Someone bring LenDale a tissue. I suppose he might seek to hide his head under one during his way away from Pittsburgh.
During a night in which Troy Polamalu succumbed to a knee injury, Wille Parker and the rest of the Steelers running back corps couldn't manage to get things going, and Hines Ward managed something he rarely does - fumbled in a giant play situation. Ben Roethlisberger was steady in the back field, took a small number of sacks, but in the end engineered yet one more game winning drive to help the Steelers beat the Titans 13-10 in the NFL inaugural game.
It didn't begin well for Roethlisberger and company; The Titans brought their "A" game and virtually locked Pittsburgh's running game down.
Big Ben was cool under pressure, although. Yeah, he threw two picks (Brett Favre does this religiously, yet there are fans willing to bow down to him when he comes into a room, so get off this).
However he also threw for 363 yards, which included 60 yards on the final drive of the game.
The defense stepped up and executed when the chips were down, especially on special teams, where a blocked Rob Bironas field goal led to their lone touchdown of the game.
Of course, that play lost them Troy Polamalu, although it only set them back for a moment or two.
If Hines Ward had either fallen down or turned somewhat faster at the end of his run in the 4th quarter, the game would have concluded earlier.
But this was too good a game to not end up in overtime. Both teams had played their hearts out, both teams had players sidelined to injury, and overtime seemed the only reasonable way to settle the game.
If, , you could call NFL overtimes reasonable.
After the Steelers won the coin toss, Roethlisberger and crew made the most of a winded Titans defense, advancing downfield for 63 yards to arrange the game-winning field goal.
No related posts.
Comments on this entry are closed.