Plays That Changed the Games – Week 1

So I was trying to think of ideas for my next article, wondering what I could talk about.

The draft is completely blanketed, and given that I do not watch much college football, I doubt I would have anything of benefit to add.

So, I decided to look back on the season that just was and find the plays in each game that changed each game, and in so doing, the season.

In week one, the Black and Gold hosted the Atlanta Falcons.  This was the first of Big Ben’s four game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy.

Many Citizens of the Nation who I know and talked to would have been happy with a 2-2 start to the season without our star quarterback. We all thought those wins would be against the Tennessee Titans and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Atlanta was playing better toward the end of the 2009 season after having lost six of eight games in the middle of the season. Two of those loses came against division rival and eventual Super Bowl champion, New Orleans.

Obviously, everyone in the Nation wanted a win, but most people thought the Steelers would lose to Atlanta and Baltimore in the first four games.

They were half right.

Plenty of Offense, No Scoring

There was plenty of offense during the game with Atlanta. I’m not saying these teams moved the ball up and down the field on each other. I’m just saying that there was more offense than the score would indicate.

The game was mostly played between the 20-yard-lines, neither team able to find a way into the other’s end zone. The Steelers’ offense sputtered with Dennis Dixon under center, despite the fact that he had 236 yards on 18 of 26 passing with an interception. Mendenhall pitched in 120 yards rushing, but 50 of those yards came on one play.

The Steelers defense played a lot of bend, don’t break against the Falcons, allowing Matt Ryan to throw for 252 yards, but they sacked him twice and picked him once. Roddy White had 111 yards receiving, but had to catch 13 passes to get those yards. Michael Turner was held to 42 yards on 19 rushing attempts.

Warm up the kickers and punters

The Steelers took the early lead on the foot of Jeff “Skippy” Reed booting a 52-yard field goal in the first quarter. This game may have been the beginning of the end for Skippy in a Steelers’ uniform. The team will tolerate a certain amount of off-the-field issues if you are producing on the field. Once he stopped making kicks regularly, it was time for him to go. He would be gone before the end of the year.

In this game, Reed missed two field goals, one from 55 yards and one from 40. The 55 yarder we can forgive. That’s a tough kick, espeically in the swirling winds of Heinz Field, but the 40 yarder was inexcusable. Either of those kicks, had they been made, may have won the game in regulation for the Steelers.

Matt Bryant of the Falcons made three out of four kicks. His lone miss was from 46 yards. The Steelers may have dodged a bullet there because Bryant missed that 46-yarder, he made his next kick from 49.

The punters were busy in this game, too. The teams combined for 12 punts, five from Dan Sepulveda (who did not finish the season due to injury) and seven from the Falcon’s Michael Koenen.

That’s a lot of pressure on the Steelers’ special teams, who as we all know, are not the best in the league.

Bonus Football!

Like most Citizens of the Nation I know, I am not a fan of overtime where the Steelers are concerned. It seems like the Steelers always find a way to lose in overtime. They have trouble winning the coin toss even when they make the correct call. Remember the Thanksgiving 1998 game against the Lions when The Bus made the correct call but the ref told him he had called the coin flip incorrectly? The Steelers lost that game in overtime. Yeah, that was fun.

Fast forward to September, 2010. The Falcons got the ball first (naturally) in the overtime period, but could not get anything going. A penalty on the kickoff pushed them back to their own 9-yard-line, then another penalty on 3rd-and-7 from their 24 pushed them back again to their 14. They were forced to punt.

The Steelers got the ball on the 50-yard-line and it only took one play to end the game.

The Play

On the Steelers’ first offensive play in overtime, Rashard Mendenhall ran off the right tackle, broke through the line and was gone for the touchdown, ending the game and giving the Steelers a 1-0 record. The play was eeriely similar to the Willie Parker’s run to start the second half of Super Bowl XL.

Only one Falcon even manages to touch Mendy, and that is an attempted shoe-string tackle at their 20 yard line. ‘Shard manages to keep his feet and glides in to end the game.

Take a look at the play, courtesy youtube.com.

That play, and the win, started the Steelers off on the right foot and set the tone for what would be a very memorable first quarter of the season in a very memorable year.