Unintentional Comedy from Steelers.com (Rich)

The link to this story on the main page has this headline:

Advisory for Sunday’s Steelers Game; Bradshaw's Daughter to sing anthem

--rich erenberg

It's a Trap! (Rich)

This game has all the makings of a classic NFL trap game:

• It's sandwiched between two apparently bigger games, the emotional Charger win on Monday night, and the first of two games with Cincinnati that look like they'll decide the division.
• The Steelers have a short week following a red-eye flight. I've taken two red-eye flights this fall, and they screw you up for a couple of days afterward, even if you have no need (ok, ability) to perform at world-class-athlete levels that week.
• Jacksonville is stout. They may be tougher than they are good at this point, but that means they could easily manhandle any team that comes in without being at the top of their game.
• The injury situation is grim. Tommy Maddox will probably be the QB, although you can't help but feel that the uncertainty all week isn't good for anyone. Perhaps more importantly, Hines Ward seems likely to miss the first game of his career. Ricardo Colclough is also out, which means Bryant McFadden probably goes from inactive all season to the dime cornerback against a WR corps that goes four-deep (Smith, Williams, Jones, Wilford).

On the other hand, the Steelers have several things going for them as well. Fred Taylor might not play, which is a big loss for the Jags. Last year's team survived several equally troubling looking games, including a late-season battle with these very Jags that added mightily to the lore of Big Ben. And of course the biggest one is home-field advantage.

Given all that, I expect this game to be just as close as last year's. There shouldn't be any panic if we lose this one, provided we use the week to get healthy. The real potential for disaster is if one or more times this week we hear: Oh, it looks like he's aggravated that injury, and they aren't talking about Fred Taylor.

--rich erenberg

The Ward Administration (Weegie)

My home town makes Hines the mayor for a day. I could hope for alcohol liberating ordinances, but I'm more than a little curious about the "Rebirth of the City" festival. Either the city was reborn when they basically collapsed Washington Mall in favor of big boxes (as that's the only thriving industry), or it hasn't been reborn at all.

Meanwhile, the return of Pittsburgh's own Rod Rutherford ends our ability to make Samp jokes while at the same time continuing the trend that you basically can't remove Pitt Panther quarterbacks from league rosters unless your stake has a silver handle.

-- Weegie Thompson

The Quarter Pole (Weegie)

Yes. Relax, good. Coming into last night's game I wouldn't have liked us to lose, but I would have understood it. Assuming what we had seen from the Steelers this season, I didn't think they had the offense to run with the Chargers circa week 3 and 4. Fortunately neither of those teams showed up. A better and more diverse offense, featuring a rusher that could choke the time out of the opposition, and yes Rich, there was a Heath Miller sighting. All good.

While I think that Willie could do it eventually for us, it wasn't his night to do it. Bettis' best attribute for us at this point is not the tough yards, it's that feeling of inevitability he delivers to the opposition. Even if we don't have faith in him to always deliver, (cf. New England last year) his presence gives the opposition the feeling of "This is what we're going to do to you. We're going to run over you, through you, until we get to where we want to go. You don't matter in the equation." This may lead to that feeling that opposition doesn't matter in that fleetingly lucid moment Mark Madden had.

With Heath doing a reasonable integration into the offense at this point, that's also a good thing. The rare instances where the tight end got utilized under Cowher it did take a couple weeks to figure the plays, and he's a rookie. We shouldn't expect any less. If in week 8 he's tied with either Cedric or Quincy for third on the team in receptions, that's going to be incredible progress.

The defense had lapses last night, which felt a whole lot like the Tortoise plan going awry. It was more troubling in that it wasn't so much the one big play that feels like it kills us, as much as the constant barrage of LT keeping them going. The Chargers, more than any other team out there have their own supply of inevitability and it's LT. The good news is, we probably face only one more team with that level of power until playoffs. (Okay, maybe two with the Bengals.)

Ben is sounding like he could be back for the Jaguars, but even I wouldn't mind Batch in for a game. The thing is, that was literally an inch in any direction away from blowing his season. If it hurts, let it get better. I'm feeling really good about the judgement to keep the two expensive backups at this point, with Maddox also down. (Yeah, I admit I was wrong.)


So we're now 1/4 of the way through, a little ahead of expectations (I wouldn't have been surprised with 2-2, I wouldn't have panicked either.) If we continue on this path, where does that put us at the end of the year?

Well, at worst, it puts us a game under in the division. The Bengals do appear to be real. And on a worse case scenario, we end up losing both our games to them, which pretty much would have to give them the division. And at that we become a 5 seed, which really could only absolutely kill us when the 4 seed's the Patriots.

In spite of people saying the AFC is the utter and complete power conference, its more that the AFC has all the top power teams, because there's a LOT of chaff there right now. Houston, Tennesee, Oakland? And let's not forget the Ravens, who look like they're about two games away from going "Last Boy Scout" and packing heat on the field. And then there's the AFC East, where Miami is looking positively reasonable as a sleeper, if the Patriots don't recover from injuries. Of course, we will get to see Ricky integrated into their offense now, so that should ruin everything. Much as I'd like the Steelers to get a shot at our own personal Vinny, I just can't see that. And Buffalo's about to see Dr. Mularkey and TV's Sam, go down in Deep 13 and try to invent something to get through to J. P. Lossman. I suggest magic voice. People are on the NFC West and North, but the AFC East could join them with a division champ at 7-9 if they're not careful.

So who's real in the AFC right now?
Colts (Right now 10/10 on a metaphysical scale of reality.)
Steelers
Bengals
Broncos (Easily the 4-1 most likely to become 4-4, but we give them the spot now.)
Chargers (Do you want to face them again? I don't.)
Patriots (Of all the things that worry me about the Patriots, the one that should keep every AFC team fan up at night, what if Bill Belichick also has Wayne Fontes-like unkillability?)
Chiefs (The apparent vanishing of Tony Gonzalez aside, the moment their defense gains an ounce of traction, you'll see a transformation not unlike the Colts thus far. And the fact it can happen that unexpectedly is why I'm keeping them here for now.)
Jaguars (We err on the side of caution, and we'll find out Sunday.)

8 Teams, 6 slots. I like the odds, but the Steelers have to keep at it.

And..................Exhale (Rich)

Steeler Nation breathed a sigh of relief this afternoon. I can personally attest to some of what Charlie Batch can do--ask me privately to relate how, as a Steel Valley Ironman, he personally ruined my high school senior homecoming. But no one thought that 3-4 weeks of Charlie as our starter during a tough stretch of games was going to work out for the best. When I first saw the replay of Ben's injury last night, I said, "That's a month." But the black and gold lucked out.

As for the game itself, this was a huge, huge win. Going down a game and a half in the division to a very.....good...(spit it out).....Bengals team would have been troubling. Showing a continued inability to stop good pass-catching backs and tight ends--and inability to exploit teams that allow good pass-catching backs and tight ends to prosper--would have shown a major strategical chink in the armor. Instead, we demonstrated an ability to contain, if not shut down, two of the premier threats at those positions, and we also brought the first round pick out of mothballs.

In a game like this, I hate it when people complain about the other team making plays--those guys are on scholarship too. But you do have to feel flustered when you blow opportunities, and the big one here was a 25-yard bullet to Quincy Morgan ("The Coroner") at the end of the first half that could've turned into a whole lot more, but it was dropped. Usually, you can't flounder opportunities like that against good teams on the road and win.

One of the cool things about this win, too, is the weird transitivity--the New England, Pittsburgh, San Diego triad has split its season series over the last three weeks, with the road team winning each game. Strangely enough, Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame pulled off the same feat this season. OK, maybe I'm the only one who finds this cool.

--rich erenberg