Game Thoughts Packers/Steelers

• Unreal! Best football team in the world. Hard to believe, but not really.
• Rodgers was pretty solid. As usual, he was better in the first half. But his drive at the end there was pretty good. Pretty damn good.
• James Harrison and Troy Polamalu were unbelievably non-existent. Troy Polamalu had 3 tackles and absolutely nothing else. In fact, he really blew an his assignment on Jennings for that TD. James Harrison had 1 sack – and that’s it. Absolutely nothing else. The credit for this goes to Mike McCarthy. Setting up a game plan to steer clear of a defense’s 2 best players like McCarthy did tonight is really amazing. That’s a good reason why our offense put up 24 points.
• I thought Jordy Nelson would have a big game. Interestingly, both Brother Steve and I figured Nelson would be the dude tonight. Steve called it on the Dennis Miller show and I called it here – both independently because neither of us pay any attention to what the other is doing/saying. Nice.
• Anyone else shocked that Mike Wallace went for 9 catches and 89 yards, 1 TD? He really had a nice game in the end – making several nice catches against Tramon.
• Matthews had a few big plays. The blocked pass and the forced fumble were huge. In fact, it is just plain rare to see a RB making his first move only to fumble. That was a huge hit by Matthews and just a great play.
• I was wrong about Desmond Bishop being the MVP. But he was good tonight. He had a few monster hits and some nice tackles.
• James Starks was really good actually despite the limited action. I was going nuts in the second half wanting more run plays because Pitt just plain stopped playing the run. They rushed 4-5 guys every play and dropped everyone else into the passing lanes. Defense became so easy for Pitt during the 3rd quarter. But just at the right time, McCarthy called a couple run plays and Starks had a huge run on one of them.
• Pleased with McCarthy’s play-calling tonight.
• Pleased with McCarthy over all. He caught a lot of crap from lots of fans and others over this year. He has more than answered the call – he has been a different coach since the Detroit loss. He led this team forcefully through the end of this season. He was absolutely fantastic down the stretch.
• Pleased with Ted Thompson. Yes, I was one of the people saying he wasn’t doing enough. And amazingly, I still think there were a couple of moves that might have helped. But after winning the Super Bowl, it’s awfully difficult to argue with his management of this team. His pick-up of Howard Green goes down as, I don’t know, ridiculous. It made a huge difference in the way our defense finished this season. Not only did Green add depth, but he also added a dimension to our defense that wasn’t there before. He was good tonight too – he caused the first Big Ben pick pretty much by himself.
• Jarrett Bush was very good tonight. He put pressure on Roeth several times but his pick was really, really good. He pushed his way right into the passing lane on that pass, when Shields already had tight coverage and he just ripped the ball away. That was a key moment.
• I’m glad Pitt decided to shy away from the run when down later in the second half. They were starting to run at will (in part because we insisted on doing the 5 DB thing) but then they got behind and started throwing. They had some success throwing too, but I think the loss of Emmanuel Sanders may have quietly limited their game plan.
• Atari Bigby being interviewed right now by Dan Needles. He has huge sunglasses on because chances are huge that he’s stoned right now. Bigby was just asked how he’s going to celebrate tonight and his gut response, the words that came out first were “oh…wow….”. His way of saying “tons, and tons of weed”.
• I do think Roethlisberger had real trouble with Capers’ game plan in the first half. He drew up a really nice plan and it wasn’t until we lost practically our entire secondary that Pitt was able to crack through with that late 1st half TD.
• I’m just so proud of this team. We stuck with it. We didn’t fall into conservative mode. We kept going with what worked.
• You all better be partying hard right now. I’ve done my part with many beers, sitting on the left side of my couch, etc. Fantastic season and a huge thank you to all who read us. I really enjoy doing this and the main reason I enjoy it is because our readers are so knowledgeable, fun, funny and interesting. Thanks again readers!