"The Steelers have three third-round picks today, making
the third round of the 2009 draft one of the most pivotal rounds for the Steelers in recent memory."
Me on April 26
Something to smile about
Steelers 13, Titans 10, OT
By Mike Batista
When I got all giddy about the Steelers' draft in the spring, it was based on names
and scouting reports.
Now, with autumn in the air, one
of those third-round picks has jumped from those printed words onto a stage in front of millions of viewers.
Wide receiver Mike Wallace of Mississippi made the play that put the Steelers'
win in their back pocket Thursday night.
In overtime, Ben
Roethlisberger hit Wallace for a 22-yard completion to the Titans' 15. On the next play, Jeff Reed kicked a 33-yard field
goal with 10:20 left in OT to give the Steelers a 13-10 win over the
Titans in the NFL season opener at Heinz Field.
The Steelers
needed more than 60 minutes, but Mike Wallace didn't mind putting in a little OT. By making that catch, the rookie picked
up Hines Ward, who minutes earlier had a Steelers victory in his hands,
right around that same spot on the field.
With 63 seconds
left in regulation and the Steelers at the Titans' 34 with the score tied 10-10, Roethlisberger threw over the middle to Ward,
who caught the ball well within field goal range and tried to get
every extra yard he could. In doing so, he allowed the ball to get knocked from his hands by the Titans' Michael Griffin. Tennessee recovered at its own 4, and played for overtime.
It takes an awful lot for Ward to lose his smile. Defender with harmful intentions bearing down on him? He's
beaming. Called for a holding penalty? Ear to ear. Dropping a pass
in the second quarter? Those pearly whites are still flashing.
There
was no aw-shucks smile when Ward lost that fumble. He had a scowl for the rest of the game. Only when he was being interviewed
on the field after the Steelers won could we see the embers of Ward's
incandescence. The Steelers don't play again until Sept. 20 at Chicago, so Ward has 10 days to restore his full grin.
Were it
not for Wallace, it might have taken a lot longer. Since I imagine Wallace has received some mentoring from the veteran by
now, bailing Ward out was a good way for Wallace to reciprocate.
Now, the bad news.
I guess it's only fitting for
a column in which "60 Minutes" is invoked that we have bad news.
Troy Polamalu left the game late in the first half with what appeared to be a sprained MCL. Thankfully, Agle Crumpler
did not completely crumple Polamalu's knee when he landed on it. It
was at least encouraging to see Polamalu walk off the field under his own power. The initial prognosis is he will miss 3-6
weeks.
Despite playing less than a half, Polamalu led the
Steelers with six tackles and had an interception. In my Steeltweets, I thought about tweeting that I think Polamalu had already earned a spot in the Pro Bowl in the first half of the first game of the season.
But before I could do it, NBC's Al Michaels said it on the air. While
I wish I could have posted it before Michaels said it, it worked out well for me, because I would have been guilty of jinxing Polamalu. Now Michaels is the culprit. Hey, Al, Polamalu's injury better
not be so bad that we have to believe in miracles.
While
the Steelers have won seven straight season openers, the longest current streak in the NFL, we know that an opening win tells
us very little in terms of just how good the Steelers will be this season. Obviously, Polamalu's injury will not help. He'll
be out for a tough opening stretch, which includes games at Chicago in Week 2 and home to San Diego in Week 4.
Then there's the running game, which amassed 36 yards on 23 carries. That simply
won't cut it if the Steelers want to repeat as Super Bowl champions.
It's just too bad that Mewelde Moore has be lumped in with that underperforming unit. The Steelers are getting
so much more bang for their buck with Moore than they are with Willie Parker (13 carries for 19 yards Thursday) and Rashard
Mendenhall (4 carries for 6 yards).
Granted, Moore had
just 5 carries for 8 yards. But two of those yards kept the Steelers' game-winning drive going. On second-and-2 in overtime,
Moore got the ball to the Steelers' 43 to move the chains, a short-yardage
call I don't think Parker or Mendenhall could have answered.
Moore
also caught four passes for 28 yards. Two of those receptions helped the Steelers possess the ball for 13:37 of the final
15:35 of action, including OT. He caught an 8-yard pass to put the
ball on the Titans' 10 and help set up Reed's 32-yard, game-tying field goal with three minutes left in regulation. He also
caught a 9-yard pass to put the Steelers on the fringe of field goal range on the play before the play that could have lived
in infamy.
Of course the Steelers' problems running the
ball are nothing new. They didn't do much on the ground in Super Bowl XLIII, either. Roethlisberger often threw screens to Santonio Holmes in lieu of a running game.
Holmes, in fact, had statistics Thursday identical to his MVP performance in Super Bowl XLIII. In both games, he
caught nine passes for 131 yards and a touchdown. Although there were
no plays Thursday quite as famous as his game-winning Super Bowl catch, those numbers had just as much impact as they did in Tampa.
Another reminder
of Tampa Thursday night was the offensive line providing protection when it mattered most. They did allow four sacks, putting
Roethlisberger on pace to be sacked 64 times this season. But two
of those sacks came in the first quarter (that put the pace at 128 for the season) and just one came after halftime.
Just
as they did last season, Moore, Holmes and the offensive line showed they know how to win.
Polamalu and Ward know how to win, too. Let's hope Polamalu's knee heals quickly. We know Ward will make a speedy
recovery with the smile.
If you look
on the right side of this page, you will find my Twitter feed.
Since I want to actually interact with other Steelers
fans and the rest of civilization, rather than staying home by myself I have decided to watch tonight's game at Bob Hyland's
Sports Page in White Plains, NY.
So I will not be able to blog live during the game. Instead, I'll be tweeting
using my cell phone. While normally I am a stern guardian of the English language, I'll have to take liberties with grammar,
spelling, punctuation and capitalization because I can only type with one finger and I'll be limited to 140 characters per
tweet.
If you're on my site during the game, do me a favor and refresh the page frequently, because I don't think
the Twitter feed will update automatically.
You'll also have the option of following me on Twitter, although I'd
rather you look just below the Twitter widget and become a fan of me on Facebook. I like Facebook more than Twitter. I basically
just joined Twitter so I could connect it with Facebook and update Facebook using my cell phone when I'm not at my computer.
I can't update Facebook directly with a T-Mobile account.
But, if I end up with a lot of Twitter followers, then
I will take steps to accomodate that.
After the game, of course, I will come home and write my column, just as
I have done for every game since the beginning of 2007. My plan is to have the column up by the time you wake up in the morning.
Although if you stay up late enough on the West Coast, you might be able to catch it.
Last but certainly not least,
a quick word on the game.
The Terrible Towel is much more than just a piece of cloth that Steelers fans like to
wave. Most of you probably know that proceeds from the sale of the Towel benefit the Allegheny Valley School in Coraopolis,
Pa., which takes care of people with mental and physical disabilities, including the son of the late Myron Cope, the Steelers
broadcaster who invented the Towel.
So those Titans players have no idea what they were getting themselves into
when they stomped on the Towel last season.
Voters
came from 28 states. In six of those states, 14 or more was the leading vote. I would imagine that anti-Steeler sentiment
is pretty high in three of those states, Massachusetts, Washington and Arizona. So it's interesting that the home states
of the Patriots, Seahawks and Cardinals also contain the most optimistic Steelers fans. The other 14-or-more states were Hawaii,
Kentucky and North Carolina.
The following states subscribe to the 12-13-win school of thought: California, Nevada,
Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland,
Delaware, New York, and oh yeah, Pennsylvania.
Minnesota, Florida, Virginia and Connecticut are 10-11-win states.
In a presidential election, the 12-13-win states would garner 280 electoral votes, just enough to win an election.
I have a confession to make. I left my station in front of my TV and laptop and went out for a run. It was about a mile
and a half, and I wore my Steelers cap.
With football season here, I figured I should do one last good thing for
my body before stuffing my face with beer, burgers, fries, onion rings, pizza and nachos for the next five months.
Yeah, I said five months. I expect the Steelers to be playing for the next five months, not four months.
By the
way, Hyland's is looking more likely tonight.
Now, time to make some mac & cheese while you're becoming a fan
of Steelahs.com on Facebook. Just click on the box on the upper-right portion of this page.
I've had my coffee and I'm listening to ESPN 1250 on my laptop. The Steelers begin
their title defense tonight at 8:30 against the Tennessee Titans at Heinz Field, and I'll be blogging all day.
At
the moment, I'm not sure where I'll be watching the game. I'll either watch it in my humble studio apartment in Yonkers, NY,
in which case I'll be able to blog live during the game.
Or if I decide I don't want to be a hermit, I'll watch
it with fellow Steelers fans at Bob Hyland's Sports Page in White Plains. If I do that, then I'll hook up my Twitter account
with my site and tweet during the game. Damn, I need a BlackBerry (or maybe a BlackandGoldBerry).
I began revealing my 2009 NFL predictions and got as far as the Steelers taking on the hated Patriots in Foxborough
in the AFC divisional playoffs, but before I said who I thought would
win, I got all deceptive like Sopranos producer David Chase and turned it into a cliffhanger.
So now, the conclusion.
The bad news is, the Steelers defense will not be able to stop Tom Brady, Randy Moss & Co. The good news is,
the Patriots defense won't be able to stop Ben Roethlisberger, Hines
Ward, Santonio Holmes, Limas Sweed, and maybe not even Mike Wallace.
So it's going to be a shootout.
With lots of lead
changes.
The game will be talked about for years to come.
The final score will be 42-38.
The Steelers will win.
Last year's 33-10 win over
the Matt Cassel-led Patriots was all well and good. But the Steelers will not have truly vanquished their New England nemesis until they beat them in the playoffs and send Brady trudging off the field
with his head down. It would be the Patriots' first home playoff loss
since 1978 (they've won 11 straight home playoff games).
When
the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics, they still had to beat Finland to win the gold medal. In
his pep talk before the game against Finland, coach Herb Brooks told
his team that if they lose, and fall short of the gold after such a historic victory, they would take the loss "to your fuckin' graves!"
Brooks
then left the room, came back a minute later and said:
"To
your fuckin' graves!"
A Steelers win over the Patriots
in the playoffs, at least according to my predictions, wouldn't be as big an upset as the U.S. beating the Soviet Union. But considering the Patriots are about as likeable now as the Soviet Union
was back then, and how much the Patriots have tormented the
Steelers,
beating them in the playoffs would set off a Lake Placid-type celebration in Steelers Nation.
The
Steelers' win over the Patriots last year spiked traffic on my site so much that I felt like Forrest Gump on the shrimp boat.
And that was a regular-season game.
So the Steelers would take it to their fuckin' graves if they beat the Patriots
but fail to win the Super Bowl.
But will they?
Here are my predicted playoff results (seeds in parentheses):
That's right.
The Steelers will repeat as Super Bowl champions.
After
the epic battle against the Patriots, the Steelers beat the Chargers in an anticlimactic game. Then after two weeks of endless
stories about how the Maras and Rooneys are related by marriage, the
Steelers pick on Eli Manning after kicking his big brother's ass four weeks earlier.
Hey, might as well take advantage of the fact that I can predict a Steelers championship without getting laughed
at.
The only problem is there's nothing I can do on this site that would come close to being as cool as what Chase did
as producer of "The Sopranos."
So the best I
can do is present my 2009 NFL predictions the way David Chase would, as a narrative with lots of twists and turns in the plot.
But I promise I won't cut to black in the middle of a sentence.
However, like "The Sopranos," this story will include violence and adult language.
Let's start by playing the classic Win-Loss game with the 2009 Steelers' schedule.
Here's how I see it unfolding:
WWWLWWWWWWWWWWLL
The first loss comes at home to San Diego in Week 4. Because I see
the Steelers and Ravens splitting their regular-season series, with both teams winning on the road, the second loss comes
to Baltimore in Week 16 and the third loss comes to a Miami team fighting (unsuccessfully, it turns out) to get into the playoffs.
So the Steelers start the season 13-1, but lose two in a row
to close the regular season. Steelers fans react with calmness and serenity when the Steelers manage to blow both home-field
advantage and a first-round bye in the final two games.
OK,
maybe they don't.
This brings us to my forecast for the
playoff seeds:
After Mike Tomlin kicks the shit out of a few players
(including Kraig Urbik, which will look like Tony Soprano beating up Georgie at The Bing), the Steelers straighten out their
act and bitchslap the Colts 37-10 in an AFC wild-card game at Pittsburgh.
That earns the Steelers an AFC divisional matchup against the Patriots, a.k.a. Team Evil.
The Steelers beat the Patriots in Foxborough last year, but the Patriots were playing
without Tom Brady. We know Brady will play in this game because without him, the Patriots don't make it this far.
With a playoff win over the Patriots, the Steelers can:
A) Prove they can beat a Brady-led team in the Tomlin Era B) Atone for the Patriots' 2001 and 2004 AFC championship
game wins in Pittsburgh C) Beef up their resume for Team of the Decade if they do somehow win Super Bowl XLIV
So who wins?
I'll let you know in my next post, which I'll have before the season kicks off Thursday night.
When I was a kid, I dreaded the month of September, because it meant the end of summer and the start of school. Now,
because of the start of football season, it might just be my favorite month of the year.
If I had known then what I know now, I'd have dropped out of school in fourth grade.
Here are my preseason power rankings. My predictions are soon to follow.
1. Steelers: Since there are no teams clearly better than them at the moment, the Steelers are No.
1 because they're the champs. 2. Giants: A Steelers-Giants Super Bowl would ensure that the trophy remains
in the Rooney-Mara clan for a third straight year. 3. Patriots: Bill Belichick and Al Davis have done
a lot of wheeling and dealing this offseason. This reminds me of when the Batman TV series jumped the shark and the villains
started teaming up. 4. Ravens: While I expect another solid year and maybe even a deep playoff run,
either a Joe Flacco sophomore jinx or an aging defense will be their downfall. 5. Titans: I'd love
to see what happens to LenDale White if he actually stomps on a Terrible Towel Thursday. 6. Colts:
As long as Peyton Manning is playing, the Super Bowl is always a reasonable goal. 7. Falcons: Will be
going for first back-to-back winning seasons since franchise began in 1966. 8. Chargers: I wonder how
many times the Chargers will hear "Tequila" played at stadiums when they're on the road. 9. Eagles:
I just can't see how things won't get hairy between Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick. 10. Bears: Jay
Cutler will give them a boost. So will Brett Favre. 11. Packers: Cut Anthony Smith, therefore cancelling
Anthony Smith Day at Heinz Field Dec. 20. 12. Vikings: I think they'd have won more games without Favre. 13. Cardinals: Put them in the NFC East, and they'd suck. 14. Redskins: Put them
in the NFC West, and they're a playoff team. 15. Panthers: Bill Cowher might finally get his dream job. 16. Cowboys: Wade Phillips is no Bum. But he does have one thing in common with his father: He won't get
to the Super Bowl. 17. Dolphins: Might take a small step back because of a tough schedule. 18.
Texans: This year's sexy pick to make the playoffs, although I find nothing sexy about Mario Williams. 19.
Saints: This team doesn't scare me until it gets a defense. 20. Jets: Lost among the Mark Sanchez
hype is Pete Carroll's assessment that he was making a mistake going pro. Granted he sucked at it, but Carroll did coach in
the NFL, so he might know what he's talking about. 21. 49ers: Heading in the right direction, but they
need a real quarterback. 22. Bengals: Defense might not be terrible. 23. Seahawks:
They're just getting too old. 24. Raiders: Patriots have their 2011 first-round pick, so let's hope
the Raiders get better. Just not on Dec. 6. 25. Buccaneers: Late-season collapse carries over into this
season. 26. Jaguars: Seal lookalike David Garrard might be a one-hit wonder. 27. Bills:
Special teams are important, but it doesn't do much good if that's your biggest strength. 28. Chiefs:
What's the over-under on the volume of urine soiling Matt Cassel's pants when he sees the Steelers on Nov. 22? 29.
Browns: Has Eric Mangini even started shaving yet? 30. Broncos: Yet another bottom-feeding
team run by a Belichick disciple. 31. Rams: Richie Incognito and Alex Barron, two aptly named offensive
linemen on a team that's been off the NFL map the last couple of years. 32. Lions: Considering some
of the infamy the Steelers have experienced in Detroit (Super Bowl XL notwithstanding), let's hope the Lions can maybe win
one of their first four so they can't end a 20-game losing streak against the Steelers on Oct. 11.
