Best Sporting Weekend Since 19-something-and-5, a Retrospective

2-2, yes.

But in the grand scheme for 2008-09, easily the most two important victories of the four, and that speaks nothing to whom I cheer hardest for.

Penn St. Winner. Which will ultimately put them directly into the BCS Championship January 8th. Joe Pa wins out. Alabama or Texas lose at least once, with much tougher games looming, including respective conference championship games. Watching Terrell Pryor fumble the game away was even more gratifying.

Liverpool (see Winner!!!!). 3 points clear of Chelsea who has a superior goal differential. Another Man Utd draw on Saturday vs. Everton was just as sweet, so +2 on them is always a good time.

Pens. Still way too early in the season to be too crazily concerned. Although blowing another 3rd period lead was disturbing. But chemistry is still building, so I expect the Pens to be back atop the Atlantic by January 1st.

Steelers. Yeah, that sucked. But kinda the same story we've been preaching on these pages for a month. Two great defenses going at it. The Beloved are decimated by injuries. But the difference maker again...the O-Line. The Giants may have the best in football. We may have the worst. Santonio loving the Mary Jane didn't help. But we'll still easily win the pathetic AFC North, and there's really no one else that scares me in the AFC, including the undefeated Titan. Winning the Superbowl as we said back after Week 2? Not without a complete overhaul of the O-Line...and that's not bound to happen, at least in the next 2 months. Hopefully Ben can stay healthy and we'll win a playoff game. Best case scenario: after an early exit this season, we finally realize that this issue needs to be addressed.

Bottom line...the reason I say the loss isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme: It'll have no effect on the final outcome. Anything can happen when you get into the playoffs, so we'll still have a puncher's chance...but no more or less than what we had prior to this Week 8 game.