Steelers 33, Giants 30 and other football notes
Yesterday for the second time in two weeks I watched a Steelers game sans JJ. There's a certain amount of pride that swells within me everytime I do that. Not only do I actually care (probably too much really) how the Steelers are doing, I watch the games religiously. I haven't missed one since the Ravens game (well, okay so I watched the Dolphins and Bengals games via nfl.com's gamestats and watched the Browns game @ a bar with Dave) and although my learning curve doesn't match Big Ben's I did manage, last week, to make a comment about 2 deep defense. *Angela beams with pride* Yes, it's the little things that make me happy. At any rate, yesterday at 12:30 local time, I sat down in front of my TV to watch the Steelers here in Wichita. My parents, after attempting to speak when they were actually on the field, gave up after about 10 minutes and left the house. Willie Ponder returned the Steelers' first kickoff 91 yards for a TD. Shortly thereafter, Big Ben got picked off. A pass intended for Lee Mays got picked by the Giants. I stared. And then reminded myself that we were about 3 minutes into the game. The Steelers responded with Antwaan Randle El throwing a touchdown pass to Verron Haynes. Randle El now has a receiving touchdown, a rushing touchdown AND a passing touchdown. I don't know the stats on that but there can't be that many receivers out there who have those numbers, right? The first quarter ended with the Giants having a 4 point lead over the Steelers. So far the Steelers had managed a touchdown and a field goal. At the half it was Steelers 20, Giants 14. One score game. The lead would change sides 3 more times before the end of the game and one of the coolest things to watch during the process of this game was the two quarterbacks. Eli Manning, who had a passer rating of ZERO after his game last week, stepped up and made some plays. Ben Roethlisberger stepped up when it counted and made some plays. The wave of young quarterbacks appears to be upon us. Next week the Steelers play the Ravens. I might just jump on the hype bandwagon and say sure, it's the only team they've lost to so far this season. Am I going to watch the game. OH YEAH. Go Steelers. On a side note, I am addicted to the 2-minute drill game feature on Madden NFL 2005. I have the attention span of a gnat and as a result I so rarely ever play a full game on NCAA or now on NFL (I tried 3 times last night). But the 2 minute drill is GREAT. 2 minutes, ball at the 20, 3 time outs, go. My best so far is 2 touchdowns. Plus, I can substitute in my players. So I've got Roethlisberger in at QB and I'm playing with a healthy Duce Staley and a healthy Plaxico Burress. Not to mention, when I'm playing actual games I've also got a healthy Kendrell Bell and Casey Hampton. Video games are fun. I'm tired. Very tired. I think I'm going to go play some more 2-minute drill.