Winning Ugly

Some thoughts on last night's Steelers win over the horrid Chiefs.....

• Late in the telecast Jon Gruden said that even great teams have to win some ugly games over the course of a season, and that one last night was about as ugly as it gets.
• Still, it IS a win, and at season's end, no one will remember how it was accomplished.
• What will be remembered most, however, may well be this play:

• As I type this, I have not heard what the final results or the extent of the Roethlisberger shoulder injury.  Suffice to say, if he's out for any extended period, say good-bye to any playoff aspirations for Rooney U.
• If there was any doubt as to who the MVP is on this team, they should have been erased when you saw how the Steelers played in the second half without Ben Roethlisberber.
• That Chiefs team may have been as bad a pro football team as I have seen in recent memory.  For a team that had not led in a game all season to get hit with an excessive celebration penalty tells you all you need to know about them.  
• I know that the weather was awful, and that no doubt played into the Steelers performance last night, but having the Chiefs take you to overtime is disturbing.
• At the beginning of the season, I thought that this might be a year for the Steelers to take a step back, go maybe 8-8 or 9-7 and miss the playoffs.  Going to overtime against the Chiefs only reinforces that opinion.  Even more so with the Ben injury.
• Should we halt production on the busts of Jonathon Dwyer and Isaac Redman in Canton for the time being?
• I may well have missed it, but I can't recall James Harrison's name being called once last night.  Or much in any recent game for that matter.
• I turned ESPN on at around 8:20 last night, only to see that the pre-game blather was still going on.  The insufferable Chris Berman and Stuart Scott led a team of six, count 'em, six ex-NFL jocks and coaches.  EIGHT GUYS FOR 90 MINUTES FOR A GAME INVOLVING THE CHIEFS!  Is that really necessary?  Talk about killing flies with elephant guns.
• On the other hand, I have to say that I enjoyed Jon Gruden in his role as analyst on the telecast of the game itself.  Very knowledgeable, not overly intrusive.  I don't always watch the Monday Night game, so I was pleasantly surprised.
• The Ravens twice in the next three weeks.  Will #7 be available?  That's what this season has now come down to.