Steelers DON'T win the Superbowl

My my how things change in less than 1 month. OK...so I was dooped into thinking our O-Line woes were behind us after an impressive performance against Houston. WOW, was I wrong. And that's a first (the "me wrong" part).

There. I said it. I WAS WRONG. Because our offensive line is...

Atrocious. Pathetic. Abysmal. The WORST in the NFL (at least in terms of pass blocking). There is absolutely no way Ben Roethlisberger makes it through this season. Dude is running for his life every time he drops back to pass. Matter of fact, I'd wager that Dennis Dixon will see significant playing time at some point this season. You know Big Ben's flair for the dramatic, and if he's not legitimately injured, he'll at least cop out at some point. And if #7 doesn't stand a chance of surviving, how's a big armed statuesque Byron Leftwich gonna salvage himself. I see visions of Byron's Marshall days when his O-Lineman had to carry him down the field after he got his tits continually buried in that bowl game. Analysts said last week that teams would copycat Philly and blitz us from every angle. But I'm not sure that's necessary. Why blitz everyone when you can get pressure simply RUSHING 4 on 5 EVERYTIME?!?!?!?

The sad part of this whole situation is: WE KNEW ABOUT IT. The poor OL play was the downfall last year. And it wasn't addressed. Instead of getting help in the draft, we get a back-up RB and a WR who can't even get dressed...let alone get on the field. OK...I understand the whole "draft the best athlete" strategy, so maybe an OL-man wasn't in the cards come draft day (speaking of...where's Tony Hills?). But what about free agency?!?! Max Starks goes from a Superbowl winning OT...to a $6 million/year waste of a substitute who NEVER sees the field. Whose bowl of soup did Max fart in?? Surely that $6 mil could've been spent elsewhere...dare I suggest on Alan Faneca?

Sorry...but I'm tired. MAKE PLAYS!

Speaking of making plays, faithful EC readers (all 3 of you) know I'm hard on Ben at times. But #7 came up BIG TIME last night. Remember the "leader" talk last week? I retract that...for the time being. Big Ben led last night. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come up. Unfortunately, he's gonna end up getting kilt before this evolution of Ben can continue.

And now Kendall Simmons is OUT for the YEAR. The hits just keep coming.

The burning question is this:

What's Worse? The Steelers O-Line or the AFC North? Because I have a feeling it's the latter, so we'll fortunately make the playoffs again. But just as predicted in the pre-season (before the Houston game), that's about as far as it'll get us.

Speaking of the AFC North...how 'bout that Browns / Bengals match-up? Riveting stuff. And people don't understand why I advocate soccer. We watched about 10 minutes (OK..half of that was commercial time) before we were saved by the Milan derby (Jose?!?! WTF is going on??? Not so special, my friend.)

More Props for the Beloved (after all, we did win the game):

Mike Tomlin. As bad as I believe the personnel strategy has been been in the off-season, at least he got Bruce Arians attention after last week's performance. So kudos, for that. Coach doesn't seem the type to sit back. Arians sucked last week, and Tomlin obviously won't tolerate it. I like that. Holding people accountable is obviously one of Tomlin's strengths.

And kudos to Arians for at least showing the willingness to adjust this time. The hurry-up that Ben employed was a great change, and I believe we saw some max-protection, sending only 2 guys into routes at times. But how long will that last? It's only a matter of time before the ultimate deficiency on the OL will be revealed again. Hopefully, there are no more casualties.

Hines...beautiful beatdown block on Ed Reed. Loved it!

Welcome back Najeh!