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LaMarr Woodley

Week 6 Recap: Yo Gobble Gabbert

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Sometimes you drink the wine and sometimes you stomp the grapes. This week, the [intlink id=”21″ type=”category”]Pittsburgh Steelers[/intlink] put on a performance more reminiscent of prune juice. It started off nice and smooth but about an hour and a half later you were left with a queasy feeling that had you praying to the porcelain god that the whole ordeal would soon be over.

The scoreboard says the Black and Gold defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-13. The Pessimistic Inner Yinzer says, “Hey yous guys, we was lucky to walk away with a W. Against a halfway decent team, we wouldn’t be so lucky n’at.” Bill Cowher was fond of saying you are what your record says you are while [intlink id=”86″ type=”category”]Mike Tomlin [/intlink]likes to say there are no awards for style points. Well, the win-loss column may say the Steelers are 4-2 but the style of play tells me this is not a 4-2 caliber team.

Picking up from last week’s thumping of the Tennessee Titans, the Steelers dominated on both sides of the ball for the first thirty minutes. The offense racked up 315 yards of total offense while the defense held Jacksonville under 90. [intlink id=”88″ type=”category”]Rashard Mendenhall[/intlink] ran like a spy drone was hot on his tail, ripping off a 68 yarder in route to a 113 yard first half performance. [intlink id=”14″ type=”category”]Ben Roethlisberger[/intlink] completed 11 passes for 181 yards, highlighted by a 28 yard touchdown to [intlink id=”82″ type=”category”]Mike Wallace[/intlink]. His opposite number, Jacksonville rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert, couldn’t get anything going. He was under constant siege from a ferocious Blitzburgh defense, particularly [intlink id=”70″ type=”category”]LaMarr Woodley[/intlink] and  Brett Keisel, who would finish with two sacks apiece.
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Week 5 Recap: In Max We Trust

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Go figure.

Almost half their starting defense out. Top two running backs injured and a starting quarterback who’s a walking limping human bruise. A never-ending revolving door along the offensive line now featuring a starting left tackle that allegedly suffered a career-ending injury last year and was only re-signed on Tuesday. Facing off against a 3-1 team with the sixth ranked defense and one of the top five running backs in the NFL.

And what happens?

The [intlink id=”21″ type=”category”]Pittsburgh Steelers[/intlink] completely obliterate the Tennessee Titans 38-17. Unlike previous weeks, the final score is precisely indicative of how the game actually went. To say this was the Black and Gold’s finest performance of 2011 would be a colossal understatement. To say they finally looked like the team that went to last year’s Super Bowl would be far more accurate.
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Week 1 Recap: Ravens Humiliate Steelers

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Who saw that coming?

The [intlink id=”141″ type=”category”]Baltimore Ravens[/intlink] handed the [intlink id=”21″ type=”category”]Pittsburgh Steelers [/intlink]one of the most humiliating defeats in franchise history yesterday afternoon. The final score of 35-7 doesn’t even begin to accurately describe the level of domination the Ratbirds displayed in humbling the defending AFC Champions. This was the team’s first opening day loss since 2003 and their worst opening defeat in 14 years.  The Steelers had seven turnovers, the most in any single game going all the way back to September 24, 1995.

This was the Ravens’ Super Bowl and they played like their season depended on each and every play.  I’m only shocked they didn’t dump Gatorade on their coach when the final whistle blew. Speaking of head coach John Harbaugh, what a shameful display of showboating. Refusing to call off the dogs when the game was comfortably in hand is one thing, fist pumping and acting the fool is absolutely uncalled for. When he dialed up a fake kick/2 point conversion when an extra point would have sufficiently put them ahead by three scores, the message was clear. Then, late in the fourth quarter with the game clearly over, he had Joe Flacco throwing bombs in to the end zone in an obvious effort to run up the score.

I’m not going to complain about that or the thuggish Ravens going after Troy Polamalu and Ike Taylor inciting a near brawl in the third quarter (which somehow ended with only Ike getting a penalty although I’m sure the Ginger Dictator will find some way to fine the entire defense).  The word “class” is associated with Baltimore about as often as Justin Beiber is associated with masculinity. The Ratbirds swagger and boast when the Steelers are dominating them, what should we expect when they actually win for once?
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Hate Is Strong Between Ravens And Steelers

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Perhaps no football cliche is overused more than than the dreaded “Bulletin board material.” The term amuses me for several reasons.   First, there is nothing more boring than the canned responses the traditional media frequently receives from athletes.  When a player finally steps outside that comfort zone and says something like “I think we’re gonna win,” the reporters gasp at their audaciousness.  Then the next day, we see any number of talking heads rant excitedly about said player providing “Bulletin board material” to his opponents.

Which is why the Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry with the [intlink id=”141″ type=”category”]Baltimore Ravens[/intlink] is so refreshing.  The teams hate each other and they aren’t shy about it.  Terrell Suggs famously showed up to training camp wearing a shirt which proclaimed his hatred of the Steelers. Ray Lewis crowed about the “bounties” collected for taking out certain Steelers, most notably [intlink id=”34″ type=”category”]Hines Ward[/intlink].  More recently, the teams spent the entire off-season sniping at each other in 140 characters or less on Twitter, culminating in [intlink id=”60″ type=”category”]Ryan Clark[/intlink] stating the rivalry “isn’t really a rivalry” until the Ravens actually win a game.  An infuriated Baltimore coach Jim Harbaugh angrily responded, “I don’t care what Ryan Clark says about anything.”
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Bless You, Troy Polamalu

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Finding an honorable football player is akin to finding a virgin in a whorehouse.  By the way, we here at TotalSteelers were saddened to hear about the recent arrest of the Monroeville Madam.  Hopefully she shredded her records from 2009. The story was shocking not because her clientele included “professional athletes” as everybody knows the Pittsburgh Pirates only score when they pay for it.  No, I was surprised to learn her pimp daddy was “Buck” Buczkowski, an ex-NFL lineman who played his college ball at Pitt.

That kind of work seems far better suited to Miami alums.

Getting back on track, I’ve long held the belief that most professional athletes are assholes.  I’m not saying they all are but there is a certain level of arrogance that goes hand in hand with being paid obscene amounts of money and having 35,000 fans cheer your every move on Sunday.  Think back to who were the most arrogant kids in high school.  The jocks, right?  Pro athletes are the jocks magnified by a factor of ten.  And because of that, many have ginormous egos and an overinflated sense of entitlement.
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LaMarr Woodley Signs Long-Term Deal

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The Pittsburgh Steelers concluded two weeks of nearly constant contract renegotiations by locking linebacker [intlink id=”70″ type=”category”]LaMarr Woodley[/intlink] in to a six year $61.5 million deal.  This is the fifteenth player who was part of last year’s Super Bowl runners-up to either sign a new deal or rework their existing one since the lock out ended.  Thanks, new CBA.  I wonder if the players have realized yet how badly they got hosed.

Anyway, Mister Woodley was by far the biggest fish left to be fried.  The Steelers tagged him as their Franchise player so he wasn’t going anywhere this season.   However, the $10 million salary associated with that designation put an uncomfortably large dent in the cap.  While you math geniuses may notice he’s still making an average of $10 million per season, $22.5 million of his new contract is being doled out as a signing bonus.  As I’ve mentioned before, this is a clever trick teams do to lower the amount per year a contract counts against the cap.
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