NFL Week 8 thread -- Song of the South

Missed an hour due to a meeting, but I think I saw more action on that runback than in the entire World Series game.

 

There’s been several plays at home plate. It’s been pretty entertaining even though the Yankees are looking like toast.

 

As a Giants fan, well, that's part of it too.
The football Giants suddenly not looking too sharp either.

 

Wow that was almost Cowboys sent everyone but the center out wide bad

 

So much for the Steelers pulling away. Fuck.

 

My question is, “what the fuck was Russell Wilson doing hitting a blocking sled?“

 

They certainly needed him tonight, even with the fumble. The Steelers just don't like to make it easy. Other than Watt's strip sack and fumble recovery, the Steelers couldn't stop the Giants late. They needed a big drop by Nabers and a terrible throw that was intercepted by Jones to hold on.

 

The stupid part is they had it set up right -- they had five blockers out there against two defenders. But none of those blockers seemed to realize the ball had been snapped, so they stood there and let a guy go right through.

 

Giants fans have to be very frustrated. They did a lot to beat themselves last night. It wasn't just that play. They had far too many sloppy penalties. Jones had two killer turnovers, though the fumble was also just Watt being Watt. The interception was simply a poor throw at the worst possible time, which is something of a pattern for Jones. Nabers had a killer drop on third down before the field goal that brought them within eight.

The officials were not good. Sure, they missed multiple holds on Watt and Highsmith, but they had some ugly missed calls that hurt the Giants. There was one deep ball on which Porter clearly grabbed Slayton's hand with no call. More importantly, they should have called Moon for running into the Giants' punter on Austin's punt return for a touchdown. I'm certainly not complaining, but the Steelers got very lucky last night.

 

Steelers are two wins away at the halfway mark from guaranteeing Tomlin to have his 18th straight .500 or better season. And they have four against the Browns and Bengals left. It may be ugly how they’re doing it, but damn if the Steelers are quietly having a great season.

They still have two against the Ravens, one against the Commies and the Chiefs. Out of the bye is going to be a brutal schedule but as a Niners fan, I wish I had 50 percent of the Steelers’ luck.

 

I couldn't care less about the .500 or better record, but they need three victories to get there with the 17-game schedule. A very large part of the Steelers' fan base is tired of hearing about it. I think Tomlin has done a good job with this team, especially being willing to switch to Wilson when the team was 4-2 with Fields, but much of it feels like smoke and mirrors. The defense has to figure some things out during the bye. As it is, the line is getting pushed around and the inside linebackers are constantly out of position. Queen has mostly been a bust, playing nowhere near as well as he did the last couple of seasons in Baltimore.

The Steelers have had some luck in these first eight games, though there was some misfortune in the two losses. The injuries have been brutal. The offensive line has been a mess. Highsmith getting hurt was a part of both losses, especially with his backup getting hurt during the loss to the Cowboys. They could easily be 4-4 or 8-0, so 6-2 isn't bad. The schedule makers did them no favors, though perhaps the offense can stop leaving points on the field and get even better after the bye.

 

I was watching the Manningcast, and they had Bill Cowher with them in the fourth quarter. When the Giants lined up for the play in which Jones fumbled, with the tight end on the left and the back on the right and Watt lined up wide on the offense's right, all three of them were saying they needed to switch the formation to put the TE on the right to chip on Watt and slow him down because by the time the back gets to him it would be too late to make a difference. As it turned out, the back didn't even try to help on Watt because he thought one of the ILBs was going to be blitzing and went to the middle.

On the punt return, they were assuming the flag was going to be for roughing the kicker, or at least that there would be offsetting penalties, so no one got real excited as Austin was running it back. They were like, "Too bad this won't count." Did they explain on the main broadcast why that wasn't called? 'Cause the Mannings couldn't figure it out.