The Pittsburgh Steelers head into their much-needed bye week with a solid 26-21 victory over the game but over-matched Jacksonville Jaguars.

The score is totally misleading because this game wasn’t nearly as close as it would appear.  Seven of the Jags points were scored on the opening drive when one of the Steelers WRs slipped on the poorly kept Jacksonville turf and QB Ben Roethlisberger did his best Neil O’Donnell impersonation for a quick Pick Six.   In the second quarter, the Steelers moved the ball up and down the field on the Jaguars’ pitiful defense but stumbled in the red zone and had to settle for Skippy Reed field goals instead of TDs.  The Steelers went into halftime up 20-14 when statistically the game was a more vicious beating than the one Unknown White Guy gave that phony Kimbo Slice on Saturday night.  We had 300 total yards of offense to their 50 while we had possession of the ball 22 minutes to their 8.

It bears noting, most of our superior offensive output came with Big Ben once again running the offense by himself in the No Huddle.  In fact, it seemed like the only time the offense sputtered in the first half was when the Steelers came back from time outs with a set play, which would invariably fail.  Obviously, offensive coordinator Bruce Arians is not only completely useless at making adjustments, but his poor play-calling and ridiculously complex schemes actually hinder the team.  Unless we add another Lombardi Trophy to the mantle this season, in which case we’ll probably be able to convince some ineptly run franchise like the Detroit Lions to take him as a head coach, I can’t imagine Arians returning next year.

Anyway, the hot, sticky, swamp-like conditions of that hellhole that is Jacksonville took their toll as coming back from halftime saw both teams sleep-walk through a poorly played and uneventful third quarter.  LT Marvel Smith left the game when the inhuman conditions caused him to cramp up and he was ably replaced by the $7 Million Dollar Man Max Star…   Oh, wait.  That was Trai Essex out there.  Guess Mike Tomlin is determined to make Loafus Maximus the highest paid bench warmer in history.

In the fourth quarter, Jacksonville’s overhyped and overrated QB David Garrard managed to avoid a couple sacks (aided by several missed holding calls on the O-line) and move the ball a little bit before the refs decided they must try even harder to hose the Steelers.   I don’t get why they’re always so determined to help Jacksonville win these games.  Either it’s a pity thing or the Jaguar cheerleaders must share a locker room with the referees.  Anyway, the Steelers had 10 penalties for an unbelievable 129 yards, the worst coming in the final quarter when a 3rd and a mile play was erased on a ridiculous unnecessary roughness call on S Ryan Clark (a poorly thrown Garrard pass sailed behind the receiver who ran upfield directly into Clark) and then there was a horrendous roughing the passer call on LB James Harrison.  With about 5 minutes left, the Jags inexplicably lead 21-20 despite being overwhelmed in every facet of the game.

This brought Big Ben and the offense back out for the climatic drive where he coolly and efficiently led the team down the field, once again shredding the defense like it wasn’t there.  RB Mewelde Moore, the Last Man Standing in the Steeler backfield, ripped off a nice 20 yard scamper, finishing the game with 99 yards rushing.  I hope they remember what a gem they have with this guy when Fast Willie Parker returns because it seemed like the first three weeks they barely used him.   Then Ben made an absolutely incredible play where he was being mugged by three Jacksonville defenders, one of which was dragging him backwards by the jersey, yet he still managed to shot put the ball downfield to Hines Ward for a big 20 yard gain.  Ben Roethlisberger was a warrior out there with his throwing arm hanging limply at his side but still mustering up the ability to drill laser beam-like spirals into tight spaces when needed.  A handful of plays after Big Ben’s heroics, Hines made some of his own with a great toe-dragging catch on an end zone fade route.  Game set match.

On a personal note, I would like to point out in my authoritative preview analysis, I mentioned Jacksonville CB Rashean Mathis was a dangerous ballhawk who should be watched.   And who had the INT return for the touchdown?   Why Mathis of course.  Meanwhile, the “great and clutch” Matt Jones, who some Jaguar fan felt compelled to defend, had 2 catches for a whopping 25 yards.  I realize Jacksonville only has about 25 fans out there but honestly, their fans do deserve a blogger who actually knows a little something about their team.  This is why I love Steeler Nation.  If we had a receiver who was as stunningly mediocre as Matt Jones, we would admit that fact, not try to deny it.

The Baltimore Ravens went down in flames yesterday and now look to be a .500 team at best.   So these early wins are doubly important as it’s looking more and more like 9 or 10 wins will take the division easily.  It was an unnecessarily close call but the Steelers got the job done and move into the bye week at 4-1.  This is good since the meat of the Hardest Schedule in the NFL™ has yet to come. And with a team that is as badly banged up as the Steelers, where literally every position from punter to quarterback to both lines has faced major injury issues so far this year, getting a win and then getting some rest are pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered.

San Diego Charger fans think they got the shaft?

Last season, Steeler Nation wept as a glorious season came to an abrupt and premature end at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars.  The subsequent week, the Jagoffs embarrassed themselves against the New England Spycams Patriots.   This wasn’t really surprising since Jacksonville only managed to beat a badly banged-up Steeler team through the help of some of the most atrocious refereeing in playoff history.   The league’s Director of Officials even apologized afterwards, acknowledging the Jaguars horrific cheating led to their undeserving victory.  This was little consolation to Pittsburgh fans that had to sit through an entire off-season wondering what might have been.

The Jaguars were rebuilt under Jack Del Rio with the idea of getting, tall, big players on the roster at most of their positions. Guys like Marcus Stroud (now with Buffalo) and John Henderson are 6’8” tall. Matt Jones is a 6’6” wide receiver and Marcedes Lewis is 6’7” tight end. They had another 6’6” wide receiver in Ernest Wilford (now with Miami) and drafted 6’4” wide receiver Reggie Williams with the 10th overall pick.  With all that beef, the Jaguars got themselves a big quarterback in 6’4” 250 pound Byron Leftwich.

While Leftwich’s arm was enticing, he just simply could not reach his potential because he didn’t have very good pocket presence and his long delivery threw off his anticipation, something that is paramount for a QB in the NFL.  Del Rio made the bold move to give up on Leftwich, a former 8th overall pick, and go with unproven David Garrard.  The move paid off in spades for the Jaguars as Garrard, who is a big QB in his own right, had a tremendous season and far better than anything that Leftwich provided the team.  Despite a terrible performance in the playoffs, the team felt going into the season that it’s only a WR and a pass rusher away from becoming a Super Bowl contender.

Unfortunately, this season has seen Jacksonville stumble out of the gate with a 2-2 record.  A combination of a mediocre receiving corp and D-coordinators learning how to game plan Garrard has led to new challenges on offense.  Plus, they still can’t manage to get by the Indianapolis Colts.

STEELER DEFENSE vs. JAGUARS OFFENSE

Jacksonville runs a West Coast offense, but a unique one in that they do like to go deep with the passing game and love to run the ball up the middle. In fact, the past two seasons they have ran the ball up the middle close to 69% of the time. The NFL average is 51% of the time. Most West Coast Offenses run up the middle only about 40% of the time.

The big part of their offense is their running backs, perhaps the best tandem in the league.  They’re almost the perfect compliment to each other with Fred Taylor being the every down back whose size and speed make him a ferocious guy to tackle while Maurice Jones-Drew is the smaller, speedier, big play back who can do it all, be it run the ball, returns, receiving, etc.

Obviously, this game will be no different than last year’s regular season debacle where both backs rushed for 100 yards EACH against the Steelers vaunted run defense.  Of course, that Steeler team was missing DE Aaron Smith, who is very clearly the main man along the defensive line.  We will be playing with backups at the other end and NT but the key to run stopping will still be Smith.  We did a good job of bottling up Ravens RB Willis Mcgahee last week but started to falter against his backup late in the game.  The Jags will keep coming at us with Fast Freddie and Pocket Hercules so expect a lot of run-blitzes and the like as stopping the running game will be the priority.  It’s not like we have to fear QB David Garrad beating us.

The biggest knock on Garrard has been his conservative nature.  They clearly tried to protect him and turn him into a “game manager” last year.  Not that being conservative is necessarily a bad thing but it doesn’t lead to a lot of passing touchdowns, although it also doesn’t lead to too many turnovers.  Still, he averaged a lousy 27 passing attempts a game last year and in the QB driven NFL, that isn’t going to cut it.  He only had 3 picks last season and already has 4 this year which is a sign both that they’re trying to open up the offense and that he’s not ready to be put into a position to win games with his arm.

To be fair, he doesn’t have much to work with as the receivers are not much to brag about, other than Mercedes Lewis, who shows some potential. Matt Jones hasn’t made the transition to WR very well. He seems fast, but not very quick and takes awhile to get going full speed.  The guy who has scary potential is Troy Williamson whose size and speed gets him great separation, but he doesn’t understand the nuances of the game and has horrible hands.  I’ve never been a Reggie Williams fan. He just lacks separation and is not great at catching passes in closed quarters.  Key off-season pick up Jerry Porter has always been overrated. Scouts love his size and speed. But the fact is he’s never had 1,000 receiving yards in a season.  Plus he has a history of injury problems and has already missed time this year crying about some boo-boos.

Between CBs Ike Taylor, Bryant McFadden, and returning Deshea Townshend we should be more than ready to control their passing game.  Unless the running game begins to gash us, I honestly don’t see Garrard passing for more than 100 yards against our smothering secondary and hostile linebackers.

STEELER OFFENSE vs. JAGUARS DEFENSE

The Jags play a standard 4-3 Cover 2 with the pass rush being almost exclusively generated by the D-Line with fast cover linebackers and rarely blitzing. They decided after the Patriots playoff embarrassment that they desperately needed to get more pressure on the QB if they were going to take the team to the next level, so they traded up to get DE Derrick Harvey out of Florida.  His presence should give DEs Paul Spicer and Reggie Hayward some rest so they can be more effective.  John Henderson is still a stud and Rob Meier is a high motor guy who gets to the QB pretty well. That being said, they did miss old Marcus Stroud as the team finished 28th in defending runs up the middle.

Of course, running is going to be a problem for the Steelers since they’re down to 3rd down back Mewelde Moore, practice squad fodder Gary Russell, and the Dumptruck Najeh Davenport in the backfield.  It would be nice to make this a low-scoring smash mouth type game but I honestly can’t see the Steelers trying to grind out drives with such a hideous selection of backs.  Plus, we’ve seen O-coordinator Bruce Arians is a pass-happy fool and this gives him a good excuse to chuck the ball 35 times.

Unfortunately, the Jags do have some quality starting corners. I like Rashean Mathis, even though his pass defense stats are not great, he’s got a habit of making picks. Brian Williams is very solid opposite of him. They had problems last year with the nickel corner as Aaron Glenn didn’t have anything left in the tank, so they brought in Drayton Florence to help them out.  Reggie Nelson had his growing pains, but showed some flashes of brilliance and has the potential to be an All Pro some day.

Without sounding like a broken record, the entire passing game will be predicated on keeping Ben Roethlisberger vertical long enough to go vertical.  Last week, they didn’t do as bad a job as it seemed.  A bunch of the offensive disarray seemed to be Ben holding on to the ball and running around looking for a big play long after he should’ve made the quick read and got rid of it.  I don’t think the Jags pass rusher is near as ferocious as Baltimore’s but I actually think their secondary might be a tad better.  How this will play out is anybody’s guess.  I would like to see the Steelers go back to the three-step-THROW offense they ran week one against Houston.  When they went no-huddle last week, the offense came alive and I think that’s because Ben doesn’t do hot reads unless they’re running an up-tempo offense.

Playing Jacksonville in October is fitting since they’ve been a House of Horrors for the Steelers as of late.  There was the horrific showing two years ago when Ben’s brains were still scrambled from the motorcycle accident and his body hadn’t recovered from spleen removal.  Last year, we got run over at home.  Then there was the screw job in the playoffs.  I have no idea what fate awaits us this week.  I just hope the game doesn’t end 6-3 due to a last second field goal when the ref calls a phantom pass intereference penalty on Troy Polamalu.

Somewhere there is a racehorse. And this racehorse’s great-great-great-great-great granddaddy was also a racehorse. And one fine day back in 1933, that horse won a race. A race bet on by a North Sider by the name of Arthur J. Rooney. And Art Rooney used the money he won that day, about $2,500 in total, to purchase a professional football franchise which would one day be known as the Pittsburgh Steelers.

For 75 years, the Rooney family has owned the Steelers. Sure, some things have changed but the Rooneys have remained the one major constant. Three Rivers Stadium is nothing but a memory. Art Rooney is gone but not forgotten, his eldest son Dan having been in control of the team for several decades now. And a recent appraisal of the Steelers values the team at around $1 billion.

Yes, you read that right. ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

Why was the team even being appraised you may ask? Because there is a very real possibility that sometime in the near future the one constant in Steeler Nation might no longer be constant. Yes, there appears to be a day coming when everybody who bleeds Black and Gold wakes up in a world where the Rooneys no longer own the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If that doesn’t worry you at least a little, it should.

With the passing of their father, controlling interest in the team was left to his five sons, Dan, Art Jr., Timothy, Patrick, and John. Dan was team president while Art Jr. was scouting director from the early 70’s until 1986 when his brother fired him, primarily because he insisted on taking NT Gabe Rivera over a local kid with a cannon arm by the name of Danny Marino. I would’ve fired my own mother over that one. The remaining brothers had other business interests and had no direct involvement with football-related matters.

The Rooney boys are all in their 50’s-70’s so they naturally have begun preparing for the inevitable transfer of power. Dan has already groomed his son, Art III, to take his place as team president. I believe this is Sticking Point #1 in that Art III is generally considered an asshole. When Bill Cowher had his farewell press conference, he spoke glowingly of Dan but had nothing to say about Art III. Rumor has it Little Art led the “Screw him! We don’t have to pay him because anybody can coach our awesome team!” charge which ultimately led to Cowher’s departure and subsequent dental work.

Dan Rooney is a powerful man in the NFL. He chaired the committee which nominated tape-destroying slimeball Roger Goodell for commissioner. He’s a major voice on every labor issue or contract negotiation. And it’s no secret he, and most likely his scheming son, want the team for themselves. Which is why it’s a bit suspicious that the NFL has all of a sudden interjected themselves into the Steeler’s ownership structure, demanding one person own 30% of the team while also suggesting some of the Rooney brothers’ race track business ventures constitute a violation of the league’s no-gambling interests policy.

The four remaining brothers have responded by doing the unthinkable; looking to sell their shares to somebody outside the family. This is where the appraisal comes in as supposedly Dan/AIII made an offer which was a bit low. Maybe they should bring in Sidney Crosby as a partner. Nah, Marian Hossa wouldn’t take a discount to play with him, the Rooneys probably wouldn’t either.

Enter Stanley Druckenmiller, owner of Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Capital Management,and filthy rich bastard. He’s a billionaire which is one requirement for buying something valued at around a billion dollars. He’s also a lifelong Steelers fan. Join the club, pal.

In fact, here is where it gets interesting. If the Rooney boys are serious about opening bidding for their shares up to the general public, there will unlikely be a free-for-all. I can imagine every disgustingly rich bastard from Mark Cuban to Eddie DeBartolo will enter the fray. Owning the Steelers isn’t the same as owning the Pirates or the Penguins. Don’t get me wrong, I love all our teams but the Steelers are a legendary team in the most successful (and popular) sports league. Interest in this would be huge.

And therein lays the worry. With the Rooneys, we know what we get. Sure we complain about their cheapness, we bemoan their lack of action in free-agency, and hate that while they want to win, it’s not Super Bowl-or-failure as it is to many of us. But what if we get a Ford or a Bidwell? Or, horror of horrors, a Danny Schnieder? Would Pittsburgh really want a flamboyant self-promoting clown like Jerry Jones prancing all over the sidelines at Heinz Field? These are the questions we may have to grapple with in the not-so-distant future.

Always remember, better the devil you know.