DOG: Who To Watch On Sunday

Here's something to watch for tomorrow during the Stillers-Bears game. The media has focused on our loss of Polamalu, the Bears loss of Urlacher, and Cutler's horrendous first game as a Chicago Bear. But I am going to give you what I believe to be the key matchups in tomorrow's game. As you may have guessed from the above photos, it involves line play which, after all, is where 90% of NFL football games are won and lost anyway.

The two Stillers to keep your eye on are 74-Willie Colon, our Right Tackle, when we're on offense, and 99-Bret Keisel, our Right Defensive End, when we're on defense.

Willie Colon will have his hands full trying to move Bears LDE Adewale Ogunleye on running plays. And he REALLY will have his work cut out for him trying to contain Ogunleye's pass rush. Ogunleye virtually lived in the Packers backfield last Sunday night. If he had spent any more time 3-4 yards behind Green Bay's line they would have started charging him rent! He beat Packer Right Tackle Allen Barbre like a rented mule. When the Packers assigned a Tight End to help Barbre, Ogunleye simply bull rushed the pair of them back into Aaron Rodgers. He was unstoppable. This cannot happen again this Sunday. Willie Colon must step up and battle Ogunleye to at least a stalemate. If a Tight End is needed to keep Ogunleye at bay, then the two of them better be able to stop him better than the Packers did. If not, it could be a very long afternoon for Mr. Roethlisberger.

On the other side of the coin, Bret Keisel needs to get his camping gear ready to stake out a hunting cabin in the Bears backfield this week. He will be facing Chicago's LG Frank Omiyale. Omiyale was putrid against the Packers and he allowed his man to get in Cutler's face so many times I'm surprised the Bear QB didn't throw 6 interceptions instead of just 4. Keisel has an opportunity to overwhelm this guy with superior athleticism. It is an opportunity Bret rarely sees. He needs to take advantage of this mismatch. It will be there for the taking because James Harrison will be eating Orlando Pace for lunch to his right while Fat Casey Hampton will consume all the Bears attention to his left. In other words Pace will need a TE to help with Harrison and the Bears center and right guard will be forced to give Casey his obligatory double team. That leaves Keisel one-on-one with a man he can and should beat.

So while the talking heads will be rehashing the same old names on the pregame talk shows. You are now armed with the information that will make you an astute football viewer for one week anyway. QBs, WRs and RBs may sell the tickets, but linemen win the games. And if these two Stiller linemen can do their jobs, next time you hear from me we'll be 2-0. HERE WE GO!

Battle @ Tackle?

I just read an interesting article that says new head coach Mike Tomlin saw a lot of tape last year and decided that Max Starks may not be as entrenched at Tackle as fans seem to think he says. Coach saw Ben go down one too many times from that side and mentioned that Willie Colon is looking good in mini-camps. What's that you say? How could a newer starter himself be pushed for a job? Well, this isn't your Cowher's Steelers. Remember, Cowher loved seasoned vets almost as much as Rosie O'Donnel likes seasoned sides of beef. Cowher seemed to prefer experience and continuity to raw talent sometimes. You can make a case that in most instances he made the right call - but there were times when everyone knew but Mr. C that it was time for a change....the biggest being the need to replace Jason Gildon. The onger he coached, the more examples there were....Chad Scott and Dewayne Washington come quickly (or should I say slowly) to mind. Maybe the younger guys didn't have any DOG in them during camp because they knew there was little chance to start if a guy was younger than 32 and already in their position. I know Colon and Kemoeatu are supposed to be about as mean as OL come. If we need to prepare for life without Wahnaca Faneca, maybe we need to start pulling him in blowouts and letting the young guys take over. Kendall Simmons could also be in for a battle as he gets a little older. Camp will be fun to follow this year.

Steelers Knocked Off Pedestal

Well, if the defending Super Bowl champs needed anything to get them going in camp, a good ass-kicking should do it. The Steelers got it handed to them by the Arizona Cardinals yesterday - even if the Cardinals kept their starters in longer than the Steelers. There weren't too many things that made me get excited. Big Ben did shake off a "would be" sacker and fired a bullet on the run for a completion. Brett Keisel made back-to-back plays that made me take notice and Santonio Holmes looked about where he should be for all the practice time he lost. What I didn't like far outweighed what I did like. Duce 'Sweatsuit' Staley continues to frustrate me. He looks tired, weak and slow to me when he runs. Where is the passion that he once had when it took 2-3 people to tackle him? I seriously think he needs to drop about 15 pounds. Duce needs to watch Rocky III and get "the eye of the tiger" back! Willie Reid did not impress me AT ALL as a punt returner. Let's hope last night was a lesson in catching the ball and they weren't really concerned with running it back. For all the hype I've heard about his return ability - I was disappointed. Also, the way Sean Morey plays special teams - Willie Reid better start to shine because being drafted by the Super Bowl champs in the 3rd round does not guarantee you a spot on the team. They will keep 6 receivers: Ward, Wilson, Holmes are locks. The other 3 are up for grabs. Nate Washington should make the team and I'd like to think Quincy Morgan will. That leaves one spot open with Lee Mays, Morey and Reid fighting for it. Number 28 is too small and doesn't like contact from what I saw. The drafted safety Smith sticks his head in and likes to pop people - he had a decent first game. There was a tight end who almost lost the ball after a catch and then dropped a perfect pass later in the game. He won't make the team. Boyd really really really needs to learn how to take something off the ball when he throws it or our receivers will have broken fingers! Willie Colon will make the team also. He's a bit of a project but he will turn out to be a player by year 3. I can't begin to say how disappointed I was in the pass defense. Kurt Warner made them look bad. He had plenty of time to throw also which is troubling. We'll shake the rust off - we did a lot of partying this off-season. I'm sure I'm forgetting other things I wanted to mention - but it is only the first preseason game. The point I want to stress is that it may better that they lost this game than to go out and win by 30. Time to get the heads out of the clouds and get back to basics.