The road goes through Pittsburgh

By Mike Batista

Don't put the cap on the Big Ketchup Bottle just yet.

There's going to be one more football game at Heinz Field.

The Steelers' fourth AFC championship game in seven years, their fifth in 10 years and their eighth in 17 years will be in Pittsburgh against the Jets, who stunned the Patriots 28-21 Sunday.

When I watched the game, I was thinking back to 1986, when as a Celtics fan I was rooting like crazy for the Rockets to beat the Lakers in the Western Conference final so the Celtics wouldn't have to face the Lakers in the NBA Finals.

I couldn't sleep the night the Rockets won the series because it suddenly hit me that the Celtics weren't going to get a chance to beat their biggest rivals to win another championship.

That's actually not the case in this situation, because I honestly didn't know who to root for when watching the Jets and Patriots.

On one hand, I would have liked to have seen the Steelers get another shot at Tom Brady, their biggest tormentor of the past decade. If they win another championship, a win over the Patriots in Foxborough would have been a nice jewel in the crown.

But the Patriots, who have lost their last three postseason games, including the last two at home, have gone from Team of the Decade to a franchise that can't get the job done in the playoffs.

To reach the eighth Super Bowl in franchise history, the Steelers were going to have to beat a team that has won at Heinz Field in the last nine weeks, no matter how Sunday's game unfolded.

The Steelers were without Troy Polamalu when they lost to the Jets 22-17 on Dec. 19. They had Polamalu, although he was mired in a mid-season funk, when they lost 39-26 to the Patriots on Nov. 14 in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicates.

So getting to the Super Bowl should be easier for the Steelers with the Patriots out of the way.

Theoretically, anyway.

At least it might make my decision about where to watch the game easier. It's either going to be Bob Hyland's Sports Page in White Plains, NY or Irish Exit, a Steelers bar in Manhattan.

Since it's going to be the Jets, I'm leaning toward the big city.

Sports Page will be filled with Jets fans. This is the place where Jets fans cheered when Brady tore up his knee in the 2008 season opener.

People are much nicer on the 4 train in the Bronx, although I might have to cloak my Steelers gear with my coat until I'm safely in the Steelers enclave.

It'll be a fun week behind enemy lines.

Got anything to say, Rex?

You Bastards!

Patriots 39, Steelers 26

By Mike Batista

When Tom Brady sets foot in Heinz Field, the Steelers turn into Kenny from "South Park" or Georgie from "The Sopranos."

Sunday's 39-26 loss to the Patriots followed the same plot line, to the letter, as the Steelers' 41-27 loss to the Patriots in the 2004 AFC championship game at Heinz.

Not only were the scores almost identical, but in both games, it was clear the Patriots had the Steelers figured out early. In both games, the Steelers fell behind by three touchdowns. In both games, the Steelers made it mildly interesting, getting as close as 11 points in the second half.

Steelers fans had seen this show before. When the Steelers mounted their futile comeback attempt Sunday night, the sea of yellow seats at Heinz Field were speckled by the foolish few who thought they had a chance.

It was the same predictable television as Kenny dying in every "South Park" episode or Georgie getting bludgeoned with a phone receiver every time he rubs Tony the wrong way on "The Sopranos."



Only once have the Steelers beaten Brady, when they ended the Patriots' 21-game winning streak in 2004. But even then Brady, the Hoodie and his henchmen had the last laugh when they went back to Pittsburgh and won the AFC championship game that season.

The Steelers beat the Patriots at Gillette Stadium during their 2008 championship season, but those Patriots were quarterbacked by bed wetter Matt Cassel.

The last decade, which has included two Super Bowl wins, certainly has been a glorious one in the history of Steelers football. However, the fondness of this era will be tempered somewhat by their inability to beat Brady.

One of the main reasons Brady has been impervious to the Steelers' feared defense is his quick, short-range passes, which neutralize the Steelers' blitz and serve the same purpose as running the football. That's exactly how he carved up the Steelers' defense in 2007 during the Patriots' perfect regular season.

The Brady who beat the Steelers Sunday is a lot different from the one who beat them in 2007. Brady now sports long, romance-novel hair. That new look, combined with the drama he displayed when he screamed at his teammates after a failed third-down conversion in the first half, make it clear that he's auditioning to be either a model or an actor after football. He knows where the cameras are.

Despite the fact that he's as much of a pretty boy as ever, Brady out-toughed the entire Steelers' defense in the third quarter by plowing through for a 3-yard touchdown run, giving the Patriots a 23-3 lead and officially making the game a bitchslapping.

If Brady's life after football involves walking on the red carpet, he got a lot of practice Sunday night, because the Steelers defense only got close enough to take pictures of him. They didn't sack him and barely even touched him.

Sure, the Steelers might get another shot at Brady. But from what I've seen over the past few weeks, I have my doubts whether they will this season.

Not only did the Steelers (6-3) suffer their most lopsided loss at Heinz Field since Mike Tomlin became coach in 2007, but they haven't won impressively since beating the Browns 28-10 nearly a month ago. Since then they got a favorable replay review to beat the duller-than-dogshit Dolphins by a point; lost to the Saints and nearly blew a 20-point lead to the Bengals. And let's face it, the Bengals flat-out suck.

The Steelers' win over the Browns seems like a long time ago. Are they still better than the Browns? For the second time in three weeks, the Steelers lost to a team the Browns kicked the shit out of the week before. The Steelers once again couldn't pick up the chick their roommate banged.

Now historically, failing their BBT (Beat Brady Test) doesn't mean the Steelers can't win the Super Bowl. They recovered from an early-season, 23-20 loss to the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in 2005. But it took a last-minute drive in that game to set up Adam Vinatieri's winning field goal.

If the Steelers want to show that they're good enough to win a championship, they have to at least stand up to Brady. They didn't do that Sunday.

A nemesis no more

Steelers 15, Falcons 9, OT

By Mike Batista

At Heinz Field on Sunday, the Steelers rescued themselves, as well as their PNC Park neighbors, from the Curse of Atlanta.

In my column previewing the Steelers' season opener, I took a look at Atlanta's torment of Pittsburgh in baseball and football over the past two decades.

The Curse of Atlanta was cast in 1992, when the Pirates were three outs away from the World Series, only to squander a 2-0 lead against the Braves in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.

Since David Justice and Sid Bream (even though he was out) scored on Francisco Cabrera's single, the Pirates have not had a winning season.

While the Curse of Atlanta has meant doom for the Pirates, it's been more of a nuisance for the Steelers.

The last three times these quadrennial opponents have played, they have gone to overtime. The Steelers had to settle for a tie in 2002, and lost in 2006.

You think this curse thing is hogwash? You think this comes from the mind of some paranoid guy who talks to himself in the park?

The parallels were just too eerie for it not to be a curse. The last time the Falcons came to Heinz Field, the Steelers had a chance to win on a Todd Peterson field goal in overtime. But it was blocked.

Peterson lost his job that season when the Steelers signed a guy named Jeff Reed. That same guy could have prevented overtime Sunday with a 40-yard field goal with 39 seconds left. But he missed.

Reed also missed a 55-yard attempt when he hit the right upright late in the first half.

With all of the game's scoring to that point coming on field goals, those misses hurt.

Steelers chairman Dan Rooney came all the way from Ireland to watch the game. If he wanted to see a tie, he could have stayed in Europe and watched soccer.

Fortunately, Rashard Mendenhall ended the field goal slap fight with a 50-yard touchdown run 3:24 into overtime.

It was the Steelers' first win over the Falcons since 1999, when they beat them at Three Rivers Stadium. Even then, the Steelers were spooked by the Curse of Atlanta. The Falcons also scored nine points that day. The Steelers? Unlucky 13.

Not only does the breaking of the curse pretty much guarantee a winning season for the Pirates in 2011 (I just don't see how they CAN'T have a winning season, right?), it skews my prediction for the Steelers' season. When predicting the Steelers' 1-3 start without Ben Roethlisberger, I had this game tabbed as a loss.

If Roethlisberger takes over a 2-2 team, 10-6 might be within reach. Of course, I'll stick to my original 9-7 prediction, but I don't mind being wrong in this case.

In a city full of bridges, Dennis Dixon showed he's capable of building an adequate one to keep the Steelers' 2010 season above water until Roethlisberger gets back. He completed 18 of 26 passes for 236 yards, showed poise in the pocket and made a couple of tough throws.

Dixon did, however, throw an interception and the Falcons dropped one or two other picks. I'm concerned about how he'll respond next week at Tennessee, where the Steelers haven't won since 2001, and against Baltimore.

His job won't be any easier if the Steelers are without Max Starks, who left the game with a high ankle sprain. As the left tackle, Starks is responsible for protecting Dixon's blind side.

While Starks' status is a concern, everything else around Dixon looked like 2008 on Sunday. The Steelers' defense stifled a highly touted Falcons' offense, with sacks by James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley and an interception by Troy Polamalu, all major contributors to the Steelers' championship two years ago.

Unfortunately, the 2008 reminders include the offensive line, which allowed three sacks in the final quarter and a half, including two sandwiched around the two-minute warning, which scuttled a potential game-winning drive.

If the Steelers are to recapture the magic of 2008, Dixon and Mendenhall, two guys who watched from the sidelines that year, will need to make contributions.

At least until Roethlisberger gets back.

Even if the Steelers don't win their seventh Super Bowl this season, at least Atlanta can't hurt Pittsburgh anymore.

My new digs

Greetings, yinzers and non-yinzers alike!

Welcome to Respect the Towel, the site that used to be Steelahs.com.

So why did I change the name of my site? Well, to be honest, I never liked the name "Steelahs.com." Whenever I told people the name of my site, I always had to say the name then immediately spell it so they wouldn't think it was just "Steelers.com." It was very cumbersome in terms of name recognition.

When I launched Steelahs.com three years ago today, the name was an acknowledgement of my Rhode Island roots, and the Boston accent that came with it. Even though I had learned to pronounce my "r"s by the time I moved to New York, my girlfriend at the time seemed to think I still had the accent. And I wanted a name that conveyed that fact that I was a Steelers fan from New England, so the name Steelahs.com seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, live and learn.

So why Respect the Towel?

For starters, I am the proud owner of a Terrible Towel, which is the official flag of Steelers Nation. I bought mine the day after the Steelers won the 1995 AFC championship game. The Internet was still kind of a new-fangled thing back then. So I called 1-800-TEAMTUF on my touch-tone phone, and waited on hold for at least an hour. It made me appreciate having a Terrible Towel that much more.

Of course, "Respect the Towel" is a little bit of a nod to "The Sopranos," which I still watch on DVD when I'm not watching the first quarter and a half of the Steelers' 2009 season opener (before Troy Polamalu got hurt) on NFL Game Rewind.

We all know what happened to Ralph Cifaretto when he didn't respect the Bing. And we all know what happened when the Tennessee Titans didn't Respect the Towel when they beat the Steelers late in the 2008 season. The Steelers never lost again, and went on to win Super Bowl XLIII.

It's too bad the inventor of the Terrible Towel, Myron Cope, didn't get to see the Steelers' sixth championship. He died on Feb. 27, 2008. Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers, like me a Steelers fan from New England, honored Cope after his death by waving the Terrible Towel after Weekend Update.

I don't quite have the same following as a Steelers blogger that Meyers does as a comedian. Not yet, anyway.

With the transition from Steelahs to Respect the Towel, I'm joining many of my fellow Steelers bloggers on the Blogger platform. And before you ask, the answer is yes, if all my fellow Steelers bloggers were going to jump off the Fort Pitt Bridge, I probably would, too.

You could call me a lemming for moving over to Blogger, but the fact is it's free. It would have costed me the price of a Steelers ticket to renew my site design apparatus for another year over at Register.com, and that doesn't even count the $25 a month I was paying for the traffic analyzer. I studied that traffic analyzer like a crazy old geezer panning for gold. More than 30 unique visitors was a good day for me, so the traffic analyzer didn't make a lot of sense.

The disadvantage is that Respect the Towel is a subdomain. That means that if you just type www.respectthetowel.com, it won't come up. You have to type respectthetowel.blogspot.com. That might make the site harder to find on search engines. But I know that won't be a problem because I have dozens of loyal readers who will spread the word about my new site (pretty please?).

Hopefully the new site name will be more recognizable and therefore increase traffic. A lot of thought went into the new name. Here are some of the other site names I considered:

Steelers State of Mind: I was going to go with this name. It was certainly fitting considering how I eat, drink, sleep and breathe Steelers. It also would have been a subtle reference to the fact that I live in New York, and a timely one considering Jay-Z's song "Empire State of Mind." But I did a Google search for "Steelers State of Mind," and got "Steel City State of Mind," a Pittsburgh version of Jay-Z's song. That kind of took away from the originality of the site name, and I also didn't want people searching the Internet looking for the song, and being disappointed to find my little old site. But I did come very close to choosing this name. As a matter of fact, I did claim the URL and put Steelers State of Mind up on the Internet. But I took it down after a few days. Sort of like Joey Galloway in a Steelers uniform, if you blinked, you missed it.

At the Confluence: It sends chills down my spine to hear a golden-throated announcer say the words "at the confluence," because it means the Steelers are on TV. I saw, however, that there's an established Penguins blog that uses the word "confluence." So I didn't want to step on any toes.

The Black and Gold Pages: While this would have been a witty play on words (you know, The Yellow Pages), there would have been two problems with this one. First, I would have had to decide whether to use the word "and," " 'n'," or just an ampersand, and no matter which one I used, some people would have typed it in wrong. Also, black and gold can include the Pirates and Penguins, too. While I will make references on occasion to the Pirates and Penguins, this is just a Steelers blog.

'Burger Joint: This was the headline in The Boston Globe when the Steelers beat the Patriots 33-10 at Gillette Stadium in 2008, the year they won their sixth Super Bowl. Thanks to my father, I was able to attend that game with him and witness in person the Steelers' transformation from a good team to a championship-caliber team. The name " 'Burgher Joint," however, would have implied an all-encompassing Pittsburgh blog, and maybe even a foodie blog. So it was a no-go.

The Whole Bottle of Ketchup: This would have been in deference to the shrine that is Heinz Field, and it would have highlighted my effort to bring you the most thorough Steelers blog possible. But to be quite honest, the older I get, the less my stomach can handle ketchup. So this one was out.

The Hypocycloid: Hypocycloid is that shape that appears three times in the Steelers' logo, one red, one yellow and one blue. But if I thought spelling "Steelahs" was a pain in the ass ...

Bapty's Steelers Blog: A lot of my friends call me "Bapty." My last name, Batista, is frequently bastardized into Baptista. The guy who coined the "Bapty" moniker, if I ever get married, will be the best man at my wedding. He just doesn't know it yet. And he won't find out here because if he reads this, the devil might need to wear a jacket. I didn't choose this name because it just sounds a little too homespun, like it's put together by some bachelor slob in his late 30s living in a basement apartment. Uh, wait a minute ...

The Yellow Seats (or The Gold Seats or The Golden Seats): I think the yellow seats at Heinz Field are so cool, but while I think this would have been a good use of synecdoche (sorry), it sort of implied that I actually go to Heinz Field. I've only gone once. Maybe I'll go this season. It was a 10-hour drive from Rhode Island, but only a seven-hour drive from New York. We'll see.

So what do you think? Did I choose the right name? It's OK to post comments, you know.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to my fourth year as a Steelers blogger. Just 131 days until kickoff.