Sportsfrog.com

From compelling, to not-so-compelling, to hellaciously compelling, all in the span of three hours. And, plenty of weird coaching decisions on both sides to second guess this morning. Mike Tomlin from Pittsburgh will take a lot of shit for the two-point attempt from the 12, and he should, but Jack Del Rio should not be off the hook for the bizarre pass/pass/pass sequences when Jax was well up and which led to turnovers and quick points and put the Steelers in a position to win that game.

Still, entertaining for pretty much everyone with no vested interest in the game.

From Jacksonville this morning, the Florida Times Union is happily focusing on the 4th and 2 scramble that won the game for the Jags:

“Garrard’s 32-yard run on fourth down out of the shotgun formation basically saved the season. “They kind of lost their gaps,” Garrard said of the play. “They thought it was a pass.”

Designed qb draw? I couldn’t tell, but if so, gutsy good call. And then some.

From Pittsburgh, Gene Collier on what happened to put Pittsburgh in comeback mode, only to fall short:

“In an era when NFL coaches and personnel executives continue to scour the football earth for quarterbacks who can merely manage the game — whatever that means — what Ben Roethlisberger did to the game last night simply defied any kind of management methodology. Alternative frantic mismanagement with sensational and even inspiring leadership, Big Ben wound up emotionally crushed when the music stopped, crushed to the degree that nothing in his 29 completions and 337 yards and two touchdowns, and four consecutive second-half scoring drives could console him.

“No one should blame anyone or anything other than myself for this,” Roethlisberger said behind wet eyes 25 minutes after Jacksonville slipped past the Steelers, 31-29, in the wild-card round of the AFC playoffs. “I dug us too deep a hole and even though we came around in the second half, I’m ashamed of the way I played.”

Damn, that’s a little strong, Roethlisberger. It wasn’t a great game by any stretch, by you, but that comeback was one for the ages. If you are going to make as many mistakes as Roethlisberger made in the first half, it is nice to be able to fix them, and he pretty much did. On a team where the offensive line was sieve-like all year, and the best part of the running game was hurt, Pittsburgh was only where they were thanks to Roethlisberger. I would assume very few people in Pittsburgh are forgetting that. And, for a guy whom profootballtalk continues to try and slander as being not loved in the locker-room, that’s a pretty damn stand-up quote in the section above.

With Roethlisberger at qb, the Steelers will be competitive for a Super Bowl for the next decade. Dammit.