Welcome, mothers and fuckers, to the Ben Roethlisberger show. If you've been around since Tommy "Gun" Maddox went down in '04 with "an elbow" you know what to expect by now. Some truly breathtaking plays coupled with some super huge boners. Some games, he gets away with everything (Baltimore, Jacksonville), and some games it just does not happen. Today it just did not happen. Certainly having
Number Ten out with "
a weed possession charge pending" did not help, but the way things went today I'm not convinced his presence would have been that much of a difference. Nate Washington had a decent game, Hines made some solid catches, and
Limas Sweed finally got a chance to show what he can do, and it wasn't all that bad. But there were just too many offensive screw-ups. Clearly a large part of it is Ben's faul, but fuck it -- I'm not blaming Ben. Sure, some of it is his fault. Yeah, he chose to have his worst game this season today, but he did just enough to win only to have it negated by asinine penalties on Willie Colon (holding on Nate Washington's would-be second touchdown of the game which would have made it 21-9) and Chris Kemoeatau (late hit costing the Steelers crucial field position after a huge third down conversion).
And at some point you just can't continue to be expected to overcome injuries. Tomlin said earlier this week that " . . . great teams overcome injuries," but Christ, they nearly lost their
second punter this season along with their long snapper. Who the fuck does this ever happen to? Add that to the injuries that Deshea Townsend and Ryan Clark suffered, and a point is reached where there is just no way you can continue to be competitive with that many key players gone. And yes a long-snapper is evidentely a key player. You can choose to blame James Harrison if you want for that shitty snap over Berger's head, but if you choose to do so you are an idiot, because there is just no way you can reasonably expect a linebacker to successfully fill a position that is so specialized that teams reserve a place on their roster just for it. You might as well have asked Chris Hoke to boot a 40 yard field goal. It's not going to happen.
We heard a lot this week about how this game pitted two very similar teams -- hard-nosed defenses, strong ground attacks, and efficient young quarterbacks rounding into their respective primes. We were told that the winner of this game would out-muscle the other team and beat them at their own game. After this game we'll hear a lot about how great the Giants are, how mature Eli is, and how the Giants are the best team in the NFL. What actually happend was Ben played uncharacteristically shitty, and the Steelers' defense played their best game of the season (especially when you consider they spend so much time on the field in the first half, had that insane goal-line stand, and didn't allow a touchdown until the 4th quarter, after they saw the wheels come off the rest of the team), but there were just too many injuries for them to pull the game out.
Yeah, I'm upset we lost, but I'm not upset about what I saw. Ben has done enough over the past four+ years for me to give him a pass on this one, and the defense confirmed my suspicion that they are just filthy nasty. I can't imagine another game going as badly for the Steelers as this one did, and they
still should have won it. Their schedule is insanely brutal the rest of the way, and they find themselves only one game ahead of the Ravens, and I'm not worried about them. Their good, and if they can get even a litte bit healthier they're going to be scary good. This loss will stick with them, but I think Tomlin is good at getting the Steelers to bounce back from crappy games. In Tomlin's 23 games as Steelers' coach, they've only lost back-to-back games once. They'll be pissed all week, and they should be. But they're still 5-2, and the division is in their hands. It's time to regroup and bring this shit up a notch, because it only gets harder from here.
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