Steelers Talk

[BB73]

Not that anybody wondered, but Mark Malone has a job at Channel 2 (CBS) in Chicago as the sports guy on the evening news. He's OK, I don't watch much local news.

[BrutuStrength]

Originally Posted by BB73

Not that anybody wondered, but Mark Malone has a job at Channel 2 (CBS) in Chicago as the sports guy on the evening news. He's OK, I don't watch much local news.

Thanks for the update. I thought he did a good job with ESPN. He's definitely better in front of the camera, than he was dropping back to pass.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

CPD

NFL NEWSWATCH
Steelers bring back Brown to bolster defense


Friday, October 13, 2006


From wire reports
Chad Brown, a Pro Bowl linebacker for Pittsburgh 10 years ago, was signed Thursday by the Steelers to add depth and experience at what suddenly has become a depleted position.
They need him now, too - Pro Bowl linebacker Joey Porter is out for Sunday's game against Kansas City and coach Bill Cowher said Brown will play, though mostly in pass-rush situations.
"It's kind of a crash course in everything," Cowher said. "I know he was here before but that was 10 years ago - there are a few cobwebs we have to unleash up there to bring him back to where we are."
The Super Bowl champion Steelers (1-3), losers of three in a row, added the 36-year-old Brown a day after Porter and cornerback Deshea Townsend injured hamstrings during a routine midweek indoor practice. Townsend is questionable and will be replaced by second-year cornerback Bryant McFadden if he can't play.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

cnnsi.com

Faneca: Big Ben's not to blame

Posted: Saturday October 14, 2006 1:22AM; Updated: Saturday October 14, 2006 1:22AM


PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Ben Roethlisberger is getting most of the blame for the slumping Pittsburgh Steelers' offensive failings. Seven interceptions and no touchdown passes in three games are the kind of numbers that get a quarterback benched.
For all of Roethlisberger's struggles as he recovers from a trouble-filled offseason that included multiple hospital stays, he is hardly the only reason the Super Bowl champions have lost three in a row.
"When people talk about Ben and what's going on with our offense, it's not Ben," All-Pro guard Alan Faneca said. "He takes the brunt of it because he's the quarterback and it's just kind of the way things are. The support cast around him, if we pick up our game and play better, then things turn out a little bit differently."
Or, in this case, it's been more of a lack of support for Roethlisberger, who already has as many losses in three games as he had in all 16 games he started last season.
Now, the offensive line that has played inconsistently in front of him will be without right guard Kendall Simmons on Sunday against Kansas City because of a freakish injury. Simmons was undergoing treatment for a heel injury when he left an ice pack on too long and it caused an ice burn similar to frostbite. He will be replaced by second-year lineman Chris Kemoeatu.
The Steelers (1-3) also will be without starting outside linebacker Joey Porter (hamstring) and, likely, cornerback Deshea Townsend (hamstring), who also didn't practice Friday. Coach Bill Cowher rarely starts players who don't practice, which means that second-year cornerback Bryant McFadden likely will replace Townsend against the Chiefs (2-2).
Problems, problems everywhere. The Steelers anticipated feeling the loss of former starting receiver Antwaan Randle El, now with the Redskins, more as a kick returner and multidimensional threat. But his absence also appears to be affecting their passing game.
While he had only one regular-season touchdown catch last year, Randle El's speed demanded that he be covered by defenses that now appear to be devoting extra defenders to four-time Pro Bowl receiver Hines Ward. Neither Cedrick Wilson (6 catches) nor rookie Santonio Holmes (7 catches) has proven to be a reliable threat, though Holmes looks to be coming around.
Slowed himself by a preseason hamstring injury, Ward has only one TD catch through four games after having four a year ago.
"Because we're not a passing team, when a receiver drops a ball it gets noticed a lot more than other teams who pass the ball all the time," Ward said.
An experienced offensive line also has been inconsistent. The Steelers were a strong No. 5 in rushing last season, averaging nearly 139 yards per game, but have dropped to No. 22 with a 102.5 average.
The line also has allowed 13 sacks, only 19 fewer than they did all last season. Roethlisberger, whose timing has been off, sometimes has had only a millisecond to look downfield before a defender is on him.
"I don't know if it's a slump," Faneca said. "We just haven't come out of the gates. It takes all of us, every single play. That's what we've been good at in the past; we've been really good at getting all 11 guys working together. We may not always have been doing the right thing but we always knew that we were all doing the same thing, especially up front. It (pass blocking) has been one of our strong suits and it's just not anymore."
As a result, an offense accustomed to taking control in the second half has been outscored 39-13 after halftime in its last three games. Last season, the Steelers outscored teams 103-66 in the third quarter and 169-122 in the second half.
"We're just not finishing. We're not playing the whole game right now," Faneca said. "We're making some mistakes out there, not all 11 guys (are together) on every play. That all adds up to a load of inconsistency and it definitely shows up down the stretch of the game."

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

Pittsburgh QB quiets concerns
Roethlisberger shows old form in dominant effort

Monday, October 16, 2006

Alan Robinson
ASSOCIATED PRESS




PITTSBURGH ? The Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger couldn?t have played any worse for a month. The rest of the NFL now must be wondering how much better the Super Bowl champions can be after a convincing all-is-well performance.
The Steelers revived everything they displayed in winning the championship as Roethlisberger threw his first two touchdown passes of the season in a 45-7 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs yesterday.
Despite not starting three injured regulars ? one of whom, guard Kendall Simmons, fell asleep with an ice pack on a leg and suffered frostbite ? the Steelers never resembled the team that could barely gain a first down in a 9-0 loss to Jacksonville, or ran only 18 plays in the second half last week of a 23-13 loss in San Diego.
Maybe it was watching AFC North leaders Baltimore and Cincinnati lose earlier in the afternoon, tightening up the division race. But the Steelers (2-3) played with the confidence and composure they lacked while losing three in a row.
"We started fast ? we started real fast," said coach Bill Cowher, who admittedly didn?t see this coming during a week in which his team had some "soul searching to do."
Roethlisberger was among the NFL?s lowest-rated quarterbacks with no touchdown passes and seven interceptions. Meanwhile, Kansas City?s Damon Huard was highly rated with five touchdowns and no interceptions. That all changed in a momentum-shifting few hours in which Roethlisberger could again do little wrong and Huard, a longtime backup, could do little right while completing only 16 of 32 passes for 162 yards and an interception.
"I tried throwing to the guys in the black shirts rather than the guys in the white shirts," Roethlisberger said jokingly.
During Roethlisberger?s struggles, questions were raised of whether he was fully healed from his violent June motorcycle crash and his appendectomy in September.
But he was sharp and polished yesterday, going 16 of 19 for 238 yards and touchdown passes of 47 yards to Nate Washington and 13 yards to Hines Ward. Roethlisberger constantly exploited Kansas City?s not-too-successful man-to-man coverage as the Steelers outgained the Chiefs 372-47 while opening a 31-0 lead at halftime. They ended with a 457-213 edge in yardage. "We got embarrassed, and we?ve got to learn from it," said Chiefs coach Herm Edwards, whose team fell to 2-3.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

ABJ

Healthy Polamalu presenting big problems

ALAN ROBINSON

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - Troy Polamalu made so many plays, was so irritating and unsettling, that the frustrated Kansas City Chiefs finally did what has seemed inevitable since the All-Pro safety began wearing his hair down his back.
The Chiefs' Larry Johnson, wasting considerable energy to run down Polamalu on a 49-yard pass interception with the Chiefs already down by 31 points, grabbed Polamalu by his long black hair and yanked him to the turf.
After having an offense-disrupting game Sunday in the reawakened Steelers' 45-7 rout of Kansas City with 10 tackles, the interception and three pass breakups, it was easy to see how Polamalu got into the Chiefs', uhh, hair.
Polamalu's comeback from a shoulder injury that limited his effectiveness for weeks was as important to the Steelers' defense as quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's vastly improved play was for the offense. The Steelers are a different team when the two playmakers are at their best, as they were Sunday.
The Chiefs never did figure out how to control Roethlisberger (two TD passes) or Polamalu, who helped limit tight end Tony Gonzalez to three catches for 15 yards in a Kansas City offense that did almost nothing.
On some series, it almost seemed as if Polamalu was on offense, his name was getting called so much.
"He's such an instinctive guy," coach Bill Cowher said. "When he plays like that, he's all over the field. He makes a number of plays for you."
Afterward, Polamalu clearly didn't want to talk about the hair-yanking incident, which he knows will be replayed constantly on the highlights shows.
"If you know somebody with long hair, you take your hand and run it through somebody's hair, it's going to get stuck," Johnson said. "That's what happened. It wasn't like I was trying to jerk him around after I made the tackle."
Polamalu, a two-time Pro Bowl safety in his first two seasons as a starter, wears the hair long as a tribute to his Samoan heritage. He understands he takes the risk of being tackled by it on plays such as the one Sunday - just as running backs Ricky Williams and Edgerrin James once risked the same thing by wearing their hair long.
"I'm glad it happened," Polamalu said. "It means I've got the ball in my hands."
That Johnson happened to be the first to yank Polamalu by the hair seems a curious coincidence. At the 2003 draft, the Steelers traded up 11 spots in the first round with Kansas City so they could draft Polamalu. The Chiefs with their lower pick, took Johnson, who last year led the AFC with 1,750 yards rushing.
"It's the only thing I could get my hands on," Johnson said.
Still, as Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said at the Super Bowl, he doesn't care if Polamalu lets his hair grow another foot as long as he keeps making interceptions.
"If I've got the ball in my hands, they can tackle me all day like that," Polamalu said. "He can tackle me by my hair or my ankles. It doesn't matter, I understand that the nature of the game is that things like that can happen, and there's no bad blood at all."
Even if there seemed to be some of it on the Chiefs' sideline, where microphones picked up some intense debates among the players about why each side of the ball was being pushed around like it was.
They weren't discussing whether Polamalu should wear mousse or get his locks trimmed so they fit under his helmet, either.
The Steelers (2-3), now back in the AFC North race after being well off the lead only a few weeks into the season, can only hope the rest of their opponents keep coming up empty-handed when they play them. Or at least clutching at nothing but Polamalu's hair.