Steelers MMQB: NFL Week 8 Wrap Up

What We Learned in Week 8 in the NFL:

• Early London wakeup call
• The Ravens done-in by a costly OPI call
• No one wants to win the NFC South
• Tom Brady throws 5 TD’s and Pats beat the crap out of the Bears
• Ben Roethlisberger tops not just Brady but any other quarterback on a Sunday in ever
• Steelers dominate on offense; capitalize on Luck’s mistakes for defense

If you would have told me on Sunday morning that the Steelers were going to score 51 points against a Colts team who had just shutout the Bengals the week before, I would have called you a damn, dirty liar and wondered why you were so inebriated so early in the morning. Perhaps it was because of that 9:30 EST kickoff for the second London NFL game this season between the Detroit Lion and Atlanta Falcons. The NFL wanted to give London a taste of a regular kickoff time, by giving them the game at 1:30, their time, which translated to an early morning game for those of us on the east coast. I’m not opposed to this because that just means that the regular 8 hours or so of football there is to enjoy had suddenly turned into over twelve hours. I still don’t agree with the London games though, now there’s a report that the league wants 5 games there next year. Yikes. Oh, and an actual game was played there on Sunday too. The Detroit Lions looked still asleep in the first have and let the Atlanta Falcons jump out to a 21-0 halftime lead before coming back and scoring 22 unanswered points as then it was the Falcons time to fall asleep at the wheel.

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The probably soon-to-be-patented “Flacco Special” involves Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco heaving the ball as far as he can get it, he’s got a powerful arm, and then hoping that the receiver he has targeted either makes whatever athletic move is necessary to make the catch, or gets the benefit of a DPI call and the ball is spotted down the field anyway. Then “analysts” far and wide get to debate over Flacco’s “eliteness”. Rinse and repeat. It’s a system that works pretty well for them most of the time. It won them a friggin Super Bowl for crying out loud. That’s why there is no one in Steeler Nation, let alone the rest of the league, who feels bad for the Ravens who lost a potential 80-yard game-winning touchdown from Flacco to Steve Smith when it was called back due to offensive pass interference. Considering that it was Steve Smith who got that call, there was probably no question that the 147-year old did indeed push off or whatever hold he had to make to get the separation he needed. Tough break, but not really.

Each season there seems to be a division where no one really emerges as a front runner right away. This year it’s the NFC South where none of the four teams have a winning record through eight weeks of football. That shouldn’t be the case in a division where Drew Brees, Cam Newton, and Matt Ryan are the quarterbacks, but this is the NFL, so anything can happen. The rest of the NFC South should be afraid of Drew Brees’ Saints, after they knocked off Aaron Rodgers and the Packers on Sunday night football, but the Saints definitely took advantage of a Rodgers hamstring injury that led to some very uncharacteristic Rodgers-play. The Packers turned the ball over three times and the Saints were able to benefit fully from those turnovers.

Tom Brady threw for 354 yards and five touchdowns on Sunday as the Patriots beat the Bears 51-23. Blah Blah Blah, know who outdid Brady?

Ben Friggin Roethlisberger, that’s who. Ben not only had a career day himself, but he put on one of the most impressive quarterbacking performances anyone had ever seen on an NFL football field, in ever. Ben went 40 for 49 for 522 passing yards and six touchdowns. The Steelers offense definitely needed a blowout performance to keep up with a Colts offense which was one of the top scoring offenses in the league going into this game. Ben Roethlisberger is now the only NFL quarterback in history to have two 500+ passing games in his career. He also earned his milestone of joining Tom Brady, Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era to win at least 100 games in their first 150 starts.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck has been working on a streak of his own. He came into Sunday’s game with a five-game streak of 300+ passing yards games and got his sixth one by throwing for 400 yards against the Steelers. He and Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton were definitely in sync and Hilton grabbed six receptions for 155 yards and a touchdown. But, it was Luck’s mistakes that proved to be the difference maker in preventing this from being a quarterbacking duel of a game. Luck threw two interceptions, one a pick-six to William Gay, and was called for intentional grounding in the end-zone which gave the Steelers a safety. A game after grabbing three turnovers from the Houston Texans, the Steelers defense also made just enough “splash” plays to get the job done, they also benefitted from the Steelers almost 40 minutes time of possession for the game.

On to the Ravens!

Here we go Steelers! Here we go!