News and Notes

Steelers Pound Ravens, Advance to Superbowl XLIII

1/31/2009
Michael J. Kotts

The AFC Championship game, if anything else, was what most thought it would be, a knock down street fight, in which the Ravens will surely be seeking revenge next season. Of that the Steelers can be sure. Neither team emerged unscathed. Hines Ward left the game early after injuring his knee, and did not return, Ben Roethlisberger nearly left due to a hit late in the first quarter in which he was sandwiched by to Ravens pass rushers slightly injuring his shoulder. The hit, while not penalized, probably should have been. Roethlisberger clearly had thrown the ball and the rushers both had taken close to two full steps before pulverizing him.

This was not the first call he refs would blow in this game, this is an argument for another time as none of the blow calls made a difference in the game. Byron Leftwich had started warming up while Roethlisberger's shoulder was evaluated and he stayed in the game. Even Limas Sweed limped off of the field after diving for a pass just off of his finger tips which had he caught would have been a sure six. For whatever injuries the Steelers had, the Ravens had just as many. Most notably was Mike Ivy getting laid out on a clean block by Limas Sweed. Limas was going full tilt and Ivy, while trying to tackle Heath Miller, never saw him coming. It was the same type of hit that Ravens fans hate and criticize Hines Ward for making. You know clean, hard and legal. Yet the biggest hit of the injury came when Willis McGehee was leveled in a helmet to helmet collision by Ryan Clark. It was a scary moment as Clark's helmet smashed into to McGahee's facemask at about 100mph. McGahee fumbled, blacked out and woke up as he was being carted off of the field. Did I mention his clothes were out of style at that point as well. Ok, it is not polite to make fun of players who have potential career ending injuries, especially ones that traumatic.

Fortunately, he suffered no serious or permanent injury. Yet, there are those few select teams, different for each fan, that despite the fact you do not want to see someone permanently injured, when a the player does get laid out, your not exactly going to shed a tear for him if he gets carted off the field. Is that wrong, perhaps, maybe even selfish. Yet it is the nature of the game that all players assume that risk when stepping on the field. Face it, in 2005 when Kimo Von Oelhoffen pulverized Carson Palmers knee, despite being an accident, I am sure many fans were happy to see him leave the game, as well as I am sure that there were a few fans, that had the injury been more serious to his career, would not have had any sleepless nights over it either. Yet those are injuries from clean hits. Injuries which come from bodies getting caught up in piles or because equipment gets stuck in the turf, or cheap shots, those ones you never want to see under any circumstance. In any event, the game was played hard, and bodies were flying.

Again another close game, much closer than Steeler fans would have wanted, despite jumping out to a 13-0 lead. Eventually midway through the 4th quarter Baltimore did manage to make it a 14-16 game trailing by two. Getting the ball back with about 5 plus minute left was enough to make any Steeler fan a little nervous, knowing they score on their previous possession. Then Troy Polamalu picked off Joe Flacco, his third pick of the night, and flew around the field avoiding would be tacklers like they had the plague. It is beginning to seem that Troy needs to wear the red and yellow S of Superman, as he made a number of huge plays in the game, the late interception being the biggest of the plays. Despite putting the game out of reach for the Ravens with that touchdown making it a two possession game with 4:24 left, the real end of the game came with the bone crunching hit on McGahee and his subsequent fumble. At that point it was lights out (no pun intended). While on a team level this has been a great year for the Steelers, they have had their share of mistakes. Frankly, the offensive line, despite playing much better than early in the season, still has a lot to be desired and they are not the offensive juggernaut they were in 2005. Despite this, they have the number one defense in the league.

This fact has helped the offense greatly, why? Mainly their defense has held opponent scoring very low to the point that if the Steelers offense scored at least 14 or 17 points they had a good chance of winning the game. Hence that's what happened most of the season. This underscore the more important fact, the Steelers are playing as a team. This is the basic philosophy Vince Lombardi used to teach. If a team plays as a team they are hard to stop. Baltimore learned that lesson the hard way. Now with one game left the Steelers are playing the Cardinals, another team that utilizing the same philosophy. It should be a good game. Yet, the NFC, right now is a much weaker conference, so in the end it will probably be Pittsburgh hoisting the Lombardi trophy simply because they are, as of right now, the best team left!

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