Stomp This: Steelers Win

After some NBC and NFL constructed fanfare and hooplah (and a lack of a flyover) the Season was ready to begin.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, does fireworks like Pittsburgh.

Team comes out together, no intros tonight.

Tennessee won the toss and deferred.

For the first time since El Yeah, we have a legit returner. It’s pretty awesome starting drives across the 40.

He goes up and snags the ball with one hand, coming down with the first turnover of the season.

Chris Johnson starts the quarter off by moving the Titans into Steelers territory on a short dump-down pass. The Steelers defense stands strong with Tennessee on the fringes of field goal range, and James Farrior comes through on a delayed blitz on 3rd down to register the Steelers only sack of the game. Punt.

Clock comes out looking much better in the 2nd quarter, hitting Heath Miller for two big catches to get us out of the shadow of our own goalposts. Heath looks like he’s ready to build off of the 3 houses and a hotel he set up in the middle of the field last year. After consecutive holding penalties thwart the Steelers ability to convert a 2nd and 1, things look dire. But at the direst of times, there is one person to turn to.

Santonio reels in a big 18-yarder across the middle to keep things rolling. Unfortunately, after the offense had had success throwing on 1st down, Arians brings back the motif offense and we have to punt.

The next drive was defined by two absolutely terrible calls, both made by the same BJ who flagged Troy earlier. On one of the most obvious calls in the history of the NFL, Kenny Britt literally ran through and pushed over Troy Polamalu, which should have been the easiest offensive pass interference call in NFL history. However, this BJ apparently had Tennessee to beat the spread, and called Troy for defensive pass interference.

Barney Frank articulates everything the fans wanted to know from that BJ.

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

Luckily, that one got called back because of an offsetting penalty on Tennessee. But we weren’t out of the water yet. The same guy calls Troy for a facemask when he was behind the play and Troy clearly had the guy’s front collar (a legal tackle, grabbing the back of the collar is illegal). Later in the game, Hines would get ripped down by Cortland Finnegan on a very similar tackle and it wasn’t called. Jokes.

Courtesy of the penalties and some precise passing from Kerry Collins, Tennessee moved into field goal range and brought out Rob Bironas for a second try. Aaron Smith gets his paw up and swats the kick away, and in the melee for the loose ball, Troy gets his knee twisted up pretty bad.

Tell it like it is Jack.

Strained MCL, should be 4-6 weeks.

The score remains 0-0 and this former Pro-Bowl kicker is 0-2.

Ben comes out and hits Santonio to move the chains as the clock winds to 2:00.

We don’t know what it is about Ben and the no huddle. Maybe it’s that Arians isn’t making the play calls. That’s a pretty likely case. Ben starts off the 2-minute drill hitting Moore on a check-down out of the backfield. On second down, Ben has all kinds of time and after a few pump fakes, finds Hines Ward wide open over the middle. Hines takes off upfield and gets inside the 40 with over a minute to play. Ben takes a timeout to set things up. He drops back, pumps towards Mike Wallace running a deep in, drawing Chris Hope up a step, then launches one for Santonio streaking across the field on a post…

Santonio acts like he’s been there before.

NBC with all the angles:

7-0

With Troy out, Tennessee’s coaches made a good decision to go to the air. Kenny Britt reels one in that looks to be relatively harmless, but breaks a few tackles and gets to the open field before being brought down at the 14. Tennessee runs a staple play of their offense. Back out of the backfield runs short, flanker goes across the middle, and Gage out of the slot runs a wheel route to the corner. Easy touchdown.

7-7

The Flash almost breaks a kick return but gets dragged down on a good play by Javon Ringer. With 48 seconds and 2 timeouts, Clock goes back to work. Miller and Ward come through with some catches to get us across midfield, but then the wheels fall off the wagon. An illegal formation penalty and a sack put us in a situation where we should just kneel on it to end the half, but Ben goes deep and has it picked off. Finnegan almost runs it back, but Starks and Miller team up for the tackle.

Halftime

Rod Woodson gets his Hall of Fame Ring

The Steelers had a vomit-inducing 14 yards rushing in the first half.

Third Quarter

Tennessee comes out determined to move the ball on the ground and has some success before James Harrison potentially ends Bo Scaife’s season with a crushing hit to his knee on a swing pass. Scaife coughed up the ball on the hit and Keyaron Fox scooped it up to put our offense in business.

Parker reels off his longest run of the game, a whopping 8 yards, but then fails to pick up 2 yards on the next 2 attempts. Superman pins them inside the 5.

With little other option, Tennessee runs 3 times and punts.

Mewelde Moore pulls in a 3rd down pass to momentarily keep the next drive alive, but it stalls out and Superman comes in again. Patrick Bailey makes a heads up special teams play and levels Finnegan who never waived for a fair catch.

Tennessee picks up one first down, but Collins gives us a gift and throws a 3rd down pass behind a wide open Justin Gage, bringing out the punt team.

Mendenhall comes back out for the motif offense.

Fourth Quarter

Superman to start the 4th.

Tennessee takes over at their 37 and Collins starts picking apart our tired defense. Things start to look dire, but Collins opts for two check-down passes to Crumpler near the Steelers 30 and the defense holds. Bironas makes his first and only field goal of the game.

10-7

Logan fields a kickoff 5 yards deep in the endzone, but flashes his way out to the 30. What a weapon. Clock comes in to do his thing out of the no-huddle. Wallace for 7. Parker for 5. Miller for 9 and 3. Just like that, the Steelers are across midfield. Holmes pulls in a quick slant for another first down as the clock rolls under 8 minutes. A good first down run by Moore is wiped out when Ben takes a sack. On 3rd and long, we needed at least 8 yards to be in comfortable field goal range, but Clock rips one to Holmes over the middle and he snags it in traffic for a 15-yarder and a first down. Moore picks up 8 on a dump-down, then does his Willie Parker impression and fails to pick up 2 yards on 2 plays. Jeff Reed comes out and ties the game.

10-10

After a first down completion to Gage, Coach Dad dials up the defense. Farrior comes with pressure and forces Collins to throw it away.

Then Big Snack comes storming up the middle and forces a throw-away. Deshea and Ty Carter blanket Gage on 3rd down and it’s punt city. Tennessee’s joke punter shanks one for 28 yards and the Steelers are in business with 2 minutes to play.

Ben hits Holmes for 12 to get into Tennessee territory, then Ward for 3 and Moore for 9.

With a minute to go, Ben hits Hines across the middle and Hines turns it upfield, breaks a tackle, cuts it back inside the 5…

…and loses the ball.
Tennessee recovers.
Steeler Nation in shock.

This was Hines’s 11th fumble of his career (he is now in his 12th year). The Great Jerry Rice had 18 fumbles in his first 11 years. Hines won’t drop another one this year. Bank it.

Tennessee runs out the clock and we head for overtime.

Overtime

Everyone waits with baited breath for the coin toss. Tennessee calls tails again.
Regression towards the mean. Heads.

Ben tells the ball boy “Get me my hat”

Ben goes right back to Hines for an 11-yard gain down the sidelines. Heath for 8 and then, on an intelligent play, Moore runs a draw play for 2 and picks up the first down. The Steelers go back to the same play, and it goes nowhere (this isn’t Madden 04 guys). Hines picks up 8 to get to 3rd and short, and Ben zips one to Santonio for the first down to move the ball to the 37. Ben almost gets sacked on first down but scrambles out of the pressure and flings one downfield which luckily falls incomplete. On second down Clock drops back…

Steps up to elude the rush and throws down the middle…

…to rookie Mike Wallace who hangs on for dear life at the 15.

Coach plays it smart and sends out the kick team.

BAM.

VICTORY.

Players of the Game:
Offensive Game Ball: Ben Roethlisberger
Defensive Game Ball: Troy Polamalu

Honorable Mentions:
Santonio Holmes
Heath Miller
Hines Ward
Jeff Reed
Daniel Sepulveda
Stefan Logan
James Farrior
Keyaron Fox
Aaron Smith

Mr. Yuck Sticker of the Game

The Offensive Line

I don’t think this one needs much explanation. 4 sacks and 36 yards rushing. They have some work to do. The four of the next six teams on the schedule run 4-3 defenses, so they’d better be ready.

Final Thoughts

• This might be a big win at the end of the year for tiebreaking purposes
• Losing Troy hurts. Damn you Madden cover.
• Tyrone Carter isn’t Troy, but he’ll do alright.
• Believe in Ben.
• We still have the best defense in the league.
• Tennessee also has a very good defense.
• Jeff Reed might be the best clutch kicker in the league right now.
• We need to get the run game going.
• Nice to see Heath Miller being involved more.
• Keyaron Fox played a great game.
• Troy could go to the Pro Bowl based on the first quarter of that game alone.
• 00Ben.