random thoughts on last night's game

all images courtesy si.com



Did the better team win? Most certainly.

Did they win it the way I would have liked? Maybe, maybe not, depending on your stress tolerance.

But did the right team win? Hell yes.




"Steeler football is 60 minutes. It's never going to be pretty. Throw style points out the window. But these guys will fight to the end." – Mike Tomlin

And fight they did. I was not surprised by the success Arizona had in the second half, though, because it was pretty obvious that the underneath passes were the price the Steelers were willing to pay to stop Fitzgerald and Boldin from torching them. What did surprise me was the shoddy tackling from Polamalu and the rest of the secondary. I counted at least two, maybe three, times when Troy had a receiver lined up and totally whiffed on the tackle.

All week I was telling everyone who'd listen that the Cardinals could easily win the game, because the Steelers had emphasized pressure on the quarterback over insanely tight coverage on receivers. The plan seemed to be "If we knock out the quarterback's teeth, we'll dislocate receivers' jaws instead." That's not a bad strategy -- obviously -- but when you can't get to the QB enough, and you can't tackle the receivers ... well, that's a recipe to allow a team to stay in the game, or even win.




Having said that, I think the gentleman (ahem) whose lungs are collapsed here could have been the MVP had he not sucker-punched a blocker on that last Arizona punt. That was just classless, and it really devalued him in my eyes.

Does a 100 yard interception return for a touchdown -- the longest play in Super Bowl history -- negate it? Not really. It's a violent game, but throwing punches like that is really bush league.



That's just too weird for words.

football memories, part I

All you need to know about how insane Steelers Fever is back home ... they're adding a two-hour delay to Pittsburgh-area schools tomorrow morning.

To be honest, I'm not "from" Pittsburgh; I grew up about an hour west, in far eastern Ohio, right on the Ohio River, in a depressed area thatlong ago had its own identity but now has nothing of significance to which it can cling. It's always been Steelers Country, or at least since the mid 1970s ... the Steelers love is pretty strong, but it's just a degree less so than in Pittsburgh proper. So there won't be any two-hour delays in my old school district, but that doesn't mean students (and some teachers) won't be dragging tomorrow morning.

My first memories of Steelers' football go back to the third week of January 1980. My aunt Cindy had joined the Air Force, and the whole family took her to the Pittsburgh airport to see her off to boot camp. There were Steelers banners all over the place. It sure seems like we went dahntahn before we went to the airport, because I recall the tall buildings and the black and gold banners hanging from lamp posts and street signs.

(Later, as city fathers found fewer and fewer surfaces from which to exclaim the city's love of its fooball team, they graduated to dinosaur skeletons.)



So I remember celebrations after the Steelers beat the (then) Los Angeles Rams, and the loud cries for "One for the Thumb" that opened the 1980 regular season. What I don't remember is any of the years leading up to that season, which means that I totally missed the "glory years" of my favorite team. My first real football memory? Crying uncontrollably after church, on the last day of the 1980 season, because the Steelers didn't make the playoffs. But they have to play every team twice! They still have time! I was pissed. How could this happen? To me? To my team?

Dad patiently explained that not every team is played twice -- just the teams in the division. But I was royally pissed off. As I was a few years later, when they were destroyed by the Chargers in the first round of the playoffs. And the next year, when the Raiders -- the Raiders! -- knocked them out in the first round. And the next year, when they made it to the AFC Championship game but were vivisected by Dan Marino -- whom we had a chance to draft, but stuck with Mark Malone instead -- and the Dolphins.

I could go on -- 15 years of heartbreaks in the playoffs. The only "good" year was 1995, when they went to the Super Bowl and were two backbreaking Neil O'Donnell interceptions from defeating a very beatable Dallas Cowboys squad ...

My point: since I was able to understand football, the team I loved more than words could describe always managed to tease me with hints of its former glory, but in the end it let me down -- sometimes valiantly, sometimes with a Hindenburg-esque collapse ... but always and forever disappointing me.

In Part II: My love is vindicated!

football memories, part II

In late 2005, Amina and I found out that we'd be taking a trip to Maui. She made her president's club at her new job, which meant we'd be going to Hawaii with some of her coworkers. We found this out in early December; two weeks later, the Steelers won their final three games to nab a wild card playoff spot.

Problem: according to the itinerary, we'd be in a DC-10 on our way back home during the entirety of the Super Bowl.

Amina promised that, should the Steelers make it to Detroit, we'd stay a few extra days. I went along with it, because (1) it seemed like a good deal, and (2) there was almost no way that they'd make it that far. These were the Bill Cowher Steelers we were talking about. A first round exit was almost preordained.

But, as we all know, fortune shined on the 2005 Steelers. First was the win in Cincinnati, which to be honest was a far better team that year. It's never good to root for injuries, but Kimo von Oelhoffen injured Carson Palmer at the beginning of the game and the Bengals weren't really the same team. The Steelers went into Indianapolis -- because they were the wild card team, the Steelers had to play every game on the road -- as the underdogs ... but again, fate intervened. Ben's tackle on the fumble return deserves to go down in Steeler history, right next to the Immaculate Reception, and ...



There's a reason this is one my most-viewed posts on Flickr. "Idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off" -- couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

The Steelers went to Denver. This was it -- win this game and I get two extra days in Maui. But that wasn't on my mind. All I could think was How will Cowher screw this one up? Because, you see, I'd been tempered to expect failure. There was no. way. in. hell. the Steelers would win this game.

And Ben came out and, with laser-like accuracy, took the Broncos' defense apart in the first half. I was downstairs, watching the game, and Amina was upstairs, doing whatever it is that women do when football games are on. She was in the bedroom at halftime and just turned on the TV to catch the score.

"Sweetie! Looks like we're staying an extra" --

"SHUT UP!" I screamed with more emotion than I'd expected I could muster. "DO NOT JINX THIS! THE GAME IS NOT OVER!"

That's how paranoid I was, and still am, about Steelers games. We were not going to talk about staying extra days because the Steelers had not won the game yet because there was still time for Cowher to screw things up and we were not going to tempt fate by assuming the game was over when there were still two quarters to play.

The Steelers hung on to win; it was a classic Cowher game, where a second half lead was nursed by conservative play calling, and the secondary failed just enough to make it seem like Denver could win, but in the end, the Steelers were celebrating at midfield.

Here we go ... Steelers ... here we go.

football memories, part III

Maui was amazing. I'd never been before, and Amina and I were looking for legitimate jobs we could do while living in Lahaina, because neither of us wanted to leave. And for me -- well, think about it: I was in paradise for a week, all expenses paid, and the end of the trip was a Super Bowl in which my favorite team was going to play.

I was a nervous wreck.

That's the kind of fan I am ... or had been conditioned to be, thanks to 25 years of failure and disapointment and heartache. I'm in paradise? Girls in bikinis, great seafood, sandy beaches and perfect weather? SOMETHING WILL GO WRONG.

On Super Bowl Sunday, most of Amina's colleagues had gone back to the mainland. There were a few stragglers, refusing to admit that their real lives were nestled in a frozen wasteland of snow and road salt. We were one of them, but I almost would rather have been back in my living room, free to bite my nails and swear and throw pillows and spank Fletcher whenever I was super angry ... I'm not the easiest person to get along with during a game.

But Amina's CEO was one of the stragglers, and he implored us all to join him at a little beachside bar/restaurant for the game. We couldn't say no -- he was the man whose signature was printed by a computer on all the checks -- but my wish was to order room service and quietly panic all by myself.

Why? I knew I was going to cry. I just knew it. It wasn't going to be a small sniffle, either -- it was going to be a full-on waterworks if the Steelers won. And I didn't need to have the executive team see Amina's husband act like a teenage girl.

Well, we went to the bar and gathered around a table and watched the game on a small screen high above us. I don't remember what I ate or drank, though I was careful not to drink much alcohol -- if I was going to get all emotional, a few beers would only make me more into that "I love you man" man. And I didn't want that to happen.

I don't remember much about the game, to be honest. I had to watch it on DVR when I got home, because I was a wreck the whole four hours. But I do remember getting up to leave the table when Cowher got his Gatorade dunk, because ... well, there must have been some pollen or smoke or sand that got into both of my eyes at the same time.

I'd lived to see my team win the Super Bowl.



And so here we are, the day of Super Bowl XLIII, and I'm not terribly nervous. I've lived to see my team win, so while I'm excited for the prospect of what lies ahead, I'm not in a panic or biting my nails or anything like that. The game will be what it will be.

But if they win, it's because I didn't wear a single Steelers logo on my body the day of the game. Others may claim their mojo sways outcomes, but I know the truth. It's all about me -- unless the Steelers lose, in which case I'll blame everyone and everything else.