STEELERS AS LOST AS THEIR HEAD COACH IN LOSS TO BEARS

Milk cartons, missing posters signs, public announcements and even good ol fashioned help from innocent bystanders wasn't enough to find the Steelers head coach at times. In a game that took over 3 hours to play (Geez 3 freaking hours) and the Bears head man Coach V losing patience at every turn couldn't help contain the absence of Greg Marcucci. Fans all over the stadium spent more time looking and trying to find the Steeler coach than he did coaching them.

The game started out smoothly and even ran without interruption for the first 13 minutes of the game. Pittsburgh would punt on its first possession and the Bears took over at their own 32 to begin its opening drive. Much like in early Bear style they would go to the ground and feed Anthony Thomas (34-152) and he would account for all but 26 yards of the 47 yards before the drive bogged down and Paul Edinger was called upon to give the Bears an early 3-0 lead from 38 yards out.

Pittsburgh would be forced to punt again and for the second time on just its second possession a less than explosive offense would eat up some ground and move from its own 40 to the Steelers 28. Pittsburgh would help the Bears out with some untimely penalties that kept Bear drives alive. Finally though the Steelers defense appeared to come up with a big play as Joey Porter stepped in front of Shane Matthews (12-16-91) to stop the threat. A flag though came down and the Steelers were called for pass interference and Chicago would get the ball back and the drive would continue. This is where the Houdini act started happening with the Steelers HC. After a few minutes of hibernation and some attempts to see if maybe the air came out of the football he magically appeared again. When play resumed in the second half and 4 plays in Matthews found Marty Booker for the first touchdown of the game and a Bears 10-0 lead. Pittsburgh would come back to put on a nice 50 yard drive that stalled at the 30 and ended in a Jeff Reed 47 yard field goal. The half would end on that note exactly 1 hour after the kickoff had happened. I was actually kind of thinking that maybe the Steelers coach just had a bad bladder problem and that was the reason for his quite often disappearance in the game.

The 3rd quarter was like playing hide and seek with a small child. "Where did you go, oh where are you hiding-Oh there you are now how about we play the damn game.". Chicago would make two early second half mistakes that would give the Steelers great field position both times and a team that had great ratings. The problem was that the missing coach was about as clueless as he was dependable to get the game done. With all the weapons at his disposal it wouldn't be enough to get anything more than a field goal out of the two Bears turnovers and trailed 10-6. In all fairness Pittsburgh did actually score a touchdown only to have it called back due to a hold and again Houdini left the building, house or wherever he was. After a lull of about 10-15 minutes and a call by me to get some help getting him to respond he returned with more excuses than a whore has for having VD.

The Bears added another Edinger 47 yard field goal late in the 3rd to go up 13-6 and this is exactly what I was playing for. I had no intentions of risking an interception at this junction in the game knowing that at worse a TD by Pitt would tie the game up. Then again I felt pretty confident that his offense was about as reliable as the coach actually playing the game. The 4th quarter was a wasted hour of chasing down the coach. When something went bad, the coach went missing for 15-20 minutes at a time. When he returned you would have thought he just had a party and had no idea where or what he was doing. At the 6:04 mark and just when I thought things were finally going smooth again the Steelers turned the ball over again and with that turnover it was "go find the coach" time again. 15 minutes later we were playing again and after Tony Parrish 63 yard interception return off Big Ben (14-25-63) for a 20-6 Bears lead the magic again took the Steelers HC and whisked him away into another time dimension. I guess with only 2:30 to go surely he would just finish the game. Finally a black hole opened up and low and behold he once again appeared. This time with a agreement we finished the game out.

Steeler RB Duce Staley finished with 162 yard rushing on 25 carries with many of those yards coming late. Be warned everyone, when playing the Steelers be on the watch out for those black holes and time warps that seem to suck the Steelers head coach straight from the playing board. Even worse watch out that he doesn't appear in you living room!
--submitted by Bill Vogt--