By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Gene J. Puskar/Associated PressInjured safety Troy Polamalu sits on the bench in the first half against the Jets Sunday at Heinz Field.
So gimme that New York Jets thrill ride scenario again, the whole narrative arc, starting with a Hard Knocks Training camp.
End of summer -- Jets a juggernaut.
Lose the opener by a point at home -- Jets a fraud.
Win nine of the next 10 -- Jets vs. Pats to clear space for Lombardi Trophy.
Pats 45, Jets 3 -- Terror at 35,000 feet.
Lose to Dolphins -- Jets postseason a fantasy.
Beat the Steelers at Heinz Field -- all right stop right there; don't even try to tell me what that means. For the time being I'm going to defer to Ryan Clark, whose ringing observation 20 minutes after the Jets walked out of Pittsburgh a winner for the first time ever -- yeah, ever -- couldn't have been more pointed.
"All we needed was one play!" said the Steelers safety.
Dead right. And to whom do the Steelers generally turn when one play is needed, one burst of athletic genius that turns imminent failure into enduring success?
A Mr. Troy Aumua Polamalu.
Troy watched in street clothes with an injury that still cries for clarification.
"We'll see," said Mike Tomlin when asked for exactly that.
We'll see?
No, we saw.
We saw what happens when Troy watches. We feel the vacuum, and we see the one play the Steelers don't get, the one they seem to need more often than is terribly comfortable.
Yesterday it came in the first minute of the fourth quarter, with Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez dropping back to look at his third-and-9 progressions from his own 46 after having just bootlegged New York to a 17-17 tie on a bold and beautiful fourth-and-1 call.
But on this third-and-9 in a snowbound December tie between AFC powers, Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau sent the blitz that should have recaptured all necessary momentum. So Ryan Mundy, starting for No. 43 alongside Clark, flashed into the backfield to find nothing between him and Sanchez but a path clearer than a heated sidewalk.
And Mundy missed him.
"I came in a little out of control," Mundy said. "I probably should have gathered myself a little."
Stop the video and insert Polamalu right there and what do you see? Sack, strip, six the other way? Some combination thereof, likely leading to the Steelers sitting at 11-3 today.
Instead, Sanchez sidestepped the ungathered Munday, gathered himself, and whipped the ball across the middle to Braylon Edwards. Edwards, whose 38-yard sideline reception in the first half nearly defied description, made another fabulous catch on his fingertips for 16 yards and a first down at the Pittsburgh 38.
It was the second of three third-down conversions on that one New York possession, one more than Cincinnati had managed in 60 minutes last week. Not since Drew Brees squeezed the life from this defense on Halloween night in the Big Easy had anyone converted even five third downs against the Steelers' defense. The Jets did it six times yesterday.
"Third down was definitely a problem today," said a dejected James Farrior. "We couldn't get off the field on third down and we definitely have to play better in that situation, but I don't think it was a case of injuries catching up with us. We still played well enough to win."
That's arguable, but they clearly didn't play as well as the Jets, who turned Mundy's defensive gaffe into the winning field goal six plays later.
For all their recent offensive pratfalls, the Jets were just clever enough in just enough situations to stretch their record to the mirror image of Pittsburgh's 10-4. For every smart play Rex Ryan's team executed, the Steelers seemed to counter with a one that was, uh, not real intellectual.
Sanchez's bootleg touchdown, for example, was set up in part by Clark's 15-yard penalty for launching himself into a helmet-to-helmet collision with Edwards, which moved the ball to the Steelers 16.
Did you know they're cracking down on that? It's been in the papers.
Four plays later, Sanchez executed a play fake so magically it would have made David Copperfield blush, so deftly it sent him sauntering toward a touchdown around a thicket of befuddled black shirts.
"Sanchez just played great today," Farrior said. "He played pretty much a mistake-free ballgame."
The second-year passer out of USC had thrown interceptions in eight consecutive games, and the Steelers' defense was coming off a larcenous spree of nine takeaways in the past four games, so naturally both streaks screeched to a halt.
But as Sanchez put that ball on his hip and loped toward the end zone, the name that sprang to the collective consciousness of the audience was not even in uniform.
Troy.
Troy?
Meanwhile, yesterday's overall kaleidoscope of AFC politics still meant that the Steelers clinched a playoff spot, which only further obscures the issue of when we'll see Polamalu again.
Probably not Thursday against Carolina, and not necessarily Jan. 2 at Cleveland either, particularly if postseason pole positions have been established.
Soon thereafter, we'll need far more clarity than "we'll see."
Because we saw.
There's no real future in watching Troy watch.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10354/1112177-150.stm#ixzz18epk748b
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