Johnson makes me think about just how many rookies are playing this year for the Steelers. Think about it. Every last draft pick is still with the team and a very healthy share of them have made game day contributions for this team.
* While we're still on the subject of rookies, that was almost an extremely critical penalty by Joe Burnett at the end of the half when he ran in to Mitch Berger. It was only a 5 yard penalty, but it very well could have been 15 and put the Broncos back in business before the end of the half.
* I heart Casey Hampton. I really wonder if he'll be around in future years (I sure hope so), but he's still such a warrior out there. He just blows up the interior of offensive lines - has done so now for just about a decade.
* I suppose one other beef I had with the telecast was the announcing crew clamoring about why neither Josh McDaniels nor Mike Tomlin called a timeout in that end of half sequence. It made no sense for Coach Tomlin to call a timeout there, even if the Broncos were faced with 3rd and 12. There was fewer than 30 seconds left and frankly, the Steelers were a bit fortunate to be up 7-3 at that point. The half had blown by quickly and the Steelers offense had only been on the field for 3 series. Denver meanwhile had just converted a 3rd and long and I thought it made no sense to let the Broncos talk it over and dial up a play of their choosing. By not calling timeout, they were guaranteed more or less to run that conservative draw that they ran. Sure it meant we wouldn't have a chance to score, but there wasn't much time on the clock anyway, and at best, the Steelers would have had a very outside shot at getting a field goal. Finally, when you factor in the fact that we were going to get the ball to start the 2nd half. No harm, no foul there by Coach T. I liked the decision just fine.