Silverback Deserves the Gold Medal

In lieu of an actual recap of Monday night's thrashing of the Ravens, let's just think back again to the game that James "Silverback" Harrison played. The play that best summed up Harrison's complete domination Monday was when he sacked Steve McNair, forcing a fumble that Willis McGahee picked up. McGahee attempted to run with the ball but was forced back to his own goal line and tackled by, who else, Harrison. Just a great effort from #92 the entire night. I don't hear anyone asking for Joey Porter these days. Here are some other random thoughts from the game:

- What's up with Jeff Reed trying to fight someone? Calm down, Skippy, you're not at a bar on Carson Street at last call. No need to fight.

- The long touchdown to Nate Washington was the result of a great job by Ben Roethlisberger to get out of the pocket away from the pass rush and by Nate to change his route and run to the area of the field where Ben could hit him for a wide-open score. And Nate caught the ball, too! Baby steps, baby steps.

- Willie Parker didn't run the ball much, but hey, with a four-touchdown lead at the half, the Steelers weren't going to do much passing in the second half (Mike Tomlin is the coach, not Bill Belichick). So the Ravens knew that they could load up on the line to stop Fast Willie, which they did. No complaints, though. Its not like Willie is scoring touchdowns even when he's getting 150 yards in a game. As long as the Steelers score, that's all that matters.

- Big Ben is on pace for 40 touchdowns and has a passer rating of 111 thus far this season. Tell the truth - if I would have told that you Ben had 20 touchdown passes at week eight, would any of you be flashing back to the 2003 season of Tommy Gun and the shotgun offense that was quickly abandoned?

- Aaron Smith comes back this week against Cleveland, and the Steeler defense should look even better. Smith is the most underrated player on the entire squad, and he has been missed the past two games.

- It was great to see Troy Polamalu flying around the field Monday night. He's been banged up a bit, but this was the first game all year where I found myself watching him instead of the ball at times. His strip of McGahee was a thing of beauty.

- After the Steelers beat Cleveland 34-7 in week one, I remarked that the 2007 Browns had a chance to be remembered as one of the worst teams of all-time. Remember how they had four penalties called on them on one single play in that game??? But two days later, they traded Charlie Frye to Seattle and Derek Anderson has been incredible. Still, if you would have told me that the Steelers were up one game on Cleveland heading into the ninth game of the season, I would have predicted that Pittsburgh's record was 4-4, at best. Shows what I know.