\u00a0 It was a nail biter but in the end the Steelers turned back the Buffalo Bills, thanks to some timely plays and a little bit of luck. After what looked like an impressive opening\u00a0half the Steelers were forced to hold on for dear life and thanks to a Steve Johnston dropped pass rallied to hold off the Bills.<\/p>\n
The game\u00a0was\u00a0strangely reminiscent of the Kansas City game from last year. The Steelers were clearly the superior team but lost some steam and let the Bills stay close.\u00a0The offense was pounding the ball despite\u00a0the horrid play of the Offensive line. I wrote back in the mid-season report how I felt the O-line was much improved and doing better.\u00a0I don’t think that is accurate so far in the second half. They played a horrid penalty filled game. That is with them gashing the Bills for over 160 yards rushing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ben played a gutsy albeit flawed game and made some great plays when needed. His 18 yard run on a bad wheel is the stuff that people would call the intangibles. I was impressed with that play and it made me realize again that we have a playmaker at QB.\u00a0The bottom line though is he gets hit WAY too much. Part of that is his fault as he holds the ball way to long the other part is the O-line is patch work and looks and plays like patch work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite a mediocre performance by the line Rashard Mendenhall\u00a0had a great game\u00a0despite a costly fumble.\u00a0He mashed out 151 tough yards! He would have had a shot at\u00a0“The Game Beer”\u00a0but I HATE fumbles.\u00a0His performance was terrific as was his backfield mates. Isaac Redman is proving he can do it on this level as he grinded out 25 hard fought yards. Mewelde Moore is the unsung hero of the offense; he chipped in with 12 yards rushing and 33 yards receiving. This is another emerging strength of the team!\u00a0<\/p>\n
The receivers played their usual workman like game as the Rocks of the Steelers offense Hines Ward belted out a 100 yard game and Heath Miller chipped in for 46 yards! It was a quiet week for Mike Wallace, Randle El\u00a0and Manny Sanders. Sanders had a huge drop but\u00a0we will chock that up to youthful exuberance.\u00a0He had so much\u00a0green in front of him that he ran before the catch, I just wish he held on because I would have liked to see him in the open field.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As written earlier this game had the feel of last year\u2019s Kansas City game. Just like other games this season v. games last season the Steelers managed to hold onto the win. The difference being; Troy Polamalu played yesterday versus being out last season. Troy is simply a difference maker in everything he does. He is all over the field and continues to be there in the clutch. His interception was huge and would have netted him \u201cThe Game Beer\u201d had the Steelers held onto the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The defense played okay, the front seven are starting to show some wear and tear as the D-line just didn’t put together their usual game. That in effect slowed down the linebackers who played well enough to win but not the usual spectacular game. LaMarr Woodley was held on every play practically and was pulled out of position on the Bill’s “big gain”.\u00a0It was another week and I am sure another call from the league office for our\u00a0hero \u201cSilverback\u201d James Harrison. He registered a sack and\u00a0put a few licks on the Bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Jekyll and\u00a0Hyde season for the secondary continues. William Gay needs to stop\u00a0talking\u00a0(insert your expletive\u00a0here) on every freaking play. He however, had a great game filling in for Bryan McFadden and the secondary stepped up.\u00a0The Bills tried to employ the “Patriot Method” to beating the Steelers. As I pointed out\u00a0no one else has Tom Brady so it is hard to do.\u00a0 The secondary held strong for the most part. Ike Taylor played well although you will be seeing him get burned for the\u00a0next years on the OT drop by Johnston.\u00a0I recognized the ghost of Keenan\u00a0Lewis and Anthony Madison out there.\u00a0Ryan\u00a0“Crash” Clark played well and didn’t give himself or anyone else a concussion\u00a0as I mentioned Troy Polamalu just makes a difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before everyone panics as we like to do in Steelers nation, keep in mind the Bills scored 16 Points the whole game and\u00a0the TD was on a busted play that Woodley got yanked down on. The Refs absolutely hosed us every chance they could which included another\u00a0nonsense roughing the passer, phantom pass interference and several holding calls. To be fair the holding calls were\u00a0legit but were only called one way. The only reason this game was close was because the Steelers\u00a0had a huge turnover and the refs\u00a0jerked us up.\u00a0When the Bills played the “Vaunted” Ravens\u00a0defense, old Ivy Leaguer Fitzpatrick put up 382 Yards against them and\u00a0the Bills grinded out 132 yards on the ground!\u00a0They weren’t even close to making that happen yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0This leads us to next week!<\/p>\n
BEER WE GO STEELERS, BEER WE GO STEELERS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My \u201cGAME BEER\u201d goes to<\/strong>: Dan Sepulveda! Why the punter you might ask, because his OT Punt saved the gamed. He banged out a net 65 yard punt that the Bills fumbled. Honorable mention is for Troy Polamalu and Rashard Mendenhall. Not to start a rumor but Mrs. Captain Tailgate has a wicked crush on Dan!\u00a0<\/p>\n Where I watched the game: <\/strong>Quietly, depending on your perspective at KGBs, while pacing the living room and screaming at the TV. The Captain and I texted the whole time discussing’ the bad feelings this game was giving us. Didn’t eat anything or drink anything during the game except a 2 liter Diet Root Beer and went to Applebee\u2019s to celebrate afterward! \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n My thoughts on Next Week:\u00a0<\/strong>Of course this is all hinges on Ben playing; The Steelers should have beaten the Ravens once already this year. With Ben they would have, as the offense completely died in the second half.\u00a0My feeling is the Steelers are going to beat them pretty\u00a0handily this time. I know this is like playing with fire but just have a feeling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 It was a nail biter but in the end the Steelers turned back the Buffalo Bills, thanks to some timely plays and a little bit of luck. After what looked like an impressive opening\u00a0half the Steelers were forced to hold on for dear life and thanks to a Steve Johnston dropped pass rallied to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}