Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Oct. 17

Posted on October 16, 2011 by ryan

The Steelers are 5-2 and headed to Pittsburgh West…

Related posts:

  1. Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Aug. 15
  2. Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Aug. 22
  3. Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Aug. 29
  4. Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Sept. 5
  5. Chattin’ Thread for the Week of Sept. 26
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  • Anonymous

    Booo! Buffalo @ NY for me. Time to avoid any sports related sites/news for the couple of days it takes to watch on someone else’s DVR.

  • Anonymous

    So that was pretty much a perfect opening drive for the offense. Both Mendenhall and Redman had some nice runs, and Ben was perfect throwing the football. Couldn’t ask for much more.

  • Anonymous

    Second offensive drive not much worse than the first, though Legursky left with an injury.

  • Anonymous

    Really don’t like the trickery attempt on the punt return.

  • Anonymous

    When was the last time Mendenhall had a run that long?

    • Hoffstra323

      against the falcons in ot last year

      • Anonymous

        The answer is “never” since that was his new career long.

  • Anonymous

    Got to love the empty backfield on 3rd and goal…

    • Cols714

      They scored on that last week.

  • Anonymous

    Defense starting to break down a bit: 2 long runs, plus 2 penalties that gave Jacksonville first downs.

  • Anonymous

    Woodley gets his 2nd sack on the day on 3rd and 6 to hold the Jags to a field goal.

  • Anonymous

    The defense is ravaging the Jags’ O-line. Up to 4 sacks now.

  • Anonymous

    Questionable clock management by the Steelers here. Why not call timeout before the Jags’ 3rd down play? And why then use one after it?

  • Anonymous

    This game is starting to make me nervous. After the first two possessions, the offense has kind of sputtered. If Jacksonville hits one big play, all of a sudden, it’s a one score game.

  • Anonymous

    And there’s the one big play. Gabbert TD pass makes it 17-10.

  • Anonymous

    Interestingly, Ike was in coverage on the TD pass

  • Anonymous

    For a game that started so well, this second half has been absurdly sloppy on the Steelers’ part. Ben takes a delay of game on 3rd and 2(empty backfield, by the way), then gets sacked.

  • Anonymous

    In addition to the fact that the game is slipping away from the Steelers, Troy is now injured.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UZJTXBYR5QW6TFDYZ52FT7AZZI B K

    Send worthlesburger on the bus to jacksonville.  What a horrible immature QB

    • Joe Stitt

       What a thoughtful insight about a Super Bowl Winning QB.

      • David

        Joe, don’t feed the Troll.

  • David

    Guys and ladies, no complaints from me today. We won, Mendy had 146 (hello, cols714! You were right), no TOs, D played pretty solid.

    But I hope Troy is OK, and we allowed a quiet 96 yds to Jones-Drew.

    JAX just seems to play us well (they lead the series 11-10 now).

    • Jfishel

      Well, I have only one complaint.  We got too greedy with the home run ball.  We called a few of those in a row, failed, and IMHO it threw the offense out of rhythm.  Maybe not by itself, (there were some long J-ville drives in there) but it certainly didn’t help.  But, everyone is an offensive playcaller, right? Coaches must’ve seen something I didn’t.

      • Joe Stitt

         I totally agree. While I appreciate them not taking their foot off the pedal, you still have to move the ball. It stalled the offense and they never recovered. Toss in some dinks and dunks to bring the D up and give Ben some rhythm.

      • David

        Yes, I agree. We missed on 4 by my count. One underthrow to Wallace, one off target to Wallace, and two overthrows to Sanders.

      • kevin

        I think the offense stalled because they were too predictable on 1st and 2nd down in the second half.  Ben was 1 of 5 with 3 sacks.  He only had 9 dropbacks, I believe.

  • Rob D

    Didn’t get to watch the game today.Sounds like they played a good half, piled up some ground yardage and played some decent D. Troy got injured? I hate to admit it but I mentally sorta figure he’s going to miss time during the season. His style will always get him hurt but we have learned to live with it

    I’ll take the win

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

      He was concussed.  Luckily the NFL doesn’t really care about concussions, only PR-related pretend care.  So Polamalu will be back next week.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

    I just want to take a moment to admire Kiesel’s ability to bat passes.  Really unappreciated part of his game that I hope rubs off on Hood and Heyward.

    • Joe Stitt

      He played like a beast today. I loved it. And I think it already has. Hood almost got himself a pick from that today.

    • Hoffstra323

      he is awesome… ill take him in a foot race too. i would bet he is faster than all our starting linebackers. with the exception of timmons.

  • Joe Stitt

    And the legend of the beard grows….
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU9rX9En34U

  • Anonymous

    Two rules the officials might want to brush up on:

    A member of the receiving team may not run into or rough a kicker who kicks from behind his line unless contact is: 
    (a) Incidental to and after he had touched ball in flight. 

    Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage due to pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion.

    • GlennW

      On the roughing the kicker penalty, Tomlin actually could have challenged based on the ball being (slightly) contacted by the rusher (this part of the play is challengeable, as with a tipped pass negating a pass interference penalty).  I didn’t think the replay was conclusive though, so likewise this was a tough call for the official on the field.

      • kevin

        I don’t think he got close to the ball.  I replayed it because I was yelling at the screen and Mundy was nowhere near that ball.  I think the wind took it just like it did with Sepulveda’s punt.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

    The Bengals traded Carson Palmer to the Raiders for a 2012 1st round pick and a conditional 2013 2nd round pick that could upgrade to a 1st rounder.  We need to find someone to trade to the Raiders since they seem to continually wildly overpay with draft picks for players.

    • Joe Stitt

      We probably could have gotten a second rounder out of Dixon.

  • Joe Stitt

    And the Bengals just got two first rounders for a guy sitting on his couch at the moment. That’s fantastic. -_-

    • Anonymous

      My first reaction was “oh great free stuff for a division rival.” And that makes some sense given the recent state of the league. But when you get down to it, Carson Palmer is a good quarterback, not great like he used to be, but still decently above average. The Bengals lost a good quarterback and had to use a second round pick to replace him with someone whose future and abilities are still unknown. Essentially they’re netting a first round pick to trade down from Palmer to Dalton. We don’t know what Dalton is yet, but if you asked teams which they’d take, I think most would take Palmer over Dalton and a first rounder. I actually entertained hopes that Palmer would wind up in Pittsburgh, maybe by trading away Dixon.

      Still, I’m probably going to be rooting for the Raiders to succeed (while Palmer struggles) more often than I otherwise would have.

      • GlennW

        > We don’t know what Dalton is yet, but if you asked teams which they’d take, I think most would take Palmer over Dalton and a first rounder.

        I wouldn’t.  Not at this point in Palmer’s career.  I don’t care if Dalton (who has looked pretty good so far) and the 1st-rounder are unknowns or risks, teams like Cincy and Oakland need to be thinking longer term anyway.  I’ll actually be surprised if Carson Palmer is still upright and starting at QB for the Raiders in 2013.

        Also, the Bengals were in a pretty poor bargaining position around Palmer.  Given his age, recent injury history and intransigence, a 2nd-rounder sounds about right.  What Oakland gave up is insane.  Think of what our reaction as Steelers fans would be to this kind of future-killing trade.  I’d be irate.  If we made the playoffs as a marginal wildcard team (and that’s the best Oakland is going to be for the foreseeable future), I’d actually be hoping we didn’t win the one lousy playoff game so we wouldn’t have to surrender the second 1st-rounder.  Unfathomable.

        • Randy Steele

          Not for nothing, but I’m curious as to how Mike ‘Cheap-O’ Brown is going to afford to pay two (err… possibly two) first-round draft picks in two consecutive years.

          • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

            That’s the thing -  with the new rookie wage scale those picks actually don’t cost very much.  First round picks are now more valuable than ever since you could potentially be getting a blue chip player at a very cheap price for 5 years.  The draft now might become much more interesting because in the past teams were wary of picking in the top 10 because of the guaranteed money.  I always figured that was why the Steelers refrained from trading up too far because of the potential salary cap-busting implications..  It also means that the old draft value chart is probably relevant again.

          • GlennW

            Also, in the new CBA the individual-team salary floor was raised to 90% of the overall baseline salary cap, so Mike Brown can’t be as cheap on player spending even if he wants to be.

          • Hoffstra323

            rookies are no longer getting the big money… cam newton signed for like 22million. sam bradford got like 60 mill.

        • EasyLikeSundayMorning

          Yeah, that is a totally insane price to pay for Palmer.  I guess the Raiders really are serious about honoring the legacy of Al Davis, as I would have thought he was the only person crazy enough to overpay that much.  If the Bengals use their picks as wisely as they did on Green and Dalton, we might have to pay attention to them as a rival in the next few years.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

    Here’s a not-so-fun fact:

    “RB Rashard Mendenhall’s 146 yards rushing were the fourth-most in a game
    in his career. He can become the first Steelers’ back to hit 100 on
    consecutive weekends in three seasons.”

    • Randy Steele

      Okay, here’s a fun fact: Mendenhall’s nickname among his teammates is “Rack,” according to Eddie B.

  • Randy Steele

    A phrase that I am surprised never really caught fire among the Steeler faithful was Peezy’s famous chant, “Who Ride? We Ride!!”

    It’s truly excellent. The Steelers should have copyrighted it and turned it into a T-shirt.Maybe in honor of our upcoming game against Arizona, we should bring it back, and thank Joey Porter for it.

  • Joe Stitt

    So ESPN has an article saying Mike Wallace is a better WR than Calvin Johnson. It’s close. But not yet. We haven’t seen Wallace at his peak yet. But the best thing I found in that was a new nickname for him. MEGAWALLACE.

    • Randy Steele

      Maybe MEGA-MIKE?

      • Anonymous

        I prefer fast money. I also prefer him staying affordable once he becomes a free agent. People need to learn that the Steelers are a run first team, and none of their receivers are worth a second look.

        Also I order them Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Welker, A. Johnson, Wallace. Of those 5, Wallace and C. Johnson are the youngest and both show signs of still developing their games. Fitzgerald is in his prime. Welker and A. Johnson are also in their primes, but just based on age have less time left in it. Also worth mentioning is Greg Jennings, who’d be the next guy on my list. He’s an interesting case since he’s enough of a veteran that you’d not expect him to be developing, yet he does seem to be getting consistently better over time.

  • Cols714

    Gee
    It seems that according the Gary Dulac and confirmed over at Steelers Depot, the Jaguars worked really hard to take away the short passing game from Ben and really tried to take away the deep pass from Wallace. What would a sensible OC do in that situation? Oh yeah, call some deeper routes to Sanders and Brown.

    Which is exactly what Arians did. Ben missed them and now we get all this stupidity from Steelers fans about how Arians sucks.

  • Hoffstra323

    it seems to me that this arizona game is getting a bit more hype than it should. truth be told we better go in there and impress and build some momentum. if we lose to the cardinals our season is over, but thats not going to happen. i expect the steelers  to have a great game. Max Starks has made an awesome comeback and may just be our teams savior, along with that we have the return of chris kemoeatu. Pouncey, Foster, and Gilbert make up the rest of the line. These guys average 330lbs up front, even with pouncey who is by far the little guy, if u want to call him little. I cant imagine we ever had a line this big for a game. look for the steel deal to have a big day against a team who has a defense that ranks 20th in the league in stopping the run and the pass.

    • David

      Well, they have Porter and Haggans. And Wis is still smarting from XLIII.

      We protect Ben, and we’ll win.

      • Anonymous

        Don’t forget Crezdon Butler and Nick Eason!

  • Anonymous

    Random data:
    The Steelers is now the first team in NFL history to get 2 or fewer takeaways in their first 6 games.
    2 of 20 Steelers victories with 0 takeaways have been this season.

    source: cold hard football facts.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UR6KXGPFIFYZSVJNCXCJNHDQJQ Bob Costas

    Aaron Smith was placed on IR.  Probably will be the end of his career.  It’s a crappy end to a great career but that’s usually the way it goes with football players.  He was one of the best Steelers players of my lifetime.

    • Rob D

      My absolute favourite of this era of Steeler football. I used to watch games and just try to focus on how many double teams he took on and still have an impact on the play. He was unreal..great motor and a great teammate from all reports.

      Sad to see him leave the game he loves because of injury. But it happens to the best of them. Father Time has no sense of past glories.