Monday, January 11, 2016

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting (Steelers-Bengals Recap)

What a strange Saturday night! No one won the Powerball, and we learned that Sean Penn met with El Chapo as the Mexican drug lord was a fugitive. Sean Penn is welcome to further explain his actions right here on Sean's Ramblings. You know since his name is Sean? Oh, there was a playoff football game between the Steelers and Bengals too.

I have so many thoughts about this game, but that could take a while, so let's start with this non-comprehensive list of things to happen in Steelers/Bengals by Patrick Daugherty, a NFL writer for Rotoworld/NBC Sports:


A few items not mentioned above.

- Domata Peko's unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was actually amusing, especially if you imagine Michael Keaton or Christian Bale in the "cape" instead of Peko.



- Early in the game, Phil Simms said that Antonio Brown is a "tremendous catcher of the football." Is Brown just an adequate catcher of a baseball and basketball? Maybe he is a lousy catcher of the frisbee. Perhaps he is a catcher in the rye.

- There has been no discussion about the size of Steelers RB Fitzgerald Toussaint's forehead. I really want to find clips from I Married an Axe Murderer here, but we'll settle for the picture.


- I'd love to know what Joey Porter said to Pacman Jones to cause Jones to go nuts. Maybe he said Ms. Pacman is a better game (which is completely accurate) and Pacman disagreed.

- For Bengals fans upset about Porter even being on the field while the Steelers medical staff were treating Brown, let's check out this video from near the end of the third quarter.



Giovani Bernard was just leveled by Ryan Shazier. (I'm not going to debate whether or not there should have been a flag.) The call on the field was a catch, so the Bengals offense and the Steelers defense were on the field as the Bengals' medical staff was attending to Bernard. This was before Mike Tomlin challenged the play. So look who was out in the middle of the field? Bengals defensive player Vontaze Burfict. There were other Bengals folks there too who had just as much reason to be on the field as Porter did in the fourth quarter. Pause the video at the 10 second mark. Who is the person dressed in all black (clearly not an active player) at the top left that puts his hands on Bud Dupree? While Porter is going to get fined by the NFL, he shouldn't be alone in sending money to the league.

- Mike Munchak got a 15 yard penalty & Joey Porter helped draw one. These are both Steelers assistant coaches. So where was the leadership of defensive coordinator Keith Butler and offensive coordinator Todd Haley for not getting involved themselves? Or was this brilliant leadership by having their subordinates get involved?

This isn't from Ted Cruz, but someone should probably let the Cruz campaign know that telling a football team's fans that they do not deserve a team is not going to help to win the Ohio vote.



So now the Steelers will travel to Denver to face the Broncos with a questionable Brown, DeAngelo Williams, and Ben Roethlisberger. However, if you want to read even more about this game, I recommend the following:

DK Pittsburgh Sports
PGH Sports Daily Bulletin
Behind The Steel Curtain
USA Today's Steelers Wire
Steelers Depot

Oh, let's end with Nick Lachey's thoughts on the game. (h/t Rob)

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