Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

People are complicated. Love is not.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

No one could have predicted…

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

This really is a full service blog.

After roe, women are no longer free.

He really is that stupid.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Everybody saw this coming.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You are here: Home / Sports / AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!

AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!

by | 118 Comments

This post is in: 

Steelers win 31-24 and advance to the AFC Championship. I only threw up once and my chest pains are going away.

As much as I hate the Ravens, I gotta tell you, if there are two more evenly matched teams in the NFL than the Ravens and the Steelers, I don’t know who they are. Their defense is just tough.

*** Update ***

We start ’em young around here:

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  9. 9.

    Cacti

    Tom Brady will do to the Steelers what Roethlisberger likes to do to women.

    I hate the effin’ Patriots, but the Jets or Steelers won’t be knocking them off.

  11. 11.

    cmorenc

    Fortunately, I am totally immune to the gridiron football disease, and have later in adulthood acquired a partial immunity to basketball disease. However, the immunity’s only been acquired at the expense of allowing a foreign vaccine into my system, one that has rendered me helplessly vulnerable to the futbol disease. Whether getting wound up in the weekly exploits of Barcelona FC or the Pittsburgh Steelers is the better situation to be in, is very, very uncertain.

  15. 15.

    Cacti

    @stuckinred:

    The Rice fumble was a great defensive play.

    The interception was a horrible throw by Flacco.

    The second fumble was Flacco not securing the snap.

  17. 17.

    The Dangerman

    Whoever called that last series for the Ravens should be fired before the buses are warm.

  19. 19.

    Nom de Plume

    Just out of curiosity: do the Steelers ever intend to win a big game without a lot of questionable calls to help them out?

  20. 20.

    stuckinred

    They got a place down Kentucky
    Right down near Ohio
    Where you can watch the planes at night
    People line up to watch each flight
    I said watchin’ them planes
    I wish I was on one
    I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ ’bout my red head dream
    If I could only see her tonight
    Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta!
    I said yeah! yeah! yeah! Atlanta, got to get back to you
    Well you can drop me off on Peachtree
    I got to feel that Georgia sun
    And the women there in Atlanta
    They make you awfully glad you come
    I said watchin’ them planes
    I wish I was on one
    I’m sittin’ here thinking ’bout my crazy dream
    If I could only be there tonight
    Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta!
    I said yeah! yeah! yeah! Atlanta, got to get back to you
    We make a day and how just you and me
    But the music plays all night
    They got the boogie band blowin’ that’s bound for hell
    And when they get to movin’ they never stop
    You just keep on playin’ that down home beat
    You just keep on layin’ it down hot
    I wish I was on one
    I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ bout my red haired dream
    If I could only see her tonight
    Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta!
    I said yeah! yeah! yeah! Atlanta, got to get back to you

  24. 24.

    Neil

    AND YOU KEPT THE FAITH THROUGHOUT.

    During Q1 I was thinking of how to not talk about the (what seemed at the time to be) humiliating loss with my steelers fan coworker. Now I don’t have to worry.

    The funny (?) thing is he doesn’t care if they win the bowl, he just wants them to beat the patriots. he said they do that, he dies happy.

  27. 27.

    BruceFromOhio

    AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!

    Big Ben on my teevee at the close came totally clean about the first half, whatever smart pills Tomlin handed out in the locker room at the half definitely helped.

    @The Dangerman: This.

  30. 30.

    JWL

    The refs intruded on this game, and the Steelers (as is usual in big games) benefited from their calls. That noted, the Ravens failed to rise to the occasion, and today the better team won.

    Pittsburgh will also prove a tougher opponent when they face New England next week. They may even knock them down and out.

  33. 33.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    @stuckinred: Staying out of the God damn Tuscon shooting threads. I’ve never been much of a Falcons fan; I’ve always kind of felt sorry for them, honestly, and find college ball a lot more appealing, but damn if I don’t want them to take their “boring” brand of football all the way this year.

  38. 38.

    Mark S.

    I AM NUMBER FOUR!

    Is there anything more frightening than the phrase “from director Michael Bay”? I still have nightmares for the 2 1/2 hours I lost watching dogs piss on giant transforming robots.

  40. 40.

    dr. bloor

    I’m not optimistic, but it would be nice if this put a rest to all the “JOE FLACCO KNOWS HOW TO WIN!” and “JOE FLACCO IS RIGHT THERE WITH TEH ELITE!” nonsense. He’s not bad, but he’s really not all that good, either.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    @dr. bloor:

    Joe Flacco is one of those QBs who will win the games he’s supposed to…and that’s about it.

    He’ll never get them over the hump from playoff team to Super Bowl team.

  49. 49.

    blahblahblah

    should have gone to overtime…
    there was no way that was holding on that punt return, should have been a touchdown…

    only the steelers could have won a game that ugly…

  60. 60.

    DavidB

    Flacco made only one bad play, that throw right after the Rice fumble.

    Flacco did not drop the ball thrown to Anquan Boldin in the end zone.
    Flacco did not hold the guy when Webb ran the punt back.
    Matt Birk snapped the ball against his own leg.
    Flacco threw a great ball to Houshmanzadeh at the end, Houshmanzadeh dropped it.

    With that O-line, Steelers will lose to either the Pats or the Jets next week. It’s too bad because they are all dispacable teams for one reason or the other.

  61. 61.

    Freemark

    I live in York,PA which seems about 50/50 Ravens/Steelers. Can’t wait until I get to work tomorrow. I can’t think of any other NFL rivalry that has such extreme fan juxtaposition.

  74. 74.

    Jay

    You know Jeff Reed is all like, “If I’d just gone to my A.A. meetings, I could be playing for a title.”

  76. 76.

    Chup

    Both teams played horribly. Either would’ve been beaten by three TDs by the Pats today.

    And no, I’m not a Pats fan — I just like smart play and neither team played very smart today.

  77. 77.

    Annie

    Steelers were absent in the first half. I would love to hear what went on in the locker room during the half. Because the team that came out in the second half was the team on the field in the first half.

    Way to go Stillers! My only question is why the Raven’s GB could so much time to throw, and the Stillers Ben got so little time….?

  81. 81.

    DavidB

    @MoeLarryAndJesus:

    The one that just lost.

    Can’t stand Rex Ryan, glad we didn’t hire that blowhard; Belichik is a cheater and well, then there’s Ben Roethlesberger, quality citizen of the world.

    But really for Spurs who will hand ManU their first Prem loss tomorrow.

  83. 83.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    @DavidB:

    “Can’t stand Rex Ryan, glad we didn’t hire that blowhard; Belichik is a cheater and well, then there’s Ben Roethlesberger, quality citizen of the world.”

    How do you feel about Ray Lewis and his posse of homicidal maniacs?

    As Tom Brady said about your team, “They sure talk a lot for beating us once in 9 years.” He’s more eloquent than that dipshit Suggs.

  84. 84.

    Linnaeus

    Turning out to be a not-so-fun playoffs, at least on the AFC side for now, because every team left is one I want to lose.

  85. 85.

    Zach

    @blahblahblah:

    should have gone to overtime…
    there was no way that was holding on that punt return, should have been a touchdown…

    Raven’s fan and I could name a half dozen other bad/mysterious calls but if we can’t run a prevent defense successfully on 3rd and 19 and are only in a game because of a freak play it’s silly to complain about things. For the record, the Steelers stole a yard and a half from the original spot when Ben snuck for a first down, and the defensive holding call on the goal-line was less severe than offensive holding on the same play. Raven’s got away with a lot of shit as well. Particularly, I think Oher’s been more or less allowed to false start and hold on every passing down because his movie was so damned inspiring or something. Refs did a good job overall given how weird the game was. We just got beat soundly.

  87. 87.

    Ron

    That game nearly gave me a heart attack. I expected it would come down to the end. I didn’t expect it would have 55 total points and I would have expected either team to be able to come back from 14 down at the half.

    If I hear one more Steeler hater whine about officials “giving” them game I’m gonna vomit too. Every team gets bad calls against them and for them.

  90. 90.

    David

    Ryan Clark had a monster game today. He’s a great player, but usually overshadowed by the other Steelers safety. But he was just incredible today, while Polamalu was kinda ordinary.

  91. 91.

    DavidB

    @MoeLarryAndJesus:

    As I said, I root for the Ravens because I live here. Spurs Man U is more important to me. I am not really not that passionate about it, although I do know who I don’t like.

    Football played with your hands is such a complete random game – if you brush Tom Brady on the helmet with your hand, it’s a penalty, but you can literally tackle a D-lineman or a rush end on a punt with no consequence whatsoever. A large part of the game is really who is the brashest and the loudest – the biggest difference in the second half is that the Steelers actually dialed it back a bit and stopped hitting the Ravens AFTER the play was over. I thought the Steelers were over-hopped up in the first half. I think Hines Ward especially was too busy trying to hit Ed Reed rather than actually play the game.

    Here in Baltimore, they already want to fire the coaching staff and start Mark Bulger (the backup), but it was totally on the Wide Receivers who dropped critical balls when it counted.

    One note on Ray Lewis, if you read this blog this week, you heard about Anderson Cooper writing a script and then trying to find a way to find the evidence to prove it. The MSM did the same with Ray Lewis back in 2000 – given the fact that nothing similar has ever happened to him again, while he is still in the league proves to me that he was innocent.

  92. 92.

    bearfan

    Even though the Steelers are my favorite AFC team (along with the Chargers) it is amazing how often they get questionable calls that go in their favor, especially when they play at home. It seems like they are one of the few teams along with Dallas and Miami that year in and year out having officials calls fall their way a lot. I mean the defensive holding call on a lineman, what are there like four of those a year in the whole league?
    I am always amused when Cole gripes about the officials unfairly targeting the Steelers. I think he still has a bit of Republican left in him as he so completely disregards reality for his own narrative. The reason guys like Harrison and Ward get flagged so often is because they are notoriously dirty players. (I like both of those guys , but objectively I realize that they both take more than their share of cheap shots) But I’m sure they had nothing to do with that rep, and of course Big Ben Rapelisburger is simply unfairly targeted by gold-digging harpies.

  95. 95.

    CT

    LOL. Ravens couldn’t have gotten more calls in their favor. Refs did everything they could to keep the Steelers from winning this game and still came up short, Get a dog and some sunglasses.

  96. 96.

    cminus

    @BruceFromOhio: To be fair, that’s still one fewer “ha” before the ROFL than ESPN used when they discussed the possibility of the Seahawks beating the Saints.

    Any given Sunday, etcetera etcetera.

  97. 97.

    MikeBoyScout

    Thank-you to all the Steeler anti-fans here.

    As sweet as that victory was, your whines are the powdered sugar on top.

    To you Pats fans (disguised or otherwise), first you win then the Steelers will make you cry. But, please, win your game before you attempt to count your chickens.

  101. 101.

    4jkb4ia

    As far as Ramban was concerned, this Shabbos was a disaster. I suspect the one comment that I learned I learned already last year. However, I learned that Pico della Mirandola had one of the largest kabbalistic libraries ever. This was in the 15th century.

    But I did see about 10 minutes of the game after Shabbos was over.

    I expected John to be walking on air. B’ezras Hashem next week I will be the one who expects chest pains and throwing up.

    (John, it was for love you underwent all this suffering: it was redemptive)

  102. 102.

    Nicole

    @Mark S.: Thank you! He handled the game well- dozed off after the Steelers’ first TD, slept through the second quarter and woke in time for the rally. Missed all of his mom’s profanity.

  103. 103.

    4jkb4ia

    So, the Ramban is picking a fight with Rashi. At the beginning of the Song at the Sea, you have “Az Yashir Moshe”, namely, “Then Moshe [and the Children of Israel] will sing”. Rashi says, “It came into his heart to sing”, he had the intention. Ramban decides that this doesn’t apply every time that a future obviously refers to a past event in Tanach. So Rashi is correct, but the use of the future time betrays the text’s perspective on the situation. In this case the future shows the perspective of prophecy.

  108. 108.

    HeartlandLiberal

    I was able to watch the game up until 6:00, when I had to leave to go to the Indiana vs. Michigan basketball here in Bloomington. I did not want to miss, since for the past 2.5 months between the sinus infection from hell and knee surgery to repair torn meniscus on Dec 2nd, I had not been able to attend any of the home games, or do much of anything, actually.

    As for the Steelers vs. Ravens, the game had some of the most interesting football I have seen, perhaps the best example being the touchdown by the Ravens after the ball was knocked from Roethlisberger’s hand before he started a throw, thus making it technically a fumble. No whistle, but everyone is standing around like zombies assuming the ball is dead. Finally, Cory Redding for the Raven’s wakes up and realizes, hey, this ball is still alive, picks it up, and waddles into the end zone! Not a common stat for his position, I am guessing.

    As for the Michigan vs. Indiana game, I did not know what to expect. After an early season in Tom Crean’s third year as head coach, they were winning easily in pre-conference play, but the teams were pretty much cream puffs. As soon as they hit conference play the last week of December, it was a disaster, one loss after another.

    Well, about five minutes after the game started, I turned to the couple behind me and asked “where is the team that was playing the past two weeks, what have you done with them, and who are these guys!?”. I don’t know what Crean found to get through to them, but the Indiana players were playing some of the tightest, best, most cohesive and effective man to man defense I have ever seen. They simply shut Michigan down. And on offense, the were hot, too. The final successful percentage on all field goals apparently hit 70.8% in the second half, while Michigan was held to a pitiful 23.8%. Indiana won 80-61.

    Oh, by the way, in case I did not mention it, John has a standing invitation if he is ever in Bloomington during season for a seat at a game. Basketball is row13 on the isle right above basket Indiana is shooting for in the second half, so the view is pretty darn good. Indiana football, well, what can I say, we have a new coach, Kevin Wilson, who has made good hires for the defensive coordinators. Perhaps there is hope for the future. Anyway, the seats there are good, about the 45 yard line, row 10 or something like that. Good seats. Come on down.

  109. 109.

    keestadoll

    @Nicole: If there’s anything cuter than a <1 year old in footed jammies, I don't know what it is. Oh, and that area rug: I want one.

  110. 110.

    Comrade Misfit

    No offense meant to the fine city of Baltimore, but if the Ravens played a team of SS from the Third Reich, I’d root for the SS.

    No, scratch the first part of that. For Balimoreans to cheer on as Art Modell did to Cleveland what Bob Irsay did to Baltimore ten years before that was pretty damn despicable.

  112. 112.

    JR in WV

    Hi,

    Steelers did a good comeback in the second half. Good game all in all, even if you weren’t a big steelers fan, I think.

    Green Bay, though! Wow, they just handled the Falcons the whole 60 minutes.

    Great game if you prefer GB, which I do.

    JR

  113. 113.

    pat

    Can’t root for Big Ben the rapist. Until he does his time – 2 years out at least like Michael Vick.

  114. 114.

    Nicole

    @keestadoll: Heh- I’m a little embarrassed to confess the rug is actually a set of interlocking foam tiles. But we needed something to protect Wee One’s head from the floor and I liked the pattern and they appealed to my inner three-year-old soul and my almost forty-year-old back. They’re very nice to sit on.

  115. 115.

    Pete

    @Andy K: I totally agree. If not for all the mistakes the Packers made, plus all the points the Bears scored against them, they would have won the game. Same thing for Atlanta last night. If only for the small fact of having 6 touchdowns scored against them, *they* would be the ones going to Soldier Field next week.

    In response to John, I think the Bears-Packers are very evenly matched. Not just this year, but always, whenver these two teams meet, they have a good game, even in years when one team is great and the other sucks. If the Bears beat Seattle, look for next week to be super-hyped and, hopefully, worth all the noise.

  116. 116.

    Polar Bear Squares

    God I hate the Steelers but congrats on a big win, John. I think the Patriots and eventually the Packers are the only thing from stopping Fines Ward from celebrating in Cowboys Stadium.

    It’s hard being a Cowboys fan these days. Sigh.

    Enjoy it. If you get Brady next week, gonna be tough to slow that dude down.

  118. 118.

    Ives

    Glad your team won, but that wasn’t an impressive game for either team. The Steelers played poorly in the 1st half. The Ravens played they 2nd half looking like they spent half-time quaffing down copius quantities of Electric Kool-Aid. Their center even bounced a snap off his own butt. It was a Festival of F**k-ups out there.

Comments are closed.