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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Game time

I'm in my seat after doing the pre-, pre-game show on ESPN-970 and this place looks ready to go.

The NFL did oversell the game, however, and is offering the fans who did not get seats three times the face value as compensation. That's a crime. You come here, spend money on the flight, hotel, days off work and can't get into the game? Money can't compensate you for that.

The Steelers surprisingly did not activate Dorian Brooks on the 45-man roster today. He's inactive. It leads me to the question as to why they would even make the move with Pouncey if they weren't going to activate Brooks?

It's nice for Brooks, though. He makes a bigger paycheck for being on the active roster, so maybe it's a gesture by the team to get a guy who's been on their practice squad all season a little more money - at the league's expense.

Also down are Batch, Dwyer, Butler, Chris Scott, Steve McLendon, Aaron Smith and Jason Worilds.

Frank Zombo will start for the Packers in place of Erik Walden at right outside linebacker.

Walden is down.

8 comments:

adamg said...

A disappointing loss, but the team that played better football won. GB had no turnovers, few penalties and made the tackles when they had the chance.

It's a shame the defense had so much trouble with a qb who never took his eyes off his primary receiver.

The bottom line is the Steelers had 3 turnovers, one a pick 6, and another when they had the chance to take the lead. They took many dumb penalties. They didn't deserve to win.

I'll give the Steelers a bit of a pass since I think they played with too many guys who were healthy enough to play (Troy, B-Mac, BR), but not healthy enough to make a difference.

Anonymous said...

Great job Green Bay!!! Congrats

Anonymous said...

I thought Ben had a poor game. Much is expected from a $100 million franchise QB. Both picks were killers and he missed some key throws. He made plays as usual and piled up some yards, yeah, but he was outplayed by the Packers secondary and outclassed by Rodgers on his side of the ball in this game.

Dale -- what was going on on the last drive? People not knowing what play was called, etc.?

We need corners and a healthy Troy.

Anonymous said...

first, to the idiots before who thought green bay was going to come out flat because of inexperience in a super bowl...like i said before...get a clue.

second, like i said before, the packers will spread the steelers out and pick on gay/macfadden. actually, looked like clark got picked on too.

third, imo, the defensive game plan sucked. it was obvious what packers were doing and there were just no adjustments. almost exactly same as patriots earlier in the year. pass rush was mostly non-existent, guys wide open over the middle most of the game and gay/macfadden overmatched by bigger/faster WR's.

say all you want about the turnovers, fact is the packer's offense did almost everything it wanted. if it wasn't for all the dropped passes (at least one was a given TD) the score would have been worse.

nice season, but i expected a better effort in the championship game.

Steve-O said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve-O said...

Marc,

You refer to those of us who thought the Packers would feel the pressure as idiots and then claim if it weren't for their many dropped passes they'd have beaten us worse. Can't have it both ways. The pressure got to the Packers receivers and they dropped several well thrown balls.

In the end this game came down to the Steeler's inability to prevent 3rd down conversions and 3 offensive turnovers. We had our opportunities and blew them.

As for the defensive play calling, I have to disagree. It wasn't the play calling, it was the overmatched DB's. William Gay is Tyrone Carter repackaged. He's not able to keep up with the underneath route runners and Dick LeBeau can't help that. Bmac was also outplayed but I'll cut him a little slack because of his inury. My biggest disappointment amongst the DB's was Troy Polamalu. He's one of my favorite players but he was not a difference maker and the team desperately needed him to be one.

We were outplayed, not outcoached. Congrats to the Packers, they earned it

Anonymous said...

steve-o,
couldn't disagree with you more. you can't assign every mistake to "feeling the pressure." the packer's receivers have had problems catching the ball all season long. additionally, using your logic, the steelers must have been scared out of their mind based on all the mistakes they made.

regarding the defense, it was so painfully obvious before this game even started that gay/macfadden were going to be overmatched. everyone knew it, former player/analysts talked about it, jaws diagramed it, i think a book was written about it too. so what do the steelers do? they keep blitzing their head against a wall and leaving those two on an island.

and i would say the steelers were outcoached because all the packers did was copy the patriots game plan. so that's 8 quarters of football against the same game plan the steelers failed to make an adjustment.

Steve-O said...

Marc,
This is a circular argument and I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on the reasons for the Steeler's loss but I will say the Steelers deserved to lose. Their undisciplined play and inability to cover receivers doomed them to runner up status. Hopefully they address it in the offseason.... Namdi Assoughmha (sp?) Could be a huge acquisition.