Congratulations to Bruce Arians!

[tony hipchest]

i would almost say he is deserving of a gameball.

on the second play of the game, troy polamalu picked off an errant colt mccoy pass and set up the steelers perfectly between the browns 40-50 yard lines.

EVERYBODY knows what you do in this situation. all the great coaches from parcells, walsh, belichick, j. johnson, and even cowher know what you do when you get a gift like this.

even the announcers say the same thing in every game where this situation arizes.

"this is when you take a shot to the endzone and try to capitalize on the free gift".

it is simple football 101.

the WORST thing that can happen is that you give the gift right back to them even deeper in their own territory. this is the perfect opportunity to gamble a bit and take a shot to demoralize the opponent after a previous mistake.

conventional wisdom says its a "win-no lose" situation.

enter bruce arians.

he never does the conventional thing to do. he never does what everybody thinks is the play to call, because everybody will be expecting it because everybody will know what is coming.

for some freak reason, he decided to play the game by the book. lo and behold the first offensive play of the game was a 40+ yard bomb to mike wallace for a touchdown.

this is textbook football. by not trying to reinvent the wheel or outhink oneself, bruce set the offensive tone for the ballgame. the browns had to be certain bruce would run the ball in that situation because that is the exact opposite of what he should do or what anyone else would do.

if he can call 3 more sound games like this and rely on the ton of offensive talent he has to make plays he may earn himself a job offer from the brass.

we will see. it was one small step for offensive coordinators, but a giant leap for BA.

[Merchant]

Also, congrats to Ben and Wallace for setting the new Steelers record for 40+ yard TDs

[PhantomJB93]

Bruce Arians is a genius. He always does what everyone expects him to not do because they are expecting him to do what he expects them to expect them ti think he'll do. But today, he pulled a switcheroo and did what everyone expected him to do rather than not do because of what is indeed expected, and it worked. If we could get him to adopt this mindset for every game he would be the greatest OC in football.

[Rick5895]

I must admit, today the offensive game plan was pretty damn good, well done Brucey!!

[steelerohio]

yeah it's a very superb playcalling today...

[Steeler4life1972]

Ok you guys...dont give arians the credit...i do believe Ben called a lot of the plays today...no shit...I do believe this!!

[Steeler4life1972]

How can u guys not see this...Ben called most of the plays today...no way on earth that arians called the majority of the plays...I actually saw this!!!

[Steeler4life1972]

But I dont care who called the plays...we got the W and a first round bye!!!

[Fire Arians]

unless he outsmarts a good defense i'm not sold on him. it was the browns, after all.

with that said I'm happy with how the team played today, we beat a bad team the way we should have beaten them, in a blowout

[Atlanta Dan]

Offense played well - props to everyone, including the coordinator