1-08-06
Jon Sobolewski
Sobeball.com
From the archives...
345-509, 3731 yds, 32 TD, 12 INT, 101.1 rating
Five stats, several reasons for fantasy geeks to soil themselves, and “The Rise of the Bungal Empire.” Well, Emperor Palmer’s reign suffered a severe blow when Mount Kemo erupted and crumbled the young Emperor from Troy’s march to the worst Super Bowl site of all-time. BUT, Carson’s march ends, ruined ACL or not, because no team with a defense like the Who-Dey Bungles wins this game. Why? Let us not forget about the 17-7 Cincinnati lead without Palmer quarterbacking and Bill Cowher’s chance to adjust at halftime. Not that Cowher-power is one to make any great coaching adjustments, but they prepared for Palmer, not John Kitna, so they had to change something at halftime. They did and they dominated.
Carson “much better than Matt Leinart” Palmer (at right, AP) clearly makes a difference, but he makes it a “game in the fourth quarter kinda difference,” not “win the game kinda difference.” Honestly, does Palmer eclipse Kitna’s four minus “one bad field goal snap” scoring drives of the first half? I don’t know, but Pittsburgh Jr. has a lot of fans who will be sulking for years to come over this.
Pittsburgh Jr. you ask? Absolutely. My brother lives in the ’Nati (as they call in the city of Almost-Kentucky, Ohio, look at a map) and from my visits there, Cincinnati is an ugly copy of Pittsburgh. We have two rivers that that send out shit down the Ohio River, which becomes their Poohio river, which did I mention, is full of our shit. We both have bridges, Pittsburgh’s ugliest are yellow, Nearly Kentuckyville (really, Kentucky is their suburbs) actually has a purple one. Yes A PURPLE ONE. When we passed over it, my girlfriend commented how “pretty” it was; enough said. In addition to the Poohio and the purple bridge, Cincinnati has what they like to call “chili.” Chili as defined by dictionary.com is: ground beef and chili peppers or chili powder often with tomatoes and kidney beans. In Cincinnati, they put their “Chili” over spaghetti noodles and they want to be famous for it, like they invented chili. Cincinnati-ites, Cincinnatites, Cincinnoians (what the hell are they?) claim this to be some great invention, but I saw Will Ferrell put maple syrup over spaghetti noodles in Elf and he wasn’t claiming to have made the best spaghetti. I don’t know, point is, the city is weak, and I hope my brother serves his coworkers and patients a mean plate of "shut the hell up". Alright, maybe not his patients, he is a pediatrician (so what if I called him and told him to shove it in every sick kid wearing a Chad Johnson jersey’s face after the trick play, I was pumped).
65,780 Bengal fans, make that 45,780 Bengal fans begin vomiting when Palmer went down today and so did my girlfriend, but I strangely didn’t. I tore my ACL a few years back, but it’s a pretty funny thing being a Steelers fan; instead of being compassionate, I yelled “Stay down bitch” as if I put $25 down on the underdog in a pudding-wrestling match after guzzling a dozen Old-Germans (the best cheap beer in America). I feel really bad about it now and perhaps I would not have yelled if the talented s.o.b. had not completed a 66-yarder to my least favorite WVU graduate in the world.
Speaking of my most hated WVU grads:
1. Chris Henry, an ESPN commentator compared him to Larry Fitzgerald during a Pitt-WVU game, I will never forgive that. Also, Chris was arrested during a good rookie season for weed possession, I bet his weed-man was this guy:
2. Adam “Pac-Man” Jones: How did this guy ever get into a college? How could the Titans take him? He’s like a poor man’s Method man that nobody likes. Before his first ever training camp, he gets arrested for trying to attack a club-owner who didn’t want Ms. Pac-man’s buddies to smoke weed. 2-1 odds he ends up in prison this offseason.
3. Todd Sauerbrun: What kind of punter is on the juice? How dumb you can be?
Kevin Pittsnogle does not appear here, because before Pitt played WVU his freshman year, my buddy called “Pittsy” in his WVU dorm room and he actually talked to him. Not sure why he did, but what player does that, I have to give him credit for that. Plus, who has a verb created after them:
pittsnogled- v.t. pits-nog-old, to have threes reign down upon you shot by the WVTPL (West Virginia trailer park league) MVP.
(I have so many Pittsnogle moments that I can’t even count them, but that is another article for another time.)
How could I feel bad for a guy who teams up with Chris Henry and Chad “never does crap against the Steelers” Johnson? However, I still rooted for Michael Jordan and he was slapping Dennis Rodman’s butt, so Palmer shouldn’t be guilty by association. Regardless, I now feel terrible. If I were offered the chance to let Palmer be healthy and the Steelers lose or today’s result, I still pick today’s result. If I am going to hell for this, so too is all of Pittsburgh and the 20,000 Steelers fans in Paul Brown stadium. Alright, but best wishes to Palmer and I’ll definitely take him in fantasy football next season because we both have a knee scar in common now (that doesn’t mean I will take Daunte Cullpepper though, we don’t have a sex-boat scandal in common).
Speaking of Chad’s Johnson. Why was he smuggling his tears at the end of the game? Was he hurting because he could not write down that he lit up Ike Taylor in any of the Bengals three games against the Steelers this year? Yeah, in three games, Johnson caught only 13 balls and zero touchdowns against Dick Lebeau’s boys. Seriously, Chad needs to spend more time watching film (yeah, yeah, he is the last one out of the team facilities, but maybe he is spending too much time drawing pretty charts) of Ike Taylor who does not even know what film is. Seriously, my buddy Glum works for a rent-a-car place and when Taylor showed up returning his car Glum had to take him home. Well, since Taylor apparently doesn’t speak English, my friend contemplated giving him a crayon and a piece of paper and telling him to draw a picture of where he needed to go. Anyway, Taylor is quickly becoming Chad’s Johnson’s kryptonite.
Speaking of dominant receivers, Hines Ward may not always appear that way, but he is awesome in the playoffs. Hines has caught a touchdown pass in each of his last five playoff games and tell me there is a better teammate than Ward. I don’t see Hines creating lists of corners he burned or writing volumes of the pancakes he’s blocked. The only way this guy gets any better is if he spelled his name Heinz and fathered my children (you think I’m joking, my girlfriend approves too). I don’t care if in an SI player’s poll Ward was voted the dirtiest player in the league, I wouldn’t trade him for any wide receiver and my prayers were answered when the Steelers resigned him after his holdout (thankfully the media disassociated his holdout from Drew Rosenhaus players). Ultimately though, the best Ward moment today was his making fun of Cedric Wilson catching a wide open touchdown pass after one of the coolest trick plays I’ve ever seen. Does Ward ever stop smiling?
One more point. I was watching Sportscenter tonight and Stuart Scott actually called Ben Roethlisberger “popsicle cool” and I hurt myself trying to fight through the tv screen to tell Stu that he needs to take his slanted eye, wannabe rapping, and identity crisis and go find the other side of the pillow because he isn’t cool. And on Roethlisberger, this guy is smooth; 14-19, three touchdowns, two chins, and his hair is way better than Jake Plummer’s shaggy look. I was crazy for Ben when we picked him in 2004 and I thought he was a pure steal over Phillip Rivers especially. Does anyone remember Mel Kiper constantly hyping Rivers in that he never lost a bowl game, except Kiper forgot Pitt beat NC State in the Tangerine Bowl. Kiper lost all credibility there for me, probably earlier for most of you. I wasn’t Roethlisberger crazy during the season though, particularly down the stretch. Pittsburgh as a team and a city, along with the rest of the country, put way too much hype and pressure on him from the beginning and it wore him down to the point that the Steelers won despite him. Now, we lose without him and win because of him. Dare I say, Big Ben may be underrated. If Big Ben lined up under center for the Bengals I would be more scared than I am of their offense now. Most Steelers fans never saw him sling it in college and all the people that say they did would mean weekday Miami (Ohio) ESPN2 broadcasts would have been outdrawing Survivor and CSI (this is just like all the people that saw Dan Marino play in high school except they didn’t fit because Central Catholic didn’t play at Three Rivers Stadium). Let’s just say, outside of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady I wouldn’t take anybody else.
Now that Pittsburgh has won seven of its last nine against Cincinnati and 10 of its last 13 and the Steelers have won their last five games at Paul Brown Stadium Larry Foote can say “Who-Dey? Who-Dey? WE-DEY!” Maybe Cowher can now win an AFC title game because the Steelers may just be playing one on the road.