This was quite a Thursday in Pittsburgh football. Let's cut to the chase here:

Byron Leftwich has reportedly torn his MCL. Looks like we know who our Week 1 starter will be. Suddenly Charlie Batch looks pretty valuable on this roster as Dennis Dixon's backup.

Much like the Steelers QBs this preseason, the Staff here at Blitzburgh is a little bit banged up. Bam was unable to get the Steeler game on TV and Brian was there in person, so neither will be able to offer a satisfactory recap.

Here's the recap we can offer: Lots of field goals. Kasay hit a post. We'll hold off on making any bold predictions about how personnel will fare in the regular season until after we see the roster cuts.

Also underway today was Pitt football. While Bam and Brian are on decidedly opposite sides of the Pitt-PSU pseudorivalry (it won't be real again until we play each other), Bam at least acknowledges the number of hometown WPIAL players that play for Pitt, and that's always good. Quick hits on that game:

1. Double icing? F**k that guy. Glad it backfired.
2. If they had to lose, it's best that they lost on an actual bad-decision turnover by Sunseri than on that awful double-icing move.
3. Seriously why is icing the kicker legal at any level.
4. On a lighter note, Hank Hynoski is the perfect Pittsburgh football player. A thick, stocky, Polish fullback that just gets the ball and trucks linebackers? Yes, sir.

NFL in a week.

Here We Go.

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7:30 PM | Heinz Field | TV: KDKA

There's a game tonight??? These random weeknight game are a blogger's worst nightmare, hence the terrible gameday post.

Tonight it is do or die time for a bunch of players on the Steelers. A lot of them know this will be their last time walking out of the Heinz Field tunnel. The starters won't play much and the game will probably be terribly boring in the 4th quarter.

Big Ben is starting. Charlie Batch will probably get a big cheer tonight too. Whatever.

Chances are a ton of Steeler fans will be tuning into another game tonight -- one that actually counts.

We'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention the start of the college football season. Our staff here are a mixture of Pitt and Penn State fans. I'll bleed blue and white for life, but you're insane if you think I'm not excited to watch Jon Baldwin and all of the other WPIAL guys on Pitt tonight.

Big night for football. Here we go.

Ouch. That could have gone better, both for me and for the Steelers. Due to a surprise meeting, I got to miss the first quarter and I have no DVR means at school, so that's a quarter I'll never get back.

Didn't notice Pouncey at all, and that's probably a good thing considering Jamal Williams was on him all night. Jonathan Dwyer looked good. Maybe he'll be a gen after all.

No "after the jump" link because that's still a little bit unintuitive in our current layout.

FIRST QUARTER

SECOND QUARTER

HALFTIME

THIRD QUARTER

FOURTH QUARTER

A Denver sack gives us 3rd & 27. Imagine that, a HB Draw doesn't work. 4th & 30. Jesus. Danny gets off a 55-yard punt in the thin Denver air.

Cerzdon Butler reads Tebow like a book. Picked off. Tebow catches him in time to shove him out of bounds inside the ten. It sucks watching Tebow do everything better than Dixon, including cleaning up his own interceptions.

When Byron Leftwich throws a pass into traffic, he's putting receivers in danger. When Tim Tebow does it, it's a great read and a precise throw.

Someone on the offensive staff finally remembers Jon Dwyer ran a triple-option offense in college and sends him around the end. Touchdown.

Mike Pereira comes on to talk about how no referee ever makes a mistake. Oh wait, he just makes Deal Or No Deal jokes. Fox doesn't know what's going on anymore. Some running back has a 43 yard run against the practice squad fodder. Tebow throws a touchdown. Whatever.

Charlie Batch is in so the game is over. Why is he getting reps? Nobody thinks he's going to be on the team this fall. Nor is he going to show anything another team will like so he gets signed somewhere else.

Dwyer channels his inner Mike Alstott and drags 11 (maybe even 12) defenders for a first down. Then breaks away on a 40-yard dash. Pretty good series for Dwyer. Batch floats a nice pass to Justin Vincent down the sideline, but that may not be enough for either of them to last on this roster.

Batch gets a TD pass courtesy of Antonio Brown and Troy Aikman seriously suggests he could be the starter for Ben's absence. How did this guy get a job as an analyst, much less Fox's #1 play-by-play guy? Oh, right. Fox. Need moar Cowboys.

Oh yeah, and Brady Quinn still plays for Denver. Why did he replace Orton in the second quarter when Tebow was next in line for the reps? I guess Saint Timothy had to have a dramatic entrance and drive, he couldn't just play a few snaps and come back out.

Brady Quinn is who he is and the Broncos offense promptly goes back to the sidelines. That #43 guy picks off a pass for a touchdown. Little bit too much of that this evening.

And then he has a massive punt return for his thousandth return yard of the half. Sepulveda misses a rare tackle but at least slows him up enough to let Sean McHugh catch him. (Related: Ben Roethlisberger let Jerame Tuman down Nick Harper in 2005)

The two minute warning occurs with 1:44 left in the game. That is how long that punt return was. The Steelers have a little goal line stand and the clock runs out.

• Leftwich starts vs the Falcons. No question anymore.
• The running backs all look pretty good.
• Charlie Batch was the best backup for the Steelers and that's pretty sad at this stage.
• Seriously, start using that two-HB backfield.
• Thoughts on Tim Tebow probably coming this week sometime. Yeah, feeding the hype machine even here.

8PM : Invesco Field at Mile High : TV- FOX

Tonight is a big night for a lot of Steelers. The first teamers are expected to play close to two full quarters and a lot of guys will get some real, extended looks. Maurkice Pouncey is starting at center. Dennis Dixon will see lots of first team reps. Keenan Lewis and Will Allen will start, as well and Matt Stewart will long snap.

Mike Tomlin has been calling this game a "dress rehersal" and the team has been treating it as a regular season contest all week. I'm betting we'll see some regular season intensity for at least a couple quarters too.

Here we go.

Injuries

Steelers

This is a mystery for the most part, but I do know the following:

FS Ryan Clark - Out (Health reasons)
CB Bryant McFadden - Out (Pectoral muscle)

Broncos

No clue...10 minutes of searching yielding nothing.

Three Things to Watch

1. Special teams battles
As I mentioned earlier, Matt Stewart will be long snapping instead of Greg Warren and Emmanuel Sanders has been pushing Stefan Logan on returns. The Broncos have also looked terrible on punt coverage this preseason so watch out. 

2. Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow
If there are ever two quarterbacks who I'd love to see a Steelers linebacker punish, these would be them. Just a shame it's unlikely either will be on the field the same time as James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley. 

3.  Keenan Lewis
Lewis is getting a start opposite Ike Taylor tonight and it looks like he may have jumped over Willie Gay on the depth chart. This will be our first real, extended look at him since the team drafted him and he has been playing much better this season in limited action. Could this be a coming out party for him?

Predictions

Bam says: No clue why, but I'm feeling a shootout tonight. The Steelers defense is a bit banged up and I'm guessing somebody like Eddie Royal will make a few big plays. I think both teams will be pretty aggressive in throwing the ball and practicing things like hurry-up offenses. Look for both backup units to put up some points, but the Steelers come up on top with a few late defensive stands to remain unbeaten in the preseason.  Steelers 34 Broncos 24

Brian says: Tim Tebow sees limited action due to minor injuries, Brady Quinn throws at least 2 interceptions in 4th-quarter mop-up duty. Steelers 33 Broncos 24

I've been awesome at this so far this season. Between DVRing the game while at work and moving back into college, hammering out game recaps has been a little bit tough. I should be set now though with no more job and being settled in. As for that game, this would have been a good game had it gone as it did with startrs in and something on the line. If you just look at the box score, the Giants got the early lead, the Steelers stormed back to take a commanding lead and held off the Giants' comeback in the 4th.

This is part 1 of my Preseason Analysis series. I’ll be using and interpreting the stats from the groundbreaking site Football Outsiders for each part. This part looks at the offensive line. Future parts (to be posted once or twice a week through the rest of training camp) will look at the quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers/tight ends, defense, and special teams.

The offensive line has seen a lot of worry from local pundits so far during training camp, especially given the Willie Colon injury. Is the worry justified? What about the other teams in the AFC North? Let’s take a look at the stats!

This page gives Football Outsiders’ offensive line stats for last season.  The Steelers were 14th in Adjusted Line Yards (explained here, essentially yards per carry adjusted to give credit for those yards to the offensive line; in short, say Rashard Mendenhall gets a 25-yard run, the OL gets credit for only 7 yards), so they were basically in the middle of the pack. The page cautions, though, that they can’t completely separate offensive line from running backs, so having Chris Johnson instead of Mendenhall would affect these numbers somewhat.

One stat that may surprise some people is the Steelers’ fifth-best Power Success percentage (72%), defined as “the percentage of runs on third or fourth down, with two yards or less to go, that result in a first down or touchdown.”  This indicates that the cry of “when will the Steelers get another bruising short-yardage running back” is not necessarily valid. The Bengals’ top ranking in this is also interesting. Jump it for the rest of the analysis...

Despite allowing a bit of a fourth quarter comeback on  Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers looked pretty good and certainly eased a few worries with their performance against the Giants. Without further ado, let's get to the grades.

Ben Roethlsiberger, Byron Leftwich, Dennis Dixon - A
You could chalk it up to laziness for grouping all three together, but I thought the quarterback play was fantastic all night long. Roethlisberger's outing wasn't outstanding statistically, but he only had one bad throw and was deadly accurate throughout the rest of his outing. Moreover, he made a ton of good plays in the pocket and looked like the QB he was before all of the offseason drama hit. I thought his outing was a great sign for the Steelers season. Another great sign was the domination of Leftwich and Dixon. Leftwich was actually on his way to a mediocre outing before he threw one of the better passes I've seen and hit Mike Wallace in stride for a 68-yard touchdown pass. Dixon was fantastic all night, leading the offense on several long drives. He completed 7 of 8 passes and added 27 yards on the ground. I'm definitely not worried about the team's quarterback situation at the moment.

Troy Polamalu - D
Polamalu was definitely "off" on Saturday. There has been a few seasons where he hasn't missed as many tackles as he did on Saturday. I'm not worried about him in the least, but it was certainly strange to see number 43 whiff on the ball carrier three or four times. Jump it to read more..

7:30 PM : New Meadowlands Stadium : TV - NFL Network

The first preseason game, for me anyway, was like a celebration for the return of football. That's not the case this week. It is all business. It's time for guys to get to work with cuts coming up and it is time to focus on playing solid football.

The sloppiness is usually less frequent in the second preseason game and we should get a much better grasp on the 2010 Steelers after tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

Here we go.

Injuries

Steelers

This is a mystery for the most part, but I do know the following:

LB Jason Worilds - Probable (Hamstring)
RB Jonathan Dwyer - Doubtful (Shoulder)
OT Chris Scott - Out
DE Steve McLendon - Out

Giants

OUT: 
QB Eli Manning
QB Jim Sorgi
No clue...

Three Things to Watch

1. Big Ben's (actual) return
The wait will be over. I can't wait to get this out of the way and I'm sure Roethlisberger feels the same way. Here's hoping he does well. 

2. The first teams
Last week, each first team had a mostly brief outing. Tonight we will see the best 11 on both sides for a more extended look at the 2010 Steelers. There will be a lot more to go on after this game.

3.  New stadium
This will be the first game for the Steelers at New Meadlowlands Stadium.

Predictions

Bam says: I'm still feeling the good vibes. Big Ben will be back and the whole Steelers offense will look better no matter who is under center. The offensive line has hopefully ironed out some of the issues we saw in the first game and the rotation of Hartwig/Pouncey and Adams/Scott should provide some extra motivation. With Eli out, the Steelers first team defense shouldn't have too much trouble going to work and shutting down the Giants. Steelers 24 Giants 14

Matt says: Good news... we will see Ben Roethlisberger play this week. However, at this time Mike Tomlin will not reveal if he will start, but either way... as a Steelers fan, you have to be excited to see Big Ben in a live game situation. Bad news... we won't get to see Eli Manning due to the laceration on his head, which he sustained against the Jets. I was excited to see James Harrison and company beat up on him, but I guess Rhett Bomar will do. Bomar will probably get all of the snaps due to the injuries of starting QB Manning and back-up Jim Sorgi (shoulder). With only 3 preseason games under his belt, I don;t see him being able to handle the learning curve that exists when playing against a Dick LeBeau coached defense. I see our running backs bouncing back with a clean game after the two fumbles early against the Lions. I also hope Dennis Dixon performance can continue to fuel the talks of him stealing the starting/#2 job from Byron Leftwich. Another dominant performance from our defense will lead to a nice, albeit meaningless, win. Steelers 27 Giants 13

I finally got a solid night off and got to my DVR to watch the game from last Saturday. So even though it's nearly a week late, here's a recap. My recap style will probably change over the coming season. I'm trying to make them a little more concise if I can. Thank god for preseason experimentation. For now though, a more traditional Blitzburgh recap.

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