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Pittsburgh Steelers end well deserved week off.

The Pittsburgh Steelers end their bye week off with little change in their philosophy. They still play great defense, and the offense is now a pass first system, but their main philosophy of play hard for 60 minutes is still their main goal.

While their first 7 games had a few surprises, and I had their record being 7-1 AFTER the upcoming game Monday night in Denver, no one could know the value of Troy Polamalu would be so high. With Troy out, the Steelers lost a couple of games they had won in the 4^th quarter, and almost lost a few more. But look at it the other way, they almost went undefeated, and only trailed by 4 points or less at any one time all season.

With losses to the Bengals and Bears in the waning moments of the game, the Steelers forgot about those losses quickly, and made strides without Polamalu in the lineup to right things quickly.  With the return of Polamalu, the Steelers 4^th quarter defense made even larger strides with two 4^th quarter touchdowns of longer than 60 yards against the Vikings.

While I thought we could be undefeated at this point, I am sure that if Troy had NOT gone down, we WOULD be undefeated, and fighting the Colts for best record in the AFC.

Good points:

Ben Roethlisberger is playing quarterback better than he has since 2004 when he tool the NFL by storm in his rookie season, he led the whole NFL in passing before the Vikings game, and still is top ten even after a bye week.

Mike Wallace is playing great for a rookie and has shown that Limas Sweed is the bust we all dreaded. Wallace is leading all rookie receivers in yardage, but since he is a Steeler, he is largely unknown at this time.

James Harrison is looking to break his sack record he set in 2008 and has shown that he is the best linebacker in football with yet another accolade. Mr. Harrison was named player of the month for October.

Bad points:

Troy Polamalu is obviously the most valuable player in the NFL at this time. ANY other player can be replaced with someone close to their abilities, but Troy is so special, there is NO WAY to replace what he brings to the table. I had no idea, and I watch him play every week, that this man is the Steelers defense. I don’t know why I am surprised, but the Steelers had a pretty good record without Troy over the last few seasons. Not this year, 0-2 without troy, and they were 5-2 without him.

Jeff reed is an idiot, and may have just played himself out of the Steel city. Bad enough that he can only hit a defenseless towel dispenser, but to make pathetic attempts to stop kick returns these last two weeks has shown that he is only here for the glory, and is not as tough as he should be even for a kicker. His missed field goals against the bears and Bengals cost us two games.

Limas Sweed has shown no ability to make a big play after two seasons. I am disgusted in the inability for people to figure out that some college players will just not make it in the NFL.

The Steelers record is 5-2 at this point, and tied with the Bengals for first in the AFC north. they could easily be 7-0, or 2-5, so being that they have had a few problems already I will take the 5 wins and hope for about 8 more down the stretch.

Next up are the Broncos’ on Monday night football.

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