FRO's TJ Rosenthal on Why it's The Steelers Playing today and not the NY JETS

CAN’T WAIT: THE HEIGHT OF THE 201O NY JETS By TJ Rosenthal-Jets Reporter-Football Reporters Online

As they wake up today on Super Bowl Sunday, many Gang Green loyalists will still fight the reality that Bart Scott’s post game “Can’t Wait” rant in Foxboro was as high as the Jets could fly in 2010.

Losing to the league’s number one defense, a franchise that owns six titles was one thing. Coming out as flat as they did in Pittsburgh, for a Jets team that fed off of it’s own swagger, was another. A Jet team that enjoyed proving their many new found enemies wrong all year long, while overcoming scandal after scandal.

Once they packed up their gear in Foxboro, the Jets essentially packed up their championship attitude along with it. Only to roll it back out onto the field, while down 24-3 in the third quarter at Heinz Field. When it was too late.

The unguarded thoughts that Scott shared after the upset of the Pats with ESPN reporter Sal Palantonio showed us what the playing speed on the field had to be, in order to dismantle hall of famers like Tom Brady. Or the great Peyton Manning for that matter, as the Jets had done the week before.

Paradoxically, the club’s first ten minutes at Heinz Field became the failed science experiment of what a nice and cooperative Rex Ryan team could look like. A meandering group that for much of the first half, couldn’t move the chains on offense as they missed tackles and mounted penalties on defense.

After the hated Patriots were gone, Rex Ryan addressed the AFC Championship game with an uncustomary approach: Kid gloves. He spoke publicly about the Steelers with respect. Kindness. All of the warm hearted personality traits that THIS Jets team decided to disregard a long time ago.

This 2010 Jets playoff run was not about making friends. It was about being disrespected. From analysts and opponents alike. If in fact, there weren’t as many naysayers as the Jets believed there were, they made them up in their collective mind. For inspiration. For an edge, that translated into a pair of playoff upsets.

Maybe Ryan WAS being honest the whole way this January, and NOT playing psychological tricks with his players through the media. When Ryan made the first two rounds “personal,” perhaps he truly meant it.

If so, then it is possible that in Ryan’s heart, he felt that the Steelers, unlike the Colts and Pats who had hurt the Jets over the past year when it counted, deserved admiration before condemnation. That a third straight road playoff game, this time against the league’s most physical defense, truly WAS the toughest part of what he termed “mission impossible:” A brutal road run to Dallas that included three of the league’s top teams for the past decade.

If Ryan’s honesty was blindly directing the course of events during the week leading up to each playoff tilt, well then a little acting on the part of Ryan and the Jets before the AFC Championship might have helped. A bit more of that familiar Ryan era Jets chatter. If nothing more than for the purpose of maintaining the same wave length the organization had been on since July. When all of the talk initiated by the Jets in Florham Park was about reaching the Super Bowl.

If a shift in the Jets personality leading up to the AFC Championship game was NOT the primary reason for the season ending slow start that day, then HOW DID Ryan’s loud and proud Jets, in the biggest game of their two year run, become so congenial right out of the gates? So pedestrian?

Some will argue that the primary cause for the early three score deficit was nothing more than a faulty Jets gameplan. One that failed to put eight in the box against Rashard Mendenhall in zero degree temperature, forcing the Steelers to throw from the onset. One that in addition, tried to establish the run on offense, too often in the early going, against the NFL’s top run stoppers.

As the Steelers prepare to kick things off in Dallas today, many who bleed Green and White will ponder “what happened” that day, to themselves. Torturing their Gang Green infected souls. Many wondering where the Jets would be today, had they been able to ride the “Can’t Wait” emotions that Bart Scott exemplified in Foxboro, all the way to Pittsburgh.

The Jet Report

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Jon Wagner’s 45 Questions for Super Bowl XLV

Jon Wagner’s 45 Questions for Super Bowl XLV

Football Reporters Online's Sr. Writer gives us his "Watch" list for tomorrow's game

STRATEGY & PERSONNEL:

1. Will Maurkice Pouncey play?

2. If Pouncey plays, but is limited, how effective will he be at helping to protect Ben Roethlisberger and opening holes for the Steelers’ running game?

3. If Pouncey can’t go, will the Steelers’ offense operate well enough behind backup Doug Legursky?

4. Will key rookies on either side (Pittsburgh’s Pouncey – if he plays, Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders or Green Bay’s James Starks, or Sam Shields) play significant roles?

5. Will Starks (who leads all postseason rushers with 263 rushing yards) or Packers’ regular season-leading running back Brandon Jackson run the ball effectively enough to give Green Bay’s dangerous passing attack some balance against the NFL’s best rushing defense?

6. Can Aaron Rodgers and the Packers’ passing game exploit the legendary Dick LeBeau’s blitzing attack against the Steelers’ biggest overall weakness – their 12th-ranked pass defense?

7. Or, can either the Pittsburgh pass rush or the secondary combination of Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu mask the Steelers’ pass defense deficiencies?

8. With two weeks of preparation, can the great Dick LeBeau come up with enough varied defensive looks to confuse Aaron Rodgers the way the Jets did the same to Tom Brady in their divisional upset round win in New England?

9. How much more dangerous could the ideal conditions on the fast track, indoors, in Cowboys Stadium make the Packers’ passing game? (recall what happened at the Georgia Dome in Green Bay’s 48-21 divisional round win over the Falcons).

10. If the Packers focus too much on stopping James Harrrison, will LaMarr Woodley or James Farrior disrupt the Green Bay offense?

11. Will James Harrison make a big game-turning play the way he did with his interception against Arizona in Super Bowl XLIII, which stands as the longest play in Super Bowl history?

12. Can Rashard Mendenhall pick up where he left off against the Jets, when he had a career post-season high 121 yards (95 in the first half) in the AFC title game?

13. Will Tramon Williams get another key postseason pick or two?

14. Will the Packers’ pass rush – one of the best in the NFL this season – get to Ben Roethlisberger?

15. Or, will Roethlisberger use his patented elusiveness and pump fake to make more of his trademark big plays after the plays break down?

16. Will linebackers Clay Matthews and A.J. Hawk be able to patrol the middle of the field when Roethlisberger is on the run or after he dumps shorts passes off, particularly to his safety valve Heath Miller?

17. Can the Steelers’ receiving playmakers Mike Wallace, Hines Ward, Heath Miller, Emmanuel Sanders, and Antonio Brown keep pace with their more dangerous counterparts Greg Jennings, James Jones, Jordy Nelson, and Donald Driver?

18. If called upon late in the game, can Shaun Suisham make a field goal over 50 yards or more? (although he’s 14 of 15 this season, he hasn’t attempted a field goal of 50 yards or more this year, and he’s only 3 of 9 from that distance for his career, with his last make from that far away coming two seasons ago, during the second of his three different stints with Washington). Conversely, Green Bay’s Mason Crosby has made 2 of 4 kicks from 50 or more yards this year, and he’s made 10 of 21 career kicks from that distance.


ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

19 . Will karma catch up with the Steelers and will they lose a Super Bowl because of poor refereeing, the way they benefited from several bad calls to beat the Seattle in Super Bowl XL?

20. Will viewers be confused which team is at the bottom of a pile with both teams wearing pretty much the same shade of yellow pants? (at least the Steelers’ black stripes and the Packers’ green stripes down the sides might help ).

21. How ironic is it that the first-ever Super Bowl without cheerleaders is played in the stadium of the NFL team which made NFL cheerleaders famous?

22. Speaking of which, should the Dallas Cowboys lend their cheerleaders to the Pittsburgh and Green Bay sidelines?

23. Will a part of a Super Bowl venue (namely the oversized video boards overhanging the field from one 20 yard-line to the other) interfere with the play during a Super Bowl for the first time, on a high punt?

24. Will people finally stop complaining about the weather in Dallas and in general, about Super Bowls being held at sites where warm weather isn’t guaranteed? (It’s football! Suck it up, deal with the elements, and cover the Super Bowl without the ridiculous whining!).

TRENDS & STORYLINES:

25. Will the Steelers extend their record for Super Bowl wins to 7?

26. Will the Packers extend their record for NFL titles to 13?

27. Will the Packers become the NFC’s first 6 seed, and the NFL’s only other 6 seed besides Pittsburgh to win a Super Bowl?

28. Can the Packers improve upon their all-time NFL-best 28-16 postseason record?

29. Will the Packers stop the Steelers’ 7-game postseason winning streak?

30. Will Ben Roethlisberger join Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montanta, Tom Brady, and Troy Aikman, as the only quarterbacks with at least at least three Super Bowl wins?

31. Will Aaron Rodgers finally be able to step out of Brett Favre’s shadow and into the spotlight of a Super Bowl winning MVP?

32. Will Mike Tomlin become the youngest coach (at age 38) to win multiple Super Bowl titles?

33. Which will win out, the Steelers’ experience of playing in their third Super Bowl in six years, or the inexperienced yet loose Packers, who are playing in the Super Bowl for the first time with their current group (having not been to the Super Bowl as a franchise in 13 years)?

34. Will long-time veteran Charles Woodson after 13 brilliant seasons (eight in Oakland, five with Green Bay) and Packer draftees Donald Driver (12 years with Green Bay) and Chad Clifton (11 years with Green Bay) finally get their-long-awaited Super Bowl rings?

35. Will a game on the fast track, indoors, at Cowboys Stadium, with good two good quarterbacks and several receiving weapons on each side make it more of a shootout than it should be?

36. Or, will the top two teams in the NFL in points allowed (Pittsburgh – 14.5 points per game, Green Bay – 15.0 points per game) during the regular season keep it a low-scoring, defensive struggle?

37. Will Green Bay (15 postseason plays this year of 20 yards or more) keep making big plays in the passing game?

38. Will the Steelers be hurt by having not been truly tested away from Heinz Field in more than two months? (Since a December 5th win at Baltimore, Pittsburgh has won five home games, had two byes, and a lone road victory against the lowly Browns, in Cleveland).

39. Conversely, will Green Bay be helped by having been thoroughly tested in five straight elimination games, including two regular season contests to make the playoffs, followed by three straight road playoff wins over the NFC’s top three seeds, to reach Super Bowl XLV?

40. After the Packers’ winning the first two Super Bowls, the AFL/AFC dominating with 11 of the next 13 Super Bowl wins, the NFC then responding with 15 of the 16 (including 13 straight), and the AFC then taking 8 of the following 10 Super Bowls, will an alternating pattern continue for a fourth straight year? (If it does, Pittsburgh will on Sunday).

41. With arguably the two most well-traveled fan bases in the NFL coming to the stadium with the largest capacity the NFL has ever seen, could Super Bowl XLV provide the most electric atmosphere the a Super Bowl has ever had?

42. Will Super Bowl XLV set an all-time NFL attendance record (as expected)?

43. Will Super Bowl XLV set the record for the most-watched television program in American history (breaking the record set last year, during Super Bowl XLIV)?

44. And yet, with a potential lockout looming, will this be the last NFL game played for a while?

45. Whether it is or not, will Super Bowl XLV provide as exciting a game and as great a fourth quarter as in the last meeting between the Steelers and Packers? (Pittsburgh blew a 24-14 lead after three quarters and fell behind 36-30, before Roethlisberger led a two-minute drill to pull out a last-minute, 37-36 victory at Heinz Field on December 20, 2009).