Playing the Steelers is a Game for “Big-Boy Pads”? What NFL Game Isn’t?

On Bengals.com, Cincinnati defensive tackle John Thornton had this to say about Sunday’s game with the Steelers:

“We have to put on our big-boy pads. Two different teams. We run a no-huddle offense, they don't. We rely on turnovers defensively. They want to make you stop them. So we're going to have to put on our big boy pads this week and play big.”

Bengals.com also previews key matchups for Sunday’s game.

It looks like Steelers’ defensive end Aaron Smith will miss the game, but so will the Bengals’ venerable right offensive tackle Willie Anderson, against whom Smith would be matched. Smith has played in 117 straight games, by the way. If Smith doesn’t play, he will be replaced by Nick Eason, a fifth-year journeyman making his fourth career start. Anderson will be replaced at right tackle by Stacey Andrews, who will make his second career start at right tackle. So, it will be Eason vs. Andrews. Clash of the titans. A matchup for Big Boy Pads.

Nice of Willie Anderson to graciously compliment Aaron Smith:

“He's definitely a great, underrated player in this league,” said Anderson, who first played against Smith in Smith's rookie year of 1999. “Year in and year out he gets my Pro Bowl vote. He doesn't have the huge numbers the so-called ends have, but Aaron is one of the best in the business in my opinion.”

Who dey say dey gon’ beat dem Bengals? The people in Cincy are optimistic. Losers.

Non-football stuff ...

• Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in Pittsburgh yesterday and was conferred an joint honorary doctorate by CMU and Pitt. The Post-Gazette has this report on his visit to the stately Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside (great choir, by the way). The honorary degree was nice, but it was overshadowed, greatly, by what he had to say:

"Injustice and oppression isn't just evil, which it is.
It's not just painful, which it certainly is for the victim.
It's like spitting in the face of God."

• Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has thoughts of bombing Iran, and George W. Bush is talking about World War III.

• What was that you were saying, Bishop Tutu?