Steel City Jim

No matter how one sliced it, Sunday's Steeler game, Week 11, was pivotal for this season. Coming off an embarrassing loss to the New England Patriots, still suffering injuries to quite a few key players, but sporting a 6-3 record, and remembering last year when, with a 6-2 record, they hit a five-game losing streak against so-so teams, the question was, "Could they bounce back against one of the teams, the Oakland Raiders, who defeated them at home during the five-game losing spell last year?" And one must also point out that the Raiders are currently leading their division and are an improving football team, certainly superior to last year's version. So, either the Steelers beat the Raiders and keep their quest alive for a playoff spot, or chalk up the season and plan for the 2011 draft.

The Steelers won the toss and elected to take the ball. A la last week, they went three and out and punted. The Raiders sliced and diced their way down the field and settled for a field goal. Oh boy! Here we go again! But little did we know that those three points would be the last the Raiders would score. Meanwhile the Steelers racked up a commanding 21-3 lead at halftime and went on to crush the Raiders 35-3.

What made the differences? For one thing, Jason Campbell is no Tom Brady. Campbell was so ineffective that they turned the quarterbacking over to Bruce Gradkowski, a Pittsburgh native who killed them last year, in the third quarter. But it wasn't going to happen Sunday. The Raiders' defense doesn't seem to believe in the blitz, either. So, Ben had quite a bit of time to find receivers, and on several occasions, saw daylight up the middle and even made a touchdown himself when not picking up first downs. He easily found receivers, and even the rookies, Brown and Sanders made nice catches.

Throw in some decent runs by Mendenhall and Moore, and you get the point that the offense was clicking on all cylinders. The defense wasn't so bad, either. Farrior had a big day as did Harrison. Polamalu came back from what seems to be a swoon over the past few games. He was all over the place and made a key interception.

But what a game it was for penalties. The Steelers broke an old record for infractions. It seemed like they were being flagged on every play. The Raiders reminded everyone of the Raiders of old. They were clawing and fighting the whole way. Richard Seymour was thrown out of the game for slugging Ben in front of a referee. The Raiders surely missed him, but the Steelers didn't. He's a force.

-- The Jets just pulled one out, didn't they? And the Colts-Pats went down to the wire with Manning all set to score to win the game with only seconds left. The only problem is that he threw a pick that iced the game for the Pats. Is Brett Favre through or what? Is Marvin Lewis finished as the Bengals' head coach? He just can't get them going. The Bears shut out the Dolphins? The Dolphins need a quarterback. And the Browns lost to Jacksonville? That shouldn't have happened.

-- Pitt won another Big East game versus South Florida. To say it was ugly is an understatement. But the Panthers are still atop the Big East. They will face a huge challenge on Friday when they play West Virginia. The Pitt basketball team won a tournament in New York. Maybe they are pretty good after all.

-- In closing, I see where the Yankees are going to give Derek Jeter $45 million for the next three years. The fact that they can throw $45 million to a guy who has definitely seen better days shows how flush they are with dough. If that doesn't convince you, then I don't know what will that baseball sucks.