well, i haven't had a chance yet to reflect artfully on this steelers victory, but i thought i would just write right now so as to share with you my excitment in this moment. the game ended a few hours ago, but i am still on a steelers right now, full of a potent mixture of adrenaline, disbelief, and excitement for the weeks ahead. today, in baltimore (where the steelers hadn't won since 2002 - that's 5 straight losses), the steelers beat the ravens and clinced the afc north division. in case you didn't hear me, let me repeat: THE STEELERS ARE DIVISION CHAMPS! yeah baby! that is worthy of some capital letters!
now, the game wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but steelers games this season rarely are. the blueprint du jour was to keep pace with the ravens with our strong defense until the final moments of the game. actually, we basically outplayed the ravens through most of the game, but killed ourselves with some special team mistakes and dropped passes. can we just stop for a moment though and admire the steeler defense? this was supposed to be a matchup of the top two defenses in the nfl. that may be, but if so, the steelers made sure that everyone watching knew which one was number one and which one was number two. people are amazed that the steelers have yet to give up a 300 yard performance by any team this year, but the ravens barely gained 200 yards!
other than the defense, we need to take a moment to give some love to big ben. ben gets alot of grief because he isn't the statistical wonder that many other quarterbacks are, and he takes so many sacks (poor offensive line), but i love ben roethlisberger. when the game is on the line, i don't care about how many yards you've thrown for or how many passing td's you have, or how many commercials you've been in. when the game is on the line, i'll take ben roethlisberger every time. he raises the level of the players around him. he allows his teammates to believe that victory is possible, even when it seems completely impossible, and then he delivers. so many times ben delivers. i love him. game ball to him.
now, the game wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but steelers games this season rarely are. the blueprint du jour was to keep pace with the ravens with our strong defense until the final moments of the game. actually, we basically outplayed the ravens through most of the game, but killed ourselves with some special team mistakes and dropped passes. can we just stop for a moment though and admire the steeler defense? this was supposed to be a matchup of the top two defenses in the nfl. that may be, but if so, the steelers made sure that everyone watching knew which one was number one and which one was number two. people are amazed that the steelers have yet to give up a 300 yard performance by any team this year, but the ravens barely gained 200 yards! 
other than the defense, we need to take a moment to give some love to big ben. ben gets alot of grief because he isn't the statistical wonder that many other quarterbacks are, and he takes so many sacks (poor offensive line), but i love ben roethlisberger. when the game is on the line, i don't care about how many yards you've thrown for or how many passing td's you have, or how many commercials you've been in. when the game is on the line, i'll take ben roethlisberger every time. he raises the level of the players around him. he allows his teammates to believe that victory is possible, even when it seems completely impossible, and then he delivers. so many times ben delivers. i love him. game ball to him. did the ball cross the plane? maybe, maybe not. i don't know. what i do know is that when the game was on the line big ben drove the offense 92 yards down the field. what i do know is that the baltimore defense - the 2nd greatest defense in the land, who wanted nothing in the world so much as to stop the steelers, could not stop the steelers on that final drive. were the steelers lucky? maybe. but they also deserved to win. and they deserve to be division champs. now we look to tennessee next week. go steelers!
Comments
i didn't watch the game. again.
i was shopping. again.
and to top it off i called my husband on the phone when we were down by three pts, with the possession of the ball, with three minutes remaining in the game. to ask him what he thought of the little mermaid and cars umbrellas i bought for the kids stockings.
does that make me a bad wife?
probably.
but when the line went dead on me i didn't call back so i should get some points there.
right?
and i did listen to the game on the radio and squeal loudly when the winning td was ruled a winning td. so i'm not a total deadbeat fan.