All Downhill From Here. Steelers Win.

The Steelers took care of business today. All they could do was control their own 60-minute football game. And they did. The defense had another 4th-quarter scare, but they pulled it together, got a turnover or two, and finished strong.

Ryan Clark, Willie Parker, Jeff Reed, and Casey Hampton made pretty good cases for being re-signed if this was indeed their final game with the black and gold.

As of this posting, the Ravens, Jets, and Broncos all have yet to finish their games. They all need to lose. Tonight we’ll have the AFC playoff picture, and it will likely not include the Steelers.

In which case, we’ll have a lot to talk about over the summer. Until then, we’ve got some good football to watch all across the board.

Jump.

FIRST QUARTER

Down in Miami, it’s warm. The ball is soft. And the kickoff is blasted through the back of the end zone for a Steelers’ touchback.

Steelers run a spread on first down, which is nice to see. It’s a screen to Ward that nets a yard, so you know that wasn’t coming back all game. Until they do it again on 3rd down and Mike Wallace gets the 1st. Nice.

Willie Colon stonewalls Joey Porter for an hour and a half, but the Dolphins’ coverage stonewalls everyone. Sacked. Heath Miller makes a showing and picks up a huge 37 yards on whatever fool linebacker thought he could cover him. Mendenhall churns downfield for another 1st.

On 2nd & goal, Ben takes a year to find an open man and throws back across his body trying to find Heath. It’s too high. It’s worth noting that Willie Colon didn’t give up on that play and messed up some DL that was chasing Ben out of the pocket. That’s good to see.

On the next play, Ben finds Santonio Holmes in his own zip code in the middle of the goal line. Touchdown. 7-0. That drive ate like 7 minutes off the clock.

Reed squibs the next kickoff, presumably to avoid giving the ball to Ted Ginn Jr. He finds it anyway and gets it to the 34.

Ricky Williams humiliates the middle of the defense with a first down run. Some dude picks up a 9 yard catch. Ouch. Ginn drops a pass. Farrior is too slow to cover anyone and some other receiver you’ve never heard of coverts a third down.

LaMarr Woodley is definitely not fast enough to cover someone. Touchdown. 7-7. Seriously, who are any of these players? Brett Hartline? Lex Hilliard?

Logan gets to the 33 on the kick return. Ben throws way ahead of Ward. Then he absolutely humiliates some blitzing DB by juking him out in the pocket. The DB falls over. Wow.

4th & inches. Ben’s huge. He falls forward. First down.

Mike Wallace is so fast, Ben can almost not throw far enough downfield for him. Wallace can make the adjust though. Touchdown, 14-7. What a play. No DB can stay on him.

The Steelers really want to make sure Ted Ginn isn’t returning kicks. Squibbed again, to the 32.

SECOND QUARTER

Miami breaks out the “wildPat” offense in there and Pat White gets like nothing. The defense gives up another third down conversion. Weak. Some defensive holding gives up another first.

Lawrence Timmons makes the first actual defensive play of the day and knocks away a pass. That’s the anomlay to this point though, as Henne has a ton of time and his receivers are easily getting open.

James Harrison makes what feels like his first play in a month stopping Williams in the backfield. Doesn’t matter though, as some other WR you’ve never seen gets a first down.

Henne finally throws a pass behind his receiver. It hit’s Gay in the arm. He gets up swaggering like he’s actually good at something. The Dolphins settle for a field goal. 14-10.

Logan pulls off a nice return to the 44. Willie Parker makes a few appearances. He’s good when he gets 3 carries a game. That’s not worth a new contract though.

Ben gets hit as he throws somewhere. Ruled a fumble. Challenged, reversed. Mendenhall catches a short pass and takes it 26 yards. 1st & goal.

Willie Parker at the goal line? No dice. A few incompletions later, it’s field goal city. 17-10 Steelers. 17 and 10 are the numbers of the players with both Steeler touchdowns. Conspiracy.

Jeff Reed manages a touchback in the warm Miami air. On first down, Henne cocks the gun and fires. Deshea Townsend steps in front of it. PICKED. First by a CB all year. Ugh.

Trick play alert! Ben throws backward to Holmes in the backfield. He fires downfield for Mendenhall inside the 10. He couldn’t have been less open. Picked off.

Miami starts driving and Townsend has made like 9 plays in a row. LaMarr Woodley busts into the backfield and wreaks havoc. Williams comes away with a loose ball. 2nd & 20. Some white dude picks up a first. Deshea gave up on the play. Sad to see after the series of tackles he HAD been making.

Two-minute warning. Woodley blows up another play and plants Henne in the backfield. William Gay makes sure to bring the defense back to mediocrity. Bess runs by him. Gay was busy playing Brick Breaker on his Blackberry. Catch is reviewed and upheld.

Some snap flies 30 yards over Henne’s head. Kirschke walks right by the loose ball, and some lineman falls on it. Casey Hampton falls on him. Oof.

LaMarr Woodley “explodes all over Chad Henne.” Thanks, Dierdorf. That’s some good word choice.

Those are some huge defensive plays there. Miami has to punt instead of at least getting a field goal. It’s 17-10 at halftime.

HALFTIME

Somewhere in there, we saw Wes Welker get a rough looking knee-injury. Crap. As much as I hate Belichick, I like Welker and Houston needs to lose for us.

The ticker on the bottom of the screen reads 13-10 Houston and a friend of mine rooting for the Patriots texts me saying they’ve pulled Brady. Sigh.

Don Shula apparently held his 80th birthday at halftime. 80? Jesus. He’s still kickin’.

The Yellow M&M from the commercials changed voice actors.

THIRD QUARTER

Pat White replaces Chad Henne for some reason. White hands off twice. Is Henne hurt? Standing on the sidelines wearing a baseball hat?

White drops back in the shotgun. Timmons, Harrison, and Woodley are not even blocked. Welcome to the NFL. BAM. What a sack.

Logan returns a punt 19 yards (!) and the Steelers offense begins in Miami territory. Greg Gumbel informs us that Chad Henne has an eye injury. Man up, Sheila. You’ve got a football game to play.

My New England fan friend informs me that the Patriots have put Tom Brady back in the game. Yesssss. I don’t understand it but I’ll take it.

Ben gets a blitzing DB wrapped around his waist. Like he cares. He gets the ball out but Hines can’t come back to it. Punt.

Pat White looks like a ten year old in the huddle. White tries a screen to Ricky Williams. Clark sniffs it out. Williams doesn’t even go for the ball. He’s too busy trying not to get killed by a trademark Clark hit. Some other back named Ricky did that one time…

“For who? For what?”

White scampers for a first down after that. On a 3rd & 2, Gumbel and Dierdorf talk about how he’s going to have to prove he can throw. And it looks like he can’t. His next pass falls way short of an open man. Probably because he has the arms of a 9-year old girl.

Mendenhall gets a garbage run at his own 10, but some DB or something facemasked a Steeler? Bill Leavy doesn’t explain much, but it moves the Steelers up 15 yards.

Holmes zigs. Ben zags. Incomplete. Ben burns a timeout after that. Then he rolls out and picks up a first down running. So does Ward when he catches a screen pass. Mendenhall breaks away and Gibril Wilson saves a touchdown inside the 10. Timeout, Steelers.

Heath Miller is a tough S.O.B. Something like 5 defensive tackles try to wrestle him down and he just keep pumping his legs fighting for another yard. And on the next play, Ben finds him in the back of the end zone and he makes a high-wire tip-toe catch. On back to back plays, Heath Miller went from Earl Campbell to Jerry Rice. What a player. 24-10 Steelers.

Rocky Boiman stuns Ted Ginn inside the 20 for probably the first time this season.

Pat White takes off on a bootleg. Ike Taylor finds him on the sideline. I take my comment about Timmons’ sack right back. THat was not his welcome to the NFL hit. Ike Taylor’s was. White goes down. Tomlin is already calling for the medical staff.

Pat White is out cold. He doesn’t move for maybe ten minutes. By the time they get him immobilized, he’s awake and at least moving his hands.

CBS thought there was a flag on it, but Bill Parcells calls down and tells them that’s just good football. Miami punts.

Logan makes a heck of a return on a big reverse. Two linebackers have a chance to get him for a loss just ran out of gas.

Sean Smith hooks Holmes and doesn’t understand why that’s a penalty. Some non-rookie shows him how it’s done by knocking a TD away from Wallace. Hines Ward pulls a ball in and drives to the 11.

FOURTH QUARTER

Heath fumbles. That DB that could never manage to properly blitz Ben picks it up while he’s sitting out of bounds. Dude can’t catch a break. Mendenhall wanders out of bounds as a pass goes his way. Lame.

Reed punches in another field goal in an effort to stay with the Steelers over the summer. 27-10. We’ve seen the Steelers dominate everywhere but the scoreboard all season. Nice to see a big point differential.

Tyler Thigpen checks in because Chad Henne just can’t get that eyelash out of his eye. He’s their 4th QB behind Pennington, Henne, and White. Yikes.

Farrior finally shows some hustle and chases Thigpen. He throws it away. Repeat play with Woodley in pursuit, but defensive holding is the most offense the Dolphins can muster.

Does Ryan Clark start every play at the goal line? He’s always in a full sprint up to make the tackle. Thigpen seems to have realized that the Steelers’ run defense is suffocating and the pass defense is pathetic. Gay takes a pass interference penalty.

Polamalu is spotted on the sidelines wearing a headset. What?

Hartline scores on a reverse. 27-17. It’s the fourth quarter by the way. Buckle up.

Logan takes a knee. Offense sets up at the 20 and they need to put a drive together. Burn some time, wear down the defense, come away with points. Don’t leave the Dolphins enough time or willpower to mount a comeback.

Or Randy Starks could sack Ben 10 yards behind the line. Vomit. Ward gets a meaningless 5 yards. Max Starks wants his name called too, so he holds a guy. Steelers have to punt.

Crappy punt. Farrior is still old and can’t catch Anthony Fasano. Kirschke isn’t going to get a sack in the open field. Thigpen takes a shot. Bess is wide open. Touchdown. 27-24. Townsend wasn’t even close.

Sup, fourth quarter defense?

A DB chases Logan across the field on the return. Bruce Arians apparently thinks 8 minutes left with a 3 point lead is a good time to run a bunch of HB dives. Surprise, they don’t work. Ben gets sacked on 3rd & 7. Fumble. Porter recovers. Ben looks like he hurts his arm.

Clark with the goal line interception. Awesome.

Well, Ben doesn’t want to move his arm at all, but he stays in the game for some reason. Good enough though, as he hits Ward on a few quick passes. Dixon warms up on the bench. Parker grinds out a few runs. Ward gets another first and stays in bounds. Tick tick tick.

While Willie Parker is picking up massive first downs, the Patriots go for it on 4th & 3 with 14 seconds left and they don’t make it. Houston achieves its first ever winning season and Miami is thereby eliminated from playoff contention with 1:42 left in their final game.

Speaking of that game, a Willie Parker touchdown gets called back. Hines Ward was ripping some guy’s jersey off. The Steelers settle for perhaps Jeff Reed’s final Steeler field goal. 30-24.

Ike Taylor makes the play he’s been oh-so-close to making all year. He picks off a pass. I mean, that would have been a little more timely against the Raiders or whatever, but I’ll take it. Ike’s first interception of the season comes on its final play.

Game over.

Go Raiders and Bengals and Chiefs.