Steelers Today – A Pittsburgh Steelers blog

Sunday’s Steelers-Bears game didn’t turn out the way we all expected it to.  But we have to accept the bad as well as the good.

Oops, I did it again.

Despite the loss, I am still going to hold this week’s haiku contest.

The contest rules are simple.  You must summarize the Steelers-Bears game in a haiku.  A haiku is  a form of Japanese poetry that contains only 3 lines.  The first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the third line has 5 syllables.  Typically, haiku do not rhyme.

Please note, the emphasis is on syllables, not words.  Remember 5/7/5.

Here are last week’s winners.  This should give you a few examples of  good haiku.

3rd Place: Hudy

I soiled myself
In section five thirty one
Holy crap! We won!

2nd Place: Ken

Thirty-six rush yards
These ain’t your daddy’s Steelers
Throw to win, Big Ben!

1st Place: Leonard Riddle Jr.

Ben, at the finish,
said, “Get my hat and spinach;
I am what I am.”

Okay readers, your turn.  Write a haiku to summarize the Steelers-Bears game.  The best entries get posted on the front page of the blog.

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Sepember 21, 2009
By Donald Starver

The final score read Bears 17, Steelers 14.  So technically the Chicago Bears won the game.  However, anyone who actually watched the game will probably agree that what actually happened is that the Steelers lost the game.

“What’s the difference?”, you might ask.  Well, “winning a game” is when the superior team outplays an inferior opponent.  What we saw instead was the superior team finding a way to pull defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Steelers actually finished the game as the statistically leader in most key categories.  They had more than double the rushing yards that the Bears accumulated (105 yards versus only 43 yards for the Bears).  They forced the Bears to punt twice as often (6 punts for the Bears versus only 3 for the Steelers).  They finished the game with a higher time of possession than the Bears.  While the Bears did finish with more passing yards, the difference was negligible (236 yards for Cutler versus 221 yards for Roethlisberger). 

Unfortunately, the Steelers also led in 2 undesirable categories:  Turnovers, and sacks allowed.  It’s pretty hard to win a game when you lead in those two categories.  Leading in turnovers, in particular, is usually the kiss of death.

The Steelers started the game in dominant fashion.  They forced the Bears to punt the ball on their first 3 possessions of the game.  The first two of those possessions were “3 and out”.  Meanwhile, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger marched his team 92 yards for a touchdown on their very first possession. 

The Steelers were so dominant in the 1st quarter, that when the quarter was over, the Steelers had held the ball for 11 minutes and 26 seconds.  They only allowed the Bears 3:34 total time of possession in the quarter.  When your time of possession in a quarter is 3 times your opponent’s, you’re probably on your way to a win.  Or so we thought.

Things seemed to change in the middle of the second quarter when it started raining.  Ben Roethlisberger had been so deadly accurate in the first quarter, but once it started to rain, it seemed like Big Ben couldn’t get a good grip on the ball.  He started missing receivers on passes that he was making earlier. 

While the rain clearly affected Big Ben, the player most impacted by the rain seemed to be Steelers kicker Jeff Reed.  With the Steelers leading 14-7 in the fourth quarter, Jeff Reed was called upon to kick a 38 yard field goal.  Anyone who has ever watched Jeff Reed kick knows that a 38 yard field goal for Jeff Reed is like a 3 foot putt for Tiger Woods; it’s basically automatic.  But on this occasion, it was anything but automatic.  Reed’s kick went wide left.

Later in the 4th quarter, Reed had a chance to redeem himself.  With 3:23 seconds left in the game and the score tied 14-14, Reed was called upon to kick a 43 yard field goal that would have given the Steelers the lead.  Steelers fans knew that they are far more likely to see a unicorn than they are to see Jeff Reed miss two kicks in a row, so Steeler Nation’s confidence was pretty high.  Unfortunately, the near-impossible happened.  Reed missed yet another field goal, as his kick sailed wide left……again.

So the Chicago Bears got the ball back with just over 3 minutes left in the game.  Jay Cutler proceeded to march his team down the field, but time was not on his side.  So with 20 seconds left in the game, the Bears called upon their kicker, Robbie Gould.  Most Steelers fans were probably thinking that if Jeff Reed was unable to make two field goals in the muddy mess at Soldier Field, there was no way that Gould would be able to make an even longer field goal.  But make it he did.

Gould's kick is.......good!

So despite being the dominant team for most of the game, the Steelers ended up losing the game.  The Bears didn’t win the game.  No, that would be giving them too much credit.  Anyone who watched the game knows exactly what I mean.  In this case, the Steelers really did lose the game.

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September 20, 2009
By Patrick Cartwright

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but my wife is a Chicago Bears fan.   She grew up in the Chicago suburb of Naperville and, with the exception of her college years, has never lived somewhere that cannot be considered the area locally known as “Chicagoland”.  So when it comes to team allegiances, she picks her hometown and sticks by it.

That is not to say she roots against the Steelers.  You see, Mrs. Cartwright does not care for sports like I do.  While she counts herself among the fandom of such teams as the Chicago Bears, Cubs, Hawks, Sox, and Bulls, her happiness is almost never contingent upon whether or not one of these teams wins or loses.

She wants them to win because they’re the local team, and she loves the city of Chicago with all her heart.  So when we started dating, and even more so now that we’re married, she was a bit taken aback with my passion, or fervor, or in her words, “insanity”.

She quickly learned that the better my teams fared, the better my mood became and vice versa.  Granted, the storm cloud that hangs over my head after a bad loss usually dissipates within an hour, but even so, sometimes that’s a pretty rocky 60 minutes.

And so, because she likes to see me happy (and hates being around me when they lose), she has adopted my teams.  She cheers the Steelers, Penguins, and my college team that will remain nameless.  She does not cheer the Pirates, because I barely cheer the Pirates.

And so, as we go to the game together at Soldier Field on Sunday, I will be wearing the jersey of Steelers Legend Jack Lambert and will carry my Terrible Towel into enemy territory.  My wife will also wear a jersey, a small women’s-style jersey that she enjoys because it makes her look “sporty and cute”.

So whose name and number will be on her back as she escorts her husband into the throngs of Bears fans?  Brian Urlacher?  Jay Cutler?  Devin Hester?  Nope.  Her jersey is that of the Bears’ Punter, Brad Maynard.  And, I might also point out, its autographed.

Why, of all the players on the Bears past and present, did she pick the current punter?  Because he calls in every week to my wife’s favorite morning drive radio program (Eric and Kathy) on “Maynard Mondays” to describe his life as an NFL punter and shoot the breeze with the hosts.  He talks about how he and the kicker, Robbie Gould, play Xbox during training camp, and how he’s ill-equipped to make a tackle if there is a big run-back.  He’s a pretty affable, nice sounding guy who doesn’t take himself or his profession too seriously.  So there you go.  My wife’s new favorite player. “He’s the best place-kick holder in the league,” she parrots from some talking head she overheard two years ago while I was watching a game on television.  I have to just smile and shake my head.  You can’t argue with logic like that.

My wife's favorite player.

A few years ago, I saw that Maynard was having a meet-and-greet at Navy Pier.  So I took my wife and she met him.  She was thrilled to talk to him for 4 minutes, talking the entire time about the radio show.  She never even mentioned football.  And Brad Maynard smiled and laughed, and signed the jersey that as recently as three weeks ago she considered framing, you know, to put in my “Man Cave” that is in the works for our future house.  Why does she think that is a good idea? Because it is the only autographed jersey that we as a family own.  I own one autograph of a Steeler.  It is Jack Lambert’s on a football card, and I keep it in an airtight safe 1000 feet underground at an undisclosed location protected by armed guards.

And so this Sunday we will visit Soldier Field for the 2^nd time in as many weeks.  Last week we attended the U2 concert that may or may not have ruined the field (or as I call it, made it “Heinz-esque”).  However, this time we go to Soldier Field as enemies.  Or, as she would say, “frenemies”.  What could possibly go wrong?

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September 19, 2009
By Patrick Cartwright

This week the Pittsburgh Steelers travel to the windy city to face the Chicago Bears.  Here are what I believe to be the keys to a Steelers victory.

1.  Pressure Cutler – As you may have seen last Sunday, Jay Cutler isn’t quite the savior of mankind that all of Chicago thought he was when they traded for him a few months back.  Funny what a four-pick game will do to a quarterback’s sterling reputation.

Regardless, the reason the Chicago faithful are pining for the days of Kyle Orton is simple; Green Bay put constant pressure on Cutler.  He was hurried and frantic all day long.  When he had the time, and the coverage allowed, he was able to throw the deep ball, but that wasn’t nearly as often as the Bears would like.

More than this, however, the pressure and defensive scheme limited Cutler’s ability to put the ball in the hands of two of his biggest playmakers; running back Matt Forte and tight end Greg Olsen, who was bracketed for practically the entire game.

The bottom line is, against the Packers’ much improved defense, there wasn’t much to look at in the passing game.  I’ve read at least two or three articles attributing a lot of the Bears’ ineptitude to Green Bay’s new 3-4 defense.  That the Steelers play the same style of defense, and are the best in the league at it, does not bode well for Cutler.  He should be running for his life all afternoon.

2.  Run the Ball…and then Pass like Hell – Steelers football is dead.  Before you pass out or send a bunch of hate mail, let me explain; Steelers Football, as defined in the Myron Cope’s Official Terrible Dictionary, is “Run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, and play good defense.”  Which is what I suppose they still do, because if the Steelers ran the ball on three consecutive tries, they would most likely end up punting.

I’ll say it right now; the run game is going nowhere.  It hasn’t been any good for over a year now; yet Ben Roethlisberger has been better than he’s ever been in his career.  Throw the damn ball.

Throw the @#$&#% ball!!!

I know the arguments.  You have to run the ball the set up the pass.  Ben already takes too many sacks.  The offensive line is terrible.  Wallace is a rookie, Sweed is undependable, Ward is too old, and Santonio might be high.  I get it.  To which I reply: The offense has looked fantastic in the 2-minute drill. They did last year. They did against Tennessee last Thursday.

The best running back we have right now, as far as I can tell, is Mewelde Moore, who seems to be valuable because he’s the only one who can catch a pass out of the backfield.  Slow Willie isn’t getting it done anymore, and I have yet to see something from Mendenhall to make me think he’s the Next Big Thing at Steelers running back.  Oh, and he still fumbles a lot.

Joe Flacco put up 300+ yards and 3 TDs last week.  Joe Freakin’ Flacco.  And you’re not going to want to hear this, but the Ravens have a much better running game than the Steelers do.  Hell, I’d trade all three of our current running backs for Ray Rice.  So please, please, sacrifice the notion of “Steelers Football”, or for the second time this decade, “Steelers Football” is going to be synonymous with following a Super Bowl win with a mediocre season.

3.  The middle of the field is your friend – If you haven’t heard, Bears middle linebacker/Old Spice pitchman Brian Urlacher is out for the season with a dislocated wrist.  Yes, he’s old-ish.  And yes, he had back problems.  But if you think Urlacher isn’t a difference maker, you’ve just come back from a Jamacian vacation with Ricky Williams.

With Urlacher gone, that leaves a hole in the middle of the field to be exploited.  So how about throwing about, oh I don’ t know, a thousand passes to Heath Miller?  Dear Baby Jesus, why do they not throw to Heath Miller more often?

But I’m getting away from myself.  Heath, or perhaps Hines Ward, should be able to take advantage of Urlacher’s absence.  Then, when they cheat players toward the middle, its long bomb time to Santonio or Mike Wallace.

Oh, and it would also be a good time to bring back the fullback.

4. Chicks Dig the Long Ball – While the short middle of the field will probably open up, that shouldn’t discourage Ben from throwing deep.  The Bears defense has a significant weakness: their secondary is awful.  And where the secondary isn’t deficient, its injured.  Please, please, throw the long ball early and often, Bruce Arians.  Do it.  Don’t even think about it.  Do it.

5.  Don’t Screw Up – Honestly, the Steelers are the better team here.  I don’t think player-for-player, the Bears should be able to keep up with the Steelers.  But the Steelers have to be aware of the big play capability of this Bears team.

Jay Cutler has a cannon, and throwing the deep ball to a wide open receiver is something he excels at.  With Troy Polamalu out, there is a weakness to be exploited in the Steelers’ secondary.  If the safeties stay back  and don’t get beat by the long ball, the Bears will be unable to capitalize.

The same goes for the Bears’ run game.  Matt Forte may not have looked all that impressive last week, but he’s a strong runner that can not only wear a team down, but can break for a big play.  Thankfully, the Steelers have one of the best run defenses in the NFL.

Lastly, the O-line needs to be able to protect Roethlisberger.  The Bears showed improved play in their line and blitzing game last week against the Packers.  If Ben has time to throw, this game could be a blowout.  If not, it could be a long day for the Steelers offense.

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We had lots of excellent entries in the first Steelers haiku contest of the new season.  The game against the Titans had lots of drama, and various storylines to draw from.  There was Troy’s injury.  The Titans’ stomping of the Terrible Towel.  The Steelers struggles in the running game.  Big Ben’s passing heroics.  And many more.

The rules were rather open-ended.  The writer had to write a haiku that described the Steelers’ game against the Titans.  The haiku had to follow the official format of a haiku.  For those of you who are not aware, a haiku is a poem with 3 lines.  The first line must have 5 syllables, the second line must have 7 syllables, and the third line must have 5 syllables.

So without further ado, here are this week’s winners:

3rd Place:  Hudy

I soiled myself
In section five thirty one
Holy crap! We won!

I loved the way this one captured the emotion of the game. 

2nd Place: Ken

Thirty-six rush yards
These ain’t your daddy’s Steelers
Throw to win, Big Ben!

I really liked the way this one captured the struggles in the running game, Big Ben’s heroics, and also brought in a historical perspective.  Very creative.

1st Place: Leonard Riddle Jr.

Ben, at the finish,
said, “Get my hat and spinach;
I am what I am.”

The creativity in this one was incredible.  I’m an old Popeye fan, so I just loved the reference to my favorite spinach eating cartoon.  Great job Leonard.  You are this week’s winner.

Thanks to everyone who participated.  I can’t wait to see next week’s entries.

Here we go Steelers, here we go!!!!!

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