Steelers win Not-So-Super Bowl.
August 14, 2009
By Donald Starver
Thursday’s Super Bowl rematch turned out to be not so super. While fans are always anxious for the start of a new NFL season, the early pre-season games are always rather dull. This game proved to be no different.
The Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals 20 – 10. However, the score sounds much more exciting than the game actually was.
As expected, the Steelers starters played very little. Big Ben completed 4 of 6 passes for a whopping 33 yards. Hines Ward caught 2 passes for 19 yards, while Santonio Holmes caught none.
But of course these games aren’t for the veterans. After all, we already know what they can do. Rather, the early pre-season games are an opportunity for the young players to show what they can do. So let’s look at how the young players did.
Studs
Limas Sweed – Following an infamous dropped pass in last year’s playoffs, Limas Sweed has been heavily scrutinized by Steelers fans. He needed a good game, and he delivered. Sweed only caught two passes, but they both had a fairly high degree of difficulty. Moreover, he averaged 28 yards per reception, and his longest was a 45 yard catch.
Limas Sweed
Shaun McDonald – The free agent from Detroit led all receivers with 69 receiving yards.
Joe Burnett – Rookie cornerback Joe Burnett caught his first NFL interception and almost ran it back for a touchdown.
Ziggy Hood – The Steelers’ first round draft pick collected his first NFL sack.
Isaac Redman – The free agent running back made a strong statement that he should be the Steelers’ short yardage back. He has been the most impressive in training camp, and this game proved to be no different. Redman led all Steelers backs in rushing yards, while also scoring 2 touchdowns.
Isaac Redman scores again.
Dan Sepulveda – No more Berger. No more Ernster. Nope, Dan the man is back. Sepulveda punted 6 times and averaged 49.5 yards per punt. That’s much better than the 12 yards per punt that Mitch Berger and Paul Ernster averaged last season (okay, maybe they averaged more than 12 yards per punt, but it certainly seemed like 12 yards).
Duds
Rashard Mendenhall – Did he even play? I see his name in the box score, but I certainly don’t remember seeing him do anything.
Joe Burnett – Yeah, he made an interception. But he also fumbled a punt return. He’s not going to win a job like that.
Frank Summers – Everyone is waiting for Frank “the tank” to become the next bus. However it’s undrafted free agent rookie Isaac Redman who’s scoring all the touchdowns.
Piotr Czech – It’s going to be almost impossible to displace Jeff Reed as the Steelers’ kicker. Czech is going to have to be perfect in order to do it. Missing a 36 yard field goal didn’t look like perfection to me.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Steelers’ offensive line didn’t allow any sacks. Not one (yeah, I don’t believe it either). That’s got to count for something. Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ offensive line allowed their quarterbacks to be sacked 4 times. It’s too soon to draw any conclusions yet, but I’ll take any opportunity I can to compliment the Steelers’ o-line.
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Burnett a DUD? He dropped his first punt probably shaking in his shoes. No problems with any others with a decent return on one.
He made a nice interception and we do need some depth at cornerback.
I think he made up for the dropped punt. Long way to go.
1I thought Mendenhall ran fairly well. He reminds me of Barry Foster with his style. Sepulveda will be a BIG factor this season. His punting will force teams to drive longer on the Steelers and we all know that is a very hard thing to do. As far as the o-line, they played well considering there were pieces missing. They still have a ways to go too. I liked what we saw out of Sweed.He showed a lot of confidence coming up with the ball. There is NO chance that Jeff Reed could ever lose his job!
2I am going to have to disagree with you on both Mendenhall and Summers.
Mendenhall got very little blocking to help him out. He was hit in the backfield on 50% of his plays. So I would give a DUD to the starting O-Line, especially with the “almost safety” thwarted by Ben being Ben. When Mendenhall did get a little blocking I thought he ran well.
Frank didn’t get the chance to run, but what he did do:
3When he was on Special Teams he was consistently around or at the ball.
Frank was the one leading the way for all those Redman runs. Frank blocked well, but he did drop one pass I thought he should have caught.
I would like to see him get a little more chances to run, but from this game shows his versatility looks to be right on. Especially if he is competing against Davis for one of the few RB spots available.
Actually, for the O-Line, I should have lead with the caveat that the O-Line (I believe) was starting with a 3rd string center and a back-up RG.
4yes the meadia head is looking for perfection typical of them , the punt fumble was his 1st and I think he was nervous and to be exspected , now if we see a history of this then you may have something , but 1 thing that is noticeable to me is Mendenhall has a tall body while he is running through the hole his pads are high every back who runs this way either get hurt fast or fumbles a lot , well we seen him get hurt fast. he has not had enough carries to have a track record. it will take time to figure this out . I thought Sweed look alot like Buress steelers may have what they drafted Sweed for a tall target can run and catch. I thought the rookie center did well for his 1st start . Ben was his normal IF he can stay healthy he is going to have a good yr. what can you say about the D it just keeps getting better I thought they played like it was mid season. they are set for another shut down season. Hood is going to be another great addition I see him becoming a Mike Varbel type of player. I think the steelers final found there punter. steelers look soild and will be in the thick of things at the end once again
5LET ME START OFF BY SAYING I LOVE MY STEELERS WIN OR LOSE. THAT BEING SAID, THE ONE THING I NOTICED DURING THE GAME IS THAT ZIGGY HOOD GOT PUSHED AROUND ALOT. HE DID HAVE THE SACK THANKS TO THE BLOWN ASSIGNMENT BY THE CARDINALS O-LINE. AND HE DID HAVE THE QB PRESSURE THAT LEAD TO THE INTERCEPTION BY BURNETT. BUT AGAINST THE RUN HE HAD HIS ROLLER SKATES BACK ON. HE HAS ALOT OF WORK TO DO. LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING BIG THINGS FROM ZIGGY THIS YEAR. “7 RINGS”
6the steelers looked good at times, but the catch by limas is a little bit baffling to me, if he did a david tyrie, then i can see the catch, he had control with his own body, but limas’s catch was caught with the aid of the defenders helmet, now the question here is ” control” limas did not control that catch with his own body, me! that is not a catch, correct me if i am arong, i am looking forward to objective point of views, thanks,,,,,
7the D was soft. Cards end up scoring over 24 pts with first teamers.
o-line once again proved they are the weak link. no sacks, yes, but if we can’t run more than 2 yards at a time the sacks will eventually show up again. no improvement seen.
Limas looks promising
Special teams looked great across the board! and good to see sepulveda back! geez
let’s not judge any RB yet. my cat couldn’t have found a place to run last night.
Not a good sign that first team couldn’t sustain a drive or even look like they were going to.
Lots of work to do. But we do have some time.
GO STEELERS
8my above comment would have to be looked at from the definition of “control”
9david,
if limas wasn’t controling the ball how was it stuck to the defenders head? velcro?
10I’d have to agree with these guys that Mendenhall didn’t look all that bad. Even Tomlin’s comments indicate that there weren’t many lanes for him to run through. I thought he had nice bursts into the not-so-present holes. Give him a lane and I think he’s gone. The future trio of Holmes, Sweed, and Wallace is exciting.
11CJ,
12Hopefully, you noticed that I made Joe Burnett both a stud and a dud. So we did recognize the good things that he did. However, his best chance of making this team is as a return man, not as a CB. Thus, he can’t afford to fumble punt returns.
Mark,
13I’d agree that there is no chance that Reed loses his job provided he avoids fighting towel dispensers in public restrooms.
Ten,
14Mendenhall and Summers are going to have plenty of additional opportunities to prove themselves. The one nice thing about Summers was that he was active on special teams, and even made a special teams tackle. How many running backs do you find who are willing to do that?
JC,
15Running tall is not an orthodox style, but it is not necessarily impossible to be good and still run tall. Do you remember a guy named Eric Dickerson?
David,
16That actually is a catch. You used the David Tyree catch as an example of a similar catch, and it was the perfect example. You can have control of a pass despite using an opponent’s body as a tool to maintain that control.
Well, Terrel Davis was a 6º round pick and made his first impression on the team by making a tackle on special teams.
17interesting thoughts on the limas catch, the administrations reasoning is more an acceptable answer. the ‘velcro’ comment, was just a fan who doesn’t see my question of control, and where the control is from.keep em coming,,, and ‘here we go steelers, here we go!
18admin,
19good answer on my question concerning the Limas catch.
Pedro,
20Interesting comment. I didn’t know that about Terrell Davis. Thanks for dropping that little piece of trivia. I look forward to reading your input in the future.
David,
Sorry you thought you needed to dismiss my “velcro” comment as one that did not answer your question of control. You need a since of humor.
As far as my understanding, I am a long time study of the game and it’s rules. And to show you I understand the “control” aspect allow me one more funny example to answer your question.
If I had you pinned up against the wall in a fight, would you say I had control of you or the wall did?
My answer of velcro was the same answer admin gave just in a more relaxed way.
And ADMIN, David Tyree example was NOT a good one considering he caught ball on his OWN helmet. This is what promted david to ask about sweed’s catch against his own being possibly different.
GO STEELERS!
21david,
after reading my last post I noticed it sounded rude. Nothing rude meant. I’m just a happy sarcastic person.
22Tony,
Actually, it is a good example. I didn’t think that David’s question was quite so specific as you did (and judging by his response, neither did he). The key is that a player can have control of the ball by using something other than his hands. for example, if two players fall down while going after the ball and it falls on top of the defender’s butt and the receiver has control of it with is feet, that is still a catch. It doesn’t matter if the receiver uses something other than his hands. If the receiver has control of the ball before the ball touches the ground, it is a catch.
On a different note, thanks for apologizing to David. You did sound a bit rude, and I was going to send you a private message asking each of you to play nicely.
Oh, and please don’t call me “admin”. I know that is what shows up by my avatar, but you’ve been around here long enough to know that my name is Donald.
23Sweed and Redman looked promising, I want to see what Tyler Grisham can do. Reminds me alot of Wes Welker or Steve Largent, only he looks like a better down field blocker..plus the guy has the heart of a Steeler. I hope we get to see more.
24Ok Donald,
I understand “control” and how that wa a catch and your explanation of a catch made by feet using someone else’s body. Why can no one see that by my answers?
And uh huh..huh… you said “butt”
25So I agree with the statements, but what about Dixon??? Grant the stats dont show, but it was the recievers dropping passes. Almost everythrow was deadly accurate!! He’ll soon have Batchs job as backup, and what a good one he would make
26dear tony, no harm done, but as far as you having me against the wall and the question being which had control of me i would have to say you, being that you are a living being cause i can kick a hole in the wall til i go through it, then niether of you would have control, the tyrie catch is a good example as admin, i mean donald pointed out, velcro, whats the show called with chris berman ” COME ON MAN “,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
27ALERT,,,, THIS JUST IN,,,, BRET FAVRE IS IS LOOKING IN ON THE STEELERS AT THE END OF THIS SEASON AS HIS NEXT UNRETIREMENT RETURN,,, WARNING, WARNING,, WILL ROBINSON….
28THERE HAS BEEN A “BRET FAVRE” SIGHTING!
29TONY, take it easy, I just understood admin’s, i mean donalds answer better then yours, that all!,,,,,,,
30Donald,,, allow me a little latitude, Thanks
31David,
32You’re a regular around here. You get all the latitude you like.
donte stalwarth gets 26 days in prison for killing a man, and plax gets 2 years for shooting himself, ” COME ON MAN “,,,,,,,,
33hey guys…long time Steelers fan as a kid in 70′s, but live in DC so don’t see as much live goings on. Was a field goal kicker at Redman’s Bowie State. Has anyone been to practices? Hope he does make the team in some form. Would be a good thing, and show the Steelers greatness in finding good talent on the cheap.
34