The homepage of Steelers.com right now:
Uh oh.
“Ready to step up” and do what, exactly? Get wide open once, have a ball thrown so directly to him that it literally sticks into his ribcage but he intentionally pulls it out of himself and drops it fast enough for it to not be counted a catch, and for Roethlisberger and Tomlin to again be reminded “Ohhhh yeaahhhh, that’s why we never do that…”
The Steelers had already fallen victim to two “Dammit, NFL” losses, so it was about time for a “Dammit, NFL” win. The Steelers didn’t control play against the Vikings at all; they were outgained 386 – 259, lost the possession battle 36:58 – 23:02, converted only 4 of 12 third downs, most of which were exceedingly reasonable, and Roethlisberger turned in a pedestrian 14/26 for 175 yards and a TD. Still, the Steelers prevailed, because it’s the damn NFL and good teams win weird games like this all the time; unless you’re the ’07 Patriots, even the league’s best teams usually pad their gaudy records with three or four crappy victories, but in the end, as cliched as it sounds, none of that matters, cause the Steelers won, they’re 5-2 now, and the Vikings are no longer undefeated.
The Vikings did commit an astonishing 5,795 yards worth of penalties, which helped a bit, and the Steelers D finally got tired of us whining about them needing to make a big play and spitefully scored two touchdowns to shut us up (for at least one quarter). Even with the Vikings’ miscues and the seemingly slanted offensive statistics, the Steelers could’ve put the game away earlier if…
1) Santonio Holmes’ TD wasn’t negated with an offensive pass interference call on Heath “Ol’ Reliable Except On That Play” Miller.
2) Rashard Mendenhall hadn’t fumbled on the Vikings 4 yard line by diving over the pile on a non-goalline play and spastically flinging away the football. I’m pretty sure Mendenhall was waiting for the exact millisecond when Steeler fans finally trusted him again after his rookie struggles and Bengals-game benching to make sure that when he did screw up again, it was extra gut-wrenching. I’m still waiting for Lastings Milledge to do the same with the Pirates next year, with a hot month of April followed by him randomly founding a Neo-Nazi hate group in May (Awww, crap!)
3) Not allowed Percy Harvin to return a kickoff 275 yards for a touchdown (yep, he ran the length of the field and back untouched 2.75 times). The Steelers special teams had to play competently for all of 2008 before I even began to entertain the thought that whenever they kicked off, it might actually not get returned for a touchdown (or to like, the Steeler 10), and like the Mendenhall thing, juuuuuuust when I was beginning to believe in the Steelers’ special teams, they’ve now given up kick return TDs in back to back games.
Apologies for the Bill Simmons-style rip-off reference, but I feel a bit like Helen Hunt at the end of Cast Away; after being convinced for months and months through therapy that my husband was gone, I finally grew to accept it, then BAM! He’s back out of nowhere. Only in this case, the husband is some random fast dude warping to the 50 untouched and me shrugging too hard to bother shouting the F-word.
4) Any Combination of the Above. All three would’ve been nice.
Other random thoughts on the game:
I don’t share the unconditional ire for the Post-Gazette’s Columnists that many bloggers seem to automatically harbor in spades for their hometown publications’ veteran writers, but occasionally, the P-G’s Ron Cook will write something so misguidedly angry and so completely unfounded, I’m actually kind of impressed.
Today’s column is a picture-perfect example of this random venomous hatred:
Steelers’ 2008 draft class a bust so far
Ok, so it’s gonna be an article about the thoroughly disappointing starts of running back Rashard Mendenhall, receiver Limas Sweed, and the already-cut linebacker Bruce Davis. Seems like a logical choice, particularly after Sweed’s TD drop against Cincy and Mendenhall’s mysterious benching.
Only, Cook doesn’t simply point out the factual evidence of Mendenhall and Sweed’s struggles — he is personally, deeply offended by their absolutely outrageous behavior, and when you read these EXTREMELY over-the-line quotes from the players, you will be too. Take it away, Angry Angerson:
But it’s much worse that Mendenhall — the first-round choice — did such a poor job preparing for the game that he was benched by irritated coach Mike Tomlin. This guy is supposed to be a professional? He certainly doesn’t look like one.
Mendenhall’s actions really are reprehensible. “Rashard wasn’t on the details this week,” Tomlin said of his decision not to play him on offense. How can that be? How can Mendenhall let his teammates down like that? How can he let himself down?
“It was a bunch of little stuff,” Mendenhall said when asked what Tomlin meant.
I’m guessing it was more than that. Certainly, Tomlin didn’t consider it to be “little stuff.” Coaches rarely call out a player publicly and embarrass him. That’s a drastic step.
Shame on Mendenhall.
Is he not smart enough to realize the opportunity he has with the Steelers?
Mendenhall’s benching was definitely unusual and disappointing, but I just can’t tell what about either one of those extremely vague single sentences from Tomlin and Mendenhall sparked such an anger in Cook.
Tomlin says that Mendenhall wasn’t “on the details,” Mendenhall himself confirms this, then Cook assumes it’s “more than that” and gets angry at his own assumption. He then performs this:
But like most of Steeler Nation, Cook is even more personally offended by Limas Sweed, who not only dropped a touchdown pass this weekend, but he’s also a blockheaded, coddled, privileged diva about it:
Really, how can anyone have faith in Sweed?
What’s most troubling is that Sweed doesn’t seem to have a clue that his job could be in jeopardy. “It happened. I hit the ground and the ball bounced out,” he said of his latest drop.
That’s pretty lame.
Sweed’s game is lame.
Sweed has some god damned nerve literally saying what happened. If he were a professional, he would have admitted “When I dropped the ball I was like oh shit my job is in jeopardy and I realize that!!!!”
Again, I’m not disputing that Mendenhall and Sweed have been off to terrible career starts that certainly could amount to the 2008 Steeler draft being a waste — no Steeler fan denies this — I just don’t understand why Cook is so bent upon portraying the two underachievers as ignorant pathological failures whose naivety (based on three general quotes and conjecture) should offend each and every one of us.
Is Cook really that angry at these guys, or does he just have to sound this way because a simple “Mendenhall and Sweed have been crappy so far” column would’ve been too obvious?
Either way, the Steelers should bring in Doug Mientkiewicz. That dude knows how to play the game THE RIGHT WAY.
There’s nothing quite so uniquely demoralizing as going to a bar with friends to watch a game, eating a bunch of food, drinking beers, and then losing that game to a mediocre team in the final seconds despite a dominant first half and an eleven-point lead in the fourth quarter (and roughly 57,829 missed chances). It’s like going to a three-hour movie and only realizing in the last fifteen seconds that the movie is terrible and you’ve wasted your afternoon.
You also begin to regret the beers and the fish n’ chips platter and the fried pickles, as they’ve retroactively transformed from celebratory group-engorging to just a bunch of fatty, heavy crap you piled into your stomach while your team lost stupidly. Then you get home, it’s 7:30, and you realize you’ve spent your Sunday devoted to something that merely pissed you off.
Why is this acceptable in sports and in no other walks of life? I’d never devote three hours to watching a CSI: Miami DVD then walk away going “Dammit, why did that have to happen? There goes my whole day. I’m gonna be angry through to Wednesday now.”
Fortunately, this Thursday, I’m going to Europe for two weeks. Not because of this game. Well, partly because of this game. But only like 30% because of this game. Needless to say, my initial reservation about the timing of my trip — “Damn, I’m gonna miss two Steeler games, two Penn State games, some MLB playoffs and the start of hockey season” — has transformed into “Yay, I don’t have to watch this crap for two weeks!”
I’m not sure the game requires much analysis, so here are some whiny complaints:
Sorry for the slightly late Recap, devoted readers (Dad), but I was too busy following the Steelers’ slight, underwhelming victory by slightly, underwhelmingly celebrating (had two PBRs then went to sleep – I feel that was sufficient for this one).
I couldn’t get over how amazingly similar this win was to every other frickin’ Steeler win last season:
- Completely nonexistant running game.
- Roethlisberger miraculously avoids sack only to get sacked humorously farther back.
- Roethlisberger throws an interception so randomly and unexpectedly, you don’t even get angry cause it seems like it didn’t really happen.
- Troy Polamalu is good. At least, until the Cobra Kai Sensei instructs Fatty McCrumpler to fall on his knee and injure him.
- The defense gives up first downs but somehow keeps not allowing points, and the passing offense gets its crap together in time to narrowly win. The offense is again “clutch.”
A win is a win (am I the first person to ever write that? Definitely) and an early season win against a quality Tennessee team is certainly nothing to get discouraged about, even if the running game looked like porn for gangtacklers; if the Steelers can just keep their obvious flaws to exactly overlapping last year’s obvious flaws, maybe they can win the damn Super Bowl again. Does that count as a line of reasoning? Eh, why the hell not.
Still, the game was full of legitimate positives:
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