I hate the Eagles. I hate the Eagles more than any team in the league. I would rather lose by 30 in either of our first two games as long as we beat the Eagles by just as much. Seeing as how the Steelers played the first two games, it looked like they were going to give the Birds a good pounding. Unfortunately, how you look in your previous games of the season doesn’t matter one bit in the next game. Enough talk.
Game on.
FIRST QUARTER
Philly gets the kickoff and doesn’t mess around. McNabb rips off three straight passes to get past midfield and you’re already swearing at your television 2 minutes into the game. Brian Westbrook gets a few rushes but doesn’t really do anything with it. Tack on an offensive holding, and it’s 3rd and 17 at midfield. Great position to be in right? They won’t get this and we’re getting the ball back and shoving it down their throats. Well, not so fast. McNabb hits Jason Avant for 19 and your life sucks. Next play Donovan hits Penn State alum Tony Hunt and get jacked up 10 times. He fumbles the ball but the refs are too busy making out to notice so Tomlin has to challenge it.
“Wow, we were making out hard.”
After CBS shows the worst angles possible, the ref tells us it’s Steeler ball. Yes, looks like the game is going to go our way.
Ben starts off nice with a strike to Heath Miller. If you listened, you could hear the “Heeaaaattthh” call from the crowd, so there must have been a good turnout from Steel Town. After a defensive offsides and another nice pass to San Antonio, it’s the Steelers that are making a nice drive. Ben has a few more nice short passes to Holmes, Ward, and Washington, and we’re flirting with the red zone. Willie gets his first nice run but gets stuffed on the next play. Ben misses Hines on 3rd and a few so Tomlin has to send out Jeff Money. 37 yards?
The picture above tells the difficulty level for Jeff Reed
3-0 Steelers
Philly continues where they left off and moves down the field with a bunch of short passes and screens. The Eagles try to be tricky and do a flea flicker but it doesn’t fool the Stees. McNabb gets thrown down for a loss of 7 and time runs out in the first quarter.
SECOND QUARTER
Brian Westbrook starts the quarter with a run to the left and ends the play injured. He tripped over his own lineman’s feet and twists his right knee/ankle/leg.
Nice start to the quarter
Westbrook walks off on his own power but doesn’t return for the game. 3rd and 15. McNabb hits Hank Basket for 20. The Eagles somehow get 15 more yards but the Stees get a much needed sack. Wait, nope. Defensive offside. They get to the red zone, Donovan throws a dump pass to the left, Buckhalter gets to the edge and jumps over Ike for the score. For the first time this season, the Steelers are behind. 3-7 Eagles
Great fundamental tackle, Ike
The Stees get the ball back and Ben gets sacked. This will be a continuing theme for the second quarter. Next play Willie gets what will be his longest run of the game for 8 yards. A defensive penalty gets a first down for the Stees but Ben just gets sacked again. Two plays later, Ben gets sacked again, fumbles, and the Eagles recover. You want to punch your TV.
My thoughts exactly
The Steelers secondary continues to rip your soul out and gives up an 18 yard pass to DeSean Jackson. Getting toards the red zone again, Larry Foote gets in for another sack but it’s not enough. Akers puts through a field goal my sister could make. 3-10 Eagles
Stees get the ball back but the offensive line decides to quit already and lets Ben get sacked again. Ben gets sacked yet again on the next play but luckily they try to rip his face off in the process. This gets a 15 yard facemask, the best progress of the quarter. The offensive line is pissed they are actually gaining yards so Willie Colon gets a false start and the offensive line high fives him. Ben decides to go deep to Nate, but instead throws it to Asante Samuel. However, McNabb naturally outdo anything Ben does and throws a pick to Byran McFadden 3 plays later.
The Stees get the ball at midfield and surprisingly, Ben doesn’t get sacked on the first play. They actually move the ball to within field goal range but the offensive line will have none of that. Ben gets sacked for a loss of 7. He almost gets sacked yet again but throws the ball away. Luckily, Jeff wore his Wolverine Steel Toe Boots to the game and destroys the kick for 53 yards. 6-10 Eagles
The real man’s shoe
Eagles get the ball back with under 10 seconds left in the game. Donovan McNabb somehow gets hurt downing the ball. My Vegas odds didn’t lie.
I didn’t make that up
HALFTIME
Let’s recap the second quarter statistics:
Points Eagles scored – 10
Points Steelers scored – 3
Times Ben was sacked – 6
Plays over 10 yards for the Steelers – 0
Number of people you swore at – 17
THIRD QUARTER
You’re hoping Tomlin got them pumped for the second half to turn it around, but you quickly see he must have had an effect. They get a delay of game followed by a false start. On third and 8000, they hold yet again as Ben steps over the line of scrimmage to throw the ball to bring in 2 more penalties on the same play. 4 penalties on the first series of the half. Good start. They punt it away.
Philly fans – Attractive? No. Worthless? Yes.
Since McNabb got hurt, Kolb steps in and shows the world why he’s a backup. His first throw he aims for LJ Smith but the ball gets batted up in the air. Polamalu comes out of nowhere and grabs the ball one-handed just before it hits the ground. Yeah baby, it was time to turn it around.
And by turn it around I mean the next series the Steelers go 3 and out and punt the ball away. Sigh.
Donovan comes back into the game but doesn’t do anything with it and so the Eagles are forced to punt the ball for the first time in the game. Yippy…
The Stees get a nice grab from Heath for 16 yards which looks like it will be the start of something. Hopefully. But the Eagles continued to shut down the run as Willie gets basically no yards and the Black and Gold punt again.
The Steeler D finally start to step up and get another nice stop with the help of a Lamar Woodley sack. The Eagles give the ball right back.
Ben gets a little drive going but the clock hits all zeroes.
FOURTH QUARTER
We start again on the edge of field goal range but on 3rd down the O-line plays patty cake and lets Ben get sacked again. This pushes them out too far for Jeff’s golden leg so they have to punt.
They then keep trading punts back and forth like we all used to with Pokemon cards (you know you did). But their punter came to play. He pinned the Steelers inside their own 10 yard line on back to back plays, but that’s only after booming a 64 yard punt from his own end zone. Sick.
During one of those ridiculous punts that pinned the Steelers inside their 10, we were looking at a 3rd and 11 from our own 5. With how this game is going, you can already predict what’s going to happen next. But if you can’t predict things, then I’ll just tell you. Ben lines up in shotgun formation and the Eagles bring their whole team, cheerleaders, and fans at him. He runs around in the end zone, and gets tackled. They say it was intentional grounding but his knee was down before he threw the ball. Who cares, it was a safety either way. 6-12 Eagles
Ben decides to try things left-handed
The Steelers get the ball back after the Eagles can’t get a first down. They start to get a few things going with some short passes to get up to their 20. This is where you start to think, OK we can do this, we’re one score away. Then right after you say that, you let out a string of swear words as Ben gets sacked and fumbles on 3rd and long. The Eagles recover inside our 20.
Our D kept us in the game the whole time, and they weren’t quitting now. They stuffed three runs and made them kick another easy field goal. 6-15 Eagles
A little over 2 minutes left in the game and the Steelers have to score. But Ben isn’t out there anymore because he got hurt somehow. During the last Eagles series they show him walking to the locker room as your heart drops. I would usually call him a wuss here but after as many times as he got hit, I’m sure something isn’t feeling good. You think the game is just going to be over, but Byron gives the Steelers a little hope. He does what Ben should have been doing all game: getting rid of the ball fast on short routes. Byron drives them 51 yards to the Eagle’s red zone, the longest drive of the game since their first series of the entire game. But this was where the big controversy came in. The Stees need 2 scores no matter what and it was 4th and 10 on the Philly 20 with 37 seconds left. Tomlin goes for the first down instead of kicking the easy field goal. Phil Simms goes absolutely nuts over this and says how stupid he is and that the players are telling him to kick the field goal too. Byron throws it into the turf. Eagle ball.
Game.
What happened?
Game Notes:
– I trust Tomlin’s decision to go for the touchdown. We may be mad but I think he knows more about coaching than we do.
– Even though our offensive line sucked, we should have adapted. We shouldn’t have kept running our normal routes and went for shorter hooks or outs. Also, Ben needs to get rid of the ball faster.
– On the other end, minus the first drive of the game, our defense played great and was the sole reason we didn’t get crushed. But they still didn’t go enough pressure on McNabb.
– At least we don’t have to worry about the pressure of going undefeated this season.
Stats:
Ben – 13/25 for 131 yards. 1 INT.
Willie – 13 attempts for 20 yards.
Steelers total offense – 180 net yards.
McFag – 24/35 for 196 yards. 1 TD, 1 pick.
Buckhalter – 10 carries for 43 yards.
Eagles total sacks – 9
Both teams had 3 turnovers each.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
