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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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Roger Goodell Doesn’t Care About Family

Congratulations go out to Commissioner Roger Goodell. His goal has finally been achieved. He has successfully pussified the National Football League.

I tuned in to the Four Letter hoping to hear Trent Dilfer announce he was coming out of retirement to play for the Baltimore Ravens. He certainly couldn’t do any worse than last night’s performance by Joe Flacco. But rather than glorious analysis highlighting every one of the Ratbirds many flaws, I instead had to listen to the talking heads go on and on about the catfight between the Detroit Lions’ Ndamukong Suh and several members of the Atlanta Falcons. For those lucky smart enough to avoid the mind-numbing prattle, the story goes after quarterback Matt Ryan was hurt on a play late in Sunday’s game, Suh and teammate Cliff Avril stood there taunting him about the injury.

OH NOES! THE HORROR!
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Week 7 Recap: Streaks of Yellow

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The [intlink id=”21″ type=”category”]Pittsburgh Steelers[/intlink] defeated a game but over-matched Arizona Cardinals 32-20. It was allegedly a home game for the Cards but whenever CBS cut to a crowd shot, all you saw was a sea of Black and Gold. A bunch of Cardinal fans had pathetic little flags which I assume the locals handed out to counteract the Terrible Towel although it was to no avail. I’m used to Steeler Nation taking over opposing stadiums, to the point I hardly ever mention it in my recaps, but yesterday may have been the largest hostile takeover since Gordon Gekko tried to take over Bluestar Airlines.

The game started off tremendously for the Steelers. Lawrence Timmons batted a Kevin Kolb pass that was intercepted by [intlink id=”60″ type=”category”]Ryan Clark[/intlink]’s mouth. If only we could stuff it with a football. That’s our second interception of the season, by the way. [intlink id=”57″ type=”category”]Troy Polamalu[/intlink] just missed our third on the Cardinal’s next possession when he dropped a ball that hit him between the 4 and the 3. [intlink id=”14″ type=”category”]Ben Roethlisberger[/intlink] capped the drive by hitting Heath Miller for a 12 yard score and when Arizona went three and out on their next drive it seemed the route was on.

Big Ben marched the team into Arizona territory before [intlink id=”85″ type=”category”]Chris Kemoeatu[/intlink] lumbered ten yards down the field like a charging rhinoceros and decided to spear somebody about ten seconds after the play had ended. The personal foul ruined the drive and the Steelers were forced to punt. The Cardinals still couldn’t get anything going and the teams exchanged punts until Ben finally said “Screw it. Go deep!” and hit a streak of yellow aka [intlink id=”82″ type=”category”]Mike Wallace[/intlink] for a 95 yard touchdown bomb.

Then everything fell apart.
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Know Thy Enemy: Arizona Cardinals

This Sunday it will be deja vu all over again when the [intlink id=”20″ type=”category”]Pittsburgh Steelers[/intlink] face off against the Arizona Cardinals. The Cards are still led by our ex-offensive coordinator, Ken Whisenhunt, and boast a roster filled with refugees from the Black and Gold. Whiz must really admire his old franchise (and why shouldn’t he?) what with his almost comical fetish for adding ex-Steelers to his team. When the Steelers step inside the Big Toaster on Sunday, they’ll see no fewer than four ex-teammates across the sidelines with two more members of the roster having played their college ball at Pitt.

Pittsburgh and their slacker younger brother have faced each other twice since that fateful off-season of 2007 when [intlink id=”49″ type=”category”]Bill Cowher[/intlink] left to exchange phony laughs with James Brown and pretend to understand the words coming out of Shannon Sharpe’s mush-mouth. Whiz, the obvious heir apparent (he even has his own mini-Chin!), was surprisingly eliminated early in the process, leading him to bolt for the head job in Arizona. After the media erroneously reported longtime offensive line coach Russ Grimm had won the job, the Steelers announced they were going with a relatively unknown defensive coordinator from Minnesota named [intlink id=”45″ type=”category”]Mike Tomlin[/intlink]. That year, the two teams met during the regular season with the Cardinals scoring an emotional victory in a game their spurned head coach badly wanted to win.

Of course, the next time the two teams met, the Steelers would walk away with a victory in Super Bowl XLIII. He who laughs last, laughs best and all that.
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