Steelers Season

The Drive Home

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Minnesota Vikings (W 27-17)

Regular Season Week 7

Sunday, October 25^th, 2009

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This game started out as a defensive battle with a lot of punting and low scoring. Unlike our last couple of games the offense seemed like they were struggling with our only score in the first quarter a Jeff Reed field goal (his second for the day) and several really good sacks on Brett Favre. With two touchdowns taken away from us by the officials, trailing behind by 4 points and with only 1:39 left before half time, Big Ben woke up his offensive line and quickly moved them down the field just in time for Mike Wallace to score a 40 yard TD reception, speaking of Wallace, he deserves the Steelers rookie of the year award! In the second half the defense only got better as they completely stopped a 1-yard Vikings TD drive letting them settle for a field goal instead, this was the best Red Zone defensive stand for the season by far. Rashard Mendenhall (who still isn’t listening to me) on a 5 yard run fumbled the ball, better watch out Mendenhall least you end up in the doghouse again! At the end of the 4^th quarter (where in past games our defense usually falls apart) the defense in one of their finest hours proved why they were the top rated defense last year as Brett Keisel forced a fumble off of Favre which turned into a 77 yard TD for Lamarr Woodley (reminiscent of a similar forced fumble TD made by Troy Polamalu in a game from 5 year ago back when Favre played with the Packers). While Steeler fans everywhere where still celebrating, our special teams showed their worst performance of the year as they allowed an atrocious Vikings 88 yards kick return TD. With the game on the line, a Big Ben fumble and the Viking’s offence in control of the ball, Favre was poised to strike back (like he has in other games he’s won this season) as he threw an interception pass that skipped off of one of his own players and directly into the hands of Keyaron Fox who ran it back 82 yards for the game winning TD. By far one of the best games played this season!

With 65,597 in attendance (the largest on record) at the House of Steel….

THE STEELER TOOK DOWN THE UNDEFEATED VIKINGS!!!!!!

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cleveland Browns (W 27 - 14)

Regular Season Week 6

Sunday, October 18^th, 2009

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

To start off with kudos to “Big Ben” Roethlisberger for getting 400 passing yards in this game, the second of his career. It was great to see an interception from Troy Polamalu that led to a Heath Miller touchdown; speaking of Miller to me he will always be the Rock of Gibraltar for our team. I was happy for the Hines Ward TD and disappointed for the one taken away. Thou Rashard Mendenhall scored a TD in the third quarter, I’m finding myself constantly yelling at him to tuck the ball in instead of holding it out while running. But the two things that I will always remember about this game was the weird officiating and multiple turnovers (with the last Steeler one being from Mendenhall who fumbled the ball because he didn’t listen to me) back and forth one after another, 6 in all. With a field goal from Jeff “Skimpy” Reed (his second of the day) and an interception from Ryan Clark, the Steelers completely sealed the fate of the Browns to another loss game of their season.

Because the Browns, Ravens and Bengals all loss, the Steelers have moved from 3^rd. to 2^nd. Place in the AFC North Division! Also with this being the 115^th meeting of the “Turnpike Rivalry” we extend our winning streak record (the longest streak in the series that started on November 23, 2003) to 12 wins.

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Detroit Lions (W 28 – 20)

Regular Season Week 5

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Ford Field, Detroit, Michigan

The good news about our defense in this game was the increase pressure on Detroit’s quarterback with numerous sacks recorded by James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley. It was nice to see Harrison celebrating one of his sacks by squishing his foot on the artificial turf once again. The bad news about our defense is again playing like a broken record: allowing one of the worst teams in the league to score touchdowns off of our weak secondary. I hope that Troy Polamalu (if he is 100 percent healthy again) will play in next week’s Browns game so that he can morally support, lead and inspire his teammates on the field to do what we all know that they are capable of doing. When Polamalu is on fire running on all cylinders he definitely affects everyone on the team and it was hard to see him on the side lines during this game feeling helpless because he wanted to get in the game to make a difference.

As far as our offense, it was nice to see Rashard Mendenhall and Heath Miller each rack up a TD in the first half of the game. Something that bothered me toward the end of the game was what my friend Brian mentioned to me, “Did you notice how Big Ben seemed to be off of his game?’ Ya, he didn’t seem like himself. Several times it seemed like he

got sacked without leaving the pocket and another interception TD like we saw two weeks ago. I hope that he snaps out of it. My favorite memory from this game will always be how cool Hines Ward (my favorite current player) looked like spiking the ball into the end zone in his classic “Psycho Ward” style TD. It was also his first TD of the season and I hope the first of many. After Mike Wallace made a rookie mistake when he dropped a long running TD pass (the

same exact pass that Lima Sweed dropped in the Championship against the Ravens) he redeemed himself several plays later in the 4^th quarter when he caught a 47 yard pass in the end zone giving us the lead that we needed to win. Speaking of Lima Sweed: there was no redeeming and more mistakes in this game including a dropped catch that could have given us an important first down.

It was kind of ironic that this was the same stadium that we won Super Bowl XL in. The nicest part of winning this game was the fact that we finally won on the road,

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. San Diego Chargers (W 38 – 28)

Regular Season Week 4

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Our game plan was very simple: score as many touchdowns as we could before the other team catches up in the 4^th quarter. And score TDs we did, 5 in all. Big Ben flawlessly lead the offense from the very start with 1^st down passes to Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes and rookie Mike Wallace that resulted in rushing TDs on our first to drives. Even with Willie Parker out, our running team picked up the momentum from last weeks game with a TD from Mewelde Moore

who also threw a beautiful trick play TD pass to Heath Miller and a great performance from running back Rashard Mendenhall (yes the same Mendenhall who hasn’t done anything since we acquired him in the draft a year ago) with 2 TDs and 165 yards rushing, maybe Tomlin should threaten to bench him more often? After Heath Miller scored his first TD of the night in the 3^rd quarter making it 28 to 0, the one thing that I feared happened: Our defense became MIA again. And just like in the last three games (out of no where) the Chargers began to catch up, 28 points in all. Thank-fully our offense worked even harder to keep a 14 then 7-point lead! A 46-yard Jeff Reed field goal with just seconds

left in the game eventually sealed our win. In the end we were a lot hungrier, because of our losing streak we wanted to win this more than the Chargers did.

As the end of this game I celebrated with a big “Whew”, then a sigh of relief! Proud of our offense but still worried about our defense.

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Cincinnati Bengals (L 20 – 23)

Regular Season Week 3

Sunday, September 27^th, 2009

Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio

Great to see Willie Parker finally get our Running team going with a touchdown, cool Big Ben dive in TD and I believe that Lima Sweed has officially lost his job with that rookie mistake dropped TD pass. Where was our defense? Oh

yah near the Bengal’s end zone giving Palmer all the chances that he needed to make the game winning TD.

Hey defense: When you’re ready to play Steeler Football, let us know so that we can start winning games again!

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Chicago Bears (L 14 – 17)

Regular Season Week 2

Sunday, September 20^th, 2009

Soldier Field, Chicago, Illinois

All I can say about this game is that it looked an awful (and I do mean awful) lot like last weeks game. For every touchdown that we made, the defense would soon give up one for the other team especially when we held a 7 point lead in the 4th quarter. The only scoring that we couldn't match them on was in field goals. FIELD GOALS, when has that ever been a problem for us? I guess that Jeff Reed misses a field goal every once in a while, but 2 fairly short distance field goals and in the same game. I can't remember the last time that that ever happened? The other thing

that was sadly the same from last week was the lack of sacking from the D line especially from Woodley and Harrison. But the one single thing from this game that angers me the most was the last offensive drive where Big Ben and the O line drove the ball down the field with one 1st down after another (just like in overtime last week) and after getting as far as the 10 yard line Big Ben wasted a touchdown on Santonio Holmes when he dropped the ball (something he was prone to doing at different times during the game once the rain started) in the in zone. I remember my friend Brian asking in wonderment, "Why didn't they just go for a first down?" That was a good question. Did they just get too

cocky by taking a risk rather than playing it safe (just like Hines Ward was last week)? If this is the issue, I sincerely hope that they can get it out of their system right now because we still have 14 more games to play this season. Did Polamalu's absence affect the outcome of this game? I really don't know. But one thing that I do know is that even thou we were plagued with injuries to key players last year, we still came through them (remember Mewelde Moore) to win our division, our conference and lastly the Super Bowl.

Hey Yunz Guys: Stay focused and play smart football!

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Tennessee Titans (W 13 – 10)

Regular Season Week 1

Thursday, September 10^th, 2009

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

For months now, every time that I thought about this game my mine would dredge up that ugly image from last December of the Titan’s disrespectful stomping of our beloved Terrible Towel (Note to all of our adversaries: Fear the Cope Curse!) after our humiliating lost to them. Not to mention the ball being waved in front of Troy Polamalu’s face during one of the Titan’s interception touchdowns. And I know that this went through the minds of every Steelers player who played in that game so much that for some players it affected how they played.

Take Polamalu for instance. I love to see him play his position when he is firing on all cylinders like that super charged tackle in the beginning of the game or that incredible one handed interception catch that he made. But I was disgusted by all of the costly penalties that he was accumulating during the first half of the game. He was playing angry with a vendetta on his shoulders instead of concentrating on the game and playing smart football. Troy, please take all of

that super charged energy and focus it on playing smart and not reckless football. It was also troublesome to see you get a knee injury during that blocked field goal, I hope that you get better soon so that you can play in the Bears game next week.

It was nice to see Daniel Sepulveda punting again. Every punt went the distance especially one in the first half that had bounced to within the Titan’s 5 yard line. And as a holder for Jeff Reed, they both gave us 7 points including the field goal that won the game in overtime.

The one thing that I have always loved about Big Ben Roethlisberger is how he likes to scramble (just like Terry Bradshaw, my favorite player from the 1970s) out of the pocket to make plays on the run so that he can give all of his receivers the time to get open. This is how we have been able to achieve fourth quarter and overtime last minute wins in last year’s regular games, through the post season and into the Super Bowl. But the bad side of this kind of football

is that the longer Big Ben holds onto the ball, the more he is susceptible to being sacked over and over again. His offensive line can only protect him for a short time while he is in the pocket. It’s the reason why sports writers have

never liked him or place him on the tops of any of their quarterback lists (what do (censored) sports writers know anyways!). He’s never been a Payton Manning or Tom Brady who like to stay protected in the pocket all day long

while they throw impressive stat record passes to their prima donnas receivers. But unlike Manning, Big Ben has two Super Bowl rings on his fingers and he has never lost a SB unlike Brady has (remember SB XLII?). As for last night,

Big Ben seemed to struggle through most of the game (first game jitters) with the exception of his perfect 34 yard touchdown pass to Santonio Holmes and his outstanding overtime drive. One thing that I did notice was that even thou he did get sacked four times during the game he stayed longer in the pocket on a couple of plays which is a big improvement from last season.

Speaking of sacking, it seemed like James Harrison and Lamarr Woodley were denied the opportunity of repeatedly sacking Titan’s quarterback Kerry Collins throughout the game that was building up pressure all night long like an over stressed earth quake fault that would eventually slip. It seemed like every time that Collins felt like Harrison was

zeroing in on him he would simply throw the ball away towards the sidelines or to no one on the field (someone please tell me why the referees never called him on intentional grounding?). That earth quake finally happened in the second half when James Farrior from the snap ran strait through a gapping hole in the Titan’s offensive line scoring a direct hit on Collins who never had the chance to get rid of the ball. Big Ben every once in a while will throw away a ball, but I

hate it when a quarterback dose it too many times in a game. Like Charger’s quarterback Philip Rivers in the playoff game last January. Back to Harrison and Woodley, good hunting this season.

My favorite player will always be Hines Ward and it’s very hard to see a hero, someone you look up to make a very costly mistake. He was so concerned with ending the game with a touchdown that he never noticed the guy who stripped the ball away from him. I felt the same way four years ago when I watched Jerome Bettis fumble the ball

during the playoff game against the Colts, it’s something you never expect to see. As the TV camera zoomed in on his depressed face sitting on the sidelines after he had the ball stripped from him I got off of my Steelers fold up chair and told him, “Don’t worry about it. We still have a chance of winning this game.” Some how I knew that this is what his teammates were saying to him. Thankfully after the game went into overtime, he redeemed himself by making a first down catch in the drive that won the game. It was nice to see Hines finally smiling again while he was hugging Reed at the end of the game. I hope to see him smile more again in next week’s game.

One of the things that I hated most about this game (four quarters with two of the league’s top defensive teams slugging it out in a rock em sock em style physically tough low scoring football battle) was how it was so back and forth. Immediately after we got a touchdown, they drove down the field to even the score with their own touchdown then the same thing happened again after we scored on a Jeff Reed field goal. By this point I remembered desperately saying (along with the 65,000 Steeler fan in Heinz Field who were all on the edge of their seats) to myself, “We have to win this one! We just have to win it!” Our pride was at stake because of how badly the Titans treated us before. Id like to think that after we won the overtime coin toss Big Ben told his offensive line, “Lets just end this tug of war”. And with that he repeated his incredible Super Bowl XLIII drive with first downs from Mewelde Moore, Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes. But it took Mike Wallace (a rookie wide receiver from the University of Mississippi) to make the catch that set up the field goal that won the game. It also helped that we were playing against a very tired Titan’s defensive line that were not looking forward to playing into overtime and also wanted to end the game. For a regular season game I’ll

take a win anyway that we can get it.

At 1 and 0, Pittsburgh Steelers Here We Go!!!!!!