FAN: Rooney: "We'll Make Room"

What a quote from the platform from Dan Rooney. He was asked if there was room in the trophy case for number six. There were some great lines after the game. I watched NFL Network's wrap up show and Ben came out to join the group. When Deion Sanders brought up Warren Sapp's comment about the video camera, Ben just laughed. Warren tried to tell Ben what his angle was on that complaint and Ben said, "thats ok, now I have memories. I'll send you a copy." Good stuff. This game was like many other games this year. Relaxed at one point with a decent lead, then biting nails, then cursing and throwing, then crazy celebration followed by a little more nail biting. Wow. Santonio Holmes catch was just slightly better than Ben's throw. Slightly. The throw was crazy. When he released it I thought it could never be caught. A few random musings and then I need to hit the hay. Bruce Springstein sucked. What the heck with the ref coming out and throwing a flag? In my opinion, he hurt his street cred worse than Aerosmith did by sharing the stage with N'Sync. Worst quote of the night was from Bruce: "Step away from the Guacamole and put the chicken fingers down!" What? Anyway, Silverback got a little crazy on that one dude...what was that all about? Hartwig was quiet most of the season and on one of the biggest plays of the game he yanks a guy down. Another long play was brought back for holding and it was really far away from the play, I can't remember who or when. The Cardinal's nosetackle is a monster. I didn't like it or appreciate it when Al Michaels made reference to Mike Holmgren thinking "here we go again" or something like that when the 6th or 7th Card's penalty came in. What are the refs supposed to do, not call them? I bet by the end of the game he was wishing he never said it because we had huge calls against us as well. Stilladog hit the nail on the head early, they came out running. Fan also hit the nail on the head - for while they tried to get a running game going, it amounted to nothing. I also did a pretty damn good job of predicting the score. I picked 27-24, only 1 point off. They had no answer for Santonio on the hitch. Nada. He was beating that rookie like a rented mule. The Fitzgerald TD was a thing of beauty. Did you see the replay of how both deep safeties went to the sidelines initially? Wow. It's hard not to like the Cardinals. I don't have a shred of animosity towards them like I did the Seachikens. I think because we all like Whiz, Grimmy....Warner.... Did Warner's wife have some work done? She looks better now than she did in 1999. Money is a wonderful thing.

FAN: Steelers Will Stop The Cardinals

I think I now know what Dick will do. After having "Dick Do" in my head for the past few days, I tried to find the best picture I could of a "DickDue". I think this one suffices. DOesn't he look like Jim "The Anvil" Neidheart from the glory days of the WWF? Anyway, after reading a bunch of opinions, I'm not sure enough credence has been given to muscling their receivers at the line of scrimmage in an effort to disrupt Kurt's timing. Everything they seem to do is 3 step drops and him blindly throwing the ball through a window. I think maybe we need to time these things perfectly....every so often in an obvious passing situation (read every down) knock their heads off on the line while sending our normal four. Maybe have six DBs in when we do this and have cover two while we try to knock them off the line. I don't know....I'm not an X,O guy at all. I just think if you're playing a timing offense you have to make them drop a pancake every once in a while. Also, I'm not sure these guys have ever faced the hitters we have back there. Maybe in the first quarter we can play off of them if we pin them deep and give them some room to make some underneath catches....then hit'em with our missiles. Another thing I thought of is the element of surprise. Nobody gets to Warner on blitzes. Maybe we don't blitz a single time until their first critical drive of the game, even if it's not until the third quarter. Let their linemen think we won't be coming all day...then unleash the hounds as they're back on their heels for a series. I think on offense, we do nothing different. They aren't good enough on defense that we have to change anything. I start running Parker and don't stop him until they do. Then, we can start throwing on first down to keep them guessing. I honestly can't see them stopping our offense, but I've only seen about five of their games this year. I don't think they can put up more than 24 points on the league's best defense. I think we'll put up 27. That's my score 27-24.....and I think Warner will have the ball in his hands with a chance to win the game late. In grand fashion, we'll force a turnover and the game will end with us kneeling.

FAN: And We Miss You, Sean Morey

This is a short, but great article and really speaks to what's so special about our Pittsburgh Steelers. If you think I'm not serious about missing Morey, just go up to the "Search This Blog" area and enter "Sean Morey". Told you so. Good Special Teams coverage is an art and Sean and Chidi were very good at it.

FAN: Steelers Should Fear Cardinals

The Cardinals. The Cardinals? The Cardinals? All we have to do is beat the Cardinals? And we'll have six Lombardi Trophies? The Cardinals? I keep thinking that. I thought the same thing all week as the Eagles were preparing to play them and schools and companies had "wear your green" days. Heck, it's just the....Cardinals? Wrong. These aren't your father's Cardinals. They might not even be your grandfather's Cardinals. These Cardinals are good, and they're pissed off. I've been watching much more TV this week concerning football. The Cardinals aren't happy with just winning the NFC. On Showtime's Inside The NFL Ken Whisenhunt took a clear jab at Cris Collinsworth for a comment he made a few weeks ago saying the Cardinals may be the worst team to ever make the playoffs. He's using that negative energy to fuel his team, and it's working. They're going to pull out all the stops in The Super Bowl. That's when a team is most dangerous. They've been playing with house money for weeks and now they have a pile of chips sitting in front of them and Whiz is seriously considering going "All In". And when you think about it, why not? The Steelers might have better hole cards, but the Cardinals have at least a pair of 7's. If I was Whiz, I would not just let this game play out and try to stay close until the end. I would come out like I was driving a Porsche with a 100lb anvil pinning the gas pedal to the floor. If they can get up early and take the 85% Steeler crowd out of the game and put the Steelers on their heels, it could go towards winning the game. This is not going to be an easy game. The only way it gets ugly is if we get to Warner early and often. Remember Warner in that Giants start when he fumbled 3 times in the first half or something because his head kept hitting the turf? That's what I want to see. I also saw an interesting piece on one of the shows about Ken Whisenhunt being Ben's OC. It was discussed how Whiz knows all of the things Ben doesn't like to do in games. Hopefully he's grown out of those things, but it was just 2 years ago. He will definitely be able to help the defense game plan for Ben. This has nothing to do with my prediction or how we will attack them - that will come later next week. I'm just saying, I hear a lot of people saying Arizona doesn't have a chance. As a huge fan, I want to believe that. As a somewhat knowledgeable football fan, I don't. If Warner has time to throw and gets comfortable, it could be a long day.
On a completely different note - you should catch NFL Network's Live Wire show this week. It's clips from NFL Films with some commentary mixed in. They showcased Ward getting injured and then cheering from the sidelines. It's amazing what you don't get to see during a game. When Limas Sweed dropped the TD pass and finally got up, Ward threw off his cape and started walking towards him screaming "Sweeeeeeeeeeed..........Sweeeeeeeeeeed........." as he motioned for him to come over. I was thinking, Wow, he's going to lay into him..... I couldn't have been more wrong. Ward slapped him on the side of his helmet and said something like "now you have to forget that drop and go play some ball." What leadership. What maturity. I was really impressed. Then they showed Sweed getting the crushing block with Hines yelling approval and also making a clutch 3rd down catch. You wonder if Hines didn't say anything to him if he would've folded like a AAA map. Damn, I love me some Steelers Football.