This idea is blasphemous to some sports fans, but I enjoy having a second team. We're all Steeler fans, first and foremost, but there may actually be times this season or in seasons to come when the Steelers are not available to root for. We love football though, and it might come in handy to pick a second team to follow around this time every year.

Is it bandwagoning? Yeah, probably. But there's a difference between being a shameless bandwagoner and pulling for a team whose season you've enjoyed. After the jump, we take a look at some playoff contenders and the reasons you should or shouldn't root for them if the Steelers lose.

The Steelers have a bye this week, which is both terrible and awesome. It's terrible because we don't have a Steeler game to watch this Sunday. It's awesome because it gives everyone a late-ish season chance to rest up and get healthy for the home stretch, plus we get a week to just sit back and enjoy every other team going to war against each other without a huge emotional investment.

Speaking of all those other teams, in this post we're going to go around the league and check in with everyone to see how their season is progressing. (Also this was written before the Broncos and Jets played on Thursday night so their records will be missing a game. Whatev)

-B- Joe Flacco might look like Joe Montana when he plays the Steelers, but he is playing like Joe(y) Harrington against everybody else. Flacco threw the ball 52 times against Seattle yesterday. He only completed 29 of those passes and finished with a putrid 4.9 yards per attempt. Flacco continues to dump the ball off to his RBs and TEs on almost every throw and seems to lack the confidence to consistently throw the ball down field. Yesterday, he only completed 5 passes to wide receivers. Dinking and dunking the ball might have been successfull agains the Steelers, but it is only going to get you so far in this league. 

The Ravens play calling continues to be bizarre as well. Ray Rice only had 5 carries yesterday. Granted, the Ravens got down early but it is so strange to only rush the ball 5 times with one of the league's best RBs.

The only way that Baltimore is moving the ball on offense is by throwing 6 yard passes in the flat to Rice, Ed Dickson or Dennis Pitta. Cam Cameron refuses to run the ball and Flacco refuses to go outside or deep with his throws. 

Batimore might have beated the Steelers twice, but they have some major issues on offense. They may be perfectly constructed to beat the Steelers, but you have to be able to gameplan for and defeat other teams if you want to win championships.

Also, I present to you the move Marshawn Lynch pulled on Ray Lewis and Jarret Johnson without comment:





-B-  Cleveland botched the snap and failed to convert a 22-yard FG that would have won the game for them against the lowly St. Louis Rams yesterday. They lost the game 13-12. This is the exact kind of thing they have come to expect in Cleveland and I almost feel a little bit bad for them. 

The Browns did get great games from Colt McCoy, Chris Ogbonnaya and Greg Little, though. They have some nice young players and even though they looked awful at the end of the game, I think they can still steal a game against one of the AFC North teams. McCoy even gave the Steelers fits at times last year.  

All right, there have been prettier wins. Fortunately, this is Pittsburgh and I don't think anyone cares about being pretty as long as they get it done in the end. Last week, the defense didn't make the plays it had to at the end of the game to win. This week, they did. The defense looked old a couple of times during the game, but they got the late turnover to put the game back in the offense's hands. Speaking of that, the offense struggled at times against a surpisingly apt Cincinnati defense but ground out the first downs to seal the win in the end. Great teams make the plays they need to. The Steelers did exactly that. Jump, bros.

Pittsburgh jumped out to a 14-0 lead early in this one and it looked like a blowout, but -- as only the Steelers can do -- they allowed the Bengals to climb back into the game before a William Gay interception late in the 4th quarter finally ended it. 

Ben Roethlisberger was on fire early,  throwing the ball for nearly 200 yards in the first half. But Troy Polamalu and Ryan Clark got embarrassed by AJ Green in the endzone making it 14-7 and then Heath Miller bobbled a pass right into the chest of Leon Hall, giving the Bengals a short field. That made it 14-10. Both scores were easily avoidable and the Steelers essentialy handed Cincy 10 points. Not good. 

Unlike last week against Baltimore, the Steelers' offense was able to come up big late in the game. They had an 11 play drive late in the 3rd quarter to take the lead after the Bengals tied it up. More importantly, the Steelers put the Bengals away for good by churning out a couple of first downs after Gay's pick. Weslye Saunders and Mike Wallace each had first down catches and Mike Tomlin continued the pattern of throwing the ball and going for the jugular late in the game.

All in all, it was a solid win despite the Steelers making some mistakes. The offensive line strugged pretty often in the 2nd half and Andy Dalton had some success dinking and dunking throw the air, but Gay, Timmons and Roethlisberger came up huge down the stretch and the Steelers were able to sneak away with a huge divisional win. 


The Steelers finally have a bye week and will hopefully be able to get some guys healthy for the stretch run. 

So, the preview is going to be shorter than usual this week. As luck would have it, I am in Cincinnati, playing in this chess tournament (if I run into any Bengals players, I’ll make sure to direct them to the nearest bar). Therefore, I don’t have as much time to write as I normally would. All I’ll say about last week’s game is: if a graph can be sickening, this would be it, and surprisingly (read: not surprisingly at all), Joe Flacco was the top performer in terms of both Win Probability Added and Expected Points Added, with 1.12 and 20.6, respectively.

Football Outsiders

The Steelers actually went up in DVOA ranking after last week, to 11th from 12th. Their weighted DVOA ranking is ninth, showing just how awful their Week 1 performance was. The Steelers are currently ninth in offense and 13th in defense. The Bengals are 15th overall and in weighted DVOA, 19th in offense, and tenth in defense. The main things to be gleaned from the specific defensive numbers: the Steelers are now 29th in the league against non-#1 or #2 receivers, and are 22nd in rush defense, and the Bengals are 20th and 22nd against #1 and #2 recivers, respectively. Look for steady doses of Cedric Benson, Andre Caldwell, Mike Wallace, and Antonio Brown.

QuantCoach’s Coaching Stats

The Steelers out-coached Baltimore last week, and remain the best-coached team in the NFL. The Bengals are third in the AFC North, and eighth in the AFC.

I’m Still Going to Do a Prediction, I’m Sure You’re Excited

The DVOA numbers pretty much confirm what the conventional wisdom says: that the Bengals are better than last year, but they have faced a poor schedule (26th in the NFL), and this game will go a long way toward determining if they are a true playoff-caliber team. Meanwhile, the Steelers aren’t an elite team, but their only losses have been to the third and fifth-best teams. I think the home-field advantage will swing a call or two the Bengals’ way, and the two teams are close enough in skill that it may determine the outcome of the game. However, if the Steelers’ run defense plays anywhere close to the elite level it has been in recent years, Andy Dalton will be forced to throw more often, which plays right into Troy Polamalu’s literal hands. All right, I’m stalling too much. I think the Steelers will come out focused, but the home-field advantage will mean the game stays close into the fourth quarter, which is never a good sign. Bengals 21, Steelers 17.

Not Steelers related, but we love WPIAL football...

Hopewell senior RB and Pitt commit Rushel Shell broke Jeremiah Young's PIAA rushing record tonight against Franklin Regional. Young (Steelton-Highspire) had 8,435 yards in his career, 3 ahead of the previous state career rushing record of 8,432 yards by East Stroudsburg's James Mungro.

Shell is possibly the most hyped running back recruit to come out of the Pittsburgh area ever. He's drawing all sorts of wild comparisions and he'll be someone for NFL fans to keep an eye on the next four years if he stays healthy. 

The Hopewell-Franklin Regional game is still going on (and it is a great one). It'll be on late tonight on Root Sports in Pittsburgh. 

Congrats to Rushel and his Hopewell teammates for breaking one of the most historic records in PA high school football!



 

In case you were wondering what former Steelers and 49ers kicker Jeff Reed was up to these days, he surfaced tonight at Consol Energy Center taking in the game between the Penguins and Dallas Stars.

How do we know this? Reed and his friends were involved in some freak accident that occurred during the game. City Councilman Bill Peduto was nearby:

Hopefully whoever was with Reed is fine. No word yet on his (or her) condition. The Pensblog is all over this.

The lives of NFL kickers are funny. Reed was one of the best kickers in the league not long ago and a local celebrity. Now, just over a year removed from being the kicker on a team that would later appear int he Super Bowl, Reed is no longer playing football and is spending his Friday nights in the seats of Consol Energy Center just like everybody else. 

Update:

Erica on Twitter says: "I just ran into jeff reed.... said his friend is alert and has a concussion" 

-B- The NFL has issued Ryan Clark a $40,000 fine for his helmet-to-helmet hit against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. Ed Bouchette reports that Clark is angry about the fine. Ben Roethlisberger also was upset, calling for the NFLPA to "do something" about the rash of fines. 

Here's the hit on Ed Dickson that is in question:



Watching it live, I thought it was a good hit, but Clark did lead with the crown of his helmet and made direct helmet-to-helmet contact with the receiver. You can disagree with the current rules, but it was called correctly on the field. What is frustrating is watching Ray Lewis do the same thing to Hines Ward without the penalty being called. 

Helmet-to-helmet hits are a tricky thing to detect at full speed. A high shoulder-to-shoulder hit can often look bad. What if the ball carrier leads with his head and initiates contact? Hopefully the NFL provides some further clarification and the officials get more experienced at picking these out and being consistent with their calls. 

-B- WRs Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown are turning into quite the 1-2 punch. Wallace has 868 yards on 47 catches and Brown has 540 yards on 39 grabs. Both will likely end up having over 1,000 receiving yards for the season, the first Steelers duo to do that since Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes achieved the feat in 2009.

In terms of overall value, though, I think this is the Steelers best combo at receiver since 2002, when a much younger Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress terrorized the league. Each had over 1,300 yards receiving despite a carosuel at quarterback between Tommy Maddox and Kordell Stewart. Ward was 28 and Burress 27 during that season. Wallace and Brown are both only 25 years old this season. Can you imagine what they'll be like in 3 years if they are still playing together? If both continue to improve and Roethlisberger stays healthy, the Steelers could have the best WR duo since Swann and Stallworth.  

-B- Mike Tomlin's decision (or indecision) on the 4th down the Steelers had in their penultimate drive has been much discussed. Advanced NFL Stats has the most logical piece about the decision. Prior to the delay of game, kicking a FG was a slightly better option than punting. However, they argue that the best option of all would have been going for it on 4th down...even after the delay of game penalty. Tomlin has always been fairly aggressive in these types of situations so I was a little surprised watching the confusion from the sidelines last Sunday. 

The Steelers were too passive when they had the ball that drive and too passive on defense once they had punted away. Beating good teams in this NFL requires you to be aggressive at all times. I'm sure the Steelers will play that situation a little differently next time around. 

The Steelers had a chance at redemption last night. As well as they've been playing lately, everyone still felt the sting of that Week 1 blowout. Coming off a dominant win over New England, the Steelers had a chance to really take their place atop the AFC. A win versus Baltimore would have taken care of the team's two biggest rivals in two weeks, and with a less-than-terrifying schedule for the rest of the season, they would have been in good position to play for a first-round bye.

That isn't how it went, though. There's a lot of season left, and the Steelers will have some catching up to do. In the meantime, jump for what happened last night.