Gay Celebration

Earlier this week, Good Morning America showed the video below of China's Zhang Jike celebrating his victory at the Table Tennis World Cup in Germany. The video also included notable athletic celebrations among American athletes. About 15 seconds into the video, between the Ickey Shuffle and Brandi Chastain's iconic World Cup celebration, you'll notice Pittsburgh Steeler William Gay dancing after scoring a touchdown on Sunday against the Colts. I guess someone at ABC is a Steelers fan. (I'll go with George Stephanopoulos.)


More ABC US news | ABC Health News

Go Steelers!

Steelers-Colts Recap

Sunday's Pittsburgh Steelers-Indianapolis Colts game was really frustrating. You're probably thinking, Sean, you're a Steelers fan, what the heck are you smoking? The Steelers scored 51 points and defeated one of the best teams in the NFL rather handily. Sure, the defense gave up 34 points, but the Steelers constantly pressured and hit Andrew Luck, had two interceptions and overall, seemed to play well (outside of Cortez Allen). Plus, the offensive line allowed zero sacks despite Ben Roethlisberger attempting 49 passes and Le'Veon Bell rushed for more than 90 yards. So why frustrating? Well, how can a team that lost at home to a now 1-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, got crushed 31-10 at Cleveland and barely defeated a now 1-7 Jacksonville Jaguars team play so well? While we didn't expect the Steelers to play this well for the entire season, we certainly felt like they could particularly with so much talent on offense and more speed on defense. Frustrating.

Here are my quick thoughts about the game:

- Just before kickoff, I posted this on Twitter:

Putting this out there now...who thinks the Steelers are going to win today?

— Sean's Ramblings (@seansramblings) October 26, 2014

I received exactly zero replies. Sure, it's possible (okay, likely) that no one reads my tweets, but I think the mindset of most Steelers fans was that they would lose.

- So why didn't Steelers rookie WR Martavis Bryant play during the first six games? He looks like a legitimate NFL receiver. As I wrote back in May, he is the most successful Martavis in Steelers history!

- This Pick-6 was Gay.

- Andrew Luck is really hard to get down. It seemed like there were at least 5 times when a Steelers defensive player was in the process of tackling the Colts QB, but Luck was still able to throw the ball away or amazingly to a receiver.

- In the previous four games, the Colts defense gave up four 3rd down conversions. The Steelers were 8 for 13 in 3rd down efficiency on Sunday.

- Is there anyone who doesn't think Antonio Brown is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL? He currently leads the league in catches, is second in receiving yards and is tied for 4th (and alone in 2nd among wide receivers) in receiving touchdowns.

- Early in the 4th quarter, the Steelers were winning 42-34 when the Colts forced and recovered a LeGarrette Blount fumble. This truly could have been a turning point with the Colts poised to tie the game, but instead this happened:

Post by Benstonium.com.

While Benstonium went with the YMCA comparison, I prefer Men Without Hats.



Steelers-Ravens next week. Man, the AFC North is tough this year.

Charlie Batch Haunts My Dreams

I had a dream last night/this morning that I was on a school bus with members of the Pittsburgh Steelers. At some point, there was a radio announcement that QB Ben Roethlisberger would miss the entire season. This was not due to an injury but because he wanted to sort things out and get himself together. While this may not be realistic in real life, this seemed to make sense in my dream.

Anyway, there was certainly shock and surprise among the people on the bus. While people started talking to their neighbors about this development, I started a conversation with someone at the back of the bus even though I was a few rows up. I basically yelled to this person that the Steelers would be okay. I stated that I was confident in Dennis Dixon's abilities and that I was excited to see him play. I also yelled that Byron Leftwich is a solid QB. However, I concluded that Charlie Batch was D-U-N, done. There was only one problem: Charlie Batch was on the bus. I don't think he heard me, but I immediately felt bad about this. Charlie Batch has had a nice career, is a perfect QB to play a few games if needed, and has done great things in the community.

I questioned the person sitting across the aisle from me whether he thought Batch heard what I said. This person was a member of the Steelers, but I don't know who he was. For the sake of this post, let's say that it was William Gay, just so that I can write that I had a gay dream (not that there's anything wrong with that). He said that I needed to apologize to Batch, but that's where the dream ended. I don't remember anything else or even if there was more.

So let's analyze this dream shall we. Either I haven't written enough about the Steelers the past few months, or I'm ready for the football season! I'm going with the latter since I read Matthew's Berry fantasy football article on ESPN.com yesterday and also received an e-mail from a friend trying to finalize plans for the Steelers-Dolphins game. Are there other possibilities that wouldn't insult Charlie Batch?

Steelers-Lions Recap: Turkey Win

If three strikes in a row in bowling is called a turkey, what do you call three sacks in a row in football? For the sake of this post, we'll call this a turkey as well.



With Pittsburgh leading 28-20 late in the fourth quarter, the Steelers defense decided to finally pressure QB Daunte Culpepper instead of playing a prevent defense that allowed Detroit to get back into the game. Let's set the scene. After marching down the field and scoring on a Dennis Northcutt (who must be approximately 58 years old) touchdown, the Lions defense forced the Steelers into a three-and-out. Then, Culpepper led another successful drive leading to a 1st and 10 from the Steelers 21 with less than 2:00 minutes remaining. Momentum was totally on Detroit's side, but that's when things changed. LaMarr Woodley and William Gay teamed up to sack Culpepper for a loss of 6 yards. Second down was Gay as the cornerback sacked Culpepper for a 5-yard loss. Lawrence Timmons then completed the turkey with a 13-yard sack. The Lions tried a Hail Mary pass on 4th and 34 but that fell innocently to the turf meaning game over.

In continuing with my fabulous theme, Sunday was the first time the Steelers played in Detroit against the Lions since the Jerome Bettis/coin flip game held, wait for it, on Thanksgiving. Plus, Ben Roethlisberger had THREE touchdowns (one each for Hines, Heath and Mike Wallace) and James Harrison had THREE sacks. As a result, turkey for everyone!


(Too soon for this picture?)

The most important key to the Steelers victory was the fact that I wore my Louis Lipps jersey for the first time this season! You may be skeptical, but the Steelers are 43-3 when I wear the jersey (this record may not be correct).

In other random notes, I made a last-minute decision to watch the game at Fast Eddie's in Fairfax. It's much nicer watching a game at a Steelers bar rather than a bar/restaurant that shows all games. (I'm looking at you Champps and Buffalo Wild Wings.*) However, I can't wait until the Virginia law stopping smoking in bars/restaurants goes into effect. I'm going to smell like smoke for days.

There were some smaller televisions showing other NFL games. The guy next to me referred to the Washington quarterback as Jason Candle. He also called Ravens QB Joe Flacco, Shane Falco. I don’t understand how either of these are insults.



Overall, the Steelers are now 3-2 heading into next week’s game against the Cleveland Browns. The team is now one game behind the Cincinnati Bengals and tied with the Baltimore Ravens in the division. Basically, the team is in pretty good shape at this point of the season and will hopefully get a healthy Willie Parker and Troy Polamalu back next week.


* I've been a Buffalo Wild Wings customer on many occasions, but I have never had a football referee or baseball manager ask me my opinion on a play or coaching decision. To be fair, I haven't visited a Buffalo Wild Wings recently, so perhaps this is a new feature.

Steelers-Bears Recap

I’m still trying to figure out how the Steelers lost on Sunday. The offensive line played much better than week one as Roethlisberger was sacked only twice (once because he held on to the ball too long) and the team rushed for 105 yards on 22 carries (4.8 yards per carry). The defense held the Bears’ Matt Forte, one of the best running backs in the league, to 62 total yards and Devin Hester had only 21 yards receiving and did little on special teams. So how did the team lose? I didn’t wear my Louis Lipps jersey or have my Terrible Towel with me. My bad. Wearing my Heinz pickle watch wasn’t enough, but I won’t let it happen again.

On the serious side, the Steelers played okay, but not good enough to win. As I mentioned, the running game and line were fine and Roethlisberger played good enough to win. However, he did throw an interception and the receivers (Santonio Holmes comes to mind) dropped several passes. Defensively, I mentioned the positives above, but the team only had one sack and did not force any turnovers. Plus, Jay Cutler was solid completing 27 of 38 passes for 236 yards, 2 touchdowns and no picks. Although the team went three and out on their first two series, the Bears ended up going 7 of 14 on third down conversions. The special teams was the big negative though. Mr. Automatic Jeff Reed missed both field goal attempts and Stefan Logan fumbled at the end of the game. Plus, Ike Taylor and Patrick Bailey had costly penalties on kick returns putting the Steelers in poor starting field position.

Back to the non-serious side.

* Where can I get a pair of Estrada sunglasses?



* When Bears' Jeffrey Knox made his first catch, I thought the announcer referred to the WR as Cox. Cox was covered by William Gay on the play. The inner-immature-7th grader in me chuckled.

* Afalava: Best last name ever. Sepulveda is a close second (he had another good game).

* During the telecast, there was an advertisement for free fantasy football on NFL.com. However, the text stated except in California and Puerto Rico. So if you live in CA or PR, do you have to pay to play fantasy football on NFL.com? If so, wouldn't you just try a free league on Yahoo or ESPN? Can someone explain how this works?

Big picture: The Steelers are 1-1 and a game behind the Ravens in the division. This loss is not going to make or break the season. It was a road game against an NFC team, so there are no concerns about the conference tie-breaks. Next week's game against the 1-1 Bengals is much more important.

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.