If this doesn’t scare you…I don’t know what will

This Super Bowl is the Steelers game to lose. There I said it. If the Steelers play an average 2008 Steelers football game, they win, hands down. I even think the Steelers could afford a turnover or two and still win, assuming the defense shows up.

I believe Ben Roethlisberger will be much better than XL.
I believe Willie/Mewelde will be servicable
I believe the Defense will hold Edge to next to nothing
I believe the D will get to Warner several times

What I’m not yet convinced of is how we will stop Larry Fitzgerald. He’s a monster and I’m afraid. The Steelers D was #1 against the pass this season (nearly 25 yards more than #2), so why am I worried? Maybe I can’t get the Chad Scott years out of my head and have a hard time accepting that the passing D is actually good.

However, Larry Fitzgerald has not had much experience against top tier passing defenses. In fact, in Fitzgerald’s 5 year career, he has only played 8 games against a top 5 passing defense. In those 8 games Fitzgerald has fared decently; averaging just over 5 catches, nearly 80 yards and nearly 1 TD a game.  Discounting Fitzgerald’s rookie year in which he played 3 games against top 5 passing D’s for 8 | 128 | 1, he has played 5 such D’s in the past 2 seasons.

The stats:
2007
TB Bucs – 5 | 95 | 0
Steelers – 10 | 120 | 0

2008
Cowboys – 5 | 79 | 1
Eagles – 5 | 62 | 2
Eagles – 9 | 152 | 3 (playoffs)

A few observations: 1. LF has improved greatly from his rookie year (the Bills in ‘04 shut him out) 2. LF has been a TD machine this season 3. LF hasn’t faced anything like the Steelers D. 4. There has not been a single NFC West team to finish a season with a top 5 passing defense during Larry Fitzgerald’s career.

Conclusion: Larry is scary…there’s not much chance that the Steelers stop him, but they must contain him. We can’t allow Fitzgerald to hit the home run.