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Yapping, losing always on menu vs. Pats
By Ron Borges
FOXBORO — It is Steelers Week here, and as always at this time of Steelers Week, the Steelers are winning. Their problem comes on Patriots [team stats] Sunday, which is how Steelers Week usually ends.
“We’re not intimidated by nobody,” Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton boasted yesterday from Pittsburgh.
Surely they’re not. That process usually doesn’t start until around the third quarter of a Patriots Sunday during Steelers Week, although sometimes it has started in the first minute if Tom Brady [stats] was particularly miffed at how the Steelers had put their cleats in their mouth all week.
Every season is different, of course. So is every Steelers Week. It’s just the games that seem the same.
That is why Hampton, who hasn’t played in three weeks because of a sore shoulder but may return Sunday, isn’t intimidated. He, like most of the pugnacious Pittsburghers, keep thinking playing Brady is like playing the stock market: Past success is no guarantee of future gains.
Or, in their case, vice versa.
“It’s not Steelers vs. history,” oft-beaten defensive end Brett Keisel said this week. “It’s Steelers vs. Patriots. You just have to play ball. You don’t have to play history.”
That is true. Unfortunately for the Steelers, they have to play Brady with the ball, and history tells us that when he has it, the Steelers are history.
You might recall the greatest example of this, which came Dec. 9, 2007.
Anthony Smith, a second-year safety out of Syracuse who now is long gone, guaranteed the Steelers would snap the undefeated Patriots’ 12-game winning streak.
Apparently suffering from some sort of delusional episode, Smith said during that Steelers Week talk-a-thon that, “People keep asking me if we’re ready for the Patriots. They should be asking if they’re ready for us. We’re going to win. Yeah, I can guarantee a win.”
The following Sunday afternoon, Brady drilled a 4-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss in front of Smith’s face and then climbed into the safety’s facemask in the end zone, guaranteeing him a long day. On the next series, Brady scorched Smith on a 63-yard touchdown pass to Moss. And later he showed Smith the true face of intimidation when he suckered him in on a double-lateral flea-flicker that ended with a Brady 56-yard TD pass into the waiting arms of Jabar Gaffney.
Those plays inspired Chief Stone Face, aka Bill Belichick, to quip, “We’ve played against a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you.”
Not even a nitwit like Anthony Smith would have guaranteed during Steelers Week a quote like that from Bill Belichick.
When visiting a crime scene — and it is criminal the way Brady and the Patriots keep assaulting these poor, helpless lads — detectives look for patterns. The ones from this nearly annual assault (Brady is 6-1 against the Steelers, including the playoffs) are always the same: Pittsburgh talks before the game, then cries after it.
“They clearly have no reason to be afraid of us, but neither do we,” Steelers safety Ryan Clark insisted this week.
Neither do we what? Have reason to be afraid of ourselves?
To their credit, the Steelers are 5-2 at the moment, but, to be fair, it’s one of the lamest 5-2 records imaginable. They haven’t beaten a team with a winning record. The two losses? Against the only two teams they’ve faced with winning records.
To their credit, the Steelers are allowing fewer passing yards than all but one team in pro football, but part of the reason why is they’re giving up nearly 45 more rushing yards per game than a year ago, so they might be wise not to be too encouraged by that Sunday.
To their credit, the Steelers have allowed only 14 pass plays of 20 yards or more, but then again, four of them came last weekend against the Arizona Cardinals, who happen to be the only team they’ve played that can throw the ball across the living room.
So what, exactly, do we have in this year’s Pittsburgh Steelers?
They sound kind of familiar, to tell you the truth.
“If I knew the reason why they’ve beaten us more than we’ve beaten them we wouldn’t have that problem anymore,” Hampton opined. “Just got to go out there and do what we do.”
That’s what Tom Brady [stats] is hoping for.
[url="http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1376514&format=&page=2&listingTy pe=pats#articleFull"]http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/foot ... rticleFull[/url]
By Ron Borges
FOXBORO — It is Steelers Week here, and as always at this time of Steelers Week, the Steelers are winning. Their problem comes on Patriots [team stats] Sunday, which is how Steelers Week usually ends.
“We’re not intimidated by nobody,” Steelers nose tackle Casey Hampton boasted yesterday from Pittsburgh.
Surely they’re not. That process usually doesn’t start until around the third quarter of a Patriots Sunday during Steelers Week, although sometimes it has started in the first minute if Tom Brady [stats] was particularly miffed at how the Steelers had put their cleats in their mouth all week.
Every season is different, of course. So is every Steelers Week. It’s just the games that seem the same.
That is why Hampton, who hasn’t played in three weeks because of a sore shoulder but may return Sunday, isn’t intimidated. He, like most of the pugnacious Pittsburghers, keep thinking playing Brady is like playing the stock market: Past success is no guarantee of future gains.
Or, in their case, vice versa.
“It’s not Steelers vs. history,” oft-beaten defensive end Brett Keisel said this week. “It’s Steelers vs. Patriots. You just have to play ball. You don’t have to play history.”
That is true. Unfortunately for the Steelers, they have to play Brady with the ball, and history tells us that when he has it, the Steelers are history.
You might recall the greatest example of this, which came Dec. 9, 2007.
Anthony Smith, a second-year safety out of Syracuse who now is long gone, guaranteed the Steelers would snap the undefeated Patriots’ 12-game winning streak.
Apparently suffering from some sort of delusional episode, Smith said during that Steelers Week talk-a-thon that, “People keep asking me if we’re ready for the Patriots. They should be asking if they’re ready for us. We’re going to win. Yeah, I can guarantee a win.”
The following Sunday afternoon, Brady drilled a 4-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss in front of Smith’s face and then climbed into the safety’s facemask in the end zone, guaranteeing him a long day. On the next series, Brady scorched Smith on a 63-yard touchdown pass to Moss. And later he showed Smith the true face of intimidation when he suckered him in on a double-lateral flea-flicker that ended with a Brady 56-yard TD pass into the waiting arms of Jabar Gaffney.
Those plays inspired Chief Stone Face, aka Bill Belichick, to quip, “We’ve played against a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you.”
Not even a nitwit like Anthony Smith would have guaranteed during Steelers Week a quote like that from Bill Belichick.
When visiting a crime scene — and it is criminal the way Brady and the Patriots keep assaulting these poor, helpless lads — detectives look for patterns. The ones from this nearly annual assault (Brady is 6-1 against the Steelers, including the playoffs) are always the same: Pittsburgh talks before the game, then cries after it.
“They clearly have no reason to be afraid of us, but neither do we,” Steelers safety Ryan Clark insisted this week.
Neither do we what? Have reason to be afraid of ourselves?
To their credit, the Steelers are 5-2 at the moment, but, to be fair, it’s one of the lamest 5-2 records imaginable. They haven’t beaten a team with a winning record. The two losses? Against the only two teams they’ve faced with winning records.
To their credit, the Steelers are allowing fewer passing yards than all but one team in pro football, but part of the reason why is they’re giving up nearly 45 more rushing yards per game than a year ago, so they might be wise not to be too encouraged by that Sunday.
To their credit, the Steelers have allowed only 14 pass plays of 20 yards or more, but then again, four of them came last weekend against the Arizona Cardinals, who happen to be the only team they’ve played that can throw the ball across the living room.
So what, exactly, do we have in this year’s Pittsburgh Steelers?
They sound kind of familiar, to tell you the truth.
“If I knew the reason why they’ve beaten us more than we’ve beaten them we wouldn’t have that problem anymore,” Hampton opined. “Just got to go out there and do what we do.”
That’s what Tom Brady [stats] is hoping for.
[url="http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1376514&format=&page=2&listingTy pe=pats#articleFull"]http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/foot ... rticleFull[/url]
- the better team will arguably win in on Sunday afternoon, the rest is just hot air to 
and pay the salaries of tne ESPiN-heads.
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