The Steelers quest for the a seventh Super Bowl was held in check Sunday as the Green Bay Packers held the Steelers off for a 31-25 win! This marks the return of the Vince Lombardi trophy to Green Bay and the end of a dream in Pittsburgh!<\/p>\n
The Steelers buried themselves early with a 21-3 deficit giving up 14 points on two turnovers! As I have reported almost every week, the only way the Steelers could lose is to turn the ball over. It is the simplest formula in sports, the team with the\u00a0plus side of the turnover ratio wins. The Steelers turned the ball over\u00a0THREE times for 21\u00a0points. That is a ridiculous figure and\u00a0the fact that they still were in a position to win is amazing to me. It is a good testament to the coaching staff that had a pretty dismal day.<\/p>\n
Statistics can never accurately explain a story. The Steelers had great stats and for the most part had a productive day. The issue was they never made the plays when they needed it most and again, the biggest stats, turnovers, were\u00a0the killer!\u00a0<\/p>\n
At no point was there panic, even down 21-3, as I knew the team could come back. The offense made several great plays and rallied to get right back in the game. The defense made some key stops to keep the game close and the Steelers somehow managed to be in position to take the lead back.<\/p>\n
But in the end, they just couldn’t do it.<\/p>\n
So as the national media prepares to jump off the\u00a0Big Ben Bandwagon, I can tell you I, for one, was proud of his efforts. Yes, two turnovers that led to 14 points is simply atrocious. What I liked though, is that he never gave up and made a good accounting of himself and finished strong. It is easy to\u00a0scoff now, but I can tell you I thought; give us the ball with two minutes, one timeout and Ben will make it happen. He didn’t do it this time but he will be back. I am certainly not going to put the goat horns on Ben, not for one second! \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Steelers ran\u00a0pretty much at will, and that I felt that\u00a0would be why they would win.\u00a0But again it was a turnover that would derail them. \u00a0Rashard Mendenhall’s fumble was the back breaker. I would point out ALL the turnovers were the backbreaker, but that was the final nail in the coffin as the Steelers couldn\u2019t recover.<\/p>\n
Focusing on the positives, Hines Ward is a warrior.\u00a0I\u00a0can’t say enough nice things about him\u00a0as a player and as competitor. I laughed when I read he would be a non-factor. He racked\u00a0up 78 extremely tough yards and a touchdown. I have harped on it all season and I will say it again, I love this receiving\u00a0core and seeing the ghost of Randle El was nice as well! This is a major strength for the Steelers moving forward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sean Kugler should be the mayor of Pittsburgh!\u00a0If you have a crisis I am putting this guy\u00a0on it. The\u00a0offensive line played extremely well, Ben was sacked once\u00a0but he had ample protection. The running game grinded the ball out to the tune of 126 yards on the ground. That is simply great. I wanted Anthony Munoz over Sean\u00a0Kugler, because he was a big name and probably one of the greatest tackles of all times! I couldn’t have been more wrong.\u00a0Well to be truthful, I wanted Mean Joe Greene over Bill Cowher and I wanted Russ Grimm over Mike Tomlin so\u00a0maybe\u00a0I have been “wronger”! But, he deserves\u00a0enormous credit. The patchwork line ran all over the World Champs and basically shutout Clay Matthews Jr.! Can you imagine what this line will be like next\u00a0year when we have both tackles back, a healthy Pouncey and\u00a0Doug Legursky!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although, I have been killing the refs all year and they have been abysmal, I thought Sunday\u2019s game was one of the best officiated games of the year. I thought they made excellent calls all day and I couldn’t argue with any calls or non calls the whole day. The last play was the right call. I wish it wasn\u2019t but I have to be honest and that was the right call!<\/p>\n
As for the Packers, the guy who deserves the credit was Aaron Rodgers. He played a great game and did an excellent job. He certainly was deserving of the MVP and my hat goes off to him. If I had to hear one more time about Brett Favre\u2019s shadow I was going to puke. This guy is a winner and he proved it Sunday.\u00a0Greg Jennings has the makings of a true superstar as well, very classy and a solid player! It was a great night for them and I would take nothing away from their performances!<\/p>\n
Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The SUPER BOWL FACTS:<\/strong><\/p>\n My \u201cGAME BEER\u201d goes to<\/strong>:\u00a0Hines Ward! A true warrior and I hope he is back next year! Honorable Mentions: The Offensive Line, who played great and LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison who didn\u2019t get the press this week that they deserved in light of Clay Matthews Jr. and totally outplayed him.<\/p>\n Where I watched the game:\u00a0<\/strong>KGB’S and we hosted over 20 BEER WE GO FAITHFUL. Everyone brought something great with my favorite being Steeler Nachos! The pictures will be coming!\u00a0<\/strong>I am actually eating leftovers as I type this. We had a tailgate out in the driveway which garnered a few honks. We pounded the Iron City and the Iron City light without mercy!<\/p>\n My thoughts on Next Week: <\/strong>This is going to be a long offseason, especially with labor issues looming. We are going to publish EVERY week here and sometimes twice a week. I also will allow guest writers of BWG and I invite feedback. Next week I am going to recap the season and post a ton of pictures! Stay with us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Steelers quest for the a seventh Super Bowl was held in check Sunday as the Green Bay Packers held the Steelers off for a 31-25 win! This marks the return of the Vince Lombardi trophy to Green Bay and the end of a dream in Pittsburgh! The Steelers buried themselves early with a 21-3 […]<\/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-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bwg-gr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","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=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bwgsteelers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}