Writing this still in the moments after the Broncos’ New Miracle at Sports Authority Stadium at Mile High.
ENDOR – I’ve been saying it all week and dammit, I’m going to keep repeating it until it gets the acknowledgement it so richly deserves; for the Steelers, yesterday’s game looked like an Admiral Ackbar-sized trap.
Like The Public Professor and a few others around here, I’m a Steeler fan. It’s not a geographical thing – I grew up in Upstate New York – but an era thing, as I first got hooked by those colorful ’70s teams. So I’m feeling a bit enraged right now… but not surprised. There was a point around ten games into the season, when Tebow-mania had reached critical mass – sort of the way Ben Roethlisberger looks like he’s reached critical mass himself – when I thought to myself, “Self, the Steelers are going to play the Broncos in the playoffs and this is just the kind of team they’ll find a way to lose to.” I couldn’t shake that feeling, and watched in mounting anxiety as the season wound down to the inevitable conclusion yesterday. Indeed, unlike The Matts’ Christmas Card this year, it came right on time.
Of course I don’t want to take anything away from their gutty effort –well, yes I do – but seriously, how do the Baby Jesus Powers keep working??? As it’s often said, be it in cards or golf or football wagering: It’s better to be lucky than good…but the Broncos are really pushing this truism beyond all reason.
Heading in, the game felt eerily familiar to last year’s Wild Card round upset of New Orleans by the Seahawks (Seattle was a sub-.500 team getting home-field by virtue of being a default West Division champ &upset the superior but injury-riddled Saints), and arriving in Denver was a Steeler squad missing more players than Gummy Joe is missing teeth…
But I’m not one to make excuses (cough cough… Pouncey out, Legursky snapping every ball over Roethlisberger’s head; Brett Keisel having some sort of beard injury; Casey Hampton pulling a belly muscle), they got some shaky calls (that backward pass) and had a chance to win at the end – why not try that record field goal? But it still hurts. At any rate, congratulations to Cookie and the Broncs…can they possibly keep it going in New England next week? No way, right? Right???
By the way, when did Leslie Visser become a Klingon?
Now, enough about that… This being a New York-based site, lets talk about the Giants. Congratulations on their big win yesterday…the way they finished the season, peaking at the right time, certainly seems like ’07 (well, ’08 – since it was January) all over again and just like then, the road to the Super Bowl has to go through Green Bay where (just like then) they’re 8-point underdogs. Another thrilling OT game in the works? Could they make it all the way to face the Patriots again? They’d actually match up well with them…probably better than they would the Broncos this year, who may not win a game all next year to balance out the craziness of this one.
Grote2DMax will spring his own trap tomorrow.
