Game 4: Steelers 16, Eggles 10

Up next is what soccer fans might call the "Keystone Derby" (pronounced Darby), Philadelphia, the Rams' Opening Day opponent, vs. Pittsburgh. Viva NFL Network preseason coverage - here's two announcers nobody outside Pittsburgh has ever heard of, Bob Pompeani and Edmund Nelson.

Judging from the stadium music, Triple H is back to return the kick for Pittsburgh. No, it's Rashard Mendenhall, and no, there's no return; David Akers blasts it deep for a touchback. Big Ben Roethlisberger starting for Pittsburgh. Eggles take two plays to commit a facemask and move Pittsburgh out to the 45. 11-yard sweep left by Willie Parker takes them across midfield. Mendenhall then knocks out Quintin Mikell at the end of his first run. Big Ben hits Hines Ward for 18 over the middle to put Pittsburgh in the red zone. On third-and-10, Ben hits Santonio Holmes on a quick hitch, and Holmes smokes the crap out of Brian Dawkins for a 20-yard TD. Looked like Dawkins' feet were in cement. 7-0, Pittsburgh. Easy TD.

Eggles start at their 20. Donovan McNabb starts; Brian Westbrook doesn't. Must be tired out from signing the big contract today. Correll Buckhalter's getting almost all the touches for Philly. In fact, I think he has the first 30-35 yards of this drive on 7 touches. Now McNabb's getting warmed up, hitting Greg Lewis and LJ Smith to get to the Steeler 25. Good blitz pickup on the second pass by Jason Davis. Tra Thomas gets turned around far worse than a veteran tackle ever should and lets James Farrior slip inside him for a sack. POOR pass interference call on James Harrison gives the Eggles a gift first down. Harrison and the receiver clearly tangled feet incidentally. Referees are the Walt Anderson crew, btw. Steeler pass coverage has been solid and has forced a couple of McNabb throwaways. On 3rd and 7 from the 10, McNabb's corner end zone pass for Jason Avant is much too deep, considering the revision to the forceout rule this year. Philly settles for an Akers chippie and trail 7-3 with just 3:00 left in the first.

Mendenhall returns the kick to the 28. Just one drive for Big Ben; Charlie Batch is in for the Steelers. This drive is the complete opposite of the first drive; Pittsburgh gets just three yards. Batch hangs up a long third-down pass for Holmes, and Mikell gets some revenge with a hit that breaks up the play.

Eggles take over at their 33, with McNabb still behind center. Getting all day to throw, he hits Lewis, then DeShaun Foster, who the Steeler announcers call "DeShane", to get Philly back to the Steeler 25. At the end of a quick first quarter, it's Pittsburgh 7, Philadelphia 3.

NFL.com FFL commercial. Please tell me Warren's fantasy team is called the "Sappsuckers".

McNabb's still QBing into the second quarter, which he starts by hitting Kevin Curtis on a quick slant for 8. Philly's inside the 5 when Ryan Mundy, who Neslon calls "Monday", gets hurt for the Steelers. on third-and-goal from the 3, Jason Davis slips underneath the coverage for a TD catch as the Eggles take a 10-7 lead. Safeties all dropped back deep; when one took the TE on a crossing route, the other two were too far away to help with Davis. 10-7, Philadelphia.

Tyrone Carter returns the kickoff to the 35. Batch engineers another 3-and-out, overthrowing Willie Reid over the middle on third down. Pittsburgh does pin Philly at the 10 with the punt. They've pretty much been kicking away from Jackson.

Kevin Kolb replaces McNabb with 11:12 left in the half. The Eggle offense sabotages itself with pre-snap penalties, the Steelers blow up a screen and the Eggles end up punting from their 12. Mewelde Moore returns the punt across midfield to the Eggle 25.

Mendenhall gets about 10 off left tackle, then 15 more by bouncing a run outside to the left. Batch takes off for 6 on a broken play, but takes a hit on his throwing shoulder and has to be attended to a couple of plays later. Dennis Dixon takes over as Batch heads off the field for x-rays. He takes over with first-and-goal at the 10, but Gary Russell gets stuffed on third down at the 2 to convince the Steelers to settle for a chippie. We're tied at 10 with 3:34 left in the second.

Philly starts from their 23 and milks a defensive timeout from the Steelers by hurrying the first play while Pittsburgh had just 10 men on the field. Kolb and Jackson had already connected three times this quarter when Kolb looked for him again on 3rd-and-1, but Keyaron Fox broke up the pass. Eh, that's what you get for throwing on third-and-1. Eddie Drummond brings the punt back up the sidelines for 20 to the Steeler 40. Dixon will take over from there after the 2:00 warning.

Dixon hits Limas Sweed with a short pass, but the Eggles stuff a second-down run and Chris Clemons sacks Dixon to crush the drive. Poor punt barely makes it to the 20 and is downed at the 22.

Kolb hits Jackson AGAIN and Avant to get up to the Eggle 35, but they chew up way too much time getting there. Just 0:12 left. Kolb tried to scramble on the last play of the half but Nick Eason broke away from rookie T Mike McGlynn to score the sack. Game tied at 10 at halftime.

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This hasn't been a great game for taking away a lot on the competing teams. Donnie Avery doesn't need to hear this, but DeShaun Jackson's been a big part of the Eggle offense, with 4 or 5 catches, and it seems like Kolb has tried to throw to him ten times. I'm not sure McNabb had a first half worthy of NFL Network's gushing about it, but he was fine. Their run defense wasn't, as they were gashed by Mendenhall. Fox has been everywhere for the Steelers defensively, and their pass defense was good in the red zone, forcing McNabb into throwaways near the goal line. Mendenhall and Jackson are the top stories of the game to me at halftime.
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Best development of halftime is that play-by-play has switched to Gus Johnson. Charlie Casserly is on color. Lorenzo Booker gets away with muffing the kickoff return but the turf monster gets him at the 28. Kolb dinks and dunks them to the Steeler 48 before the Eggles have to punt. Viva preseason! It's well into the end zone, and the Steelers will start from their 20.

Steelers get some good, hard running from Gary Russell but the drive stalls on a holding penalty and a screen pass blown up by Trevor Laws. Eagles take over at the Pittsburgh 43 after a pathetic Steeler punt.

3-and-yuk possession for Philly, as Kolb badly underthrows Hank Baskett on a deep route and safety Grant Mason's blitz blows up a screen and forces a crazy Kolb throwaway. Save Rocca's punt plonks in the end zone. More yuk.

Phew, this game was getting to be about as exciting as C-SPAN reruns until Dixon rolled and launched a well-underthrown bomb that Gerran Walker made a nice play on for a 43-yard gain. Forget it, holding penalty on Pittsburgh. Viva preseason! The penalty's too much for Dixon to overcome in three plays, and Pittsburgh's punting again. This one's to Jackson, but the dummy runs backwards after the catch and loses 8 yards. Who does he think he is - Shaun McDonald?

Eggles start this drive from inside their own 10. They're just short of the 30 when they commit the game's first turnover in classic preseason fashion - center Nick Cole fired the shotgun snap at Kolb before he was ready for it. Kolb wasn't even looking when the snap came. Pittsburgh recovers on the Eggle 20 and have the ball in golden scoring range as the third quarter expires.

Dixon rolls right and hits Sweed for 9, then Russell gets them first-and-goal at the 7 with a short run. The Eggles do not feel the Olympic spirit the next play, blowing up an end-around to former Olympic skier (and former Eagle) Jeremy Bloom. Nice play by Quintin Demps. Dixon's third-down timing pass is terrible. To maintain the Olympic idiom, it looked like he shot-putted it. Jeff Reed chips in the FG to give Pittsburgh a 13-10 lead with 12:00 left.

A.J. Feely moves in at QB after Demps' kickoff return barely cracks the 20. Not seeing a lot of good kickoff returns so far this preseason. A Feely scramble is called back by a facemask on Ryan Moats, creating a hole too big to dig out of. High punt comes down right at midfield.

Casserly gets points for dropping a "Steagles" reference. New backfield for Pittsburgh - Mike Potts at QB and Justin Vincent at RB. Viva preseason! Vincent shows some ability to move a pile of third-string defenders, which he does enough of to set Reed up for a 50-yard FG with about half the 4th quarter to go. 16-10, Steelers.

Oh, great - Google fucking ate the end of my post? How'm I supposed to recover that now that it's Monday morning? Christ.

Let's just say the teams traded three-and-outs most of the rest of the way. Philly used up their timeouts to get the ball back before the 2:00 warning. Feeley drove them all the way to the Steeler 18, with a DPI on Travis Williams figuring in big, before three straight interceptions sealed the game for Pittsburgh.
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Players who stood out for Pittsburgh - Mendenhall, Keyaron Fox, Grant Mason.
For Philadelphia - DeSean Jackson. Their announcers loved their QBs; I thought McNabb and Kolb were fine, not necessarily outstanding.
Good news for anybody who may have sucked: I can't remember you now. Thanks again, Google!

This was the only game I "worked" Friday night, saving Seattle-Minnesota for Saturday morning.