By Guest Blogger; Tom Janicki, Beer We Go Founder and President
After a long writing hiatus, it’s good to be back in the saddle. Especially with our Pittsburgh Steelers toting an undefeated 5-0 record after a complete domination of the Cleveland Browns. The Browns came into this game riding a 4-game win streak and gaining mainstream media relevancy. For the first time in a very long time, there were serious discussions of the rivalry. The hype leading in carried into the Browns winning…the coin toss. The Browns deferred the kick and the Steelers controlled the line of scrimmage from the 1st to the final play of the game. We won every facet of this game.
The play of the game was delivered by the defense early in the 1st quarter. After the Steelers settled for a Boswell field goal to take a 3-0 lead, On the Browns opening offensive series, after two uneventful runs, Baker dropped back and completed his first pass to none other than Steelers Safety FitzMagic. Big Play Minkah strikes again with a pick six making the score 10-0 (we have been missing this nose for the football this year).
After a series of punts and very few first downs by the Brownies the Steelers offense went back to work scoring touchdowns on consecutive drives sandwiched by a Cam Sutton Interception. Mapletron sparked the first offensive touchdown drive with a technical sideline catch which needed to be reviewed for a score but his elbow was down that led to James Conner punching it in on the next play. The other 1st half TD came from Big Ben to James Washington who beat the Browns defense like a rented mule. The route was on.
The only game negative that I can recall occurred in the 2nd half as Devin Bush was hustling to make a routine tackle and seemed to blow out his knee. This will be a big blow to the middle of the defense. Marcus Allen and Robert Spillane are not household names Z(yet) and this scares me. I’m hopeful that this injury does not change our ridiculous run defense, however, it is hard to replace a sideline to sideline defender such as Devin Bush. He will be missed.
Beer We Go Steelers, Beer We Go!
My “GAME BEER” goes to: I’m tempted to give this to Baker Mayfield for gift wrapping this Steelers victory, however, I’ll go with Minkah Fitzpatrick for helping us put our foot on their throat and never letting them breathe
Where I watched the game: Home Sweet Home. Yes, it is sad to think of the impact that 2020 has dealt us. We are typically hanging out with the Harkins crew, the Terrible Bra and Pope Yinzer on Sunday mornings then meandering our way to 524 Row A to lose our voices in the moments. Instead, we were loaded up with Miller Lites and had a spread of food that included chicken cheese nachos, meatball hoagies and Aldi’s brand pizza (it’s acceptable to go cheap if that is what the majority of young boys prefer…). We were joined to watch with the Foster’s (Jim, Sherry, Tate, Julian & James) and half the Hrebik’s (Jason and Jayden), Big thanks goes out to the families that accepted our invite. The scare of the game occurred when Julian (7?) was throwing a “soft” ball into the couch and then shifted his brain into deciding to pick up the “hard” ball. He threw the ball at half speed, which was hard, and missed the couch high which happened to be the window. Actually shocked that the window did not break from the force of the ball. Causality of the game goes out to Tate’s JuJu jersey which occurred in the 2nd half when the game wasn’t holding the boy’s attention and they went into the backyard to play a real game. Jayden tore the arm sleeve thus, we turned the shirt into a muscle shirt (sleeveless). We shall see if this style will be trend worthy…keep wearing it Tate, the sleeveless JuJu has more wins in it.
My Stat of the week: The Browns came in leading the NFL in rushing offense at over 200 yards per game and our Pittsburgh Steelers held them to 75 yards on the ground. We continue to make teams one dimensional.
My thoughts on next week: Next weeks game, Derek Henry will be our toughest test and if we can hold him down the NFL will need to be on high alert.
This week’s Jersey: NA