Bye Week Reflections

He's Baaaaaack.....

So here we are, a quarter of the way through the 2010 season. If you told me a month ago that the Steelers would go 3-1 without Ben, I'd take it but I'd also suggest you were highly optimistic. Sure, the defense looked to be back to 2008 standards but the offense was as big a question mark as you could possibly imagine, a shaky o-line (headed by a rookie no less) protecting an NFL equivalent of a substitute teacher no one has any respect for.

Funny thing, is that's pretty much what happened. Other than the OT run by Rashad and a few bombs from Mike Wallace, the offense has done approximately jack shit. After Dixon's knee exploded it was looking like they might not even attempt to throw the ball again until Ben came back. Of course, Mike Tomlin just decided to live up to his reputation of being the Marcellus Wallace of coaching and tell them fuckers to chill because he's sending in the Wolf. Who'd have thunk back in OTAs that old man Batch, who was all but thrown on the scrap heap this preseason, would be able to calm everyone the fuck down cause he got this. The very same guy who people were questioning if he was too old to play simply walked in and heaved a 40-something yard bomb like it wasn't a thing. He took advantage of the Bucs' rookie DB in a manner that normally one would have to pay a lady of the evening a significant sum to experience.

So here we are, 3-1 and about to get a two time Super Bowl winning QB back on the field. Sure it kind of sucks how close it could have been to being 4-0 had the defense not let Baltimore walk down the field for a last second TD, but it seems greedy to be upset about not achieving perfection in a span that most football "experts" declared would be a disaster. Side note: this is why you should never listen to someone who gets paid to discuss sports for a living who acts like his opinion is gospel: they are frequently wrong, and by a large margin. But I digress. Now the team has a week off to get on the same track, and the first game Ben plays in is against the Browns, the Iron Mike Sharpe of the NFL if there ever was one. There are more than just a couple of tough games on the schedule, but there's some creampuffs as well. Having a 3-1 cushion going into this stretch makes it look like a 10-6 record would probably be the worst case scenario, and with a few lucky bounces who knows.

The only thing that worries me is that Jeff Reed is quickly turning into the Kenny Powers of football, which is kind of the opposite you want from someone in their contract year. Those are a funny thing, contract years. Either you get someone performing lights out because they want the big money, or you get someone messing up left and right because they're trying too hard to perform lights out to get the big money. Reed is firmly in the latter group at this point. Maybe they should just install some paper towel dispensers in the locker room for him to destroy, he seems to perform better that way.