Steelers-Titans postgame: The curse of the Towel

in Sports by griffn — September 11, 2009 at 10:36 am | 0 comments

This is the post where I out myself as a rabid Steelers fan. But no, that’s not why I picked them to win the Super Bowl. They really are the best team in football right now. I see my man negrostotle already posted his thoughts from inside Heinz Field (Polamalu and the Madden curse, wow– yep, didn’t even think of that). Here are mine from 3,000 miles away on my couch. Don’t know if I’ll be able to do this every week, but when I can, I will.

polamalu_titans ▪ I can’t fault Hines Ward at all for that fumble at the end of the game, even if he hadn’t come back in overtime to redeem himself. When he turned after that catch and saw all that daylight, I’m pretty sure I was thinking the exact same thing he was: get in the end zone! Yeah, in retrospect obviously the right play there is to protect the ball, get down, and take the field goal.

▪ I don’t know if he’s still battling injuries or what, but Willie Parker looks about half as fast as he was two seasons ago. And that’s a big problem. I realize our offensive line can’t run block to save their lives, but even the two or three times when Fast William got into the open field, he looked like he was running waist high in maple syrup. For a running back whose top three weapons are speed, speed, and fast, this could be a problem all year. I was pretty high on Parker in my running back post, and it’s only one game, but if I owned him in a fantasy league as my #2 back, I’d be looking for other options right now.

▪ On the flip side, Chris Johnson is an absolute beast. Nobody runs on the Steelers, but Johnson did quite a bit of walking. Whoever owns him in your fantasy league probably didn’t watch the game and is probably disappointed by his 15-carry, 57-yard stats. Go trade for that dude immediately.

▪ There’s no question in my mind that LenDale White cursed the Titans by stomping on that Terrible Towel last year. Remember back around 2005 when the Bengals were kind of good for a season? They started feeling themselves a little too much, got their hands on a few Towels, and were likewise disrespectful. Flash forward to the playoffs that year, they got beat handily by the Steelers on the road (the Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl), lost Carson Palmer to a knee injury, and haven’t had a winning season since. I’m not a superstitious guy. I’ll walk circles around black cats and ladders, but I’m so serious about the Terrible Towel curse.

▪ I was pretty impressed by Cris Collinsworth’s booth game, replacing John Madden. Somebody said to me a few weeks ago that Collinsworth was the best color commentator in football, and I was like, what? I think he used to do AFC North games for CBS, and I don’t remember ever being wowed. But, yeah, last night I could see it. That drive in the fourth quarter, when the Steelers marched down the field in no huddle, got to the Titans ten and decided to huddle up for the next two plays– Collinsworth’s call about that move giving the Titans an opportunity to get fresh players on the field was dead on.

▪ I hate our offensive line’s guts, but you have to give them credit last night. Roethlisberger was sacked twice in the first quarter, but only two more times after that the entire rest of the game. Against the Titans, that’s really impressive.

▪ The Steelers are a top 5 defense without Troy Polamalu. With him back there, they’re otherworldly. And Polamalu was back in form last night, making unreal play after unreal play and taking one huge penalty after another. The pass interference call was bogus, but the late hit and the facemask were classic Troy. Comes with the package I guess, but at some point it’s going to cost us a game. (Injury update: He’s out three to six weeks with an MCL sprain.)

▪ Stefan Logan made two mistakes last night, fielding one punt at the five and waiting till the absolute last second to decide whether or not to field another (he decided to let it go and it bounced another 15 yards downfield). At this point, Santonio Holmes is better at making those kinds of decisions. But with that said, I can’t remember ever seeing a Steelers returner as fast and decisive with the ball in his hands as Logan. At some point this season, mark my words, teams are going to stop kicking to him. He’s a black and gold Devin Hester.

▪ How irresponsible was it of NBC to air a segment on the Roethlisberger rape allegations without ever mentioning the mountains of evidence suggesting that the woman is lying? I’m not asking NBC to take sides, I’m just asking them to present more facts than just the woman’s accusation. Because her word is basically all the evidence she has. How about we hear some from Ben’s side? Like the fact that less than 24 hours after the alleged rape, the woman was e-mailing friends nonchalantly about preparing to go out to dinner with Roethlisberger? Or the fact that it took her a year– after whatever relationship they’d had soured– to file the charges? Come on, NBC, do better.

Tags: football NFL Pittsburgh Steelers Tennessee Titans week one