Ravens vs Texans

The Ravens should win this game, they should be pissed off and a little desperate after losing the game and division lead to the Steelers last week.

But they are also beat up and probably tired. Not a great recipe for success against a potent Texans offense. The thing that still has me leaning the Ravens way is just how good they are against the run. If they can stuff Foster then Schaub has to step up, will he?

I'm guessing Flacco and Co. leave Houston with a win on Monday Night Football, extending the division race another week at least.

Steelers vs Bengals preview

Pre-season favorites to win the AFC North??? I questioned it then and I thought to myself.... the bungles? Really? The experts were picking the bungles to do something they haven't done in twenty years and that is have back to back winning seasons.

Yeah, not so much. 

The Steelers were picked third and expected to miss the playoffs.

Yeah, not so much.

What does all that have to do with Sunday's game?

Yeah, not so much. 

As much as I do love reveling in Cincinnati's ineptitude, I am still concerned that this is a trap game for Pittsburgh. We just came off a physical, emotional win and it would be easy to look past Cinci and towards the Jets. That said it looks like the Bengals have mailed it in, they believed their own press clippings and thought, "we are an elite team". Man, it's gotta hurt to fall from a ten story building like that, ouchie.

Cedric Benson is going to get stuffed all day and Carson Palmer will make a few plays and few more mistakes. Mendenhall should get going early and have a solid twenty carry day. I'm hoping Ben can get a day off and we cruise, but I don't think it's going to be a blowout.

Steelers should win a fairly low scoring game, my pick 24 -14.

Raider Karma

Ravens win and their in, should be simple enough, after all this week’s game is kind of a gimme... Just don’t tell that to the; Buccaneers, Bengals, Steelers or Broncos…

One year ago the Raiders made a HUGE impact on the playoffs when they beat the Buccaneers in the season finale. The Bucs had everything to play for and that loss knocked them out of the playoffs and simultaneously gave a post season ticket to the Eagles who would use it well and advance to NFC title game.

Earlier this year the Bengals fell flat against the silver and black, and then it was the Steelers and finally the Broncos. The last two were on the road no less. The Steelers and Broncos have no excuses, both were critical games and in the Steelers case they had recently lost to the Chiefs so they shouldn’t have been looking past anybody.

The Raiders style of play coupled with the Ravens own style should keep the game fairly low scoring and therefore somewhat in doubt late into the game. The Ravens absolutely should win; I just won’t be shocked if they don’t.

 

Odds Schmods!

Was there any doubt that we’d be in this spot?

If you thought the season would end any other way, you clearly have not been paying attention. Here’s what will happen this weekend;

Steelers will beat Dolphins
Patriots will beat the Texans
Broncos will beat the Chiefs

I am fairly certain that the Ravens will beat the Raiders, but I have another post coming on that topic.

That leaves the Bengals vs Jets to determine our fate… on Sunday night no less. Last game of the regular season.

Conventional wisdom has the Jets playing much harder than the Bengals especially since Cincinnati will be locked into the #4 seed come kickoff time. I remember in ’89 when we needed the Vikings to beat the Bengals on Monday night (last game of the regular season) for us to get in. This time we need Cinci to come out on top, but the circumstances are very similar.

One other thing… If the Bengals lose to the Jets this week they are almost assured of getting them right back in the Wild Card Round. They will of course know this, and do they really want to face a team that JUST beat them? Now the Bengals have not played well of late, but I think they are a slightly better team than the Jets and I’m hoping that talent will win on this day.

If the Bengals pull it off, we’ll have a date with New England. I’ll be the first to say; I hate that matchup, but I’ll take it to get in.

The end is a new beginning...

As time ticks down, Ben scans the field, looking for someone, anyone. Finally he sees a window and lets it go, the pass is perfect, two hands clutch the ball, and two toes tap the turf… just barely inbounds. Steelers Win!

The receiver was Santonio Holmes, the game of course was the Super Bowl. That play capped a magical season where the Steelers simply would not be denied. Flash forward ten months, the receiver was also Mike Wallace and that game of course happened just yesterday. That eerily similar play officially ended a five game slide where the Steelers did everything but gift wrap victories for their opponents.

Could that one play be the start of a new season? Will it infuse the team with a confidence that has been the most crucial of all the missing ingredients? Don’t think so? Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

After six games the Tennessee Titans were 0-6 and had just been shellacked by the Patriots. At that point they were losing games because of a secondary that was decimated by injury which resulted in a fading confidence in all other aspects of their game. When they won that first game after their bye I said, “watch the Titans, they are going to be very good in the second half”. I felt that way because that team was so obviously better than their record and that one win provided just a spark of confidence. That is all a good team needs.

That is what the Steelers got on Sunday. If they win the last two, they will need just a little help and they are in the playoffs. If that happens, all bets are off and I am sure of this; nobody wants to see Pittsburgh in the post season.

Steel Sieve

The vaunted Steelers defense? The Cardinals exposed the Steelers Achilles heal last February and others have been doing it all year… Passing at will. Look, Pittsburgh can still defend the run, but why even try to run the Steelers when throwing is just soooo easy.

The question, “how can Troy make such a huge difference to this defense?” has been asked innumerable times and I think I finally have the answer.

He doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, Troy is our best defender, but he hardly makes this an elite pass defense. Rather he takes the Steelers from terrible to marginal, but that difference is significant because all we needed for this season to have been drastically different are a couple extra stops per game. Do you really think that either KC or Oakland carves us up in the fourth quarter with Troy in there? Me neither.

The bottom line is this is a unit with some major holes and those holes have been exposed.

AFC "Wild"Card Race

Why oh why can't the Steelers just be mathematically eliminated already???

With three games to go there are seven, yes seven teams within one game of the last spot. Who is going to get it? I still claim that Jacksonville and the Dolphins are pretenders, the Texans schedule is too tough and the Titans are just not quite there.

That leave realistically the Jets and the Ravens, I think both will finish 9-7. Based on current conference records the Ravens would get the last spot. I'm going to say that B-More will in fact get the 6th seed. Even if the Steelers win out, they lose out on tie breaks with those two teams.