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When the Dolphins travel to Heinz Field on Thursday night, it will be a battle of powerhouse AFC teams.  The Dolphins are on a roll, having won their last 6 regular season games last season, while the Steelers rolled to a Super Bowl Championship.

The keys to this game are really quite simple.  The Dolphin defensive line and linebackers will try to take Willie Parker out of the game and force Charlie Batch to beat them.  The Dolphins have a huge, deep defensive line that should keep their linebackers clean.  If the linebackers do indeed stay clean, Zach Thomas, Channing Crowder and Donnie Spragan will stuff Willie Parker.  With Hines Ward still a little gimpy, Heath Miller will probably be Batch’s #1 target in the passing game, and he might be able to exploit the safeties (Reynaldo Hill and Tavares Tillman) between the hash marks.

When the Dolphins have the football, the Steelers linebackers will try to stuff running back Ronnie Brown and force Culpepper to pass the ball to win.  The Steelers will blitz often and try to rattle Culpepper into some of the same mistakes he frequently made last season when under pressure.  If the line gives Culpepper time, Chris Chambers should be able to get deep against the Steeler defensive backs.  Also, if the Steelers are bringing the blitz often, Randy McMichael could have a huge game against safety Ryan Clark.

If the Steelers keep the score low they have a chance in this game, but I like the Dolphins to win on Thursday because Charlie Batch was a losing QB even when he had Barry Sanders on his team, and Willie Parker is no Barry Sanders!

Coach Saban has a career record of 9-7 (56.3%).  The most important thing about Coach Saban is how he refuses to let his team quit.  After getting blown out in Cleveland (22-0) and sitting at 3-7, Saban rallied his troops and won the last 6 games of the season……..impressive.  I wonder what he’ll do for an encore this season?

Duante Culpepper has a career record of 38-42 (47.5% wins) and 2-2 in the playoffs.  Culpepper’s career QB rating is 91.5.

Joey Harrington has a career record of 18-37 (32.7% wins) and a career QB rating of 68.1.

The Dolphins needed a running back bad to back up Ronnie Brown and the Dolphins picked up Lee Suggs off of waivers from the Browns.  Suggs instantly becomes the back-up, replacing Sammy Morris who’s serving a suspension.  Suggs has speed and is a good receiver out of the backfield.  Suggs problem has been staying healthy, but no one disputes his talent.  To make this move even sweeter is the fact that the Jets had him, but sent him back to the Browns.  Hopefully Suggs will sting the Jets a couple of times this year.

Opening day for the Steelers will be lost in the trenches.   The Dolphins defensive line is solid and by solid I mean rock solid.  We’re averaging 6′3″ in height, 315lbs, and 8 years of expierience.  The steelers are good up front don’t get me wrong but I think the constant depth will wear the steelers down,thus making big ben wish the game was 10 minutes not 60mins