SpearSrai

It was hard for me to take the rest of your post seriously after this one. Leonhard is probably the best tackler on our team. What have you been watching?

I'd be very surprised if Suggs doesn't suit up for this one.

I can't think of a more fitting mayor for Pittsburgh than this guy.

CB is a glaring need. It was last season, and it is this season as well. After McAlister, we have very little in the way of quality CB play. Rolle and Washington are good at some things, but terrible at others. We need to bring in a guy who can grow into an all-around player.

But which QB? Peyton? Drew?

Don't confuse "beat" with "won against". Beat is what the Cardinals did to Carolina. Beat is what the Eagles did to the Giants. We escaped with a win because - get this - we flung the football around. If we hadn't opened it up through the air, we would have scored 0 points against Tennessee. It's not our offensive philosophy that is winning us these games... we are winning in spite of our offense. We don't even try to open it up until we're backed into a corner. We're risking losing games when we don't have to.

It's been a down year for the overall ceiling of NFL play. Brady going down, Peyton's slow start, and Merriman not playing certainly brought the top end down a lot. As a result, the playoff races were more intense, and every week there was a new favorite to make it to the Super Bowl. The Titans and Steelers are good teams, no doubt, but they're certainly not anything special. The Panthers, Cardinals and Eagles are all pretty good teams as well, but only because of the level of competition that they're facing. But after last year's near-perfect Patriots and all of the hot teams (Packers, Cowboys, Giants, Chargers, etc.) it's kind've nice to enjoy a little medium-level football. Oh, and I think we could be the best team in the NFL if we let Flacco do his thing on offense. But we won't. So we're not.

No, but he's nearly killed several people, including this guy: http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/76520186.j...84831B75F48EF45

PITTSBURGH -- Pro Bowl safety Troy Polamalu potentially could miss practice time this week after injuring his calf before the Steelers' 35-24 victory over the San Diego Chargers, but coach Mike Tomlin said Polamalu is expected to play in Sunday's AFC Championship Game against the Baltimore Ravens. Polamalu strained his calf during pregame warm-ups and barely made it on the field in time for the opening kickoff against the Chargers. He played the entire game but finished with only three tackles. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs2008...tory?id=3830172

The blogger has one valid point, but draws an incorrect conclusion. The cameraman is, indeed, a giant douche. However, not all Ravens fans are like this. At the same time, while most of the Titans fans were kind and gracious, there were a few that were equally obnoxious. Take, for example, the one who screamed into our car window "Ravens suck! We're going to shit on you!" the night before the game. If by "shit on" he meant "fumble the ball to", then he was 100% correct in his pre-game analysis. But I digress... I would never assume that this idiot was representative of all Tennessee fans, and this blogger shouldn't either. Unfortunately, it's usually the loud and obnoxious fans who end up giving a sour image to an entire fanbase.

I've gotten to the point where I pretty much ignore all Ray-Lewis-is-a-murderer related comments, because it's obvious that no one wants to know what actually happened... they just want to believe what they believe, regardless of how twisted and off-mark it happens to be.

I know what "poor man's version" means. I just happen to also know that Brian Robiskie is not even close to being worth a comparison to Fitz, one of the best WR's anyone has ever seen. He'll be lucky to be in the same league as Anthony Gonzalez or Michael Jenkins when all is said and done.

It's easiest to draft the best player available when you have no glaring needs. When you have several needs, you should draft the best available player that fills a hole. Since WR and CB are both big needs, and there will likely be guys available who will be great players at those positions, you go with them unless a player falls that is head-and-shoulders better at another position. If a top 5 guy, for example, falls to #20, then you take him. But if it's a matter of guys with similar grades, which it usually is, then there's nothing wrong with filling your immediate needs first. That's what we usually do anyways.

If our corners are weak, that's all the MORE reason to apply pressure. I don't know if we just didn't blitz, or if they picked it up well, but I would definitely hope that we're blitzing in those situations.

I wish people would stop talking about how hard it is to beat a team 3 times in the same season. Someone already pointed out that 11 of the 17 times it has been possible, the team DID take the 3-0 sweep. That means that 65% of the time it DOES happen. That doesn't make it 'hard' to do; it makes it probable.

Obviously we've gotten past the point of precedent... Flacco is the first rookie QB to ever win 2 playoff games. I have faith in him as a passer with the routes that I've seen him throw. No one is saying we should install a new offense... just call more of the passing plays that we have had success with over the course of the season. It's not like our running game is that successful anyways. We CAN have success through the air. Mark my words: We will not beat the Steelers playing ultra-conservative. Go big or go home. Luckily for us Flacco has a big arm.

Deeper? I wouldn't go that far. We're not exactly the pinnacle of depth at this point, when our third receiver is a rookie, our corners are a bunch of backups, and... well, you know the rest... Maybe we were deeper before we had 20+ guys on IR, but at this point I'm surprised we have enough guys to field a team every week.

That's your opinion. I say we could blow both of these teams out of the water.

The fact that we're not turning the ball over has nothing to do with our style of offense... you can throw 50 times a game and not turn the ball over... you can run 40 times a game and turn the ball over. As I've said, Tennessee didn't turn the ball over because they passed a lot. They turned the ball over because their guys couldn't hold onto the ball! Don't throw off your back foot (Pennington, Collins) and don't fumble the ball! Other than that, those two QB's carved us up! You're assuming that "passing more" means Flacco will suddenly start throwing the ball right to the defender. Why do you think this? When he is asked to pass more, does he do this?

Yamon Figurs returns punts? News to me...

I think Rex is the better fit given the personnel they have in New York, but Spagnuolo would find a way to utilize those guys as well. I'd go with Ryan because he has probably picked up some assistant head coaching experience this season.

The flag that was thrown had nothing to do with the altercation whatsoever...it was away from the pile, when a Titans OT threw a forearm into the face of Jarret Johnson. I saw it the first time it happened... and watched it several times over. Why do people keep bringing up this flag as if it has anything to do with the "foul in question"? It's entirely unrelated! It's pretty obvious that Reed was trying to strip the ball... the same way he did against Miami... why wouldn't he? I can't stand this type of journalism.

Arizona doesn't run the ball? They just had 37 rushes against Carolina, and ran well against Atlanta as well. But even if they don't run...that's actually worse for us, because they throw to their RB's out of the backfield (which we struggle with apparently) Warner also has one of the quickest releases of any QB in NFL history. He would carve us up if we blitz him. Sure, we could run on them, but when the game is 21-3, it's going to be tough to hand the ball off to McClain over and over. Maybe you guys haven't been watching Arizona these last few games... trust me, we don't want any part of them.

By dumbing down our offense as we have, we are allowing these lesser teams to hang around with us. We are too good to be letting the games come down to a 4th quarter field goal. If Cam Cameron was actually not trying to score points every time we had the ball, then he is a bad big-game offensive coordinator. We have the offensive firepower to score a lot of points, and we have the defense to hold other teams under 20. When we're FORCED to score points, we can. When we need a touchdown drive to tie the game, we get it. When we need a good drive to win the game, we get it. So why aren't we doing these same things all game long? We could go into the 4th quarter up by 14+ points in many cases. As long as we don't FUMBLE the ball, we will be fine. Opening the offense does not equal turning the ball over. Tennessee moved the ball with ease against us...and we could do the same against them if we had wanted to. They FUMBLED the game away; that was the only reason we won. Fumbling has nothing to do with passing... fumbles happen all sorts of ways. As long as Flacco doesn't throw off his back foot, he will not throw interceptions, and we will win big.

Because we've lost to the Steelers twice in a row by playing "our style of offense"? The games we've won all season have not been all ball-control, but the games we've lost have been. Just because we snuck out of Tennessee with a win, don't assume that we outplayed them or "should" have won. We could have put up 21 pounds on that Tennessee defense and guaranteed a win instead of just trying to sneak one by. We had success moving the ball against them through the air whenever we wanted to. We're not talking about changing our style of play... we're not adding in plays that we've never ran... we're talking about running the same plays that have been successful in games this season on downs where we should pass the ball. That's part of our offense. But we wait until the other team scores on us to start using it. Why not come out swinging, and dictate the tempo ourselves, rather than wait and hope and pray that the other team doesn't score? Here's a spoiler: They will.