thavoice;642685 wrote:I am a big believer that no matter the game you can always have more of an emotional lift (when people say that a game is so big that no extra motivation is needed when bulletin board material is brought up from what anotehr team says). I know the players would say having Smith back would be an emotional lift. Who knows...pretty darned big game and also the defense has stopped the run danged well...think its been better since he was out if I remember reading right.
Plus....with the OL.....may be smart to have an extra OL active for this one...but then again...Jets were one of two teams to rush for 100 on the steelers.
I think any emotional plus is negligible in this matchup......MT will do what he sees fit.
Although he has only won one more SB title as a coach than I have I will trust his judgement!
I definitely agree with your first point about how there is always the possibility for extra motivation.
Take for example the Jets last week when Dennis Byrd spoke to the team. That was unexpected but I'm sure his words about how he'd give anything to play one more game and all that stuff, got the players even more psyched up.
I'm not trying to say Aaron Smith playing will have that kind of impact but maybe a little bit. In that sense that if you're going to war you'd want a guy like that. You want all of your best guys who have gone through it before. Whether it's at 100 percent or 75 percent.
It will be tough, however, for the Steelers fans to equal the last game, especially in that third quarter. That was the perfect storm of defense and crowd noise.
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