This week the Pittsburgh Steelers (9-3) are playing the lowly Cincinnati Bengals (2-10) at Heinz Field. Will this be a blowout win for the Steelers, or can Cincinnati play spoiler and help out the rest of the AFC?

Jump for our Predictions on this game and the rest of Week 14.

no comments

Show Topics

Ian from Steelers n'at joins the Blitzburgh Blog staff as they talk about Pittsburgh football from the WPIAL playoff teams to the Steelers.

1. Steelers epic 13-10 win over Baltimore 
2. Headshots on Roethlisberger and Miller 
3. Playcalling: Can offensive coordinators catch a break? 
4. Looking ahead to the PIAA football championships

Music by Companion ( http://www.myspace.com/companionpa )

When your quarterback gets his face busted a minute into the game and doesn't miss a beat, it says something to your team. If that didn't get a player ready to take the field, that player should be cut. We're all looking forward to hearing what the league has to say about the shot on Heath Miller, or to be more accruate, we look forward to feeling vindicated when they say nothing. Unless they fine James Harrison for commenting about the officiating bias in the postgame.

But that's all besides the point right now. The Steelers are now a game ahead of the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North. With winnable games left on the schedule, the Steelers are now looking to clinch a top-2 seed. After the jump, the recap of last night's game, because it's always fun re-living a comeback win in Baltimore. no comments

Literally shaking as I type this. What an unbelievable game that was. One of the best NFL games I've seen in a long time. So much to talk about...Polamalu's strip sack, Redman's miracle catch and run, and the disgusting headshot on Heath Miller that was not flagged. 

Recap and all that coming later. Just glad to be alive after that one. Wow. 

This week the Pittsburgh Steelers (8-3) travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens (8-3) in a match-up that will put the winner on top of the AFC North. Both teams are coming off close wins, and have a chance to take control in the divisional race and the AFC Playoff picture. The Ravens won the first meeting at Heinz Field with a late TD pass…However the Steelers were playing that game without Big Ben. This should be a very close game, that is sure to be one of the most physical you will see this year.

Jump for our Predictions on this game and the rest of Week 13.

  no comments

his is a series scouting the Steelers’ opponents using all the advanced statistics from Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats I can find. Read and enjoy!

Overall Team Stats

GWP: Generic Win Probability; EPA: Expected Points Added

For new readers, DVOA is calculated by assigning a value to each play compared to the league average, so the Ravens have performed at a level 19.7% better than the average team so far this year. Weighted DVOA puts more emphasis on the last few games, to give a better idea of how the team’s playing right now, so the Ravens are playing better right now than they were earlier in the season. GWP is Advanced NFL Stat’s efficiency stat, and uses several factors to produce the winning percentage a team would have against average competition. EPA measures the total changes in expected points (each down-and-distance situation has a expected point total; for example, a team with 1st-and-10 at the opponent’s 32 is expected to score 3.17 points on average)

Jump for the rest of the analysis and charts!

On the Baltimore Ravens first offensive possession, Harrison should not blitz at all. Instead, he can wait for Joe Flacco to throw an incomplete pass, run over to him, rip his helmet off and punch him in the face 4 or 5 times. In the eyes of the NFL, this is the equivalent to hitting a quarterback fractions of a second after he throws the ball, which Harrison will likely do sometime during the game anyway. At least he'll be getting his money's worth. 

I've written hundreds of posts about the Steelers over the years and I usually have a pretty good system down. I'll get an idea for a post and start writing it in my head a few hours before I actually sit down at the computer. I know that sounds weird, but if you've ever written a blog or long paper or article you can probably understand. 

This post was a little different though. I've been writing this one in my head for a few weeks and it keeps changing every time. Originally, I was going to title it "The NFL is targeting the Steelers" and then a few days later it was "The NFL is NOT targeting the Steelers." I've thought a lot about the issue and I still don't really know what to believe, but I'm going to try to make some sense of all of these penalties after the jump. 

Here's an example of parity in the NFL. It really does exist. Despite being the league doormat this season, the Bills have either won or gone to overtime in their last five games. It's a team that's very close to being good. If it weren't for Stevie Johnson's drop in overtime, they'd have an extra win and would put all the pressure on the Steelers for the rest of the season in the AFC.

Fortunately for us, the Bills made one or two key mistakes and Shaun Suisham kicked the game of his life [probably]. The Steelers move to 8-3 and the Bills... well, we don't have to hear about them until the draft. Recap after the jump.

Read more...