Steel Balls

My buddy Richie S. comes to Portland on a Monday and the only time I can see him is during the Steelers Monday Night game vs. the Chargers. So basically, I told him that was what we were doing. There wasn’t really even a, “Hey, how do you feel about this?” type of suggestion floated out to Richie. I said, “This is going on.” He said, “Sounds like fun!”

Richie shows up, cheers for the Steelers, has a good time. It’s evident from the TV coverage (and subsequent stories that Rivers went to a silent count during a home game) that Qualcomm Stadium has been taken over by Steelers fans. Jonny has been sack tapped the week before as a good luck omen (long story). All seems right with the World. Steelers win. We go home because we all have to work the next day.

Fast forward 24 hours and Richie gets outed by my buddy Matt T. as a Raiders fan. On the one hand, after finding out that Richie was actually a Raiders fan, I thought to myself, “What the hell? I would never put on the shirt of another team and cheer for them, no matter how much I liked one of their fans.”
Then, “Oh, what the heck? We won. Why question it? Maybe it was because Richie finally left the Dark Side. The football gods must have rewarded us with our first West Coast road win in a decade due to my intervention in his sporting life.”

Fast forward again to this past weekend. Richie texts me about how our two favorite teams are playing.
I respond with, “You only get one team, Richie.”
He responds with, “That would be the one.”
I knew then that we would win. I was absolutely certain that the football gods would punish Richie’s wishy-washy, flip floppiness with a Raider loss. Then mid 1st quarter, Dan sack taps Jonny with his Terrible Towel and the outcome was all but completely certain.

I felt pretty bad about goading Richie into turning his back on his favorite team and fellow fans for a second….

Well, no I actually didn’t. It just seemed like a polite thing to write. But, you all know me and realize statements like that are BS. So, nevermind.

Fast forward again to the Sunday. Steelers are up 35-28 and cruising toward a victory, I’m teetering between whether I should send a conciliatory text to Richie or just taunt the heck out of him for showing some fair weather fan tendencies, thus sending his team on the path toward defeat at the Steelers’ hands.

And then,…. Aldon Smith stumbles while trying to tackle Roethlisberger and lands on Ben’s left foot. Watching the replay, I was sure that Roethlisberger’s foot was broken. Hoped not, but really thought it was.

It turns out that Big Ben’s injury was only a sprain. He will probably miss a week, but Monday morning on his radio show said that he is not counting himself out this week versus the Browns.

Just the same, I probably should have waited to gloat until it was over. That’s what I get.

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I really am expecting Ben Roethlisberger to be improved Sunday versus the Raiders by comparison to last week’s game versus the Bengals.

Another week of recovery time on that bone bruise in his left knee should, in theory, give him the confidence he needs to follow through completely on his throws from his plant leg.

Unfortunately, my buddy Earl had to point out that he thought Ben historically had a rough go of it in his second game back as well. So I started digging. Sure enough, Earl, the buzzkill that he is, was right.

In fact, when you look at Ben’s first two games back from injury over his career, the picture isn’t a pretty one.

Ben is 33 and I would like to believe that after the 2011 debacle in San Francisco, when he tried to play on one leg after leaving the Factory of Sadness 10 days before in a walking boot, that he now waits until he is at least close to healthy before coming back. Maybe this game will buck the trend. His first 2 games back in 2012 were losses. However, his own stat lines in those games were not too bad, as you can see above.

Ben looked very good on the first drive this past Sunday. On the second drive, Geno Atkins brushed past, hitting Roethlisberger in the knee, and Ben was never the same again. His throws floated and lacked zip. It was obvious that while he was making good decisions about when and where to put the ball, his body was not up to the task of delivering what his mind wanted it to. Ben was not Ben. The tight windows that Ben can typically deliver the ball into were too tight for a guy who could not put enough on the ball because he couldn’t drive through his plant leg when delivering it.

Let’s hope that his knee has healed enough for his performance to more closely match his own standards this week.

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