Steelers Today - A Pittsburgh Steelers blog

Sometimes the final score is not a good indication of what actually happened during the game.  This was one of those times.

The score was 23-17 Steelers, with less than a minute to play.  The Patriots had the ball, and a touchdown would have given them the win.  Anyone who read that, and hadn’t actually seen the game would probably think that it was a close game between two evenly matched teams.  Nothing would have been farther from the truth.

The Steelers beat the Patriots like a drum.  They dominated them in every phase of the game.

Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady, who is known for guiding a high-powered offense, was held to only 198 yards passing.  He had been averaging over 350 yards per game.  But the Steelers’ defense made “Tom Terrific” look like “Tom Terrible”.

Brady was visibly frustrated.

Steelers’ cornerback Ike Taylor completely blanketed Brady’s favorite target, Wes Welker.  Welker came into the game leading the NFL in receptions and receiving yards, but Taylor held him to just 6 catches for 39 yards.

The Patriots couldn’t do much better running the ball.  The Steelers held them to just 43 rushing yards.

The Steelers offense, on the other hand, had their way with the Patriot’s defense.

Ben Roethlisberger passed for 365 yards and 2 touchdowns.  If not for one costly interception, this might be remembered as one of the best performances of Big Ben’s career.

The Steelers’ offense is usually known for going for the big play.  Fans have come to expect at least one long pass from Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace each game.  But that didn’t happen this game.  The Steelers’ offense showed patience, and took what the Patriots gave them.  That tended to be short passes to the wide receivers, screen passes to the running backs, and passes over the middle to Heath Miller.  If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that the Steelers were running a West Coast offense.

But regardless of what type of offense the Steelers were running, the Patriots 0bviously had no answer for it.  The Steelers marched the ball up and down the field, and the Patriots could do nothing to stop them.

I’m sure the Steelers would like to celebrate their win over the Patriots.  But instead, they have to get right back to the practice field.  They’ll be facing the Baltimore Ravens next Sunday, and I’m sure they’ll be looking to avenge the loss that the Ravens handed them in the season opener.

The players may not have time to celebrate, but Steelers fans certainly do.  So I’m going to get back to celebrating right now.

Here we go Steelers, here we go!

The Steelers face the Patriots this afternoon, so I thought that this video would be an appropriate appetizer.  We need the right atmosphere for this game, and I think this video sets the stage  just perfectly.

Enjoy!

To paraphrase the Apollo 13 astronauts, “Pittsburgh, we have a problem”.

Our problems is 6’4″, weighs 225 lbs., and goes by the name “Brady”.

That’s right, I’m talking about Tom Brady.  You know him, don’t you?  He’s the pesky New England Patriots quarterback who has an annoying habit of beating the Steelers.

I once wrote an article called “I hate Bill Belichick“.  That article was the inspiration for this one.  You see, I do hate Tom Brady.  Hate, hate, hate!

I’ve never actually met Tom Brady.  He’s never caused me physical harm.  He’s never insulted my mother.  I’ve never heard him refer to anyone using a racial slur.  He doesn’t kill kittens or puppies.  As far as I know, he’s a decent guy.  But I still hate him.

The reason that I hate Tom Brady has nothing to do with anything that he’s done to me personally.  Rather, it’s based on what he does to my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers; he beats them.

Tom Brady is 6-1 against the Steelers.  That means he’s beaten them 86% of the time.  $#@&^%#!!!!!!!!

Brady has beaten the Steelers in New England.  And he’s beaten them in Pittsburgh.  He’s beaten them in the regular season.  And he’s beaten them in the playoffs.

The guy I hate.

Brady has thrown for over 2,000 yards against the Steelers.  He’s tossed 14 touchdown passes against them.  And while throwing all of those passes, he’s seldom been sacked or intercepted.  See why I hate him?

The last time the Steelers faced the Patriots, Brady threw for 350 yards.  He tossed 3 touchdown passes during that game, and he ran for a 4th TD.  Grrrrrrr!!!  I’m getting mad just thinking about it.

As much as it hurts to admit it, Tom Brady is one of the most cerebral quarterbacks in the NFL.  He dissects defenses the way high school biology students dissect frogs.

Under Brady’s leadership, the Patriots have scored 30 points or more in 13 of their last 14 games.  The Patriots are ranked 1st in the NFL in passing offense, averaging over 350 yards per game.  So I’m sure that it’s not just Steelers fans who hate Brady.

But it’s the Steelers who have to face Brady this weekend, so our hatred probably runs deepest right now.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve come up with the only logical solution to the problem.  Tom Brady must die!

Now where did I put my friend Vito’s telephone number?  He’ll handle this problem quietly, and permanently.

Go Steelers!

This Sunday, the Steelers will begin the most difficult 2-game stretch of the 2011 season.  They face the New England Patriots this weekend, and then they’ll face the Baltimore Ravens the following week.  The Steelers will host both games at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.

Both the Patriots (5-1) and the Ravens (4-2) are in the top 10 in most NFL power rankings.  The Steelers are also in the top 10 in those rankings.  In fact, these 3 teams are the top 3 teams in the AFC in most rankings.  So the next two games will say a lot about AFC supremacy.

The problems with facing the Patriots is that they always seem to have the Steelers’ number.  The Patriots have won 5 of their last 6 games in Pittsburgh (including 2 AFC Championship games).

Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady is 6-1 against the Steelers during his career, and he always poses a difficult challenge for the Steelers.

The problem with facing Brady is that he violates one of the Steelers’ defensive philosophies.  The Steelers believe in stopping the run to force their opponent to become one-dimensional. They believe that if they can force the opponent to pass the ball, they have a high probability of causing turnovers and winning the game.

However, Tom Brady and the Patriots seem to embrace that challenge.  They seldom run against the Steelers, and are content to throw on just about every play.  They use the short passing game in place of their running game, and challenge the Steelers to stop them.  And Brady almost never throws an interception.

The Patriots rank 1st in the NFL in overall and passing offense, with averages of 474.5 yards and 350.5, respectively.  Brady leads the AFC in passing, and wide receiver Wes Welker leads the NFL in receptions.

Welker is always challenging, but the bigger challenge for the Steelers will likely be Patriots’ tight end Rob Gronkowski.  Gronkowski is ranked 23rd in the NFL in receiving yards, and he already has 5 touchdowns.  That’s more TD catches than Steve Smith, Larry Fitzgerald, DeSean Jackson, A.J. Green, Jason Whitten, Roddy White, Reggie Wayne, or Vincent Jackson.  Moreover, Gronkowski caught 3 TD passes the last time the Steelers faced the Patriots.

Fortunately for the Steelers, the Patriots defense is ranked 32nd in the NFL against the pass.  That’s dead last.  They’re allowing their opponents to pass for 322 yards per game.

If the Steelers are smart, they’ll take a page from the Patriots’ playbook, and challenge the Pats to stop their passing game.  Frankly, I don’t believe that the Patriots’ defensive backs have the speed to stay with Steelers’ receivers Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, and Emmanuel Sanders.

Steelers fans don’t usually expect to see the Steelers offense engage in high scoring shootouts.  But in this game, that may be exactly the formula that’s needed to win.  And frankly, I think it’s the type of game that offensive coordinator Bruce Arians dreams about.

Arians loves the passing game.  Loves, loves, loves!  In fact, if he could never call a running play, I think he’d do that.

If Arians is allowed to unleash his sprinters so Ben Roethlisberger can launch long bombs, Arians will likely die of happiness.  Moreover, the Steelers will likely win the game.

There are very few things that I love more than watching the Steelers win a game.  But watching the Baltimore Ravens lose is right up there. In fact, seeing the Ravens get destroyed like they did last night on Monday Night Football, was downright orgasmic.

For those of you who didn’t see the game, the Ravens lost 12-7 to the Jacksonville Jaguars.  But saying that the Ravens lost just doesn’t do justice to the beating that the Jaguars put on them.

The Jaguars prevented the Ravens from getting their first 1st down until there was only 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.  The Ravens’ punter seemed to spend more time on the field than Joe Flacco did.

The Jaguars almost shut the Ravens out, but the Ravens managed to score just before the 2 minute warning in the 4th quarter.

To help illustrate just how badly the Ravens got beat, let’s look at some statistics.

The Jags held pesky Ravens’ running back Ray Rice to only 28 yards on the ground.    So since Rice wasn’t running for many yards, you’d probably think that Joe Flacco must have made up for it in the passing game.  However, you’d be wrong.  Flacco only had 137 passing yards, and Ravens’ star wide receiver Anquan Boldin didn’t catch his first pass until late in the 3rd quarter.

I don’t mean to rub it in (okay, that was a lie), but the Ravens were held to only 16 net yards in the first half.  That’s right, 16 yards.  That’s absolutely pathetic.  In fact, it’s laughable.  So lets all laugh at the Ravens.

The Jaguars are now the second AFC South team that the Steelers have beaten that has gone on to beat the Ravens.  The Ravens also got beat by the Tennessee Titans earlier in the season.

The Steelers’ favorable record against common opponents may prove to be helpful later in the year if tie-breakers are necessary when determining playoff seedings.

The loss to the Jaguars puts the Ravens 1/2 game behind the Steelers in the AFC North standings.

The Steelers and the Ravens will meet again in two weeks (November 6th).  Only this time, they’ll be playing in Pittsburgh, and I think we’re going to see a very different result than we saw in week 1 at Baltimore.

Go Steelers!