Again battered by several key injuries, the Steelers were forced to face another divisional rival at less than full strength. Ben Roethlisberger missed another game with his battered knees, and middle linebacker James Farrior was unable to play also. That said though, the Steelers are still a well rounded premiere team, so there was little doubt in their resolve. Although the game started poorly with the Browns driving the entire field on the opening drive concluding with a Droughns touchdown. However after that drive, the Browns were unable to put much together until late in the game when it was too little too late.
The offense put on an impressive airial showing with Charlie Batch at the Helm and a healthy Hines Ward running flawless routes. It was a historical moment for the Steelers franchise and Ward himself, when he broke the existing franchise record of 537 receptions made by the Hall of Famer, John Stallworth. It was obvious early on that Ward had decided to demonstrate to the world his unparallel skills as a smaller than average reciever. The crowd echoed for minutes after he caught his 538th pass from Charlie Batch to move the chains.
However, his most impressive catch came in the third quarter when Tommy Maddox stepped in as quarterback due to Batch leaving the game with a broken hand. Although many fans were wary of to which team Tommy was going to throw the ball to, all went well with a little Pittsburgh trickery. The play started out as a halfback sweep left, which then turned into an end around with Antwaan Randel El. But the moment you began to question the play selection, Randel El slowed up and launched a bomb down the right side line to a smiling Hines Ward who was wide open. The play resulted in a touchdown and eased my worries of what offense could be produced with Maddox as quarterback.
The defense played well as always, with star performances out of Polamalu, Porter, and Hampton. Initially, there was a large problem in bringing down the human wrecking ball Reubon Droughns. But as time passed on you could see his explosiveness decrease and he was easily contained by the lightning fast defense.
The outlook is optimistic for the the future at this point. It is vital that our injured players treat their injuries over the next two weeks and are completely healthy by week 12 when we meet the Bengals for what should be the AFC North championship. Hopefully Batch and/or Maddox will be able to get us by the Ravens with a win next week, which shouldn't be a problem due to their inability to put up points or even prevent them for that matter. Till next week.

Going into week 9, myself along with many other Steeler fans were feeling a little wary about starting veteran quarterback Charlie Batch. It has been quite some time since Batch has seen his last live action, so many were worried about his ability to keep up with the pace of the game. Starting off the game good, the Steelers had a solid drive ending with a Jeff Reed field goal. Unfortunately, the Steelers were unable to convert on one third down conversion through the entire game. Statistics like those are the determining factor in deciding a national championship, so something needs to change there by year's end. Duce Staley, getting his first live action since last year's AFC Championship game, ran strongly earning 75 yards and a touchdown. With Parker being injured in the third quarter and Bettis not starting, it looks like Staley will be carrying the load in the near future.
The defense as always played superbly ending the game with 3 takeaways. None was more astounding than Troy Polamalu's recovery of a fumble, which was returned 77 yards for a touchdown. Between the turnovers and the rigid goal line stand at the 3 yard line, little can still doubt whether the Pittsburgh defense is Super Bowl caliber.
All and all it was a positive victory for the Steelers lifting them to 6-2 just a half a game behind the division leaders, the Cincinnati Bengals. Next week we have the Cleveland Browns, so another Charlie Batch start will be acceptable to let Roethlisberger heal in time for the Bengals in week 12.

Week 8 was a unnecessarily tense weekend for Steelers fans. Myself, like many others around the nation had basically overlooked the Ravens at have any chance of defeating the AFC North powerhouse, on Monday night, at Hienz Field. Some decided to not even watch the game, fearing that the absence of defensive stars Ray Lewis and Ed Reed would seal this game as a total blowout. However, to the shock of many, second string quarterback, Anthony Wright, held the Ravens in a very close battle with the Steelers only really losing the 20-19 game on the final drive of the game.
The Steelers opened up very strongly on their opening drive when Roethlisberger completed a pass to the dominant number one pick, Heath Miller, in the endzone. Miller has developed into one of the premiere tight ends in the league, with his league leading 6 touchdowns. Many argue that this puts him in contention for Offensive Rookie of the Year. Cowher responded to a question on that matter with expectations of Miller being even more a threat towards the end of this season.
Defensively, while we won the game, as a fan I was dissapointed. We allowed far too many third down conversions against such a mediocre offense. I'm not sure if the soft zone coverage we were playing was the only reason that Anthony Wright was able to pick apart our secondary so easily, but that needs to stop. Coverage like that will not hold up against other premiere teams such as the Colts, Bengals and Patriots, so something needs to change. A contributing factor to this was probably our inability to get pressure on Wright. While we normally can get pressure on quarterbacks only rushing three or four, it was not working for us this game, so I think more blitz packages with Polamalu should have been used.
Overall it was a good week because we came out with a "W". But in the end, I am not too confident with our performance considering how poorly the Ravens place compared to other teams. Hopefully we can sit Ben next week when we meet the Packers and let his knees recover, and put Charlie Batch in instead of "Touchdown" Tommy and still get a win.

Week 7 brought one of the most significant games of the year to Cincinnati when the Steelers met up with the Bungals for a battle over who would dominate the AFC North. Now although there might be football fans out there (if you can call them that) that don't think that this game means a lot, but little do they know that one of these two teams will definitely be in the AFC Championship, so to those so called fans listen up. The game's significance could be sensed even before the game started when both coaches announced that there questionable and probable superstars would not miss this game for anything. Injured Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, and T.J. Houshmandzadeh all started the game ready to claim the throne in the AFC North.
The Bengals started out with a strong drive down to the redzone with strong runs for Rudy Johnson. However, this is when things stopped going the Bungals way. A Chad Johnson touchdown catch was challenged by Cowher and then overturned. Then rookie Chris Henry dropped a pass in the endzone that hit him directly in the hands. Even worse than that was Graham's 38-yard field goal attempt that he shanked left. So the Bungal's came up empty handed leaving it to the Steeler's to take the game.
Overall the game was positive considerting the Steelers improved to a 4-2 record with their 27-13 defeat of the Cincinnati Bungals. The offense played superb with a strong performance out of Willie Parker and Jerome Bettis. Most appealing to me was the fact that Heath Miller had his third consecutive game with a touchdown reception. The defense, although they initially had some problems with the cornerbacks covering the recievers, were able to hold their ground by the second half. Carson Palmer broke his streak of 170 consecutive pass attempts without an interception and proceeded to throw 2 within 2 minutes. Real nice. Looks like we know who is going to win the AFC North.

There is only one way to describe this week for the Steelers......DISAPPOINTING! The Steelers' were forced to start their second string quarterback, XFL MVP Tommy "Touchdown" Maddox (don't get fooled by the nickname). Right off the bat it was obvious that Maddox was not playing at professional caliber. The game started and ended with Maddox turning over the ball. In the end Maddox simply could not handle the pressure of an overtime game. As he usually does he fumbled the ball right off the snap and was unable to drop his old carcas to the ground to protect the ball. Instead a younger Jaguar swallowed up the ball crushing the Steelers overtime hopes against a mediocre team. As if things couldn't go worse for Tommy, the Steelers' stellar defense stepped it up agains the Jaguars and gave Tommy another chance to win the game. This time it was even uglier. Tommy proceeded to throw the ball directly into the arms of a Jaguar who then ran it back for a game ending touchdown, making it 23-17 Jaguars. There wasn't even a Steeler close to this dud that Maddox threw. An interesting, and repulsing fact about Tommy and his overtime experience is that every single time, granted that's only four, that Tommy has been in overtime he has fumbled the very first snap in every overtime posession he has played in. Does anyone see a disturbing trend here? Why in the hell is he in the game for us to begin with? I don't know I guess I am a very frustrated fan and should calm down and be happy that our defense was able to keep us in this game even though we were missing our starting quarterback and our number one reciever, Hines Ward. Till next week.

Week 5 was a very nerve-wrecking week for the Steelers. They were scheduled to play AFC powerhouse, the San Diego Chargers, on Monday Night at San Diego. It all started out great with a 14-0 lead over the San Diego Chargers in the first half. The first touchdown was scored in a brand new way for the Steelers. Believe it or not Big Ben Roethlisberger ran a 7 yard quarterback sneak into the endzone. After another great drive, veteran Jerome Bettis, got a well needed 1 yard rushing touchdown. The biggest offensive catch was from rookie tight end Heath Miller, when he caught his 16 yard touchdown reception. The route that he ran on this play was so flawless that I am personally very excited for things to come out of Miller both this season and in the future.
Defensively, the Steelers had extreme trouble finding a solution to the dominant tight end Antonio Gates. Gates, who is as big as a linebacker and runs routes as good as any reciever, proved to be a serious problem to the defense. The best solution that was developed was having Troy Polamalu mirror him. Although Polamalu gives up considerable size to Gates, his physical presence definitely got the Chargers offense on tilt during parts of the game.
The biggest news of the day was during the fourth quarter, when the Chargers had a one point lead over the Steelers with just minutes to play. Roethlisberger put together a very impressive drive, but it all came down to a halting crash when a falling lineman's helmet connected directly wiht Roethlisberger's left knee cap sending him out of the game. As bad as it looked on television, reports the next day made it sound less severe, listing it as a hyperextended knee and a bone bruise.
Third string quarterback, Charlie Batch, was able to come in and complete the drive, setting up a 40-yard field goal by Jeff Reed to win the game 24-22.

This week, the Pittsburgh Steelers had a well needed bye week after the dissapointing last minute loss to the New England Patriots. The time will be used to heal our battered running back squad, and work on our secondaries performance.
Games around the league were very helpful for the Steelers. The first development was the San Diego Charger's manhandling of the Patriots. The 17-41 defeat made all football fans question whether the Patriots would return to the Super Bowl this year. The game left New England with a 2-2 record, not resembling a dynasty at all.
Unfortunately the Cincinnati Bengals barely defeated the Houstan Texans 16-10. As you'll recall the Steelers had no problem putting a mediocre team like the Texans in their place when we defeated them 27-7 in week 2. All we need now is for the Steelers to come out of this bye week healthy, and for the Bengals to lose a big game to Jacksonville in week 5.