Patriot Games
By Staff
Ben Roethslisberger stares deeply into Tom Brady’s eyes.
I don’t have a huge problem with Anthony Smith’s guarantee of a Pittsburgh Steelers victory over the New England Patriots, even with the Steelers loss. After the guarantee, his face was all over SportsCenter. If the Steelers would have won, we’d be calling Smith ‘Nostradamus’. But since they don’t win, the worst case scenario now for Smith is going back to the relative obscurity he dwelled in before the game. However, right now Smith is claiming he was misquoted. Absolutely unbelievable. If you’re gonna say it, then don’t back down, it just makes you look like a punk, and not the punk rocker kind.
In other Anthony-Smith-is-an-idiot news, I know you all saw Tom Brady uncharacteristically jawing at him after the first Patriots touchdown. But what you didn’t see on television was Smith screaming profanities at Brady while both were warming up. Smith admitted this to the media after the game, but I suppose by now he’s probably claiming he was misquoted on that as well. It’s possible that Brady did deserve a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct for that, but get over it, like that would have made a difference anyway.
Speaking of getting over it, it’s time to face it: like it or not, the New England Patriots are by far the best team in the NFL this year. They’re so good that they’re probably going to be a legendary team spoken about the same way the ’75 Steelers, the ’72 Dolphins, and the ’85 Bears are. Ben Roethlisberger spoke with Tom Brady immediately after the game and was gracious enough to congratulate him on the season he’s having and tell him he’s enjoying watching him play. And Steeler fans, if Big Ben can do it, you should be able to do it as well. I’m not saying you have to be fans of the Patriots (I know I’m not), but without taking anything away from the Steelers, they’re simply not in the same class as the Patriots. Although the Steelers probably could have come up with a more effective game plan and benefited from some more aggressive play calls, I don’t think it would have made a difference in the outcome of the game. I think it might even be possible that the Steelers could have played to the best of their ability and avoided making any obvious mistakes and still lost. The biggest thing that makes this year’s Patriots team better than last years? Tom Brady demanded that ownership get him some better free agent wide receivers during this last off-season. The Rooneys should probably think about that, because the Steelers right now are a good football team that is not that far away from being either a great football team, or a bad football team. I fear that if Ben demanded ownership acquire some Pro Bowl-caliber wide receivers in the upcoming off-season, they’d only do it if the receivers’ salary came out of Ben’s salary.