The last time Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter ran his mouth for the cameras without any sense of restraint, his squad pulled off the biggest upset in the NFL Playoffs this year. Before the playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts, Porter told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “They don’t want to just sit there, line up and play football. They want to try to catch you off guard. They don’t want to play smash-mouth football, they want to trick you…they want it to be a thinking game instead of a football.”
He’s at it again, stating that against the Seahawks, his Steelers will “try to send as many people to the sideline as we can.” Why wouldn’t we believe him again? The Steelers could be the best six seed in NFL Playoff history. If not for two god-awful starts by Tommy Maddox, the Steelers would have been 13-3 and favored by an even greater margin in the Super Bowl. Their squad features perhaps the best 3-4 defense in the league, with linebackers Porter and James Farrier and company causing headaches for every quarterback they faced, including Peyton Manning. With safety Troy Polamalu and his unreal speed anchoring the secondary, Hasselbeck and Alexander will encounter a brick wall on Sunday.
On offense, quarterback Big Ben Roethlisberger has established himself as the next Terry Bradshaw in Steeler town. His accuracy and decision making has improved by leaps and bounds over his rookie season. We’ve seen the Steelers rely on Big Ben and his arm to bail them out of their last few contests, and there is no reason why he won’t deliver in the biggest game of his career. Jerome Bettis will finally earn that elusive Super Bowl ring in his last game in a Steelers uniform.
Final Prediction: Steelers 24, Seahawks 20
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The last time Seattle Seahawks RB Shaun Alexander went down with a concussion, his squad stepped up to defeat the Washington Redskins 20-10 in the Divisional Playoffs. Matt Hasselback passed for 210 yards and completed 16 of 26 passes. This ended the over twenty-year drought of not winning a single playoff game for Seattle. Since 1984, the Seahawks were 0-6 in the postseason until defeating the Redskins in Seattle.
Pittsburgh is on a hot streak, but hot streaks come to an end, as Washington realized, losing at the hands of the Seahawks after a six-game winning streak.
Sure, Pittsburgh has Roethlisberger leading the charge on offense, but you need not look further than Seattle MVP Alexander, who set the record for touchdowns in a single season with 28, while rushing for 1,880 yards. Even without Alexander, veteran quarterback Hasselback has shown that he can step up in tough situations and with Mike Holmgren at the reins, the Seahawks have what it takes to get the job done this weekend.
Someone needs to tell Joey Porter to shut his mouth. Perhaps it will be Pro Bowl-bound Seattle tackle Walter Jones . This weekend is Jerome Bettis’s much anticipated return to his hometown of Detroit, but Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens put it best saying, “It’s a heartwarming story and all that, but it will be a sad day when he leaves without the trophy.”
Final Prediction: Seahawks 27, Steelers 24
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