Steelers top Panthers in preseason finale, QB questions unresolved

Football Betting Lines

09/02/2010 - Pittsburgh, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Dennis Dixon completed his only pass of the night for a 23-yard touchdown to Emmanuel Sanders in the second quarter the Steelers beat Carolina, 19-3, in the preseason finale for both teams.

Dixon, who accounted for the game's only touchdown, could begin the season as the starting quarterback for the Steelers. With Ben Roethlisberger due to begin his suspension, the Steelers could have gone with Byron Leftwich as the starter. However, Leftwich hurt his left knee during the second quarter Thursday and was taken to a local hospital for an MRI.

Leftwich completed an 18-yard pass to Sanders before being knocked to the ground with 10:25 left before halftime.

Jeff Reed kicked four field goals for the Steelers, who will open the regular season on September 12 with a home game against Atlanta.

Roethlisberger, who was suspended for six games for violating the league's personal conduct policy, is due to meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell Friday. That's when Steelers president Art Rooney II will reportedly lobby Goodell for a reduction in the suspension to as little as three games.

In his last starting role for a while, Roethlisberger completed 4-of-6 passes for 39 yards.

Tony Pike connected on 10-of-18 throws for 44 yards, while Hunter Cantwell was 6-of-9 for 36 yards for Carolina, which will be on the road versus the New York Giants for its season opener.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.