Steelers-Fins Recap: Being A Stick In The Mud

That about sums up last night’s “game” against the Dolphins. As much fun as pulling for a 0-0 tie or watching a punt land on the ground and get stuck like a lawn dart was, there’s no way professional football should be played on a piece of shit like Heinz Field. I’m no grass growing expert, but 11 games in 7 days in late November in the Northeastern United States couldn’t possibly end well, even without the downpour. I hope Roger Goodell really comes down on the Rooneys about this fiasco, just like the league slapped down the Patriots a few years ago over their shitty field conditions for a playoff game against Indy. Then again, knowing that paragon of righteousness and fairplay, Bill Belichek, they probably Bull Durham’d the field on that one. But we’ve known for YEARS that Heinz had the worst surface in the league and yet all they do is talk and discuss and plan and never actually DO anything to fix the problem. They can grow fungus in outer space and hair on Cy Sperling, they can’t plant decent grass in Pittsburgh?

At this point, I would offer up some analysis of the game last night but given the conditions, I’m not sure we can really learn anything from that performance. Joey Porter played a great game for the Fins, almost single-handedly trying to will them to victory. His shouting “You still love me” over to the Steelers sideline was pretty funny. I kinda missed ‘ol J-Peezy for a few minutes there…at least until James Harrison absolutely OBLITERATED John Beck on a sack/fumble play and I realized we’re just fine at linebacker, thank you very much.

I wonder if Dolphin fans would’ve been content with a tie? Technically, they’d still have a winless season, but it’s better than nothing. Cam Cameron seemed pretty intent on testing that theory as his ultra-conservative offensive calls pretty much ensured the entire game would be played at about mid-field. Don’t get me wrong, our defense played well but it helps when the other team doesn’t even appear to be trying to score. In fact, I think they called more plays which went horizontally down the field than vertically. And I got a good chuckle out of the Worst Commentators Ever™ hyping Ted Ginn as an electrifying return man. I could sure feel the electricity when he’d wave his hand frantically to signal for a fair catch.

Offensively, what can I say? Willie Parker had about 85 yards to go over 1,000 for the year. A fine accomplishment but once again he didn’t really bust anything or make the home run play we’re used to him making. Obviously, the field probably killed any ability to cut back or whatever. Hines Ward had his best game of the season, which is what you expect from a possession receiver in a game like this. Ben played okay, the interception to Porter was a terrible throw and a couple sacks were caused by him holding the ball way too long, one of which killed a nice drive we had going on early in the game.

As for the line, oh, you wonderful line you. Again, it’s hard to really tell much but we did surrender another 5 sacks to a team that only had like 12 coming in. Sean Mahan turned his back to me more times than the cheerleaders in high school which tells me he’s still getting blown by like a fat orange pylon. Seriously, did Chukky Okobi tell Mike Tomlin he loved him in “Jerry McGuire” on the first day of training camp? How bad could he possibly of been if Mahan beat him out? Heath Miller got two really costly holding penalties which looked to be because instead of out running a route, Tomlin is now holding him back as an extra pass blocker. Keep our best red zone threat at the line because we can’t protect our quarterback. Great.

Anyway, so ends the saga of Sod Bowl I. My only regret was we don’t have a scoring system like they have in the CFL because a game like this deserves to end with a final score of 1-0.