Mid-Season Report

Team MVP: WR Hines Ward. He was hurt early in the season but came back to make some really huge plays in the past several weeks. When you consider how awful the other receivers are and how opponents totally shadow Hines, it's clear to see why Ward is arguably the best wide receiver in the history of the franchise.

Biggest Surprise: FS Ryan Clark. After winning the position over Tyrone Carter, Clark has not only played solid football, he has also made some huge hits.

Biggest Disappointment: Everyone! Who would have expected a team that lost 6 games in the past two season combined to lose 6 games by the halfway point of this season?! The whole team freakin blows.

Best Personnel Move: The Steelers picked up RB Najeh Davenport after he was cast away by the Packers. It took some time, but Davenport is really starting to contribute to the offense.

The Jamain Stephens Award: This annual award for stupidity goes to Ricardo Colclough for muffing a routine punt return late in the 4th quarter of the week 3 game against the Bengals and costing the Steelers the game. Colclough admitted that he was looking at the oncoming players rather than focusing on catching the ball.

Best Game: Week 6 against Kansas City. For the only time all season, everything clicked and the Steelers annihilated a team with a good record.

Worst Game: Wow, so many choices. I'm going with week 8. The Steelers lost to the dreadfully bad Oakland Raiders by allowing them to return two interceptions for touchdowns. They also had a chance to tie the game with a first and goal from the one yard line, and they still could not convert.

Best Play: In week 1, Charlie Batch hit Heath Miller for the game-winning 89 yard touchdown pass late in the 4th quarter. Amazingly, the Steelers won a game on an 89 yard catch and run by a tight end!

Runner-up: In week 9, Ben Roethlisberger scrambled around in the pocket for what seemed like an eternity, kept the play alive, and found Willie Parker in the endzone for a touchdown.

Worst Play: The Colclough muff, if for no other reason than the fact that it handed a win to a bunch of complete frauds.

Strangest Play: Chiefs RB Larry Johnson (Penn State sucks) tackled Troy Polamalu by the hair on an interception return in week 6, which as it turns out is perfectly legal.

Wildest Sequence of Events: At the end of regulation in week 7, the Falcons made a field goal that was nullified because of a timeout, missed a field goal that was nullified because of a penalty, and then missed on the third attempt. Not to be outdone, the Steelers quickly marched into field goal range only to blow it by taking a false start penalty which automatically ran off the remaining few seconds.

Brilliant Quote of the Year: During the week 2 game against the Jaguars, the ESPN Monday Night Football crew kept going on and on about how there was all of a sudden this great football renaissance in Jacksonville, even going as far as saying that "many people don't even realize that Jacksonville has a pro football team". I'm not sure how many football fans were surprised to learn of the existence of the Jacksonville Jaguars, given the fact that they have played in multiple playoff games and two AFC Championship Games in the past decade, but whatever.

Best Image of the Year: In week 6, LB Chad Brown got his first sack as a Steeler in 10 years.

Horrifying Image of the Year: In week 8, cameras caught the corpse of Raiders owner Al Davis as it was propped up in the owner's box.

Most Discouraging Trend: The Steelers cannot stop committing personal fouls. They just love to hit guys after the play and talk smack and over-celebrate in the rare times when they do something good.

Runner-up: The mass amounts of turnovers which has caused the "Heinz Red Zone" to be unofficially renamed as the "Heinz Mistake Zone".

Classiest Move of the Year: After getting smoked by Denver WR Javon Walker in what was his worst day as a pro, CB Ike Taylor dutifully sat in his locker and answered all the questions the media threw at him, simply admitting that he had a bad day.

Runner-up: Taylor took a $22.5 million offer from the Steelers to remain with the team for 5 more years, even though he knew full well that he could probably have garnered much more on the open market.

Snowball Effect of the Year: The dumb mistakes were so contagious that even Dan Rooney made one, getting fined $25k for complaining about the refs after the week 7 loss at Atlanta.

Dumbest Fan Excuse for the Awful Record: The idea that Bill Cowher is going to retire after the season is somehow a "distraction". Honestly, are the players really unable to focus on hanging onto the ball or not committing an unsportsmanlike conduct foul because you are thinking about whether or not the coach is going to retire? Just think about that for a second.

Stat of the Year: There were five different occasions in which the Steelers had a 1st and goal from inside the 10 yard line and came away with zero points - week 1 (Batch fumble), week 3 (Roethlisberger INT), week 8 (Roethlisberger INT for a TD), week 8 again (turnover on downs), and week 9 (Ward fumble).

Runner-up: Turnovers in each of the Steelers six losses: week 2 (2), week 3 (5), week 5 (2), week 7 (3), week 8 (4), week 9 (6). Can't really win with those kinds of numbers, fellas!

Unintentional Prophetic Statement of the Year: In my week 1 game recap (when everyone thought that the champs had picked up right where they left off last season), the last thing I wrote was this: "These are the glory days folks. Enjoy them while they last." Little did I know.

Shocker of the Year: The Steelers twice blew 10-point leads, once in week 5 at San Diego, and again in week 7 in Atlanta.

Runner-up: 104-year old kicker Morten Andersen beat the Steelers in week 7 on an overtime field goal.

Same Old Crap: bad special teams, ill-timed turnovers, defense can't get off the field on 3rd downs