Thanks For Sucking, Carson Palmer

The condition of the offensive line being what it is, it's hardly surprising that the Steelers offense wasn't exactly plowing through the Bengals on Sunday. But had Carson Palmer not charitably put 14 points on the board for Pittsburgh, who knows how dicey the closing of that game would have been.

Not that Pittsburgh was wholly unable to move the ball. The team put up 354 total yards of offense, but was wholly unable, either by dint of dumb penalties, bad playcalling or poor execution, to do anything in the red zone. The Steelers now have two touchdowns in their last 30 or so offensive possessions. Obviously, one of those was an incredibly timely score late in the win in Baltimore. Nevertheless, that's not going to cut it if they ever think they're going to beat a team like New England in the postseason. Tom Brady's not going to throw two pick-sixes and you're not gonna field goal them to death.

As for Sunday, I'll admit I had some genuine concern set in at the beginning of the 4th quarter when the Steelers came up empty of a potential scoring drive that got as far as the Bengals' 15 and terminated with back-to-back sacks to push them out of field goal range. That's the inability to put teams away late that killed them in 2009 and probably should have cost the Steelers in Buffalo.

But then Carson Palmer deposited one in LaMarr Woodley's hands on the first play of the successive drive and all was moot.

Now, I don't want to overly dump on a decisive win over a division opponent. There were definitely some positives to take away. Terrell Owens was largely marginalized in this game. In fact, the Bengals couldn't muster anything approaching an offense after their opening scoring drive. Thankfully Troy wasn't hurt significantly on his interception return for a TD. In fact, in a rare and welcome twist, the Steelers didn't appear to sustain any huge injuries, though Emmanuel Sanders suffered an ankle injury. From early indications, it doesn't seem to be all that serious.

And though I was willing to settle for anything above Mitch Berger-level awful, Jeremy Kapinos was actually decent in his first game with the team. So the worries that the special teams will be a liability in field position games haven't been realized just yet. It was also a standout game by the receivers with awesome snags by Hines, Mike Wallace and Antwaan Randle El in particular.

So overall, it was a satisfying voctory. Bengals getting swept just feels right. The red zone offense needs to pick it up, but at least getting Heath back next week will help on that score somewhat.

The only gripe I have is with Cincy geting away with a bunch of questionable hits on Roethlisberger in the first half.



In just the one drive at the end of the first half, Big got hit in the head and his facemask raked on one dropback. Then, on the third down before the field goal, Roy Williams nailed Roethlisberger after taking five or so steps following the quarterback releasing the ball. All that after Ben got kneed in the head by a lineman getting up after a play. It goes without saying that if James Harrison commits any of these, not only is he getting flagged and fined, but it's leading highlight packages of the games by all the networks. It's extremely annoying, but it's a trend that doesn't seem like it's going to change at any point this season.