Well Nation, it was certainly a different kind of Monday! If you read the preview for the Kansas City game you know that I said it was a lock, and the reason it was a lock was simple:

Emily was going to be in the house.

Well, what say you Nation! Emily was indeed in the house, and the Steelers did what they do when she is there – they put on a show! This wasn’t just a victory; it was what most people would refer to as a butt whipping. It’s the exact opposite of what happened in Philadelphia the week before. The Steelers dominated in every single aspect of the game, and because of my loose lips, my daughter now firmly believes that she is completely responsible for this. She kept repeating over and over on Sunday night “The Steelers are kicking Kansas City’s butt, and it’s because I am IN THE HOUSE!”

I may have created a monster.

Still, there is no denying that the trend is that when Emily is sitting her little butt in a seat in Heinz field, the Steelers play fantastic.

That all being said, let’s take a closer look at the Good, Bad and the Ugly this week:

The Good

Greg Lloyd

Look, sue me ok. I’m calling out Greg Lloyd because he was taking pictures and signing autographs in the Ford Fan Zone at Heinz before the game, and he was great. The line was long, and people were waiting for a while for their chance, and they had to get him on the field by 8 PM. But he got everyone through the line (including me and my buddy Dennis). He was generous, courteous and really just a gentleman all around. Not too bad for someone who wasn’t hired for his disposition! (Oh yeah, and honorable mention goes to Brett “Da Beard” Keisel, who was also taking pics with people in front of the stadium. He was great, and he gave Emily a big hug, so that was pretty awesome too).

Ok, let’s get to the real stuff now.

B.J. Finney

You have to love B.J. Finney. I mean you have to. The kid won our hearts with his emotional reaction to being signed as an UFA, and he’s proved he’s been worth having around. Yeah, he spent last year on the practice squad, and it appears to have done the young man good. This is the second week in a row that Finney has gotten the highest Pro Football Focus score of all the offensive lineman (78.7 this week) and while I won’t pretend to know what weird ingredients go into the witches’ brew that tabulates those scores, on line with two All-Pro players (Maurkice Pouncey and David DeCastro), that’s saying something.

Overall the offensive line did a fantastic job. Pouncey was leading the way on Bell’s 44 yard run, DeCastro came back with a strong game, and Ryan Harris and Chris Hubbard both filled in admirably when needed.

Ben was only pressured 4 times Sunday night, with only 2 sacks.

Outstanding.

While they all played well, for the second week in a row, Finney stood out.

Vince Williams

Vince Williams was an animal. He was all over the place.

The determination (and the fact that after losing a little weight he is much faster) was evident when he ran down Spencer Ware preventing a long touchdown run. He had a ridiculous 15 tackles, a gift of a sack when Alex Smith just decided to lay down, 2 tackles for loss and a special teams tackle as well.

Vince was awesome. The best part about his game is that we should feel pretty comfortable with Vince coming in to replace Ryan Shazier when needed. Shazier will still be missed, because he’s a different player, and does things that I think nobody else can do, but we won’t be dropping off much with Vince as the backup.

Cameron Heyward

Cameron Heyward had a great game. 3 sacks, 6 total tackles, 1 tipped pass. He provided constant pressure up the middle, was disruptive and was the player that we have come to expect him to be. I know he would never use this as an excuse, but you can’t help but wonder if that ankle was hampering his push the first few weeks, and maybe it’s finally feeling better.

If we continue to get games like this from Cam, it sure helps mitigate the lack of pressure from the outside.

Stephon Tuitt

Tunch Ilkin must have said this about a dozen times, and I can’t help but agree. Stephon Tuitt didn’t mark (get the stats) the way Cam Heyward did, but, overall, he had a better game. Pro Football Focus agrees, giving Tuitt the highest defensive score of the game, an 86. Cam had an 83.5. It demonstrates the effectiveness of these two.

Tuitt had 1 tackle, 1 tipped pass and 1 forced fumble. I’m pretty sure that tipped pass turned into a Jarvis Jones interception. Tuitt was explosive, he was powerful, and he was just as disruptive as Cam Heyward was. He was close to getting home on the quarterback several times.

Great game from Stephon “Do It” Tuitt.

Le’veon Bell

Welcome back Le’veon Bell indeed. 18 carries, 144 rushing yards (for a gawdy 8.0 average per carry) and a ridiculous run of 44 that was close to going in for a TD. He added 5 receptions on 6 targets, coming in as the second most targeted receiver in the game, for another 34 yards, giving him a total of 178 yards from scrimmage. Nice to have “Juice” back.

Le’veon changes this offense. It was awesome to see Le’veon and DeAngelo both come out in the backfield, and then both split out wide. Pick your poison opposing defenses, but somebody is going to burn you. Can’t wait to see what kind of season Le’veon puts together.

Ben Roethlisberger

5 TDS, 300 yards on 22 of 27 passing. QB rating of 152.5. The best game Ben has put up this year without a doubt. Ben had 4 TD passes in the first half alone! That’s insane. We were sitting there watching and screaming for 7, no 8 TD’s, even though we knew that with such a big lead there was no way we were going to keep going for the throat. It was almost enough to make you hope KC would score a few more points so that the pressure had to be kept up. Almost, but not quite. Regardless, it was an awesome performance from the future Hall of Famer. One of my favorite things about last night, when Ben was asked why he didn’t go for the 6^th TD pass:

“I don’t care about that.”

No, I don’t totally believe him, but I do think it’s less important than the win, and it’s the right message regardless. Way to go Ben!

The Bad

I got nuttin. I mean really, I got nuttin. If I really want to pick on something bad how about that it was annoying as hell that every time I took my poncho off because the rain appeared to stop, it started pouring again! That was pretty bad.

Ok, I thought of something.

Outside Pass Rush

It’s really hard to call it bad, because it basically didn’t exist. Other than James Harrison getting close a couple of times there really wasn’t much to speak of in outside pressure. Didn’t matter because we got such awesome inside pressure from Tuitt and Heyward. Maybe if it wasn’t for the officials (as usual) ignoring obvious holding calls on Deebo (and frankly others as well) the guys might have been able to get home, but as it stood, our edge rushers accounted for zero sacks. I really got nothin else.

The Ugly

Injuries

Maybe, if we are lucky, these will be less ugly than the at first seemed. There are some reports that Marcus Gilbert’s injury is not too severe, and he should be back in short order. Don’t yet know about the other walking wounded, but in Coach Tomlin’s press conference today he called Gilbert “highly questionable”. Cody Wallce, Eli Rogers are both out. Rosie Nix, who hasn’t seen action yet this season is still essentially day to day, as are Jarvis Jones, Anthony Chickillo and Ramon Foster. Ryan Harris is questionable with a leg injury. At this point, we barely have anyone to play tackle. That is a long long long list of injured Steelers. On the plus side, Golden and Shazier could find their way back this week or next.

Injuries, as the Coach says, are part of the game. The past two weeks have been really brutal though. Let’s hope this isn’t a trend that continues.

Conclusion

This week sees those New York Jets come to town, and they have a pretty good defensive line that they bring along with them. Surprisingly however, they have plenty of issues on that defense anyway.  This week Nation, they are going to have to get by without Emily being in the house. We’ll see what things look like when I preview the game in a couple more days. Until then Nation!