Whoops.

Looks like Anthony “Booger” McFarland isn’t about to use the Terrible Towel as his personal Snot Rag of Doom any time soon. According to the Beaver County Times, the reason my witty headline went for naught is he failed his post workout physical. Shocking, I know, considering the reason he was released in the first place was he failed a physical. Guess that Wolverine-like healing factor the Steelers thought he possessed didn’t kick in yet.

I apologize for jumping the gun in bringing you the exciting news that we signed Booger. Serves me right for reading a Post-Gazette headline entitled “Steelers sign McFarland” and then seeing ESPN‘s news ticker confirm the news and believing them both. I should obviously know better than believe our city’s largest newspaper and the undisputed leader in sports. In the future, I promise to bring you all Steeler news three or four days late, thus ensuring the information is indeed accurate.

Speaking of exciting and accurate information, one signing I can confirm is the Steelers have re-signed defensive end Nick Eason. This is no doubt a case of having to settle for your second choice because your first one didn’t pan out. Kinda like in high school when you end up going to prom with that dorky girl you used to fling paste at in Kindergarten because the cute blonde cheerleader you really wanted to go with didn’t pass her physical. I suspect the clap.

Eason will be returning for his second season in Pittsburgh after coming over from the Brownies. That right there should tell you he’s a shitty player because the last good thing to come outta Cleveland is Drew Carey. Seriously, though, I admire the Steelers desire to keep their own players instead of acquiring other teams’ scraps but that’s only admirable if the guy, you know, CAN ACTUALLY PLAY. All available evidence suggests Eason cannot.

Which is a bit of a problem considering you’d want a back-up who could actually step in for, one might say back up, the starter. When Aaron Smith went down last year, Eason was given the start. And, as I’ve recounted serveral times, the rush defense blew. He was immediately replaced by Travis Kirschke. And the rush defense still blew, but it blew slightly less.

After the season ended and the tears from the Jacksonville loss had dried, head coach Mike Tomlin said the Steelers needed to get younger and better in the trenches. I don’t always understand Tomlin’s coachspeak but I guess by “younger,” he meant re-signing the 34-year-old Kirschke and by “better” he meant re-signing the guy who had to be replaced for poor play. Perhaps Tomlin knows something we don’t. Maybe he’s hoping that Ryan “Steely” Mcbean will, in his second year, gain the bulk, strength, athletic ability, and knowledge of the defense which will allow him to contribute to the team in a useful way. At this point, I’d give anybody a shot to break up the law firm of Kirschke & Eason.

Player Personnel Director Kevin Colbert would like to address the defensive line with a 2nd or 3rd round pick but we also need offensive linemen and there’s the big tall drink of water Ben Roethlisberger wants at reciever so, as I always tell my father, you can’t please all your mistresses. Once you’re past the third round or so, you probably won’t find any better quality than you already have. In which case, I hope they keep Booger’s number on the speed dial because, hey, maybe that healing factor will kick in eventually.

None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The big goose egg. No, not the approximate nutritional content of a bag of Cinnamon Sun Chips, the snack fat people eat to pretend they’re eating healthy, and my latest game day food of choice. I’m talking about the number of sacks the Steelers much maligned offensive line surrendered to Cincinnati this Sunday.

Granted, nobody was about to confuse the Bungles with the New York Sack Exchange or Blitzburgh when it comes to rushing the quarterback. They were on the lower end of average in the NFL in that category. However, the past three weeks we played teams dwelling in the cellar of those standings, yet still managed to offer them Ben Roethlisberger on a silver platter time and time again. Not this week, though. Cincinnati arrived with 18 sacks as a team and guess how many they’re leaving with? 18 baby! Good bye. Thanks for coming. See you next year.

Overall, I’d have to say last night’s game on the soggy tundra of Heinz Field was, top to bottom, the best game the Steelers have played all year. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as barring a miracle, next week we take on the Greatest Team In The History of the Universe (from now on referred to as GTITHOTU). You might also know them as the undefeated New England Patriots.

Sure there were a few worrisome spots. The Injury of Mysterious Origin™ to Najeh Davenport severely cripples us at running back. As John Madden pointed out, something strange is afoot regarding his foot because he wasn’t even listed on Friday’s final injury report. And Willie “Like Buttah” Parker had a terrible time holding on to the football, losing two out of three fumbles, although luckily the one that got returned for a touchdown was the one they overturned. Sure the ball was slick but nobody else had that much trouble so either Willie needs a new pair of gloves or needs to learn the fine art of Stick’um. But why dwell on the negatives when there were so many positives?

WR Hines Ward had a career day, catching 11 balls for around 100 yards and two scores to surpass John Stallworth as #1 on the Steelers all-time receiving TD list. He made the big catches in traffic all day long. Big Ben, managing to stay upright and not running for his life every third play, made the throws he needed to make in less than ideal conditions and scored a big touchdown to jump start the offense. And for the first time this season, our special teams actually played quite well. William Gay and Lawrence Timmons had some nice open field tackles on coverage which give me hope that aspect of our team is finally on the mend.

Our defense turned in another stellar effort. The line and linebackers hurried and harassed Carson Palmer all day long. Despite the injury to Troy Polamalu, the secondary did an outstanding job covering Cincinnati’s Big Two + Chris Henry. CB Ike Taylor was especially wet blanket-esque, totally stifling Ocho Cinco for most of the game. If our secondary can bring their A-game next week, things could get very interesting in Foxboro.

That right there is why last week’s game against the Miami Dolphins was simultaneously the greatest and the worst game you’re going to see this season. Shockingly, it was the third highest rated Monday Nighter of the year which tells me either Steeler Nation is more powerful than I thought or there are a lot of football fans who like good, old-fashioned, mud and rain slop ball. Fallout from the Sod Bowl continues in all quarters, as the Steeler players weigh in favor of keeping the field as is, while the national media waggle their figurative fingers at our fair city and say, “Shame! Shame!”

Of course, there’s still some football to be played on the soupy tundra of Heinz Field. Why, there’s a game this Sunday night as a matter of fact. The Cincinnati Bengals have cleared it with their parole officers and are free to make their annual pilgrimage to Pittsburgh to wrap up our yearly two game set.

Pittsburgh Defense vs. Cincinnati Offense

The Cincinnati offense we’ll see this week is light years better than the one we limited to 13 points in our first meeting. The Bengals have been lighting up the scoreboard in recent weeks, dropping a couple of 35s on the opposition in consecutive weeks. Gone is the team from earlier this season that was having all kinds of problems scoring.

Why the sudden change? Well, they got two of their key players back. RB Rudi Johnson has finally gotten healthy and his threat in the running game has really opened up things for Carson Palmer. The other key component was WR and habitual lawbreaker Chris Henry coming back from being put in NFL mandated time out.

Obviously, having Ocho Cinco and TJ Housyourdaddy at wide out should be enough to put plenty of points on the board but don’t think Chad Johnson exploding for 3 TDs last week was just good timing. Having a dangerous third/slot receiver like Henry out there really forces secondaries to adjust their coverage, leading to blown assignments or favorable matchups for the Big Two.

Let’s also not forget that in the first game, Cincinnati might’ve been able to pull out a win if head coach Marvin Lewis hadn’t forgotten to bring his balls to the stadium that day. On two occasions they were inside the Steelers’ red zone and both times they settled for field goals. One of those was a fourth and 1 inside the 10 which was a particularly wussy call for a team that desperately needed a win to stay in contention. We can argue about the Patriots “running up the score” and all but the fact is the successful NFL teams are the most aggressive NFL teams.

Ironically, one of the best things that could happen to the Steelers would be for field conditions to be, um, less than ideal. A sloppy, beaten-up field would greatly limit the speed game Cincinnati likes to play and make it far easier for our cornerbacks to cover. Failing that, it’ll be up to Ike Taylor, Deshea Townshend, and Bryant McFadden to play yet another strong game. Our secondary has played extremely well this year and even though we’ll once again be without FS Troy Polamalu, I expect another outstanding effort from them.

Pittsburgh Offense vs. Cincinnatti Defense

I could easily cut and paste what I’ve written the past three weeks here but because you, the loyal reader, deserve the very best, I’ll instead just reiterate in my own inimitable style. Once again, we’re playing a pretty awful defense. Of course, we’ve played terrible defenses the past two games and managed to score a grand total of one touchdown in the last eight quarters. That’s not going to get the job done this week.

The Bengals have struggled in pretty much every area of defense this season. Their opponents are averaging 25 points, 120 rushing yards, and a whopping 245 passing yards per game against them. These are atrocious numbers, even by their lowly standards. Cincinnati corners have struggled mightily this year and they’re getting absolutely no help from a terrible linebacking corp which is full of three-toed sloths who can’t help out on slot WR’s, RB’s or TE’s. If you have TE Heath Miller on your fantasy team, this would be the week to start him with confidence.

The Bengals do have 18 sacks this year so expect them to bring the pressure on QB Ben Roethlisberger. Once again, it’ll be interesting to see if our swiss cheese line can keep him upright for more than two plays in a row. LT Marvel Smith very likely won’t play so we’ll get another chance to see if Max Starks can shore things up. If he plays well, Mike Tomlin should think about shuffling things around a bit when Smith is ready to come back.

The Steelers will also be without WR Santonio Holmes, who is still nursing a high ankle sprain. I haven’t heard anything so I’m guessing Nate Washington will once again start and they’ll use Cedric Wilson as the third down/slot receiver. Maybe Willie Reid will see some playing time as well, which would be nice because he’s shown a willingness to go over the middle that, as noted, is one area the Bengals have some glaring problems.

I expect a dogfight as Cincinnati isn’t totally out of the playoff picture and will be up for this game like no other game this season. My only regret is being the road team, the Bengals will be dressed in traveling whites instead of the swank Sunkist colored orange uniforms they wore last week. We all know they’re a bunch of criminals but there’s something humorous about seeing them play in what appear to be prison jumpsuits.