While we were watching the first half of this game, it was obvious which team was the reigning Super Bowl champions and which one wasn't. It's been a while since I've watched a football game and seen one team complete outclass the other, but that's what I saw tonight.

The Steelers defense ate Dick Jauron's no-huddle up like a midnight snack and Ben Roethlisberger just toyed with Buffalo's defense. Watching Roethlisberger was like watching my roommate play Madden...he just sat back, scrambled a bit and made a laser-guided throw to whichever receiver he felt like throwing to. There was no way he was being stopped.

We all know the defense will show up again this season. But if the offense can channel whatever we saw during that 13 play, 87 yard drive that ate up over six minutes of clock....this team will have a heck of a chance to go back to back. They were awesome to watch tonight.

Grades, WTF moments, and much more after the jump....

I'm not a coach and I don't even pretend to be one online. But I'm pretty confident that Mike Tomlin and his staff are penciling in tonight's game against Buffalo as the most important matchup of the preseason.

Obviously, the starters are actually going to get the majority of the playing time and this is the closest thing to a real game we'll see until the regular season.

But as I've said before, I don't really care how the starters do. We already know how good 95% of them are. They really don't have anything to prove in the preseason.

The backups are another story though. After the jump, I lay out a few guys who need to have stellar games tonight or they'll be in in hot water...

I can't get that question out of my mind.

It feels completely unfair to even throw out the term "bust" when a guy has only had 19 carries in the NFL. It goes against everything I typically stand for when it comes to evaluating players.

But Rashard Mendenhall hasn't once looked anything other than a mediocre running back during his first two seasons and that scares me.

Hit "Read more" to see why Mendenhall worries me so much.

Steelers 13 Redskins 17

            When I think of Steelers vs. Redskins, I think of last year when Byron came in to save the game when Ben went down. After that, many people called for Ben’s head and that Byron should be the new starter. Of course that didn’t happen, and both teams went in opposite ways at the end of the season. The Steelers went 4-1 in their last 5 games, and the Redskins went 1-4, finishing at the bottom of the NFC East.

So here we are again, but this time it means nothing. No Ben to get hurt during the game, since he’s already hurt before the game, and no more Byron, unfortunately. This wasn’t all that exciting of a game to watch, but really, most preseason games aren’t. Let’s look at the game’s grades shall we?

Much has been written and said about rookie running back Isaac Redman, who scored both TDs in the Steelers first preseason game and recently dominated a goal line drill in practice.

So who is Isaac Redman? We spent the offseason dreaming about Rashard Mendenhall and Frank Summers plowing over tacklers into the end zone, not an undrafted rookie from Bowie State. We wrote extensively about each and every Steelers draft pick and didn't pay more than a passing glance of attention to the undrafted rookies.

We're late to jump onto the Redman train, so here's a few facts that everybody needs to know about him:

Isaac Redman is slow. Or at least slow in the 40 - 4.76.  Frank Summers ran 4.63 and Heath Miller ran 4.79. Not the type of speed you'd like to see from your featured back, but I suppose if he's only used in short yardage situations then it doesn't much matter.

Isaac Redman rewrote every Bowie State record. Ever. He had a 99-yard TD run and once carried the rock 37 times in a game. Don't be too impressed though...Bowie State is a Division II school and actually opens up their 2009 season against Slippery Rock.

Look, Redman is a great story and I certainly hope he continues to dominate in short yardage situations. But I'm of the opinion that training camp and preseason performances are generally a terrible indicator of regular season showings. Other than a handful of 3 or 4-yard runs in "fake" games, Redman really doesn't have anything worth getting excited about.

I'm probably in the majority, but I'm still a lot more eager to see what becomes of Frank Summers than Isaac Redman. Summers dominated better competition in college and I'm not willing to let a couple weeks of training camp over weigh what we saw from both guys in the NCAA.

I understand people probably rained on Willie Parker and James Harrison's parades when they first starting turning heads in training camp. Maybe Redman will make me look like an idiot. But these types of training camp all-stars with no track record flame out a lot more often than they succeed.  It's just the harsh reality of the NFL and I'm certainly not holding out any hope of Redman being a big factor in the Steelers' future.

Steelers 20 Cardinals 10

Getting excited over a player's performance in a preseason game is the definition of "carried away." In a lot of ways, a preseason NFL game isn't even football. The playcalling is different, the coaching is different, and obviously, the players are different.

That said, it was damn good to watch the Steelers run out of the tunnell onto Heinz Field again. After spending the offeseason watching hockey every single day and baseball most evenings, it took a while to get used to the pace and nuances of a football game.

There are some things we can definitely learn from tonight and some evaulations will be made. But the most important thing isn't the guys who played well or that the Steelers even won the game. It's that football is back and we can all watch and talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers....onto the recap.

Since I obviously have some problems with getting motivated (for example, writing articles on the site), I decided to go to the Get Motivated! seminar that was going on in the Mellon Arena in downtown Pittsburgh yesterday. Actually, I attended mostly due to the fact that Terry Bradshaw (who was the first speaker and was unable to record because my dad has never been time in his life) and Troy Polamalu were speaking. Thankfully I was able to get some videos of Troy on my phone. He discussed everything from whether he thought the Steelers would repeat a Super Bowl victory to preparing for games to advice for parents to the different kinds of passions. You can tell he's actually pretty nervous during the interview which kind of surprised us since we figured he'd be used to being in front of a crowd. It's defintely something to check out. Click here to read more and to see the videos.

For the first season in a long time, the thought of a serious injury to Ben Roethlisberger has me sweating bullets.

Roethlisberger has always been prone to injuries, but thankfully the Steelers have had somebody ready behind Ben who could step up and do the job. In 2006, it was Batch who came in and posting a sparkling 121.0 QB rating in 8 appearances. Last season it was Byron Leftwich, a guy who should have been starting somewhere else, who came in and won a key game on the road in Washington.

It's been nice to look at other teams like the Colts or Chargers and know that they were one QB injury away from seeing their season blow up. Now I'm pretty sure other teams are saying the same thing about Pittsburgh.

Batch is a great guy and I love having him around the organization. But he wasn't very effective in 2007 and missed all of last year with an injury. He's also 34.

Behind Batch is Dixon who is an great athlete, but it's unknown how good of an NFL QB he can be. He could potentially play great but I'd say the chance of him looking clueless is a lot greater at this point in his career at least.

Not having a guy like Leftwich could end up being the Steelers biggest flaw this season should Roethlisberger go down. It's always interesting to see how the backup QBs play in preseason but this year it's even more important for the Steelers.

I think Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin also see QB depth as a weakness and that is why they are at least seemingly tossing around the idea of signing Micheal Vick. I'm not sure if Vick and the circus that will arrive with him are worth the QB insurance he would provide, and I'm glad I don't have to make that choice.

But as long as the roster remains as is at the QB position, the only way the Steelers can attempt to repeat and probably even make the playoffs is with Roethlisberger starting the lion's share of the games.

I just have no confidence that Charlie Batch is the QB he was in 2006 or that Dennis Dixon has developed into an NFL QB.

E:60 is the one show on ESPN where the World Wide Leader actually does the heavy lifting and delivers some real journalism. Tonight they showed a story on Steeler fan Bob Zinski and it was one of the most inspiring and well-done media pieces I've seen in a long time.

Zinski was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the piece chronicles his illness and his suprise trip to Super Bowl XLIII. The theme throughout was that football is not just a game and the Steelers are not just a team. It sounds stupid a lot of people to say something like that when there are a lot of serious issues in the world, but try telling that to Bob Zinski.

We don't have any way to even try to quantify how Zinski feels on a day-to-day basis, but come Thursday night when the Steelers face the Cardinals, I'm sure Zinksi will be in the same state of mind as every other member of Steeler Nation. And that's what Steeler football is all about for the fans -- bringing people together.

[E:60] - Steelers fan's big wish came true

The first week at Latrobe has come and gone without much more than a few minor items of note. There weren't any Mike Vick sightings or signings; Ben Roethlisberger hasn't revealed any more details about the alleged sexual assault; Mike Tomlin is still all swag; and most importantly, there were no injuries to any stars.

That said, there still are a few items of interest from the opening days of 2009 training camp.

Mike Tomlin has changed a lot since he took over the team. Tomlin's first training camp was by most accounts brutal. He has since pulled a Gordon Bombay and went from Captain Blood back to coach. Veteran players like Hines Ward grumbled a bit about the two-day practices in the heat during 2007, but now Tomlin is giving a lot of the veterans frequent time off. The man came in, drew a line in the sand, and got respect. Now that he has the team under his wing, he's letting off the pedal a bit. Good to see that the respect is mutual now and everybody is on the same page.

Though it's way too early to even write something like this, the Steelers' rookies look like they could be a good class. Last year, guys like Limas Sweed and Tony Hills were disappointing in training camp and that performance carried over into the regular season. That's not the case so far in 2009. Most everything you read or see from Mike Wallace, Ziggy Hood, or Keenan Lewis is overwhelmingly positive. There's not really any sense reading too much into these early performances at practice, but it's a lot easier reading positive things than bad things.

Piotr Czech is not going to be the Steelers placekicker in 2009. There are glowing reports about Czech on Steelers Today and elsewhere. Could these be a competition nobody expected? No way. Never. I could care less if Czech consistently outkicks Reed in Latrobe. Reed is a known quantity and a proven kicker in the NFL. He's been outstanding over the last several seasons and there's no way the Steelers let him go.

Roethlisberger will be fine. Like Reed, lots of people are reading way too much into his training camp performance. Just go back and watch the Super Bowl again. Seriously. We hate that we've been put into a position of constantly defending every move he makes...should we ever feel the need to worry about his play, we'll certainly criticize Roethlisberger but anybody freaking out over interceptions he throws in training camp or even preseason for that matter is clueless.

Note: Bam was out of the country for the past week, so any observations were from other sources. Week two will bring lots more coverage of training camp on Blitzburgh Blog