Monday morning recap - week #15

This past week has been crazy. It always is this time of the year. I have ten members of my family who arrived last night and ten members of Tom's family heading our way. It will be a crazy Christmas for sure. My brother and family drove straight through so my plan of watching the Steelers game while waiting for them to arrive got thrown out the window. Instead I had to tape it, go Christmas shopping, and keep track via my various sports apps. I got home just after Ben threw the interception with a little more than two minutes left in the game. I will admit though that watching the taped version was more fun after knowing the wondrous outcome!

Steelers:

• I was surprised at the amount of hostility between these two teams. Again a fight in the very beginning? The game last week with Cincinnati drew $118,649 in penalties. I would have thought that Mitchell's fine of $23,152 and Brown's fine of $8,681 would have settled Pittsburgh down some, but I guess not. I expect more fines will be levied this week as well. Cody Wallace can expect one for sure.
• I couldn't help but wonder as I watched Peyton Manning's back up if this was going to be another Brett Favre/Aaron Rogers situation; old guy getting phased out before he is ready to make room for the young newbie who is ready. Brock Osweiler looks like he has learned plenty at Manning's knee.
• I didn't play Bronco's Emmanuel Sanders on my Fantasy team because he hasn't done much in the last few weeks. I should have known he would want to come to Heinz Field and play like a maniac in front of his former team and employers.
• Pittsburgh defense in the first half just kept missing. Kudos to the person or people who corrected that during halftime because the defense that played in the second half was a TOTALLY different group of guys.
• At halftime as the teams ran into the locker rooms, CBS' on the field reporter (read token, pretty, woman) Tracy Wolfson asked Steelers Coach Tomlin what he was going to do about all the "chippyness" on the field. I had to look that word up thinking, "huh"? But I give Tracy props as the word means "aggressively belligerent." My bad.
• I wish I had counted how many passes were batted out of the way by the Steelers' defense in the second half. It was bam, bam, bam. Shut out in the second half by the defense. Awesome. Just think if we could have done that all season.

Other: I didn't see any other games (remember I was shopping tra la la la la) so my thoughts are from the highlights.

• How crazy was the Giants/Panthers game? But oh, my, Odell Beckham Jr. is in for a HUGE fine for his stupid-I'm-just-pissed-you-are-covering-me-so-damn-well helmet to helmet late hit on Panthers Josh Norman. Those two were at each other all day, but Beckham was doing childish things like grabbing Norman's ankle as he stood up after a tackle. These guys have got to control their emotions. At the end of the game Beckham could have saved himself by apologizing as soon as the mics were shoved in his face. That would have been the adult thing to do, but nope. Didn't happen. Ridiculous. Had that been James Harrison he would have been tossed out of the game. Sigh.
• And how about Cam Newton and company? Wow. 14-0. Undefeated. I love how Newton always gives the ball to a kid in the stands after he scores too. He is a class act all of the way. I wouldn't mind seeing him with a ring.
• I notice that Brown's Johnny Football has a bad habit of running backwards when he is in trouble instead of getting rid of the ball. What is that all about? Someone needs to put a stop to that nonsense.