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Know Thy Enemy: Baltimore Ravens

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If I was from Baltimore, I’d hide my face, too. Who’d honestly enjoy cheering for a team named after a depressed alcoholic?

It’s hard to believe only two months have passed since the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers first met. When last we left the Ratbirds, they were riding high after handing the Black and Gold one of the most embarrassing losses in Steeler history. Through the first month of the season, Baltimore was 3-1 with dominating wins over both participants in last year’s AFC Championship game. Meanwhile, the Steelers were 2-2 and generally playing unimpressive uninspired football.

How quickly things change over the course of an NFL season.

In the past month, the Steelers have gone undefeated. Even more to the point, they’ve played their two best games of the year the past two weeks. Meanwhile, the Ravens went into their bye week anointed by many the odds on favorite to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. And it almost seems like the down time disrupted whatever mojo they had working for them. Following a win over Houston, they put on one of the worst performances you’ll ever see in losing to the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars. Last week, miscues in all three phases let Arizona get out to a commanding 21 point lead before the shoddy Cardinals defense allowed the Ratbirds to mount a furious comeback.
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Terrell Suggs Talks Sh*t, Calls Out Hines Ward

I hate Terrell Suggs. I hate him because he’s the perfect embodiment of everything wrong with the Baltimore Ravens. He plays dirty, beats up women and cries when they lose. During the pre-season, he refused to utter the words “Pittsburgh Steelers” in a childish act of defiance after getting owned in the playoffs yet again. He’s cocky, arrogant, and walks around with a self-important swagger despite having never won a damn thing.

I also hate him because he absolutely tortures Steelers.

Granted, our offensive line has made mediocre players look like world-beaters on more than one occasion. However, Suggs has taken it to whole other level. It doesn’t matter who lines up at tackle, it doesn’t matter if they keep a back in to block, T-Sizzle always finds a way to wreak havoc. Loudmouths like Ed Reed and Stabby McStabberson routinely write checks their ass can’t cash. Suggs talks a big game then goes out and plays even bigger.
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Will Mike Tomlin Bring Tampa To Pittsburgh?

No, I’m not talking about an apathetic fan base and a sea of empty seats at every home game. The Pitt Panthers already have that covered.

Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin first rose to prominence as a defensive backs coach under Tony Dungy down in Tampa. Dungy’s defense of choice was a modified version of the 4-3 scheme he learned as a player (and later coach) under Chuck Noll. Despite Tomlin’s preference for running the Tampa-2, one of the conditions upon his hiring was he retain Dick LeBeau, inventor and master of the 3-4 zone blitz. Considering the Steelers have ranked at or near the top of the NFL in total defense every year since he arrived in Pittsburgh, I’m sure Tomlin has had no complaints about the change.

Besides LeBeau being one of the finest defensive minds of all-time, management didn’t want to change philosophies because they simply didn’t have the right personnel. Whenever a team switches from 3-4 to 4-3 (or vice versa) there is an adjustment period because what is expected from each player changes. Some of you may remember a couple years back when fatass Albert Haynesworth pitched a fit because Washington switched from a 4-3 (where he could collect a bunch of stats, and the bonuses that went with them, by rushing the quarterback) to a 3-4 (where, like our linemen, his primary job was to occupy blockers and create gaps for others to make plays). If you ever wondered why the Steelers love stocking up on linebackers in the draft, it’s because our scheme depends on having plenty of strong, athletic linebackers on the roster.

Unfortunately, we currently have a bunch of strong, athletic linebackers on the injury report.
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The Future Has Arrived For Pittsburgh Steelers

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Bravo, Steeler Nation.

The recent rise and fall of Aaron Smith combined with CBS repeatedly cutting to Hines Ward standing on the sideline being the NFL’s highest paid cheerleader (to his credit, he probably dances better than most of them even though his ass doesn’t look nearly as good in a tiny skirt) has gotten me to thinking. Thinking about the future. A future that doesn’t include Hines or James Farrior or several other players who were a huge part of the Pittsburgh Steelers run as one of the most dominant teams of the past decade.

I can’t help but be reminded of Rod Woodson. A 2009 Hall of Famer, Woodson was one of the best defensive backs to ever play the game. He possessed unbelievable speed for a man his size, routinely baiting quarterbacks by letting wide receivers run past him only to turn on the jets and close on the receiver when he saw the ball in the air. In 1995, Barry Sanders juked his ACL off his knee and when he returned the following year, he didn’t have that same freaky closing speed. After watching him repeatedly get beaten on deep bombs, the Steelers thought his career was on a downhill slide and asked him to take a pay cut and move to safety, both of which he allegedly refused. While the Rooneys and Woodson eventually buried the hatchet, at the time this resulted in a divorce so ugly it would’ve made Mel Gibson wince.
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Week 8 Recap: Out-Patrioting The Patriots

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Two out of three ain’t bad.

In my game preview, I listed three things I thought the Pittsburgh Steelers absolutely had to do in order to defeat the New England Patriots. To be honest, I didn’t think they’d actually do any of them. Well, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, thy name is Bill Belichick.

The Steelers completely overhauled their usual game plan on both sides of the ball yesterday. The result was a convincing 25-17 victory over the hated Patriots. It was, by any measure, the team’s most impressive performance of 2011. If the Black and Gold goes on a run which culminates in another trip up the Stairway to Seven, we’re undoubtedly going to look back at week eight as the turning point in the season.

Longtime Steeler fans will remember an infamous Monday Night game many years back when the Patriots came out throwing on something like twenty consecutive plays. Yesterday, the Steelers gave them a taste of their own medicine. Ben Roethlisberger threw the ball 32 times. In the first half.

Ben would finish the afternoon 36/50 for 365 yards and 2 TDs. He came out firing and never let up, even when it would have been prudent to do so. I’ve been a Steeler fan for a pretty long time. While I’m not exactly reaching for Touch of Grey, I remember seeing John Stallworth catch passes from Mark Malone. I’ve never seen a better performance by a Steeler signal caller than the one Ben put forth yesterday.
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Know Thy Enemy: New England Patriots

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If Mick was right that women weaken legs, Rob Gronkowski will be in a wheelchair on Sunday.

The Baltimore Ravens are considered the biggest rivals of the Pittsburgh Steelers. With all due respect (which is to say, none), I disagree. A true rivalry is borne out of two equals battling to accomplish the same goal. The Ratbirds haven’t beaten the Steelers in a meaningful game since Ben Roethlisberger first stepped foot in Heinz Field. Over the past ten years, they’ve been a good team but not a great one.

No, there are only two teams who can legitimately claim greatness here in the 21st century. The Steelers and the New England Patriots. Over the past decade, the Patriots have appeared in four Super Bowls and won three. The Black and Gold have appeared in three, winning two. If it were not for the Patriots, the Steelers alone would be able to lay claim to the title of the NFL’s premiere franchise.

If that fact weren’t galling enough, our history with the Patriots is as unfortunate as Baltimore’s is with us. Tom Brady is 6-1 against the Steelers, and overall the Patriots are 7-2 against Pittsburgh since Dreamboat took over signal-calling duties up in New England. Even more heart-breaking, the Pats are 3-1 in post-season meetings. More recently, who can forget the Patriots humiliating 39-26 defeat of the Steelers last season?
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Troy Polamalu Tells Wife: “No Twitter For You!”

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Free Theodora!

Total Steelers is on Twitter (and if you’re not following me you’re hurting my feelings). I don’t spend all day on it but I do occasionally drop in to make fun of things like the Baltimore Ravens epic fail in Jacksonville. Mostly, I use it to check up on the handful of Pittsburgh Steelers who tweet. Yes, even that annoying blowhard Ryan Clark.

I’ve found most twitter feeds to be spectacularly boring. Many are clearly run by PR people who are using them to promote whatever perfume or charitable cause the celebrity is involved with that week. Those that are run by the actual person tend to be filled with mindless chitchat and re-tweets from starstruck fans. Very few athletes put Twitter to good use, such as using it to hook up with a smokin’ hot (and extremely flexible) porn star.

As I was mocking the Ratbirds in 140 characters or less, I noticed an interesting name in my “Who To Follow” box. Theodora V. Polamalu. Theodora, you may deduce from the last name, is the wife of All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu. I quickly went over to check her feed.

Other than the first tweet being of the PR variety, the rest of her posts were clearly coming directly from her. And what tweets they were. It wasn’t the usual soundbites and politely phrased BS we’ve come to expect. These were opinionated and insightful messages. And many of them were about the Steelers!
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Steeler Nation Sound-Off: Oh No Joe Bert!

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Hey guys (and girl), your paragon of virtue, your hero, your party host, Chris here. I want to thank everyone who inquired about being this week’s guest blogger. I chose a man whose name will probably be familiar to those of you who frequented the comment section on the Site That Shall Not Be Named. Without further ado, take it away Hennessey…

Well, Steeler Nation, it’s that time of year. We’ve collectively survived a lockout, a stressful salary-cap crunch, and seven gut wrenching (well, most of them) games, including a week 1 loss that humbled fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers from China to Chinatown.

So how good did Monday night feel!?!?

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Ravens win again, so Tuesday morning highlights were a big treat! Joe Bert Flacco looked like he strayed from Ernie’s protection and got caught up in a street-corner mugging, Baltimore’s favorite pastime.

We’ve reached that point in the season when rookies become veterans, veterans become leaders, and Bert becomes a one-man interception-throwing tackling dummy. I love a good redemption story and, if “Baltimore’s Future” keeps leading his team of Muppets into slaughter, there’s going to be a great one in two weeks. How can the Black and Gold make it happen?

Week 8 marks the mid-way point of the regular season and the beginning of the end for those teams that weren’t meant to make the cut this year. For the Steelers the next two games are the make-or-break point. As we learned back in 2009 during that woeful five game losing streak (including losses to the Chiefs, Raiders and Browns, boasting a combined 9-26 record at the time they faced the Steelers), the end of a season can really set the tone for what comes after. For a team that prides themselves on contending for championships every year, what must we do to survive the dog days of November and December?
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Farewell Aaron Smith

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Sometimes the will is strong but the body simply isn’t able.

The Pittsburgh Steelers were in the news for a couple reasons last Saturday, none sadder than hearing the team had placed defensive end Aaron Smith on injured reserve, ending his 2011 season. Smith going on IR wasn’t sad in and of itself. It was almost expected after suffering four season-ending injuries over the past five years. The sadness came with the explanation that followed which brought to light the unfortunate reality that Smith’s football career is most likely over.

The story behind Smith’s injury is definitely a little bizarre. I often joke on this blog about Mike Tomlin being a master of lies and deceit when it comes to discussing his team’s injury situation. I’m starting to wonder if Tomlin isn’t a liar, it’s the Steeler doctors who make Dr. Nick Riviera look like a Harvard graduate. I mean, they did send James Harrison back on the field with a crushed orbital bone.
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