Steelers lean on Big Ben’s arm to beat Titans

The Pittsburgh Steelers it seems are going to stay with this Ben Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes mishmash until somebody beats them. Jeff Reed kicked a 33-yard field goal with 4:32 left in overtime and the Super Bowl champion Steelers again relied on Roethlisberger’s capability to lead clutch scoring drives to pound the Tennessee Titans 13-10 in the NFL season opener Thursday night. The Steelers, their running game ballooned by Tennessee’s defense, didn’t get going until Roethlisberger began frequently finding Holmes and Hines Ward open downfield. Roethlisberger was 33 of 43 for 363 yards, with Holmes—the Super Bowl stars—making nine catches for 131 yards and a touchdown and Ward, regardless of a potentially costly fumble, making eight for 103.

Holmes’ figures were exactly the same as the Super Bowl, when he caught the winning 6-yard touchdown pass from Roethlisberger in the last minute to beat Arizona 27-23. Thursday’s victory might be expensive, however—star safety Troy Polamalu, the top player on the field during the first half, sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee on a blocked field goal. Coach Mike Tomlin said the injury typically sidelines a player 3 to 6 weeks.

Pittsburgh (2-2) at Detroit (1-3)

The Pittsburgh Steelers won’t depart with the Vince Lombardi Trophy this time, but their second successive victory and first road win would suffice. Back at Ford Field on Sunday for the first time ever since their Super Bowl victory more than three years ago, the Steelers faces a Detroit Lions team that might be without its starting quarterback. Pittsburgh hasn’t played a road game against the Lions since a 19-16 overtime loss on Nov. 26, 1998, but the Steelers last played at Ford Field on Feb. 5, 2006, when they beat Seattle 21-10 in Super Bowl XL. While the buildup to Sunday’s matchup pales in comparison to that surrounding the Steelers’ last trip to the Motor City, coach Mike Tomlin sees plenty of value in a win over the lowly Lions.

Whoever starts under center for Detroit would be at a major disadvantage if Calvin Johnson can’t play. The third-year receiver was also held out of practice Wednesday after taking a helmet to the thigh in the fourth quarter last weekend. Johnson had season highs with eight catches and 133 yards against Chicago. Steeler’s wide receiver Hines Ward caught eight passes for a season-best 113 yards last Sunday. Ward, the Super Bowl XL MVP, needs 70 receiving yards Sunday to bind with Andre Rison for 30th all-time with 10,205. Pittsburgh has won 10 of its previous 12 meetings with Detroit.

Pittsburgh (-10.5) vs. DETROIT

The ratings favor Pittsburgh by 15 points in this game, but that’s assuming the Steelers play at their normal high level. That’s probably not likely with Pittsburgh coming off 4 consecutive challenging games, who won’t be able to avoid an emotional letdown against the lowly Lions. Pittsburgh is only 5-11-1 ATS as a road favorite ever since 2006, including 2-9-1 ATS after a win and 2-8 ATS against a non-division foe.

Daunte Culpepper gets the start in place of injured rookie Matthew Stafford and that’s likely to mean fewer interceptions (Stafford threw 6 picks in 3 1/2 games). If Pittsburgh doesn’t endure a letdown then they will probably cover the spread, but the Steelers apply to a negative 27-64-3 ATS road favorite letdown situation and Detroit applies to a 90-36-4 ATS blowout bounce-back situation that plays on teams after losing by 20 points or more (there is obviously more to that angle that just that). With the math favoring Pittsburgh and the situation favoring Detroit maybe it is to best avoid this game.

Big Ben No Longer Needs To Defend His Linemen

Ben Roethlisberger’s appearance on the WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” telecast didn’t register any ratings in Mike Tomlin’s household—nobody watched. The Steelers coach would have his three young children spend time wrestling with their homework. While Tomlin wasn’t excited about his quarterback’s in-season sideshow, any coach would have liked this display of teamwork: Roethlisberger made sure his lineman were part of the act, too. Roethlisberger’s stats are up this season and his sack total is down, and it’s not coincidental. An offensive line that was viewed as the Steelers’ weakness a season ago is playing much better, as evidenced by Rashard Mendenhall’s 165 yards rushing and Roethlisberger’s 333 yards passing and 78.8 completion percentage during a 38-28 victory over San Diego on Sunday.

The offensive line of Max Starks, Chris Kemoeatu, Justin Hartwig, Trai Essex and Colon also is a throwback to a different time when NFL players, especially those who weren’t married, would go out with each other after practice. The linemen no longer require Roethlisberger to come to their defense, now that they’re doing a more than enough job of protecting him.

Merriman Not Happy With GM’s ‘Soft’ Comments

Chargers outside linebacker Shawne Merriman wasn’t too happy reading a comment from general manager A.J. Smith that the team’s play at times this year has been “soft and bewildered.” The Chargers were defeated 38-28 at Pittsburgh on Sunday night, falling behind 28-0 and allowing the defending Super Bowl champions to pile up 497 yards of offense. San Diego is at 2-2 heading into its bye week, and already is two games behind the Denver Broncos in the AFC West.

Merriman returned to the lineup this season after having surgery on his knee sidelined him for the final 15 games of 2008, plus two playoff games. He’s been in and out of the lineup this season as he works to regain full strength, and has been affected by a groin injury he said he got from overcompensating for the knee injury. Nicknamed “Lights Out” because of his hard hits, Merriman said he’s willing to shoulder the responsibility of the Chargers playing with more attitude and aggression.

Steelers RB Parker Not Optimistic About Playing

Pittsburgh Steelers running back Willie Parker isn’t hopeful about playing in Detroit. An injured left big toe kept Parker out of the Steelers’ 38-28 win over San Diego on Sunday and Rashard Mendenhall rushed for 165 yards and two touchdowns in his place. With Mendenhall pushing to replace him as the starter, Parker didn’t practice Wednesday as his toe still hasn’t healed yet.

Parker has said that he wants to show the world what he still got. I think the toe injury is hindering him to do that. He has said that he’s a competitor and he wants to compete but at the same time, he has to be smart about it too. If he rushes back from this injury, he might just get injured again and be forced into an early retirement. As of now, Parker is not where he needs to be in terms of playing again. When Parker last played in Detroit, his 75-yard touchdown run helped the Steelers pound Seattle 21-10 in the Super Bowl 41.

Panthers Coach Fox Has Overcome Poor Start Before

Carolina Panthers coach John Fox’s head is full of cliches and cheesy motivational sayings used to calm, motivate and educate his players. Some, like, “It’s not where you start the race, it’s where you finish it,” have been in vogue in the past week. And while only three teams since 1990 have recovered from the Panthers’ current predicament of 0-3 to reach the playoffs, Fox’s words hold some weight. He was part of the biggest 360 degree turn in the modern age, serving as an assistant in San Diego in 1992 when the Chargers started 0-4 only to win 11 of their final 12 games to win the AFC West.

Fox was 37 when he left a job as Pittsburgh’s secondary coach to take the same job for new Chargers coach Bobby Ross. San Diego hadn’t reached the playoffs in a decade and went 4-12 a year before. The Chargers then scored only 29 points in their opening four games in 1992, including a 27-0 loss to Houston that had them to 0-4. Turning things around in Carolina won’t be simple. The Panthers have a minus-8 turnover margin, are allowing 182.7 yards rushing per game and can’t seem to tackle anybody. So maybe Julius Peppers can direct his inner O’Neal, who recorded 17 sacks in 1992 and maybe a rookie can make an impact like Seau.

Steelers Hold Off Chargers Rally

This is what the Pittsburgh Steelers couldn’t do the past few games, get Rashard Mendenhall going. Mendenhall aided the Steelers run up a big lead, and then made sure they didn’t give it away with one more fumbled fourth quarter. Mendenhall surpassed his preceding career totals with 165 yards rushing and two touchdowns, Ben Roethlisberger got Pittsburgh going with his passing and the Steelers opened a 28-point lead before holding on to defeat the San Diego Chargers 38-28 on Sunday night. Running back Mewelde Moore had a touchdown and threw for another to Heath Miller on a goal-line play as the Steelers, defeated in the dying seconds by Chicago and Cincinnati the prior two weeks, built such a big lead that this bad fourth quarter didn’t matter. Jeff Reed finished it off with a 46-yard field goal in the closing minute.

Roethlisberger completed 26 of 33 passes for a total of 333 yards and Ward caught eight for 113 yards. Roethlisberger had the Steelers moving so fine early on, Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin permitted him to sneak for a first down on a fourth-and-1 from the Steelers’ 30 on the drive that gave Pittsburgh’s third touchdown, on Mendenhall’s 2-yard run.

Bengals Squeak Past Browns in OT

Marvin Lewis wanted to play it out of harm’s way. The Cincinnati Bengals wanted a victory. After Palmer and his teammates persuaded their coach to risk on fourth-and-11 with just over a minute remaining, Palmer scrambled for 15 yards to position Shayne Graham’s 31-yard field goal on the last play of overtime, giving Cincinnati a 23-20 win over the listless Cleveland Browns on Sunday. The Bengals, whose all four games have all gone down to the last second, faced a fourth and 11 at Cleveland’s 41 with 1:04 remaining on the clock. Lewis was at ease to play for the tie, but when the Browns called a timeout, it gave the Bengals an opening to convince their coach. They made a convincing argument indeed. Carson Palmer dropped back to pass, and seeing his receivers were all covered downfield, tucked it away and ran for a first down. Cincinnati then ran two plays to get Graham in position, and the kicker kicked the winner.

Palmer, who led a rally last week when the Bengals won over the Super Bowl champion Steelers last Sunday, finished 23 of 44 for 230 yards. Chad Ochocinco caught two of his touchdown passes.

Jaguars Vs. Titans

I am rating Tennessee at just 0.6 points better than an average team heading into this season so it’s not such a huge surprise that the Titans are 0-3 after going 13-3 last season. The Titans have actually played at a continuously good rate, as they have out-gained the Jets, Texans and Steelers 5.6 yards per play to 5.1 yppl. Jacksonville, on the other hand, has been out-gained 5.6 yppl to another 6.3 yppl by teams that would out-gain an average team by 0.7 yppl, so the Jaguars haven’t played that bad either. My ratings favor Tennessee by just 1 point and using this year’s games only would result in a math prediction of Tennessee by 2 points. With that being the case, I’ll lean with the dog.

Question we can ask ourselves is will the Titans go 0-4? Who will start in week 4 for the Titans? Nevertheless, I’m going for the FG dog. Woof!

Mike Wallace is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Best No. 3 Option at WR

After a slow 1-2 start and an even slower start for the Steelers’ offense, many are beginning to question Pittsburgh’s ability to make an actual run at defending their title in 2009. Some blame Big Ben while others want to blame the defense and others want to blame the coaches. In my opinion, there is really only one reason that the Steelers are 1-2 right now instead of 2-1 – Limas Sweed.

Mike Wallace caught 7 passes for 102 yards and despite Wallace having not yet scored his first career touchdown, he has made a huge impact on the team so far. He has 12 catches on the season for 147 yards, but there are two big plays that have actually stood out for me. Of course there is the one just last week for a 51 yard completion from Big Ben where he flat out blew past the guy defending him and caught it. A little bit more alertness from him could have lead to a touchdown on that play. The other one was in Week One, in overtime he caught the big pass from Roethlisberger that gave the Steelers good enough field position for Jeff Reed to kick (and make) an easy field goal. He’s also the fastest guy on the team. An obvious deep threat that will most likely be used more with Ben’s increasing pass attempts per game. If the Steelers are going to turn things around, they are going to have to get Mike Wallace mixed up as much as they can, and use Limas Sweed as little as they can.

Bears VS. Lions

Detroit finally won a game last week, but don’t be fooled by their win over the Redskins. The Lions were outnumbered 5.3 yards per play to 7.0 yards per play by Washington and other teams are not going to be as inept in the red zone as the Redskins are. For the season Detroit has averaged only 4.5 yards every play (against teams that would allow 5.0 yards for every play to an average team) while allowing a horrendous 6.6 yards for every play (to teams that would combine to average 5.7 yards per play against an average team).

Chicago has out-gained their tougher than average schedule (Green Bay, Pittsburgh and Seattle) 5.3 yards per play to 4.8 yards per play and my ratings favor the Bears by 15 points in this game while the math using this year’s games only would favor them by 17 1/2 points. Unfortunately, Chicago applies to a negative 72-147-3 ATS big home favorite letdown situation while Detroit applies to a 44-14-3 ATS week 4 angle.

Bengals End Domination of Steelers in Cincy

Carson Palmer’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell with 14 seconds left gave a 23-20 victory Sunday that ended the Pittsburgh Steelers’ nearly decade-long domination in Cincy, one that appeared set to go on for an indefinite period of time until the closing drive. Pittsburgh had won its last eight games on Cincinnati’s home field. The last time the Bengals beat them was in 2001, when Chad Ochocinco was a rookie who hardly ever started and still went by the name of Johnson.

The defending Super Bowl champs conquered most of the game but shattered chances to put the Bengals away. Jeff Reed missed one more field goal, and Limas Sweed dropped a pass in the end zone, keeping it tight to the end. Palmer led the Bengals on a 16-play, 71-yard drive against one of the league’s best defenses, frequently converting there-or-else passes. His 11-yarder to Brian Leonard on 4th-and-10 moved the ball to the 4. After a spike to stop the clock, Palmer found Caldwell open in the center of the end zone to finish Pittsburgh’s domination of 8 years here in Cincy.

Next Page »