Quarterback?  We don’t need no stinkin’ quarterback!

The Pittsburgh Steelers put on a magnificent defensive performance, humiliating the Tennessee Titans in front of their home crowd.   The final score of 19-11 does not indicate how one-sided a beating it truly was.   If not for a garbage time touchdown and a tricky on-side kick, Tennessee’s output would’ve been limited to a lone field goal.  In fact, the Titans did not drive into Steelers territory until their final two possessions of the game.

How complete was the domination?   They held the best running back in football, Chris Johnson, to a pitiful 34 yards, thus ruining many fantasy football weekends in the process.   They had four sacks and forced six turnovers with a seventh coming on special teams.  By the beginning of the fourth quarter, Titans coach Jeff Fisher had seen enough ineptitude from starting quarterback Vince Young and pulled him in favor of ancient relic Kerry Collins.

The only reason the game wasn’t a total blowout was the Steelers had major quarterback issues of their own.  Two full games plus an overtime have yielded ONE offensive touchdown.  Seven turnovers produced a grand total of four field goals yesterday.  The passing game was almost non-existent.   And without any sort of aerial threat, the Titans stacked the box which held Rashard Mendenhall to only 69 yards on 23 carries.

Before kickoff, the Steelers placed Byron Leftwich on waivers so they could activate practice squad NT Steve McClendon.  The inhumane conditions in godforsaken Tennessee, where field temperature soared to near 100 degrees, necessitated two sets of D-linemen which were alternated all game long.  This left starter Dennis Dixon, backup Charlie Batch, and emergency quarterback Antwaan Randle El.  No problem, right?

Wrong.  The Steelers struck on the opening kickoff as new special teams coach Al Everest introduced a nice bit of razzle dazzle.  Mewelde Moore took the kick, then handed it off to rookie Antonio Brown on a reverse.   Brown raced down the sideline for an 89 yard TD.  The ensuing kickoff was fumbled by Tennessee, setting the Steelers up at their 46.  Rookie LB Stevenson Sylvester, who was a terror on special teams, made the hit and recovered the ball.

On Dixon’s second pass attempt, he was wiped out on a blindside hit from Wil Witherspoon.  Dix fumbled the ball and the Titans recovered which set up their lone FG.  This pattern of blindside pressure was repeated throughout the game as alternating LTs Jonathan Scott and Tony Hills were absolutely atrocious.  For those of you who enjoy criticizing Max Starks, I hope we all remember this game the next time somebody claims the Steelers don’t need him.  If Max can’t play next week, they should seriously consider moving Flozell Adams back to his original position because those two were a disaster on the left side.

A three and out by the Steelers led to a 38 yard punt return by the Titans.  VY drove the team to the Steelers 16.   Troy Polamalu, who was everywhere, slammed the door on that drive by picking off a Young pass in the end zone.  On the subsequent drive, Dix began to show why he’ll someday be VY except fifty times better.   A 10 yard run by Mendy was followed by a 20 yard rumble.  DD scrambled out of danger, turning a busted play into a 21 yard gain.  His nifty moves evidently turned a light bulb on over Bruce Arians‘ fool head.   After a muffed snap and a sack, he called a designed scramble that only netted 7 yards.   The Steelers had to settle for a FG.

Somewhere in that sequence, Dixon injured his knee.  While Batch quickly warmed up, Dix was carted off the field for x-rays.  Although the diagnoses was a sprain, he would not return and his availability for next week is questionable.  Anybody have Tyler Palko‘s number?

Batch was positively dreadful in his first real action of 2010.  Over three full quarters, he attempted 11 passes, completing only 5 for 25 yards.  For all the talk about the team protecting Dixon by calling safe plays, they protected Batch even more.  Some of it was probably due to not wanting to put your lone remaining QB in danger.  But if you’re not going to try and win the game, why is he even there?   It got so ridiculous that Tennessee didn’t even pretend to honor the passing game, playing with four linemen AND four linebackers all at the line of scrimmage.

And how could you blame them?   One sequence in the third quarter went like this:  1st and 20. Run up the middle.  2nd and 17.  Run up the middle.  3rd and 15.  Let’s try a run up the middle!  I realize he’s a fourth string QB who hasn’t ran the Steelers’ offense in three years but you’d think they’d have SOME confidence in the veteran.   Batch did make a couple nice throws, particularly a sweet 16 yard TD to Mike Wallace which was negated by a penalty, but it mostly dump-offs and screens which were no more difficult than what Dixon was being asked to complete.

While suffering through a Steelers offense which was positively Tomzak-ian in nature, the Titans were suffering in a different way.  The Steelers defense was doling out punishment left and right.  It was a thing of beauty to see our linebackers flying all over the field, swarming to the ball carrier like a pack of wolves.   Johnson will be seeing Lawrence Timmons in his dreams tonight.  Timmons had another fantastic game in run defense.  Meanwhile, James Harrison was hunting quarterbacks all afternoon, collecting two sacks for his efforts.  Troy was used on run blitzes and nabbed CJ three times for a loss.

LaMarr Woodley baited Young by faking a blitz before dropping into coverage where he  jumped the route for an INT.  Mister Woodley would later smash Collins with the fumble rolling to the safe nurturing arms of Chris Hoke.  Johnson stupidly ran into a pack of rabid Steelers and got the ball knocked free by Timmons.  Silverback sent the ball flying on one of his sacks of VY and it was recovered by the rookie McClendon.  Finally, a Collins pass was picked off by Bryant McFadden when Nate Washington decided to loaf on a route.

Of course, the highlight was the play above where the Steelers pulled off the ultra-rare three man German suplex on a hapless Vince Young.

The cycle of Steelers FGs and Titans miscues lasted until the final five minutes.  Dick LeBeau called off the dogs which gave Collins a chance to engineer a seventeen play 86 yard TD drive with the Steelers basically playing prevent.  A two point conversion narrowed the game to eight points.   A bizarre on-side kick saw Rob Bironis run left, do the hokey pokey, and then boot it right to Wil Allen (He’s on the HANDS TEAM?) who muffed it.  Collins hit Washington in the end zone with B-Mac getting badly beaten and if not for Ryan Clark running over to rip the ball away before he could secure the catch, this game would’ve been way way too close for comfort.

Still, a win is a win.   And all things considered, a mighty impressive win at that.  I kinda scoffed at people like Peter King who tabbed the Steelers as a possible Super Bowl team.  After watching yesterday’s game, I can say this is definitely a championship caliber defense.   Now all we need is to get our real QB back so our offense can say the same thing.

Late in the 2008 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers played the Tennessee Titans.  A Black and Gold squad exhausted from playing the toughest schedule given any team in the last thirty years was crushed 31-14.   What happened during that game is something which will long live in infamy among Steeler Nation.  Cameras cut to the Tennessee sideline where their running back, Lendale White, proceeded to desecrate the Terrible Towel.

The Titans finished 13-3 that season.  In their very first playoff game, the AFC’s top seed was one-and-done.   Meanwhile, the Steeler would go on to add Lombardi Trophy number six to their mantle.   Last season, the two teams met in the very first game of the year which Pittsburgh won 13-10 in overtime.   While the Steelers would have a disappointing season, the Titans stumbled to a humiliating 0-6 start before rallying late to finish a mediocre 8-8.

But the real story lies in what happened to Romper Stomper White.   In 2008, White was part of a platoon with rookie RB Chris Johnson. In the playoff loss to the Ratbirds, the team was driving late in the first half and about to score the go-ahead touchdown.  White fumbled the ball away and the team never got back on track.   Last season, Johnson emerged as the best running back in football while LenWhale saw his carries shrink from 200 in ’08 to a mere 64.   He was traded to the Seattle Seahawks during the off-season.  Before training camp began, he was released due to an impending four game suspension for failing a drug test.  Despite this,  Denver signed White but in the team’s final preseason game he tore his Achilles Tendon shelving him for the year.

Did Lendale break a mirror?   Open an umbrella indoors?   Walk under a ladder?   No, he did something much more foolish.

He messed with the Terrible Towel.

The Black-Eyed Peas took center stage at Point State Park to begin a fantastic 2009 Kickoff Concert. Unfortunately, I was busy hosting a dozen freeloaders friends at my home so I could not attend the festivities. By the way, if anybody went and managed to take some good shots of Fergie, feel free to post a link. After the singing was done, the Pittsburgh Steelers began the NFL season with a fantastic 13-10 overtime defeat of the Tennesee Titans.

Last season ended with the stalwart Steeler defense rising up to stonewall their opponent and give Ben Roethlisberger the chance to engineer a thrilling last second victory. How’d this season start? With the stalwart Steeler defense rising up to stonewall their opponent and give Ben Roethlisberger the chance to engineer a thrilling last second victory.

Wash rinse repeat.

The first half of the game saw the Steeler offense do a great impression of the Detroit Lions. After the 1st quarter, they had TWO yards of total offense. Ben contributed to the misery with one horrendous INT and two sacks where he lost a billion yards because he clutches on to the football like it’s a girl in a cowboy hat. With less than five minutes until halftime, the grand total had risen to a paltry 34 yards. At about the two minute warning, Big Ben finally woke up in time to lead the team down the field, connecting with Santonio Holmes to cap a 79 yard touchdown drive.

Up until that point the only things keeping the Steelers in the game were luck and Troy Polamalu. Allow me to recap the first half defensive effort by the Steelers. Polamalu with a tackle. Polamalu with another tackle. Polamalu with a personal foul. Polamalu with a pass defense. Polamalu with a tackle. Sensing a pattern?

Troy was a one man wrecking crew. He had his nose in almost every play the Titans ran, highlighted by a spectacular one-handed interception which prevented a FG and possibly a TD. Despite Troy’s heroics, the Titans blew two golden opportunities by badly shanking one FG and having another blocked by Aaron Smith. It was on that play where Polamalu had his knee bent at an ugly angle, sending him to the locker room with what appears to be a serious injury.

The Titans answered the Steelers TD with one of their own less than a minute later. QB Kerry Collins led them the length of the field on three lousy plays. I’d like to blame the D but it looked like Troy’s injury sent the Steelers secondary into mass confusion. Ryan Clark and Face Me Ike were each caught way out of position and beaten badly on consecutive plays. Will.i.am Gay, who gets his nickname from the fella pictured above wearing the ginormous hat as my tribute to his performance at the Super Bowl Victory Parade, had a solid effort in his first game as a full-time starter.

The second half was a puntfest as neither offense managed to accomplish much. The Steelers were particularly bad when it came to running the ball. They finished the game with 23 carries for 36 yards. That’s a 1.6 average. ONE AND A HALF FREAKIN’ YARDS PER CARRY!?!?  Jerome Bettis could do better than that and he’s been eating donuts, lobbying politicians to support shady casino barons, and flirting with Tiki Barber for the last three years!

In this case, failure has many fathers. The offensive line performed shockingly well at pass protection, surrendering 4 sacks, two of which were Ben’s fault and one which was the result of a jailbreak blitz. However, they can’t run block to save their lives. I’ve seen bigger holes on I-79. Fast Willie Parker (13 carries for 19 yards) clearly has no confidence in them because instead of making cutbacks, he just dives forward as soon as he spots a glimmer of space. Rashard Mendenhall (4 for 6) showed absolutely nothing. Frank The Tank Summers, our shiny new FB, totally whiffed on almost every block he was supposed to make. He played positively CAREYDAVISESQUE! Our longest run was 8 freakin’ yards and the short yardage situation was so bad that after failing 3 out of 4 times to make a 1st down, they resorted to using the shotgun to pick it up.

Look, do the Steelers have the offensive weapons to be a passing oriented offense? Yes. Holmes (9 catches 131 yards) and Hines Ward (8 for 103) each had a huge game while TE Heath Miller and rookie Mike Wallace chipped in with some big catches. Shaun McDonald didn’t take the field and Limas Sweed wasn’t thrown at but both are more than capable of being valuable contributors as well. This team can absolutely throw the ball with any team in the league. But no team, NO TEAM, is going to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender if they only rush for 35 yards per game or fail to pick up 3rd and shorts on a regular basis.

Titans K Rob Bironas finally managed to boot a 45 yard FG late in the 4th quarter. The Steelers answered with a nice drive which stalled when Mewelde Moore got stuffed twice trying to convert a 3rd and 1. Yes, they were so desperate they turned to Double M as their short yardage specialist. *Deepbreath* The resulting Skippy Reed boot tied the score at 10-10.

Reverting to classic form, the mighty Steelers D got the ball back to set the stage for yet another of Ben’s thrilling last second comebacks. However, Hines committed one of the most boneheaded blunders in years when he caught a 30 yard strike over the middle and instead of going down in chip-shot FG range, he decided to zig-zag through an army of Titans all pawing at the football like it was a bachelor party at Club Erotica. Sure enough, the ball popped loose and Who? Stephen Tulloch pounced on it. Hines spent the remainder of the game looking like a fat kid that was told he couldn’t have ice cream for dessert.

Thankfully, fate was on the Steelers side as they won the coin toss. Against a clearly exhausted Titan defense, Ben once again led the team deep into Titan territory.  This time the rookie Wallace made the key catch to put them into position for a game-winning Skippy FG. Ben finished 33-43 for 363 yards (1 TD 2 INT), making a lot of fantasy owners really sorry they didn’t start him this week. (DAMN!) I know we expect a lot of Big Ben and we’re all getting spoiled by his comebacks but isn’t asking for two in the same game just a little bit greedy?

The Pittsburgher in me likes to see the glass as half full.  I guess that’s why I can’t shake the feeling that what we saw last night were some ominous warning signs about the rocky road ahead.  The good news is, we’re 1-0 with 15 weeks left to straighten out any issues with our defending Super Bowl champs.  The bad news is, by all rights, we should be 0-1.

When it rains, it pours. Especially in Western Pennsylvania.

Newly installed starting inside linebacker Lawrence Timmons is injured and will likely miss the season opener against Tennessee. As usual, the Pittsburgh Steelers give us the rosy prediction he’ll be out only a couple of weeks. Given the 10 day hiatus from their Thursday night opener until game 2, that means Timmons could be out only one game. Of course, it’s useless to depend on anybody wearing Black and Gold for medical updates because they always lie.

The report is Timmons suffered a high ankle sprain in the preseason whupping of the Bills. Uh-oh. High ankle sprains are notoriously slow healing injuries. They’re also most bothersome to players who rely on speed and quick movements to do their job. Fast Willie Parker missed almost half the season last year due to a nagging high ankle sprain and Santonio Holmes lost 3 games to the same injury the year before.  For a guy like Timmons, who depends almost entirely on his speed and athleticism to make plays, this isn’t something you want bothering him out on the field.

The starting LB duty will now fall to sixth-year backup Keyaron Fox.  This will be Keyaron’s first start for the Steelers, as he was signed mostly as a special teams ace.  Originally drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs, Fox did start some games for that team. He has a grand total of one sack his entire career.

All this agita over Timmons injury could’ve been prevented had the Steelers not cut ties with last year’s starter, Larry Foote. Unfortunately, Timmons being a 2007 1st round pick meant Mike Tomlin and company were somewhat obligated to give him every chance to make the starting line-up. And, to be fair, LT did play very well in limited duty last year. Once Foote saw the writing on the wall, he asked for his release. That may not be the “official” story but it’s pretty much what happened.

Come next Thursday, we’ll see if that decision comes back to haunt them.