Right, so we pretty much covered this Sunday, I think, but a win is a much needed win, and we'll take 17-13 just as welcomingly as 30-13.
The reality is, with the Bengals somehow figuring out how to play football, and the Ravens continuing to put the NFL in its place (gotta admit, they're doing their jobs), every game is going to be a must-win.
Granted, every game is a must-win either way, particulary if you're a Steeler fan.
But as usual, the AFC North is shaping up to be a race to the finish.
The good news is 4-2 ain't half bad.
I mean, only four teams in the entire league have more than four wins right now.
So, never fear, Steeler nation.
Things might continue to seem chaotic for a little while, but as long as we keep finding ways, we'll keep finding wins.
If you will it, dude, it is no dream, as the great Walter Sobchak would say (if you don't know that reference, you should probably look it up).
Getting back to OFTOT's bread and butter here (ie - schadenfreude) - the three people in Jacksonville who are aware that city has a professional football team are probably really disappointed right now.
Rough ending for a team with one lonely win and a five year old starting at QB.
Honestly, how bad must David Garrard have been for the Jagoffs to let him go right before the season in favor of Luke McCown and a fetus?
Had to have been about money.
No other way to rationalize it.
In any case, no sense in prolonging the inevitable anymore than I have to, so let's just dive right in to the "Things That Were Awesome," and "Things That Were NOT Awesome," here.
Should the Jaguars have been within one score of winning that game?
Repeat after Tomlin...
Who cares.
The bottom line is they were. But in the end, we got the last laugh.
Again, I've said it about a thousand times in probably a thousand different ways - I can't remember a time recently when these Steelers were in the habit of handily beating teams on a consistent basis without a fight.
Convincing wins in the NFL are a relative rarity in general.
Exhibit A - a couple of weeks ago in Houston, the same thing basically happened, only the Steelers were the aggressors who eventually couldn't pull it out in time.
We'll take the W any way we can get it.
And hopefully by Week 10 my fingernails will have grown back.
So, on that note, let's accentuate the positive and recap some of today's awesome that you'll likely see in the full recap on Tuesday.
First up, Mike Wallace's 28 yard TD grab...
And why not follow that with the only other ball he caught today...
...which just so happened to be a 47 yarder over who else but Ben's old nemesis, Rasheen Mathis.
And what about Mendenhall's 68 yard haul, which was a large chunk of his 146 yard day?
Or my personal favorite, Mendy giving Rasheen Mathis the business for six points...
iPhone auto-corrects Mendenhall to "Mending all," by the way.
Then, there was Manny Sanders with the 32 yard grab...
Would've been nice if he had gotten more than one of the four balls thrown his way, but of course, not all of those were on him.
And at least that one was awesome.
Anyway, 4-2, keeping pace with the Bangles, and hopefully at least only staying a game behind the Ravens, pending what's happening in Baltimore right now.
Trip out west next week for a date with our old friends Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm's mustache.
Stay tuned for the real recap hopefully on Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, feel free to deposit all your initial thoughts in the comments.
Here we go.
If you haven't already, become a fan of OFTOT on Facebook, and follow Cotter on Twitter. Or don't. Your choice, really.
Alright, so let's just get this out of the way right now...
Man, if you're going to follow up a shit show like last week with a 38-17 bitch slap, it doesn't get much better than that.
The Steelers controlled the entire game, with a few situational exceptions, and fully re-invigorated our faith in their ability to lay down the law. As if there was any doubt...
Just about everything was different.
Ben was only sacked once (though they had clearly adjusted the game plan understanding the reality of the o-line), and threw for FIVE TDs (two to Hines Ward)!
Woodley had two sacks (officially 1.5), and a pick!
Jonathan Dwyer (!) had 107 yards on 11 carries, grabbing 76 of them on one spectacular run!
And when was the last time you can remember the Steelers executing a fake punt, for Christ's sake?
You can't really ask for much more than almost racking up 40 points on one of the league's best defenses.
I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just saying, in this game the Steelers had...
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm really just challenging myself to find ways to work the most ridiculous things I can think of into blog posts about the Steelers this season.
Anyway, I'm not going to pretend like we're all of a sudden out of the woods or something.
After all, we're only 3-2, one game back from the Ravens (kind of), and even with the Bengals, with continuing injury problems, and it's only week 6 of a 17 week season.
But at the same time, I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't doing this all over my apartment on Sunday...
So, hey, I'm sure I could go on and on, gushing like a little girl about how dreamy this game was, but I doubt you need that.
Hence, I'm going to stick to the usual routine and just pass the torch along to the "Things That Were Awesome" and "Things That Were NOT Awesome."
Outside of the teams in their own division, the Steelers have few legit rivalries.
New England.
The Jets.
MAYBE the Colts.
And I'd venture to say Tennessee, probably left over from the old AFC Central days.
Over the last few meetings the Steelers have more or less owned these jokers (in terms of wins, anyway), the lone exception being the now-infamous towel stomping, bed shitting incident of 2008, when they got punked 31-14.
But this year's Titans team isn't last years, or the one from the year before (not sure if that's proper English, but don't bother to correct me in the comments, I don't care).
Even beginning with no Jeff Fisher.
Dude's mullet and trashy Oakleys were Tennessee staples for the NFL equivalent of a century.
Now, he's gone, the Vince Young experiment is over, Matt Hasselbeck is under center, and the Titans are off to a 3-1 start, having beaten their last three opponents - the Ravens, Broncos, and Cle-heave-land.
As for the Steelers, well, we all know where they stand.
It can't get much worse than last week in a lot of ways.
And so, I expect that win or lose, this week will hopefully look a lot better than the week prior.
Is Max Starks the answer to the team's biggest problem?
Doubtful.
But one has to assume he's a better answer than Trai Essex, should it come to that again, or at least a solid addition in terms of veteran depth on what seems like the world's shakiest line.
Then again, with Legursky in for Kemo, who will not be playing, I think this is basically a roll of the dice.
Alright, let's face it, what happend on Sunday wasn't exactly a lot of fun for anyone involved.
Things aren't exactly aces for the Steelers right now, and if you can't see that, I'll give you my address so you can send me some of whatever you are smoking.
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