We are back again today with last year’s AFC title game running commentary. As I read through yesterday’s re-hash of the 2008 AFC title game, there were a lot of things that were pretty interesting to read two years later. If I were more ambitious, I would pull a David Foster Wallace / Chuck Klosterman / Bill Simmons and footnote the hell out of it with all the most updated comments. Alas, I am not. So you are struck trying to guess what I would have to comment on.

 

2009 AFC Championship Game – Live

Welcome back for the second annual live commentary of the AFC title game. Last year we had the Patriots going for their historic 18^th win. This year we have two teams just hoping to score 18 points.

The game matches up the first and second ranked defense in the league in a game being played at cold and snowy Heinz Field. What I am saying is that I wouldn’t take the ‘over’ and that you can probably expect a lot of Joe Flacco unibrow and Ray Lewis killing people jokes from me today.

Before diving into the AFC title game, I have a few comments left over from the NFC game this afternoon – let’s get these out of the way before kick-off.

• Congratulations to the Cardinals, last year we had the Giants and the Rockies. This year we have the Rays and now the Cardinals. If you believe in omens, you might want to continue to believe in these Cardinals, despite what all the experts say over the next two weeks.
• I probably shouldn’t admit this, but here you go. My name is David and I have a man-crush on Larry Fitzgerald. He is incredibly talented, hard-working, very quiet and modest (<cough> T.O. <cough>), he catches everything, used to work as a ball boy for the Vikings, he has long flowing locks cascading down his back….ummm…let’s forget that last one and just move on.
• Let me just say I think he is really good.  At football, to be clear.
• Two weeks in a row, we have had a missed call by the refs that couldn’t be reviewed, despite neither being a judgment call and both being clearly shown on the replay. What is the point of replay again? Isn’t it to fix bad calls by refs? Why are there so many limits to its use?
• Cardinal fans don’t want to hear this but I can’t be the only one who thought back to the Cardinals/Bears game from a couple years ago right before halftime. You know the ‘they are who we thought they are’ game in which the Cardinals had 20 point lead at half and lost 24-23? It says a lot about this Cardinal team that they didn’t fold when they had lots of opportunities in the second half.
• I know Eddie Royal had a nice season but always remember Bronco fans – DeSean Jackson  – he of the 62-yard touchdown and potentially game saving forced fumble – could have been your rookie wide receiver.
• How great would it have been if the Eagles had lost by one point and David Akers could have gone all Ray Finkel on Sav Rocca? Laces out Sav!
• Donovan McNabb is clearly going to take the brunt of Eagles fans venom after this game – and he did have several painfully errant passes but at what point did I miss him being assigned to cover Larry Fitzgerald? If you are going to continue to cover Fitzgerald with a single player in man-to-man after the last two weeks, you deserve to lose.

Ok, let’s get back to the AFC game:

• The first thing I think of when I think of Pittsburgh, is country music so we have Martina McBride sing the national anthem “to honor America and honor freedom” as the public address announcer said. To honor freedom? Really? Why am I just learning this?
• Jim Nantz greets us with ‘hello friends’. Tapping his inner-McCain because, you know, that worked out so well for him.
• Phil Simms hair in HD borders on frightening. It is like it has its own life force. It seems to glow like those creatures that live 2,000 feet below the ocean’s surface in steam vents.
• Steve Tasker is our sideline announcer. Has anyone ever gotten more out of not being good enough to even play on offense or defense than Tasker? Just think if he could have started over Don Beebe, he would probably be running a Wings joint outside Buffalo right now.
• We have kick-off!
• Our ref is retiring after the game tonight. I think he should hold a teary press conference in a couple months to announce he is not retiring but instead will be signing with the NFC this offseason.
• Big Ben has about a day and a half in the pocket for two consecutive pass attempts and on the second one he connects with Hine Ward for a 45-yard gain over the middle.
• Drive stalls out and Jeff Reed hits a field goal. Let me go out on a limb and say that is not the last field goal attempt we see today.
• Every time I see those commercials with Howie Long I feel like less of a man for not driving a Chevy truck.
• Ravens come out with a three and out, with two incompletions by Bert Flacco. 
• Big Sack by Haloti Ngata as he crushes Big Ben on third down. Another three and out.
• By the way, you know how people say ‘so-and-so hits like a Mack Truck’? Shouldn’t Big Ben be the definitive authority on this? Isn’t he really the only one qualified to compare how hard NFL players hit relative to a vehicle?
• Flacco is picked off on the next third down. For some reason out of six plays, the Ravens have run 5 pass plays, which, is roughly as many passes as Flacco threw all of last week. Just what you want with a rookie taking on the best pass defense in the league.
• I wonder who in the world would set up this offensive game plan. Oh yeah, Cam Cameron is the Ravens’ offensive coordinator, it all makes sense. If he only had Ted Ginn he would really be set.
• Willie Parker drops an easy pass that would have been a long gain down the sideline. But at least he didn’t get hurt, so the Steelers have that going for them.
• Am I the only one that can never tell if Hines Ward is grinning or grimacing?
• Santonio Holmes makes a catch, takes two steps, dives and reaches the ball for the end zone where it comes out when he hits the ground. This is an incomplete pass thanks to an asinine rule. I don’t understand it, and don’t like it. The ground can’t cause a fumble but it can turn a cleanly caught pass into an incompletion? That makes perfect sense. Steelers settle for a field goal 6-0.
• Hines Ward has a hurt knee and is questionable. He is either in pain or someone in the stands is cracking jokes.
• A commercial was just shown with Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps and Tony Hawk dancing around in pink button-ups and underwear. Needless to say, Howie Long would not approve.
• Heath Miller makes a big 3^rd down catch. I just realized he is named after a candy bar and a beer. His middle name has to be Marlboro, right?
• Not-that-fast Willie Parker takes a hand-off on second and short, is hit by Ray Lewis and coughs up the ball. Maybe it would have been better for Steeler fans if he had gotten hurt already.
• Uh oh, big Ben is getting looked at by the medics and Byron Leftwich is warming up. I just heard the laughter coming from Jacksonville all the way here in Denver.
• Ravens have a 3^rd and 1 and 4^th and inches at the Steelers 34 yard line and get stuffed twice. Yet LeRon McClain, their biggest and best running back never got the ball. Good call, Cam.

• What sort of statement does it make about the economy that the LeBron playing football commercial for State Farm was aired this weekend? Any other year and that is a Super Bowl commercial. Now I am really getting nervous. Mental note: cash out 401(k) tomorrow.
• Wow, a late duck thrown by big Ben under pressure to Santonio is turned into a bobbing and weaving 65-yard touchdown run. The Steelers seem to almost be mocking the conventional wisdom that you don’t want to throw late or deep across the middle against the Ravens. 13-0 Steelers.
• Ravens finally show a little life in their running game and move the ball to mid-field before Flacco takes a 3^rd down sack and they punt the ball away. Am I the only one that thinks if I had done a live blog of last week’s games, I could have just cut-and-pasted any discussion of the Ravens offense and no one would know the difference?
• Second challenge of the game by the Ravens on a 3^rd down completion to Nate Washington. Replays show the ball slipped through his hands but he was able to squeeze it between his legs. The Steelers controversial off-season Thigh-Master workouts look brilliant right now.
• Jim Leonhard takes a punt for the Ravens and gets a long return up the middle before getting taken down by Mitch Berger, the Steeler punter at the 17-yard line.  Doesn’t a starting safety getting taken down by a punter make the Ravens defense a little less intimidating?
• Former Seminole Bryant McFadden is flagged for pass interference right at the goal line, giving the Ravens the ball at the 3-yard line. At this rate, the ref may not even make it out of the city to begin his retirement.
• McGahee walks right in to the end zone. 13-7 Steelers.
• I love it when the crowd gets an overwhelming ‘bull-sh*t’ chant going but the announcers have to ignore it. Guess I could never be an announcer, because at a minimum I would have to throw out a sarcastic ‘it appears the crowd disagrees with that call’ comment.
•  Wow, after the Steelers and Ravens trade punts, big Ben uncorks a deep one to a wide open Limas Sweed who drops the pass at the two yard line, wiping out what would have been an easy catch and ‘Ray Lewis-at-a-night-club’ knife in the back to the Ravens’ hopes.
• Your 2009 Oscar for Best Actor goes to Mitch Berger for acting like he got hit by a rusher earning a 15-yard roughing the punter penalty and a Steeler first down. Brad Pitt is pretty ticked, he really thought Benjamin Button was his ticket to respectability.
• Limas Sweed comes back and crushes a Raven D-back on a completion to Heath Miller. He hit him as hard as a linebacker. Which is only fitting as he catches as well as a linebacker.
• Ben throws over the middle and the Steelers can’t stop the clock in time to try a field goal, so the clock runs out on the first half at 13-7.

That’s it for now, back later with the second half.

And we are back with the second half.

• Turner just checked in to clarify that crushing hit on Cory Ivy by Limas Sweed. Apparently Ivy was a Sooner and this was some sort of Red River Rivalry renewed by the Longhorn Sweed. Good to know, here I thought he was just trying to make amends for dropping a wide-open touchdown. Silly me.
• After actually completing a pass for a first down, the Ravens call a quarterback keeper that gets stuffed for a loss of 8 yards. Settle down Cam. Flacco may be better than we thought he would be, but he is no Tim Tebow.
• Yet, another punt by the Ravens. But at least they burned a time out in those 6 plays.
• Sack on big Ben on 3^rd and 3. Ray Lewis celebrates being the third person to jump on Ben. Way to go, Ray. Most other players would have stopped when his two teammates had tackled that quarterback but not Ray. That is what makes him the best.
• Guess what the Ravens just did on their offensive series? Yep – three and out. I guess there is something to be said for consistency. Whatever.
• Can you tell that this Ravens offense being in an AFC title game is slowly sucking my will to live?
• I know several people that used to work for IBM. Not a single one worked on ‘building a smarter planet’. Most of them worked on ‘making money for IBM’. I assume these are different divisions or something?
• Another long pass play gets a much-needed first down by the Steelers. After hearing about Ed Reed all week being the greatest defensive player since Butkus, I sort of expected him to actually make a play during this game at some point.
• Maybe he should start jumping on piles like Ray so we can at least hear his name.
• The drive stalls out, but the Steelers get another field goal. 16-7. I have nothing to add.
• Ravens actually got a first down this time – baby steps guys. But they still punt.
• How boring has this game become? Turner and I are discussing what Disney movies he sings along with. For the record, he only admits to Aladdin but there is no doubt in mind he is a Mulan guy too.
• Speaking of movies not targeted for me. Is anyone else a little confused by the casting of that new ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ movie – which they are inexplicably advertising during football today? Look at some of the (apparent) male love interests in that movie – E from Entourage, the guy in love with Sydney on Alias and Mac, who will always be to me the aspiring male cheerleader from Dodgeball. Those are the ‘heart throbs’ that personify the ideal guy for women like Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Connelly now? Were Gary Coleman and Rainn Wilson already booked?
• Obviously the producers of this movie have not seen those Howie Long Chevy commercials.
• For some reason the Steelers try to throw it on 3^rd and 1 as Simms and Nantz gush about how the offensive line has improved over the course of the season. Don’t let the complete contradiction of what you are saying stop you.
• Karmic retribution for chickening out of running up the middle on that 3^rd and 1, Berger shanks the ball about 15 yards on the punt.
• The Ravens offense finally gets going, completing a couple passes and moving inside the Steelers 30-yard line.
• Another pass interference in the end zone puts the Ravens on the 1-yard line and McGahee walks around the corner and in for the score. And actual offensive drive from the Ravens. Have I fallen asleep and am dreaming of how this game should be going? 16-14 Steelers. 9:30 to play.
• Neither team has had any running game at all today, and that is really hurting the Steelers now that they are trying to run out the clock. If you can’t run when they don’t know it is coming, then you being able to run when they do know it is coming is as likely as one of his co-workers solving a crime without The Mentalist.
• A good Raven punt return by the Ravens is wiped out by really stupid personal foul penalty. It is a safe bet that it is a late hit out of bounds when you leap over the Gatorade table before making the hit.
• Just as the Ravens are starting to move the ball a little and might make a move to get into field goal range, Flacco threw the ball right to Polamalu who wound his way back 40-yards for the game-clinching touchdown.
• Sorry Ravens but you can’t expect to make it all the way to the Super Bowl without asking your QB to make at least one play. You made it this far thanks to a world class choke job by the Titans and dominating the Dolphins. Based on what we saw last week, did anyone think Joe could make a play against the Steeler defense? If Philip Rivers couldn’t why would Joe?
• Willis McGahee just got crushed by a Steeler defender and is getting carted off. Hope for the best. My un-medical opinion is that his head didn’t whip or anything. Hopefully just concussed.
• He seemed to be moving his arms at least when they put him on the cart, so that is good sign.
• As the final insult, McGahee also fumbled so the Steelers have the last 3:15 to burn off the clock. What was one giant French-fry sandwich fueled party a few minutes ago is pretty subdued now.
• Another interception on the last minute drive by the Ravens. Time for a big Ben victory formation and the Terrible Towel is off to Tampa.

That is it for me. Thanks for joining us for the AFC title game.

See you next week as we start previewing the Steelers / Cardinals Super Bowl.

Tagged as: 2009, afc championship, baltimore, pittsburgh, ravens, steelers