For 50 minutes on Sunday the Pittsburgh Steelers plan was working to perfection. Their defense kept the Denver Broncos out of the end zone and their injury-riddled offense managed to make just enough plays to secure a 13-12 lead. And they were driving again. Then it happened. Second year running back Fitzgerald Toussaint fumbled the ball back to Denver, ending the drive and giving new life to the Broncos. A devastating 4th quarter fumble in a playoff game at Denver. Where have I heard that before? It was as if Denver had held some kind of sideline seance to summon the ghost of Earnest Byner. Manning and company would take full advantage of the Steelers’ mistake, marching 65 yards on 13 plays for their first and only touchdown of the day, and a 20-13 lead. It was the only turnover of the game and proved to be the difference in Denver’s 23-16 win.
-The Steelers not only had to deal with an injury that limited QB Ben Roethlisberger, they were without leading receiver Antonio Brown and leading rusher DeAngelo Williams. It was the first time in the history of the Super Bowl era that a team was without its leading rusher and receiver for a playoff game.
-Steelers fans have Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict to thank for most of their injury issues this past weekend. Burfict hit the thug trifecta this year, with hits that injured Roethlisberger, Brown and running back Le’Veon Bell. Patriots fans can certainly relate, as they have a similar villain in safety Bernard Pollard. Pollard was the defender responsible for injuries to Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski.
–Phil Simms is terrible Part 1: At one point in the game Manning was hit hard from behind and lost the ball. It was ruled an incomplete pass because his arm was going forward. Even if it had been a fumble the ball rolled out of bounds so it would have still been the Broncos’ n ball. Despite this fact, Simms continuously told the viewers that Denver and Manning were really lucky that the play wasn’t ruled a fumble. He literally stated this over and over and over. The difference between an incomplete pass and a fumble was three yards.
-If ad placement is any indicator it is clear even our clueless politicians know that the NFL is King. Multiple times during this past weekend’s playoff games they showed as many as three presidential campaign ads in a row. From what I could gather, Marco Rubio changes his mind a lot, Donald Trump wants to make our country “great again” and Hillary Clinton really likes pant suits.
-What generates more needless hot air, presidential debates or NFL pregame shows?
-Phil Simms is terrible Part 2: On one pass play Simms said that they should have called pass interference because there was contact “beyond 10 yards”. Pass interference can be called anywhere and does not require contact to occur beyond 10 yards. And illegal contact can be called beyond 5 yards, not 10. How the f**k does a guy that played quarterback for 15 years in the NFL and has been a network broadcaster for over 20 years not know basic NFL rules?
-Wade Phillips is considered by many a favorite for NFL Assistant Coach of the Year but on Sunday he coached a gutless game. Instead of being aggressive with his coverage he gave the Steelers receivers massive amounts of space, allowing an injured Roethlisberger to rack up 339 yards passing. What is the point of blitzing if you give the receivers a 10-yard cushion? If he tries that again this Sunday Brady will carve up the Broncos.
-At one point on Sunday Steelers linebacker James Harrison ran over running back Ronnie Hillman on his way to sacking Peyton Manning. After almost being out of football the 37-year old Harrison has seen a recent resurgence in his play. Harrison was also one of the athletes mentioned as being supplied with HGH in a recent Al Jazeera documentary. I am sure these two things are in no way related.
-Early in the 4th quarter Pittsburgh punter Jordan Berry was punting from the Denver 39 and had a golden opportunity to pin the Broncos inside the 20. Instead Berry blasted the ball well into the end zone for a touchback. It absolutely baffles me every time a punter does that. If your only job is punting and you literally spend all of your professional time working on that one skill, then how can you be so bad at the seemingly easy task of punting a ball between a pylon and the 20-yard line?
-Phil Simms is terrible Part 3: By far Simms’ worst moment came after a borderline pass interference call in the 3rd quarter. The ball landed over 10 yards past the wide receiver and Nance asked Simms, “Do you think that was catchable?” Caught completely off-guard by the fact that analysis is part of his job as an analyst, Simms said nothing. It was one of those Sarah Palin-level awkward pauses. One that is around 5 seconds, but feels like 5 minutes. Finally Simms mumbled, “No I did not”, followed by this nonsensical rambling mess of a sentence: “You know the push out of bounds, Roethlisberger read it, threw it where he thought he had to the wind.”
Huh? What did any of that mean? Seriously what happened on that sentence? Did Phil Simms forget he was on live television? Did he realize he had absolutely nothing to add and just gave up? Did somebody walk into the booth and hit him with a baseball bat mid-sentence? You could dump a box of Alpha Bits on the floor and they would randomly form a more coherent sentence than that. Or maybe Simms just decided he wasn’t in the mood to finish his sentence and figured it didn’t really matter because the idiots that run CBS Sports have made it clear they would never fire Simms no matter what he does. Huh, maybe Simms is smarter than we think.
-Count me as one of the few people inside of Rte 128 that not only thinks Peyton Manning played a decent game on Sunday but also thinks the Patriots could lose next week. I am not saying they will lose, but Denver’s defense alone makes the AFC Championship anything but the cake-walk many are predicting.