Denver Domination

Ouch. That could have gone better, both for me and for the Steelers. Due to a surprise meeting, I got to miss the first quarter and I have no DVR means at school, so that’s a quarter I’ll never get back.

Didn’t notice Pouncey at all, and that’s probably a good thing considering Jamal Williams was on him all night. Jonathan Dwyer looked good. Maybe he’ll be a gen after all.

No “after the jump” link because that’s still a little bit unintuitive in our current layout.

FIRST QUARTER

For some reason Fox is doing a game between the Broncos and Steelers. AFC showdown on Fox? Troy Aikman is not amused. How dare these non-Cowboys appear on his precious network.

Someday this season I’ll actually be able to watch a full Steeler game as it happens. As it stands, I have no idea what happened in the first quarter aside from what I learned via ESPN text message alerts. They told me that LenDale White scored a touchdown.

LenDale White is still hanging around, apparently.

SECOND QUARTER

The Steeler defense is in good form, apparently, when Silverback picks up a to-be-overturned fumble, makes a return and injures Kyle Orton. So, at the very least, he’s in good form. Brady Quinn gets sacked by Ike-freakin’-Taylor. Quinn sucks. Punt.

Dixon in with the first team. Emmanuel Sanders is also in the mix with the top WRs for a few plays. Isaac Redman looks pretty nice as a rushing fullback. That QB-Redman-Mendy backfield needs to make its way into the regular season. Dixon looks serviceable until he rolls out of the pocket, doesn’t find anyone open, has no running lanes, and then doesn’t throw it away. Interception, touchback. That is just not an acceptable decision from a guy that wants to start Week 1.

James Harrison is indeed back in form as he puts a dirty-ish hit on some lineman into a pile. It’s cool though, Woodley and Timmons make a Kyle Orton sandwich after that. Keenan Lewis literally gets penalized for “something extra at the end of the play.” This penalty is signaled by the ref moving his palm upward, as though he is gently checking Brady Quinn for testicular cancer. What does that even mean. Tomlin puts on a brand new level of angry-face and shows it to Lewis up close. Four personal fouls on the Steelers so far. I have no words for how bad that is. After one or two calls against you, how do you not stop going overboard?

Field goals look good in Denver. Steelers get the ball back.

False start.
False start.
Sanders doesn’t come back to a ball that is very nearly a pick-6 (A theme that will establish itself later). Dixon tries to pull the Roethlisberger-to-Holmes scramble but Mike Wallace can’t hang on in bounds. Double D gets hit hard on the play. Not worth a penalty, especially on a Steeler quarterback (this is, by the way, the only thing I will blame referees for every time), but if James Harrison does that I’d bet any money he gets ejected from the game.

William Gay picks off a pass to make up for never tackling and Dixon starts firing in the two-minute drill. Receivers are getting open and catching passes until Dixon gets slammed in the backfield.

Don Martindale wears awful shirts. Pick-six. Dixon tries his best to catch up to whatever joke got in the passing lane. He’s the fastest player on the field, probably, but not fast enough. 17-3 Broncos. Ugh.

HALFTIME

Mike Tomlin probably murdered someone. Tim Tebow delivered a solid interview. Birds fly, fish swim.

THIRD QUARTER

Dixon isn’t done just yet, despite having played Byron Leftwich into the starting gig. Clark Mario Haggan stuffs a run.

Tim Tebow is warming up on the sidelines despite ESPN telling me he wouldn’t play. Jonathan Dwyer is also in the game. Dennis Dixon starts running, makes a cut toward a defender, you can’t fathom why he does it, and he shifts gears Reggie-Bush style for a 29-yard run. Wow. Tyler Grisham with a nice catch. Eventually Dixon gets sacked on a 4th down. Onto the field trots Tim Tebow.

Tebow’s first play is a handoff which is swallowed for a loss. His second is a false start. Gonna have to show us what you got sooner or later, Tim. Josh McDaniels opts for later with a timeout, but Timmy does indeed show us what he’s got with a big ol’ completion on an outside throw to Brandon Lloyd. He still goes 3 and out. Punt.

Byron Leftwich enters the game and John Lynch enters the broadcast booth. Grisham gets held up on his route on third down but there’s no call. A man with long dark hair wear #43 returns the punt for Denver. That is a weird thing to see and I don’t like it.

John Lynch drops the bomb that Mike Tomlin asked him about coaching last season. Maybe would have been a good idea, as Tim Tebow is picking the Steelers’ DBs apart. Field goal, Denver.

John Lynch straight up makes fun of Troy Aikman during this drive. Awesome.

I’ll be sad when Tyler Grisham gets cut.

FOURTH QUARTER

A Denver sack gives us 3rd & 27. Imagine that, a HB Draw doesn’t work. 4th & 30. Jesus. Danny gets off a 55-yard punt in the thin Denver air.

Cerzdon Butler reads Tebow like a book. Picked off. Tebow catches him in time to shove him out of bounds inside the ten. It sucks watching Tebow do everything better than Dixon, including cleaning up his own interceptions.

When Byron Leftwich throws a pass into traffic, he’s putting receivers in danger. When Tim Tebow does it, it’s a great read and a precise throw.

Someone on the offensive staff finally remembers Jon Dwyer ran a triple-option offense in college and sends him around the end. Touchdown.

Mike Pereira comes on to talk about how no referee ever makes a mistake. Oh wait, he just makes Deal Or No Deal jokes. Fox doesn’t know what’s going on anymore. Some running back has a 43 yard run against the practice squad fodder. Tebow throws a touchdown. Whatever.

Charlie Batch is in so the game is over. Why is he getting reps? Nobody thinks he’s going to be on the team this fall. Nor is he going to show anything another team will like so he gets signed somewhere else.

Dwyer channels his inner Mike Alstott and drags 11 (maybe even 12) defenders for a first down. Then breaks away on a 40-yard dash. Pretty good series for Dwyer. Batch floats a nice pass to Justin Vincent down the sideline, but that may not be enough for either of them to last on this roster.

Batch gets a TD pass courtesy of Antonio Brown and Troy Aikman seriously suggests he could be the starter for Ben’s absence. How did this guy get a job as an analyst, much less Fox’s #1 play-by-play guy? Oh, right. Fox. Need moar Cowboys.

Oh yeah, and Brady Quinn still plays for Denver. Why did he replace Orton in the second quarter when Tebow was next in line for the reps? I guess Saint Timothy had to have a dramatic entrance and drive, he couldn’t just play a few snaps and come back out.

Brady Quinn is who he is and the Broncos offense promptly goes back to the sidelines. That #43 guy picks off a pass for a touchdown. Little bit too much of that this evening.

And then he has a massive punt return for his thousandth return yard of the half. Sepulveda misses a rare tackle but at least slows him up enough to let Sean McHugh catch him. (Related: Ben Roethlisberger let Jerame Tuman down Nick Harper in 2005)

The two minute warning occurs with 1:44 left in the game. That is how long that punt return was. The Steelers have a little goal line stand and the clock runs out.

• Leftwich starts vs the Falcons. No question anymore.
• The running backs all look pretty good.
• Charlie Batch was the best backup for the Steelers and that’s pretty sad at this stage.
• Seriously, start using that two-HB backfield.
• Thoughts on Tim Tebow probably coming this week sometime. Yeah, feeding the hype machine even here.