Steelers Begin Road to Redemption With Romp Over Seahawks
A win is a win, right? And a loss is just a loss, no? Well, unless that loss is a schellacking from your bitter rivals. But a win isn’t just a win following one of those schellackings. In order to ensure that no one needs to begin panicing about the state of the football team and the chances of ever making it back to the playoffs you have to come up with one of your own. Well THANK GOD the Steelers took that notion and squashed it down, easing all our minds here in Steelers Nation.
After committing seven turnovers a week ago, the Steelers rebounded nicely by committing none against the Seahawks. Echos of a Super Bowl XL rematch filled the air, even though pretty much none of the players on the Seahawks and only some of the Steelers were on those championship teams. Billy Leavy presiding over this game topped off the nostalgia. Eerily enough, there were a few plays that happened today that really reminded me of SBXL – like Big Ben’s rush to the end zone that fell short…. which he actually did this time. And, what about that pass from Sanders (a la ARE) to Hines Ward? The only thing missing from the game was a 99 TD run from Mendenhall.
The offense looked sharp with Roethlisberger connecting on 22 of 30 passes with 1 TD. Mike Wallace had a big day (thank you fantasy points) with 126 yards and a touchdown. Things got scary for Roethlisberger in the 2nd quarter when he was hit on a pass to Heath Miller. On a hit that looked too eerily similar to Tom Brady, nuckle head Raheem Brock went for Roethlisberger’s knees and took him down. Rothlisberger was in obvious pain and had trouble walking. He would only be gone for a short while and returned and performed as if nothing happened.
The defense was just as efficient and pretty much was able to do whatever it wanted. The Steelers D recorded 5 sacks, when last week they had only one (done only in the third quarter) against the Ravens. The defense only allowed eight first downs and did not allow the Seahawks to pass the 50 yard line until midway through the 4th.
This is the Steelers team we expect to see week in and week out. But let’s not get too too excited. It was the Seahawks who are young and beat up with key injuries. It was not difficult for the Steelers to execute efficiently and overwhelm the offensive and defensive lines of the Seahawks. But damn it sure feels good to shut out a team – especially since the Seahawks were shut out the last time they visited the ‘Burgh.
The team should be very happy with its performance. We here at NPC will look at the tapes this week and break things down. I will be interested to hear Tomlins presser this week. Perhaps his mood might a little different than last week. It was a good win and we should all be happy when we have the water cooler talk on Monday.