I’ve watched this video twenty times and you know what? It never gets old!

Don’t get me wrong. When it happened, I was not happy. On the contrary, I was concerned because the Pittsburgh Steelers were only up by a field goal. It definitely appeared that the undefeated Minnesota Vikings were closing in on the tie if not the go-ahead touchdown. Then the Steelers defense rose to the occasion, picking off Brett Favre and leading the Black and Gold to glorious victory.

So now I can gloat.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m not a fan of Will.i.am Gay. For one thing, he acted like a complete moron at the Super Bowl Victory Parade. But what really grills my cheese is the way he poses and celebrates after making the most ordinary of plays. I’m not some old geezer. I don’t mind guys celebrating, say after catching the winning TD pass in the Super Bowl. However, Gay seems to think tackling somebody for a two yard loss is worthy of a choreographed dance straight out of an episode of Glee.

Thanks to Brett and his Fighting Wranglers, I have a new reason to dislike Gay. He sucks at football. If you saw the game, you probably noticed they targeted him all day. He blew one play where he was supposed to blitz but stopped long enough for the ball to go lofting over his peabrained head. On a crucial third and long, Gay totally whiffed on trying to tackle Percy Harvin. He misses a lot of tackles because he doesn’t wrap people up so much as dive desperately at their feet hoping an ankle falls into his mitts.

I didn’t worry much when Bryant McFadden left to join the Arizona Cardinals Pittsburgh West. After all, B-Mac only started one year and was routinely beaten out by ninety-five year old Deshea Townshend. Hindsight being 20/20, I realize we’re going to miss him. Gay has blazing speed but is a lousy tackler with mediocre coverage skills. Maybe Mike Tomlin, who started out as a secondary coach, can coach him up but I’m not holding my breath. We’ll have to make due until next year when either rookie Joe Burnett is ready to start or we take a better corner in the draft.

In the meantime, I’ll relish the irony of the above play. Gay has spent this season trying to draw attention to himself and his meager accomplishments. Well, he’s got attention now. From this point forward, whenever a “Best Plays of 2009″ highlight package airs, I’m sure you’ll see the clip of young Will.i.am getting JACKED UP by Purple Jesus. Be careful what you wish for…

The Pittsburgh Steelers handed the Minnesota Vikings their first defeat of the season with an incredible 27-17 victory. That sentence may seem self-explanatory but it doesn’t even begin to cover what happened. In all my years of watching football, I don’t remember a crazier fifteen minutes of football than what occurred in the fourth quarter. Even for a team which seems to make a habit of the thrilling last second comeback, this one will be remembered by Steeler Nation for a long long time.

Things went well for the Steelers in the early going. Adrian Peterson was held to negative yardage in the first quarter, a first for him. He finished the game with only 69 yards (although he did have another 60 on catches), which is an accomplishment for any defense, let alone one playing without their best run-stopper. They ran right at Travis Kirschke on several occasions and he held his ground, while our linebackers attacked him like a Kit Kat bar at a Jenny Craig meeting.

The first quarter was a punt-fest which the Steelers got the better of thanks to a Mitch Berger impression by the Vikings’ punter. Mike Wallace had a 10 yard catch and then a 13 yard reverse to set the Steelers up at the Vikings thirteen yard line. Ben Roethlisberger, who was a fairly mediocre 14/26 for 175 yards, hit Santonio Holmes for a TD.

Unfortunately, the score was negated by a pass interference penalty against Heath Miller. Evidently, you can interfere with a pass that you not only didn’t catch but was thrown to another receiver 15 yards away. I understand you’re not allowed to run into DBs to prevent them from covering their man. However, it looked to me like the two, yes TWO, DBs Heath ran over bumped into each other first. And there’s still the little fact they were FIFTEEN YARDS AWAY FROM THE PLAY!

The Steelers settled for a FG. After more punts, the Vikings began a methodical drive down the field featuring a 28 yard pass to Percy Harvin and capped by a Peterson blast.  With 1:39 left in the half, the Vikes went to some soft zone type defense and Big Ben methodically picked them apart. A 22 yard pass to super-rookie Wallace (Who deserves a cool nickname. Suggestions please.) was followed up with a 40 yard bomb for a TD. Black and Gold up 10-7 at halftime.

The third quarter saw an exchange of FGs.   The Steelers wasted a great opportunity to score a knockout blow with a first and goal from the Minny 8. Three consecutive pass plays resulted in a near INT, a busted play, and an incompletion. This team leaves the barn door open more often than Matt Spaeth after an all-night bender.

Then came the unbelievable fourth quarter. The Steelers drove downfield, mixing pass and run quite effectively. First down at the Minnesota 9 and it appeared they were finally going to club that baby seal.  A hand-off to Rashard Mendenhall and…and…

…and what the f*#k happened?? I saw what happened but can’t quite believe it. In over two decades of watching football, I’ve never seen a dumber play. Mendenhall launched himself skyward, unfortunately failing to take the ball with him. The Vikes pounced on his horrendous fumble while I literally screamed at my television. Rashard, you see, attempted what looked like perfect goal line dive.  Problem was, he jumped from the SEVEN YARD LINE!! Does he think he’s Michael Jordan!? Who attempts an endzone dive from SEVEN FREAKIN’ YARDS AWAY?!?

Predictably, Brett Favre took this gift and marched the Vikes right down the field. Our secondary fell apart as Troy Polamalu was way out of position several times and they picked on Will.i.am Gay mercilessly all game long. To make matters worse, Kirschke and Lawrence Timmons both left the game with injuries during the drive.  In Timmons’ case, that would come back to haunt the Vikings later, much like the movie Paranormal Activity haunts my dreams on a nightly basis.  A tripping call on Minnesota nullified a TD pass to Sidney Rice, momentarily saving the Steelers from yet another 4th quarter choke.

Still, with a third and 8 from the Steelers 8, it looked like the Vikes would get the tying FG. Then Brett Keisel darted up the middle and swatted the ball out of Favre’s mitts. Mister Woodley rescued the pigskin from the evil clutches of Captain Wrangler and a whole convoy of Steelers escorted him 77 yards the other way for a TD.

To say everybody was excited is like saying Megan Fox kinda looks like a stripper.  Even Dick LeBeau was celebrating!  Steeler nation was excited.  Heinz Field was rocking. I was doing my patented Snoopy Dance of Joy.

Then we kicked off.

Percy Harvin took the ball and without the slightest hesitation streaked the other way for an 88 yard TD. He was barely touched. And I never EVER want to hear how kickers are football players again because Skippy Reed‘s attempt to “tackle” him was laughable. After apologizing to Steeler Nation this week, you’d think he’d at least try to make up by throwing his body at Harvin. Instead he just gave him a dainty little push like he was afraid to break a nail.  Way to go, dipshit.

The Steelers got the ball back and at this point I was just hoping we could somehow run out the clock.  Naturally, Bruce Arians answers my prayers by dialing up a SHOTGUN PASS.  This ends in epic failure as Ben gets the ball stripped and the Steelers are lucky to swat it out of bounds.  Which left Brett Favre with the ball, down 3, with three minutes left. In other words, exactly where we didn’t want to be.

And Favre immediately makes our nightmares come true by leading his team down the field.  The key play here was Purple Jesus SMITING William Gay on a short dump pass before rumbling 30 yards. Minnesota had the ball at the Steelers 19 and at this point I was just hoping for OT. Then Favre floated a screen pass to Chester Taylor who got his fingertips on it enough to deflect it into the waiting hands of Keyaron Fox. Fox was escorted 82 yards for the second thrilling defensive TD in the quarter.

I don’t know what else to say about this one.  We played a legitimate Super Bowl contender and held them to one offensive TD.  We also squandered several chances to put the game away on offense, continuing the disturbing trend of not finishing teams when they have the chance.  On the other hand, our defense playing without three starters had four sacks, a ton of pressures, held the league’s best RB pretty much in check, and scored two TDs.  Sure our secondary isn’t nearly as good as it was last year but this was the first time I felt our defense matched 2008′s level.  And we all know how last year ended.  If the Steelers could figure out how to stop sabotaging their efforts with dumb mistakes on offense and special teams, this team would really be dangerous.