Comments on: Steelers Sloppy But Survive Tough Outing in Minnesota 12-10

By: Jay Sabo

Jay Sabo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:07:25 +0000

I don’t know if I agree with you Kurt. You can tell when a running back has talent simply by watching them. I don’t care if it’s versus opposing teams’ first D or tenth D or any D inbetween. mendenhall can run. You can see that, or should be able to see it; I can. He has better moves than Parker and better vision–these are all noticeable and observable attributes that can be seen. Parker typically runs straight ahead and hits holes running (occasionally making a move and rarely breaking tackles—although he did break one or two last night). Mendenhall can start and stop and accelerate and juke and spin and break tackles and stiff arm and has great speed and seemingly better vision than Parker does already. IF ball security becomes problematic, then I will concede to your assessment but it is hard to gauge these things because I thought he didn’t really fumble in college so, that being said, how can you tell if he will or won’t in the NFL. I thought our biggest weakness on offense last year was the inability to run the ball inside the redzone and our lack of depth at RB meant Ben was running for his life because opposing defenses pinned their proverbial ears back and simply went after him. Yes the O-line had a big part in that too. With Moore as a safety valve and some good skill players our offense SHOULD be okay. The operative word is should. The Vikings dared us last night to beat them deep as they continually stuffed the box. I don’t know why Arians didn’t take advantage of that except to say that he’s saving it for the regular season. He (arians) is someone I have huge questions about because if I’m blessed to be in his position with those skill players and I see 8 men in the box, I’m calling on Santonio or Hines or Heath or Spaeth or (when he develops more adequately) Sweed.

By: Kurt Emmert

Kurt Emmert — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:59:01 +0000

Mendenhall is a BUM!
He will have the rest of the regular season to still prove me wrong but I said on draft day he was not a good pick and there were good reasons that other teams over looked him. He was a one hit wonder at the U of I.

By: Jay Sabo

Jay Sabo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:24:27 +0000

yeah, I’ll comment. The last thing I want to do is end up sounding like a negative nelly (as my wife would say)-so, some positives…We now have six 1st round draft choices on offense (Simmons, Ben, Heath, Holmes, Mendenhall, Leftwich) and four on D (Farrior, Hampton, Timmons and Troy). I like having that many 1st rounders—makes a fan feel good. Also, Leftwich looked good. Defense looked awesome against the run, good against the pass which is fine by me. Mendenhall looked good running but, now for my complaints—2 fumbles, are you kidding me?!? And the only other complaint is if I were Tomlin during the post game press conference I would let it be known that asking about the offensive line would be a mistake as my response would be, “They’re a joke! next question.” I would in fact, have that be my verbalized running theme all year when asked about them, “They’re a joke!” Nothing fancy or overly verbose. I might throw a twist in once in awhile and say, “We ain’t got nobody who can play the offensive line and are currently requisitioning obese cab drivers in western pa.” But I wouldn’t say more than that because it might be rude. Having a premiere QB like Ben without protection to showcase his talents is like having a hot chic who’s allergic to sunlight. You can’t take her outside to show her off so, what’s the flippin’ point of having her then? Like when Louis Lipps played here with Brister as the qb…that’s a different story altogether.