Pittsburgh pulls it out

Wow, what a weekend!! Before I get to the Steelers trip, I want to say congrats to the Blazers and the Portland crowd. I missed the home opener, but got to the second game against Memphis. last Friday the night before I left for Pittsburgh. It was Oden bobblehead night, and the first 10,000 fans got one. I've been going to Blazer games for 2.5 years and have never once seen 10,000 fans at a game, but figured this might be a slightly larger crowsd so I showed up 20 minutes early. I knew something was up when the two cheapest levels of tickets were sold out and I had to shell out $26 bucks apiece for tickets. I didn't get a bobblehead and when I sat in my seat it was easy to see why, I probably wasn't even in the first 15,000 fans. The Blazers looked like the Blazers of the last couple years in the first half. Defensively they couldn't stop much of anything, and took a 12 point deficit into halftime. They came out fired up for the second half though and immediately went on a 13-2 run and stayed locked down on D the rest of the game. The 2nd half crowd was bigger, louder, and more enthusiastic than any crowd I've ever seen in the Rose Garden. After taking the lead with about 7 minutes left in the game, Portland continued a dominating second half effort to win 110-98(Chalupas!!) The new starting lineup with Blake at point guard and Jarrett Jack coming off the bench seems to be working, as the Blazers have now won 3 straight after dropping their first three, including their first win over Dallas in 14 tries.

Pittsburgh Trip

The pilgrimage to Heinz Field was even more amazing. I switched planes in Minneapolis and immediately started seeing large swaths of Black & Gold. After downing some beers with a dude from Calgary dressed in snakeskin boots, a stetson, and a leather Steelers jacket, I boarded the plane to Pittsburgh that consisted of about 95% people going to the game. I got off the plane and was greeted by none other than Franco Harris...or at least a statue of Franco.

Franco Striking a pose in the Airport

I met up with the little bro and grandpa waiting for me and headed back to the pad. As soon as we walked in the door my Grandpa offered me a drink so I accepted a glass of the dirty bird and he started pouring. At about the 3 fingers mark I told him to hold up, but he ignored me and poured another 3. Ten minutes later I was halfway done with it and he asked why I was taking it so slow.

After dinner we headed up to Mount Washington, but the stadium wasn't lit up so we couldn't see much. Instead we went home for more drinks and watched the Penguins lose again.

We woke up in the morning to a wonderful thing...something besides Seahawks gameday coverage in the newspaper. After a late breakfast we headed to the game.

Apache Longbows in a Veterans Day Flyover

Opening Kickoff

Late Game Crowd

As we were sitting in our seats watching as the stadium started filling up, our Grandpa leans over and says "Damn, I've never seen so many fat girls in my life." Yup, that about says it all. The AFC North isn't exactly known for its crowd aesthetics. But on the plus side, we saw very few of those gay-ass pink jerseys.

I gotta say though, the upper endzone seats in that stadium may be the best seats in the house. Your plenty close to the action and from behind the endzone you see everything. You see the running lanes open and close in the blink of an eye, the passing routes develop and the seams in the zone coverage shift. When Ben threw an interception in the first half for example, we all knew it was a pick before he even threw it. He'd tried the same pass a couple times already and had been lucky to get away with incompletions. I've seen plenty of high school and college games live, and they don't even begin to compare. There's so much going on on the field, TV can't even begin to do it justice.

As for the game, well the first half wasn't pretty. The defense played really well despite giving up 4 touchdowns. In reality, only one of those came off a sustained drive by the Cleveland offense. They got the other three thanks to the Big Ben int deep in Pittsburgh territory and a 91 yard kickoff return by Josh Cribbs that gave them a first and goal and another Cribbs return for a TD. In all, Cribbs had 40 more return yards(204) than the Browns entire offense was able to get(163). The pass rush continued to be mediocre, and they didn't get a single sack. LeBeau seemed to be more concerned with preventing the big play rather than getting to Derek Anderson. Polamolu was playing back in coverage most of the game and rarely blitzed. The plan worked though as they kept Braylon Edwards to only one catch in the game(but holy shit was it a good one) and Kellen Winslow to just 46 yards.

The offense left more to be desired. They were unable to punch it in the endzone and had to settle for three field goals to go into half time with a 21-9 deficit. The mood was somber at halftime, but soon picked up as it became obvious in the 2nd half that the Browns were going to have trouble scoring any more points. Ben and the offense soon found their groove too, and Ben passed for two touchdowns and a two point conversion and rushed 30 yards on 3rd down for another score. He set up one of his TD passes with another 3rd down run to give the Steelers a first and goal.

It was an extremely tense 4th quarter. After Roethlisberger ran for a 30 yard score to put the Steelers up, the Josh Cribbs took the ensuing kickoff 100 yards after muffing it to put the Browns up again and temporarily silence the crowd. On the next drive Ben took the good guys down the field for the go-ahead score, and after a Romeo Crennel screw up on the challenge of the scoring play, the Browns were left with only 1 timeout and had to settle for a 53 yard field goal attempt in the worst kicking endzone in the NFL. The kick fell short and the Steelers were victorious and opened up a 2 game lead in the AFC North.

Out of fear of jinxing the Steelers, I will avoid mentioning that with the
Colts loss on Sunday(Viniateri misses a 29 yard game winner? WTF?), the
Steelers are now the #2 seed in the AFC by virtue of a tiebreaker over the
Colts.

The trip home was uneventful other than having to spend 17 hours in airports and on planes thanks mostly to a 6 hour layover in Minneapolis. With 6 hours, it was going to be impossible to avoid using the restroom, but I was able to avoid getting arrested for gay sex buy following three simple rules:

• Keep your stance as narrow as possible: At the very least you should keep your feet in your own stall.
• Keep your toe-tapping to a minimum: If it helps, maybe turn off your ipod for a few minutes.
• Watch your hand-placement: The most important thing to remember here is to keep your hands above the bottom of the stall wall

In the event that your stall neighbor starts tapping his feet and reaching under your stall, stay calm and calmly tell Senator Craig that your not gay. If you've got a few minutes to spare, maybe take the time to ask Senator Craig why he's so determined to kill off all the salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. And I don't care if the Larry Craig jokes have been beaten into the ground, because conservative republicans having gay sex in airport bathrooms will always be funny.