Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Uphill from here

It won't get easier for the Steelers going forward. Or, for Ben as the season progresses. As Steve Young is quoted in Ed Bouchette's PG notebook:

Former quarterback Steve Young, on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" said, "He's like an old man in a young man's body with a lot of moxie. The evaluation process is in its median time. The rest of the league is evaluating him to see what his tendencies are. Watch for the next three games to be a little harder."

No doubt the league will find "tendencies" that Ben didn't know he had.

Chris Hoke will have a chance to become a household word taking over for Hampton at nose tackle.

Backups don't worry me; I'm sure Hoke will be fine. Generally, there's not that great a drop from starters to backups in the NFL. Or so I think. The big drop is from the starter to the backup of the backup. The first-and second-string are usually pretty interchangeable with a clear edge, of course, to the first-stringers. When a team begins to mix in a bunch of third-stringers, that's when things can get ugly fast.

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