Mr. Harrison’s Opus

            �That would be Mister Harrison to you, Jacksonville.�

            In his first movement last week against the Raves, James Harrison ravaged whatever and whoever tried to get in his way. His hit on Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco produced a football served up for LaMarr Woodley to carry into the end zone. He�d been a problem all night for Baltimore.

            In his second movement Sunday evening against the Jags, Harrison continued his assault on opposing quarterbacks. In the cleanest of clean, hard hits, he leveled David Garrard before the QBs arm had returned to his side. Called for unsportsmanlike conduct by an overzealously protective official, Harrison reloaded and came back for more.  In what was almost a replay of the prior week, he found Garrard and separated his arm from the football.  The fumbling team recovered the ball this time, but they never recovered from the onslaught, allowing the rest of the Stiller defense to seal the deal on yet another ugly but satisfying win.

            If he�s not sunning in Hawaii in early February on the NFL�s tab, something is definitely wrong.

            Say all you want about smash mouth football. Go on if you will about the Clowns and how those are the nastiest two games of every season.  You can say it with a clear conscience, but only if you�ve somehow left the country for the annual bloodletting between the �Burgh and Jax.  If NFL rules allow for a rivalry to cross divisional lines, this one leads the hit parade in every sense. Here are two teams that truly dislike one another. Del Rio and his troops play it tough every week, but they like to measure their progress by checking at least once each season if they can out-Stiller the Stillers. On the four prior occasions, they did just that. Sunday evening, however, the boys in the Black and Gold (Thank heavens the Old School unies went back into hiding where they belong) were up to the task. Heck, they didn�t even have to settle for a �Reed to take the lead� field goal attempt when Ben tossed the fade to Hines Ward. That play actually makes this win a bit prettier than last week�s W in Baltimore.

            Points go to Najeh Davenport for playing pretty much as if he�d been in training camp and on the bench for the entire season.  He�s still large and runs downhill and can catch kickoffs reliably. Not a bad fifth string back for a team that still takes running the ball seriously.

            A week off to recover now and field a team again in two weeks � that�s impeccable timing on the part of the scheduling department.  The hapless Bengals will either be 1-5 or 0-6 after visiting Brett and the Jets next week when the Stillers pay a visit to Cincy.  I�ll be there and look forward to watching a rested, restocked Stillers squad control most or all of a game and continue to assert its dominance of teams playing on the Ohio River.

StillChas is an author, entrepreneur, consultant and Pittsburgh native who remains a solid Stilllers fan in sunny Mount Pleasant, South Carolina where he lives with his wife and two daughters.