Steelers-Titans Thoughts

- Just for a little perspective, over the past four games, the Steelers won at New England, against Dallas and at Baltimore before losing Sunday at a 13-2 Tennessee team. If someone told you before stretch that the Steelers would go 3-1, I think you would be happy.

- As for Sunday’s game, way too many turnovers for the Steelers. The Roethlisberger fumble inside the Titans' 5 was crucial. Even if the Steelers get a field goal there, it’s a different game.

- What was the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty when the Titans were preparing for a field goal attempt near the end of the third quarter? Who was it against?

- Do we have a running game? Stop with the draw/delay plays to Parker.

- Cleveland got shut out by the Bengals today as Ryan Fitzpatrick threw only 9 passes and Cedric Benson had 38 rushes for 171 yards. If the Steelers can't run against the Browns next week, we're going to be in trouble in the playoffs.

- I think we've been spoiled over the past month or so by all of the turnovers and sacks by the Steelers defense. Only one sack today and the Titans had no turnovers.

- It also seemed like LenDale White and Chris Johnson had holes to run through all game, particularly in the second half.

- I hope Ryan Clark is OK. He, along with James Farrior, is the most underrated player on the Steelers' defense.

- Mitch Berger had a punting average of 44 yards on his 5 punts. I guess that means he keeps his job for another week.

- Justin Gage (!) had over 100 receiving yards.

- Keith Bulluck of the Titans was showing off some Terrible Towel rip-off at the end of the game.

- In addition, LenDale White and I believe Jevon Kearse stomped on a Terrible Towel as shown in the video below. What class! Disrespecting and stomping on a Terrible Towel is on the same level as desecrating the American flag. I'm completely serious about this as a portion of the proceeds from the sale of The Terrible Towel benefits the Allegheny Valley School in Pittsburgh, one of the largest providers of care for people with mental retardation in the state of Pennsylvania. All I can write is Karma.



I'd love to see the Steelers get a rematch against the Titans on January 18!


- In other Sunday news, everyone, including big, fat Tony Siragusa just minutes before kick-off, said that the weather was going to be terrible in New England. Therefore, I benched QB Matt Cassel in my fantasy league championship and started Chad Pennington instead. So of course, Cassel throws for 300+ yards and three touchdowns. Oh, Kurt Warner was removed in the third quarter after going 6-18 for 30 yards. Matt Cassel was still throwing the ball into the fourth quarter and wasn't taken out until New England was up 47-0. Another reason to hate Belichick. Although Pennington had a great game, Cassel scored 9 more points than Chad.

- When will Randy Johnson, aka The Big Unit, guest star on CBS’ The Unit?

- Finally, I’m a big fan of James Brown, the broadcaster, not the singer. (Actually, I like the singer too, but that’s not what I’m writing about.) However, I hate the way he throws the highlights to Shannon Sharpe. I’m going to have nightmares tonight hearing "Shannon" over and over again.

Friday Links

Between Trivia Tuesday, TMI Thursday and Friday Links, I need to come up with more creative titles.

Seth at Empty Netters created an impressive list of jersey fouls.

I just learned from Messiah that there is an NFL television distribution map that shows where each game will be aired. The Steelers-Titans game will be on CBS on Sunday here in the Washington DC area. Woo hoo!

My SIL recommends watching the documentary, Blood Detectives, premiering tonight (December 19) on the Discovery Health channel at 7:00 PM ET/PT and again at midnight.

Frank Walter of the Baltimore Ravens admits that he spat in the face of the Steelers’ Mitch Berger, but says it was an accident. How do you accidentally spit in the face of an opponent with a helmet on? The answer is that you don’t. Another example of the classy Ravens. (h/t Mondesi's House)

A moving piece about Steelers’ defensive end Aaron Smith.

Finally, with the fantasy football season almost over (I’ll share my experiences about this season next week), I’m already looking for some type of league before the baseball season starts. Therefore, if you are interested in joining a Rock of Love III fantasy league, please leave a message in the comments or e-mail me at seanramblings[at]yahoo(dot)com. Yes, I’m being serious.

Steelers-Redskins Recap

I’m going on about five hours of sleep after attending Monday night’s Pittsburgh Steelers-Washington Redskins game. Since I need to head to work sometime soon (hooray for getting two hours off to vote so I slept five hours instead of four!), here are my notes from FedEx Field:

- I saw at least a half dozen signs of Cooley for President or Portis for President. We get it; there’s an election on Tuesday and you feel like Cooley and Portis will represent the country better than McCain or Obama. That’s very clever and unbelievably original! If only Portis or Cooley were over 35 and eligible to be President.

- The Redskins announcer sounded similar to Duff Man. Of course, his enthusiasm seemed to lessen in the fourth quarter. Oh, don’t tell me to cheer when the Redskins are on defense and to stay quiet when they are on offense. I’ll cheer when I want to cheer! Basically, don't tell me what to do as I may have the Reactance Bias.



- Are the Redskins the only team in the NFL with a marching band? I don’t ever remember seeing a non-high school band perform before the game or during halftime at a professional football game.

- Byron Leftwich looked good during the second half. I just hope that he doesn’t have to play much the rest of the season.

- The primary negative about being at the game is not knowing everything that is happening. For example, there was certainly a “what the hell” moment when Leftwich started the second half over Roethlisberger. I had to call a friend in Ohio to find out what happened to Roethlisberger and he also told me that Heath Miller was hurt. I still have no idea who blocked the punt.

- Negative #2 was sitting under a speaker.

- My ticket stub for Monday’s game features a picture of Antwaan Randle-El. That was the only time I remember seeing him all night.

- If I was a Redskins fan, I would be upset with the fact that the Redskins only tried to throw the ball deep once. Maybe Santana Moss wasn’t 100% healthy, but if he’s out there, try throwing the ball deep to him or Randle-El.

- The Steelers defense was outstanding! One player who may not get much credit, but I thought played very well was cornerback William Gay. I don’t think he ever got beat and the passes completed in front on him were quick throws in which he quickly tackled the receiver after only a few yards.

- Is punter Mitch Berger still hurt? His punts seemed to be short.

- My preview of Monday night’s game on MVN was pretty accurate. If the Redskins handed the ball to Portis on fourth and goal inside the 1 instead of trying to throw it, I would have nailed the score too.

Finally, I (partially) attribute the Steelers success to the fact that I decided to wear my Steelers jacket and not attempt to wear both the jacket and the Louis Lipps jersey. My streak of the Steelers winning while I’m in attendance continues to at least 12 games over almost 15 years.

I’m going to wear my Steelers jacket proudly on the Metro and walking around Northern Virgina. It’s going to be a great day! Oh, if you are looking for free election food (and made it all the way to the end of this post), Sabine…Shot the Food (h/t lacochran) has a list. Please note that I’m not convinced that Chick Fil-A is giving away a free sandwich as I ate at the Arlington location yesterday and did not see any Election Day promotion. In addition, if you bring your I Voted sticker to California Tortilla today, you will receive a free taco coupon.

As always, a real recap of the game is available on the Post-Gazette.