Pittsburgh - Baltimore

Offscreen: Terrel Suggs + notepad

My first game as a Steelers fan reminded me a lot of World Cup. Hear me out: it was a low scoring game with a few tantalizing drives that nothing came out of. There were two or three game changing moments that it seemed like it took forever to happen but were completely worth the wait. Fantastic buzz among bar-goers that couldn't be completely harnessed by the game itself; because most of the possession time is spent in the middle of the field, the risk of missing something while talking to your neighbor is remote. The excitement, in both World Cup and Sunday's game,  is over what may happen moreso than what's happening. 

I mean this in a good way. Feel however you may about soccer, World Cup was awesome. Only bitter people deny it; don’t be bitter. People got pregnant because of World Cup. Don’t ask me for evidence, the equation is simple enough – beer + stand around time = pregnant. In 50 year we’ll be trying to figure how to keep Social Security solvent for the South Africa World Cup generation. All of which is to say that I very much like what happens when the Steelers and the Ravens get together. 

Defensive matchups are the perfect combination of edge-of-your-seat play and what I like to call ambient football. When you’re watching ambient football, you can introduce your boyfriend to your girlfriends for the first time, make awkward attempts to include him in the conversation, and then force him out of it the moment your friends appear to be flirting with him (saw it happen). You can take fifteen minutes trying to explain to the guy in the Redskins jersey that while you admire his gangsta for staying out drinking since the 1:00 pm games, it’s not cool to cheer against the house team, especially considering how the Giants humiliated the ‘Skins earlier today (saw it happen). You also have time to harass a guy who’s minding his own business about putting ketchup on his brat instead  mustard, the of one ‘acceptable’ condiment according to some random ass rule (people should mind their own business). 

Ambient football let’s you rub against all that humanity in your midst, as long as you remember one rule: know your themes. 

Themes develop over the course of a game, especially with a team that has as many personalities as the Steelers. They’re catalyzed by a handful of moments (a big play, a bad call, a shift in strategy) and carry on.

I picked out a few from Steelers-Ravens: 

Roethlisberger. What a soldier. He began the game with a broken foot, and then they broke his nose. NBC was generous with the close-ups of blood streaming over his mouth (thanks for that), and every time they did, the expectation was that you stop what you’re doing and commiserate with your neighbor about how much of a beast the guy is. And then of course comes the Say What You Will corollary. In his weekly NFL podcast, Bill Simmons and his guest writer Salvatore ‘Cousin Sal’ Iacono aptly observed that whenever commentators talk about good football players who just happen to be criminals in their spare time, you have to insulate all compliments that you pay them by beginning with say what you will. ‘Say what you will about Roethlisberger’s off-field antics, but this guy leaves it on the field, every time. ' You get the picture. I’d say Roethlisberger, in this particular game, was as say what you will eligible as a player’s ever been.

Roethlisberger’s counterpart, Joe Flacco. After few impressive Baltimore drives that included two absolute bombs to Boldin, you had to wonder whether Flacco was becoming that dude. He’d led his team to 8-3 (maybe led is too strong – he was definitely, verifiably on the team when all eight of those wins happened). He had a nice performance during the Ravens’ win at Pittsburgh earlier in the season. If you’d considered the quarterback position Baltimore’s only missing piece, this was a game that questioned if it's missing after all. Obviously things changed by the end, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Baltimore linebacker Terrell Suggs is a ninja. I mean that literally. This fool was born in thirteenth century feudal Japan where he was trained to assassinate rival lords. He’s so fast. So relentless. I don’t remember exactly who it was who broke Roehtlisberger’s nose, but if it wasn’t Suggs, it’s only because he got there too late. This guy obviously subscribes to the Leon school of conflict management. His game is downright disrespectful.

Those were the broad themes. At Tortoise and Hare, you’re allowed to flirt and laugh and annoy, but if you’re not watching and prepared to banter about those three things, you’re only distracting us. It also sweetens the juice when you’re able to interpret the action. Take the two standout moments in this game: Late in the fourth quarter, Roethlesberger is being dragged to the ground on what would have been a game ending sack when he just shovels the ball out of bounds. It’s the kind of heady play that commentators love to gush about; in this case, however, Roethlisberger deserved every drop of praise. After being harassed and knocked down all game long, he might have resigned himself to more of the same, but instead did the one thing (in the absence of an open receiver, and there were none) that could keep the drive alive. 

The other, of course, was Polamalu’s strip-blitz. The awesomeness of Troy deciding to get his team the ball back in a cruicial moment and actually doing it aside, unless you’d heard Chris Colinsworth gush about Flacco, and stared in the face of the possibility that there might actually be another stud QB in the division, you can’t appreciate the relief that Steelers fans felt to see Flacco fuck up so royally with the game on the line. 

But who am I talking to, here? Steelers fans have been watching Pittsburgh-Baltimore games for years. They know how the flow of these things. Besides, high-scoring affairs are never far off, if that's what you're itching for. Case in point: next week’s beat down of the Bengals. See you then.