My Hines Ward Blog

It was brisk sunny autumn day along the banks of the Ohio river on Sunday afternoon. What a beautiful day for football at Paul Brown stadium in Cincinnati. Unless you were rooting for the Bengals that is. Or worse yet if you are employed by the Bengals.

Coming off of their bye week, the Steelers were happy to have this dress rehearsal in order to get their legs back under them and get ready to return to their NFL season. Clearly the Bengals are not an NFL team at present.

The Pittsburgh defense took advantage of the lying dog called the Bengals by pounding them all day. They held the Bengal offense to a total of 212 yards. The Michigan "twins", LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons I think thought they were back at school playing Ohio State. Each of them ended a great afternoon with spirited play and 2 sacks each. Lawrence Timmons had 10 tackles, 7 of which were solo. James Farrior also had double digit tackles with 11, 6 of which were solo. James Harrison continues to prove he is the gas pedal of the Pittsburgh defense by introducing himself to the Cincinnati QB Ryan Fitzpatrick all day. By half time Ryan Fitzpatrick was rumored to have asked his head coach Marvin Lewis if he could go back to carrying the clip board. In response Lewis said "heck you can have my job!"

The offense got some reps in with Ben Roethlisberger having a productive afternoon. His 17 for 28 for 216 yards with 2 touchdowns looked very efficient. The big boy got some serious contributions from Hines Ward, Santonio Holmes and Nate Washington. Ward once again demonstrates that he is a premier wide out in this league. Holmes for his part showed exceptional balance touching the turf a few times to stay on his feet. Washington has solidified his role as a deep threat.

The even bigger story though for the Pittsburgh offense was Mewelde Moore. Moore showed signs while in Minnesota that he can carry the load in the backfield if called upon. Now with the Steelers he is proving it again. On Sunday his 120 yards from 20 carries was very impressive. He added 5 receptions for 14 yards. Mewelde scored twice running and once catching the ball giving him 3 TD's on the day. Moore has 238 yards this season on 46 carries. That compares quite well to Willie Parker's 263 yards on 66 carries. Bringing Moore to Pittsburgh was a result of the Vikings drafting Adrian Peterson and keeping Chester Taylor as his back-up. That left Moore as the odd man out. Head coach Mike Tomlin had a personal relationship with Moore when he was a defensive coordinator in Minnesota. So when Mewelde was looking for work Tomlin said "come on over here." Now with the injuries to Willie Parker and rookie Rashard Mendenhall out for the year, Moore is going to get the bulk of the workload out of the backfield. This is his time to shine. And so far he is taking the opportunity to, well, "run" with it.

All in all it is important to factor in, these are the Bengals. Playing without their starting QB at that. The team is in total dysfunction and from the ownership on down to the coaching staff they are rendering themselves incompetent. Chad Johnson at this point should be Ocho Stinko!

The Steelers can digest their effort on film over the next day or so and consider this a dress rehearsal for the upcoming games against actual NFL caliber teams run by quality ownership and management. So they should take this game with a grain of salt and get to work on locking down a plan to face the New York Giants as big blue rolls into Heinz Field this week. (Oct 27)

In the meantime the Steelers are a solid 5 and 1 and are a serious contender.

Andy is a blogger for http://www.Steelermaniacs.com which is a Pittsburgh Steeler's fansite where fans can read Steeler's news, join discussions, play in our flash arcade, shop, and much more.