Happy Mondays

Steelers 27, Bengals 21

By Mike Batista

Now the season can finally start.

For the fourth straight year, the Steelers won on a Monday night to complete the first half of the season with a 6-2 record.

It's the fifth time in the last six seasons the Steelers have been 6-2 at the turn.

In 2005, they recovered from a three-game losing streak in the second half and won the Super Bowl.

In 2007, they experienced a slow, steady decline in November and December and lost in the first round of the playoffs.

In 2008, they went 6-2 again in the second half and won the Super Bowl.

In 2009, they completely collapsed.

That covers all the possibilities, right? I've just described every way the second half of an NFL season can unfold. There's no way the Steelers can show us anything we haven't seen before, right?

Well, they tried their hardest to do just that Monday night.

Just like old times

The Steelers were on the verge of blowing the first 20-point lead in franchise history. Not even those horribly dressed, laughable Steelers teams of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s managed to blow a 20-point lead.

With 40 seconds left in Monday's game, the Steelers were 12 yards away from not only blowing a 20-point lead, but blowing it all in the fourth quarter. They'd have been the first team to do that since the Giants in November of 2006.

Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer threw to Jordan Shipley on fourth down. Had Shipley held onto the ball, the Bengals, trailing by six, would have had a first-and-goal at the 5.

But Ike Taylor and James Harrison did the Malachi Crunch on the rookie, the ball popped out of his hands, and it was Happy Days for the Steelers.

To give the Steelers their 20-point lead, Antwan Randle-El didn't quite turn the clock back to the days of the Fonz, but he did make like it was 2005 again when he took the ball from Ben Roethlisberger on an end around and fired a 39-yard touchdown pass to Mike Wallace to open the fourth quarter, making the score 27-7.

Unfortunately, the defense took its foot off the gas pedal, letting the Bengals back into the game with Terrell Owens' second touchdown just 98 seconds later.

Then Roethlisberger threw a lollipop to Heath Miller that was intercepted by Robert L. Williams, and the Steelers entered full collapse mode.

On a day in which the incompetence of the Cowboys was highlighted with the firing of Wade Phillips, Flozell Adams paid tribute to how much his former team sucks by getting called for unsportsmanlike conduct on the interception, giving the Bengals the ball at the Steelers' 36.

The officials then got into the spirit of 2005 when they flagged Casey Hampton for roughing the passer. Hampton approached Palmer's knee much the same way Kimo von Oelhoffen did five years ago, but he just grabbed his calves and flipped him down. Palmer's knees were not in danger. Nonetheless, a five-year-old makeup call was issued, putting the ball on the Steelers' 21.

Next was a pass interference penalty on Ike Taylor in the end zone. The flag came late after Terrell Owens bitched and moaned for it. What a diva wants, a diva gets.

The penalty moved the ball to the 1. A drive that featured more flags than the United Nations ended with Cedric Benson's touchdown, pulling the Bengals to within 27-21 with 9:21 to go.

The Steelers appeared to restore order by going back to their smashmouth roots and handing off to Rashard Mendenhall seven straight times. Mendenhall gained 43 of his 99 yards on the clock-chomping drive. But Jeff Reed, despite looking like Big Foot with his monstrous beard, came up very small with his foot, missing a 46-yard field goal and keeping the Bengals in the game.

Damage control

This whole scene was reminiscent of the Steelers' inability to put teams away last season, when they didn't have Troy Polamalu. The Steelers do have Polamalu this season, but even with his flowing locks, he's been invisible at times. After performing at a Pro Bowl trajectory in the first two games of the season, there's been a curious lack of "splash" plays from Polamalu.

Monday night was no different. However, Polamalu was in position to prevent further damage on the biggest play of the Bengals' final drive. Like a one-man stone wall, he whacked Terrell Owens right after he caught the ball at the 17 after a 20-yard pass from Palmer with 1:01 left.

That stop seemed to stall the Bengals' momentum just enough. A holding call on the next play dragged them back to the 27, and three of Palmer's final four passes fell incomplete.

Dick LeBeau, the Steelers defensive coordinator who 40 years ago Monday was on the Lions team that was beaten by the Saints and Tom Dempsey's record 63-yard field goal, raised his arms over his head in relieved celebration when Taylor and Harrison broke up Palmer's final pass.

A way with words

In the grand scheme of things, however, there isn't much to celebrate. We now know that a Steelers season is far from over after their standard 6-2 start. The season really begins -- and ends -- Sunday night.

Huh?

You see, the Steelers host the Patriots in The Game You Must Not Lose. The Steelers have the upper hand -- kind of -- in this rivalry right now, having won two Super Bowls since the Patriots' last championship, and beating them in New England the last time the teams met. But the Steelers' only win over a Tom Brady-led Patriots team came on Halloween in 2004.

This is the third straight time the Steelers face the Patriots after beating the Bengals in prime time. In 2007, they were home on a Sunday night before going to Foxboro, Massachusetts the following Sunday. In 2008, it was a Thursday-night game, giving them a 10-day break before facing the Patriots.

This time, the prime time win over the Bengals costs the Steelers a day of preparation. When the weary Steelers got back to Pittsburgh in the wee hours Tuesday morning, Cranky Pants Belichick already had been at work for a full day, thumbing through a dozen dictionaries trying to find a meaning for the word "scalded" that might make good bulletin board material.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin labeled the Patriots as "scalded" Monday night, alluding to their 34-14 loss in Cleveland on Sunday. Tomlin might be too articulate for his own good.

Sure, the Browns bitchslapped the Patriots Sunday, but they did the same thing to the Saints two weeks ago and the Steelers couldn't beat them.

That puts another layer of importance on Sunday's game. A loss to the Patriots would suck not only because it's the Patriots, but also because it would hint that the Steelers aren't even as good as the Browns.

Yep, 6-2 means nothing.

Happy place

Steelers 19, Titans 11

By Mike Batista

This is exactly how the Steelers need to win games without Ben Roethlisberger.

Don't expect much from the offense, hope you get a little help from special teams and let your defense carry you.

Boy, did the Steelers' defense carry them Sunday in their 19-11 win over the Titans.

Chris Johnson, a.k.a. Mr. 2,500, was limited to 34 yards on 16 carries, snapping his streak of 12 straight 100-yard games, and the Steelers were without Casey Hampton. The Steelers induced seven turnovers, the most they've forced since 1997, and the most the Titans have committed since 2000.

The Steelers' defense seized the Titans' offense like a python around a helpless rabbit.

Still, you didn't think the Steelers would escape without a little bit of peril, did you?

After all, this is Tennessee.

This is the place where Joe Nedney infamously deemed himself a master thespian after kicking the winning field goal in overtime of a 2002 playoff game.

This is the place where Tommy Maddox was taken off the field in an ambulance after a paralysis scare earlier in the 2002 season.

This is the place where, on that same day, a Titans assistant coach furtively threw coffee on Joey Porter when a play took Porter to the Titans' sideline.

The Steelers entered Sunday's game with just one win in the "Take Me to Another Place" state since the franchise moved there in 1997.

And so it was that the Steelers' transcendent defensive performance Sunday was merely just enough to let those ghosts out of their skull.

Cool draft

It looked like only pride would be on the line when the Titans moved into the red zone with two minutes left in the game and the Steelers leading 19-3.

When the Titans got to the Steelers' 1, Troy Polamalu hurdled the line of scrimmage like only he can and tackled Kerry Collins for a 1-yard loss. It seemed like the perfect way for the Steelers' defense to put a dramatic bow on two touchdown-free games to start the season.

Two plays later, however, formerly butterfingered Steeler Nate Washington caught a touchdown pass from Collins and the Titans made the 2-point conversion to narrow the Steelers' lead to 19-11.

The Titans then recovered the onsides kick and with no timeouts got to the Steelers' 31 with 20 seconds left.

Prodigal son Bryant McFadden offered a flashback to the final drive of the Steelers' 2005 playoff win over the Colts when he broke up a pass intended for Washington in the end zone. Then the Titans' last-ditch effort petered out with back-to-back false start penalties.

Even though Mike Tomlin says Steelers football is 60 minutes, I am unfazed by the last two minutes considering what happened in the first 58.

The Titans tried to make the Steelers roast by having them wear their black jerseys with the temperature 87 degrees at kickoff, the hottest in the 90 games played at LP Field.

They'd have been better off throwing coffee on them.

The heat forced many Steelers players to double over in exhaustion and take frequent breaks during the game. The most coveted seats on the Steelers' sideline were under a makeshift canopy.

Two members of the Steelers' most recent draft class provided another cooling effect. Sixth-rounder Antonio Brown returned the game's opening kickoff 89 yards for a touchdown on a play that started on a reverse from Mewelde Moore.

Then on the ensuing kickoff, fifth-rounder Stevenson Sylvester forced a fumble that was picked up by Keyaron Fox.

The Steelers coughed up the ball themselves three plays later, but when the defense first walked into the 100-yard sauna, it had a seven-point cushion.

Scratching and surviving

The closest the Titans came to taking the lead was midway through the first quarter when they got to the Steelers' 16 trailing 7-3. Vince Young, who was pulled for Collins in the second half, was then picked off in the end zone by Polamalu. The Steelers turned that into a field goal, and maintained at least a one-touchdown lead for the rest of the afternoon.

Unlike last season, Polamalu got through the game against the Titans injury-free. After condensing a Pro Bowl-caliber season into the first quarter and a half of last season only to get hurt, Polamalu has waited two games this season to amass his Pro Bowl credentials.

The flowing locks don't have to fly on every play for Polamalu to have an impact. It's a whole different game if the Titans take the lead in the first quarter. And if he doesn't vault a snarl of 300-pound bodies to tackle Collins near the end of the game, the Titans would have had a few more precious seconds to mount a game-tying drive.

This likely would have been a vintage 2009 choke without Polamalu.

Another player the Steelers need to have any championship hopes is Ben Roethlisberger.

The Steelers' win on Sunday harks back to many of their wins in the pre-Roethlisberger era, when they were good enough to get into the playoffs, but fell short of the Super Bowl because their offense wasn't quite powerful enough. With a special teams touchdown and four field goals Sunday, they built their lead like "Survivor" contestants constructing a thatched hut.

The Steelers need to get through two more games without Roethlisberger. They just don't know who the babysitter will be at quarterback. Dennis Dixon's demeanor in the pocket Sunday often looked like that of a McDonald's customer perusing the menu not knowing what he wants. He was sacked twice in the first quarter before hurting his knee (he was scheduled for an MRI) and giving way to Charlie Batch.

While Batch completed only five passes for 25 yards, his movement in the pocket and zip on the ball made him look about 10 years younger, which means he looked about 45. But seriously, he looked competent enough to man the steering wheel until Oct. 4.

Then again, Byron Leftwich was scheduled to return from his furlough on Monday.

So who starts at quarterback for the Steelers Sunday at Tampa Bay is anybody's guess.

Regardless of who it is, if the Steelers come close to replicating Sunday's performance, Roethlisberger will be stepping into a good situation.