I was at the game last night. A few thoughts:
1) There were not as many Steeler fans at this game as there have been in the past. Probably a combination of the holiday plus the fact that they're not that great this year, but you could count the individual terrible towels whenever they had a nice play, so that was nice.
2) Michael Oher is a bone-head. Probably cost us at least one touchdown and then after the game he tried to blame the crowd noise? Huh?
3) Ray Rice stinks. Pierce clearly is the better back right now. They're running behind the same bad line and Pierce continues to outshine him.
4) It wasn't THAT cold early on in the game, but towards the 4th quarter, the wind picked up and it got pretty nipply.
5) Best insult of the night was a fan calling Oher a "sack of crap." Not sure why but it made me LOL. Probably the beer.
6) Not sure what happened on that botched Steeler FG. I thought Suisham started his kick before the snap. Isn't that a false start? Not that I was complaining.
7) Very few people in the stadium noticed the Tomlin interference until they replayed it on the big board. Kudos to the board operator for having the balls to show a questionable play.
8) Emmanuel Sanders is a chump. After he did Ray's dance I thought to myself "if there is a football god, he will make you pay." Low and behold, the dropped 2PC.
9) Did we punt at all last night?
10) Zero turnovers by either team -- pretty impressive for what should have been a defensive struggle.
11) I HATE watching Big Ben elude sacks. I figured last night, with out pass rush and their shaky o-line, we'd nail him a few times. But the man has an uncanny ability to make something out of nothing. He threw a few really nice passes under duress.
12) Security was, let's just say, not the most efficient at the gates. If the New England game is frigid I'm sneaking in a bottle of whiskey -- for any cops reading this, my name is Branden Nickle.
13) Playoff outlook looks a little better, but we still have those two tough road games I'm worried about. I still think we stink on the road which means we're going 8-8 at best unless we can unearth a win on the road. At this point you almost have to root for Cincy to have the division locked up by week 17 -- maybe they will roll over for us or at least bench their starters.
14) I was going to add something here but I forgot.
15) This has gone on long enough.
16) Oh yea, I remember! I am going to start a movement, called E.A.S.E. (Escalators At the Stadium for Everyone). The fact that our stadium doesn't have escalators leading to the 500 level is absurd. Have you ever actually walked up all those steps to the top? Unless you're Body by Jake it's a freaking haul!
