Stoney's He-Man Steeler Haters NFL Playoff Thread ... No Yinzers allowed

Also, the Ravens get Haloti Ngata back from his four-week suspension. I don't think the concern with the Ravens is so much momentum, but how badly they have played in recent weeks. Their Super Bowl run in 2012 showed how little that can mean. It isn't like the Steelers haven't looked like crap quite a few times this season as well.

Sunshine is correct in saying this is the worst matchup for Pittsburgh. The Steelers swept the Bengals and dominated the Colts. They split two meetings with the Ravens, with the winner dominating the game each time. More importantly, the Ravens are best equipped to pressure Roethlisberger, which is going to be even more important if Bell doesn't play.

 

Back to the Suh suspension being overturned, evidently that's because of the way the NFL's policy is written. Judy Battista explained it on her Twitter feed yesterday.

The NFL policy says that, after the first violation of a safety-related rule, if a player goes 32 straight games (includes regular season, postseason, and two preseason games) without another violation, then he is considered to have a clean slate. Suh's last violation was Week 1 of 2013, so it has been 32 games since his last violation. Hence why Ted Cottrell overturned it.

Yeah, my head hurts, too, after reading up on the NFL's player safety policy.

 

I wish Rodgers had gotten up and done something more than a shove to Suh's hamstring. Collective bargaining is a game for rats sometimes.

 

I wonder if Suh actually knew that. More likely, he just doesn't care or he thought he was being too clever to get caught.

 

That 32 game count doesn't make sense to me, unless you count a bye week as a "game".

If his last infraction was in week one of 2013, then he played 15 more games incident free. No playoffs for DET in 2013, and then 16 games in 2014, in which another incident occurred in the 16th game.

By my count, that's only 30 games incident free unless they are giving him credit for a couple of preseason games.

Oh, never mind. It's the two preseason games that pushed him to 32. Like he's going to stomp someone in preseason. Yeah, right.

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/...-game-against-the-Ravens/stories/201412310261

Le'Veon Bell claims he is feeling good and could play Saturday, but he did not practice Wednesday. I'm still guessing Mike Tomlin sits him. He has been conservative with injuries and other health issues in the past.

 

Yeah, I'll be pretty surprised if Bell plays. That was a pretty tough shot, and he's probably still really damn sore.

 

In that same hearing, the league suspended Rodgers for trying to trip Suh by sticking his leg under Suh's foot.

 

Leave it to Suh to go exactly 32 games between incidents. It's like he had his calendar out and was counting down the games until he could get away with misbehaving again.

I pity the QB that will play Suh exactly 32 games from last week.

 

I don't think anyone is expecting him to play.
And the weather forecast for Saturday night in Pittsburgh: 40 degrees and rain.

 

This seems like a pretty crappy opening playoff week. I know the Divisional Playoff weekend is when things really get good, but in most years there's a team playing in the opening weekend that everybody fears. The Niners were like that last year. The Packers were like that the last time they won it.

I'll be pretty surprised if any team playing this weekend makes the Super Bowl. I sort of feel like the top two seeds in conferences are significantly better than the rest of the field and while I would not be surprised to see some upsets next weekend I don't see anybody being able to win at Denver and then win at New England or Win at Lambeau and then go up to Seattle and win.

 

Bell officially is ruled out of action by Steelers for Saturday night. Weather forecast is for a 90 percent chance of rain.