STEELERS GO SIX GAMES WITHOUT A HOLDING CALL

We’ve heard rumblings recently from several readers that the Steelers have gone several games without having a holding penalty called against the opposing offense. But we were too lazy to pick back through the play-by-play for every game in order to determine whether that was accurate. Thanks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, we won’t have to. It’s true. Six games, no flags. That’s 24 quarters without a holding penalty against guys trying to block players like James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley, who have 26.5 sacks between them. “That’s shocking, actually,” center Justin Hartwig told Gerry DuLac. “We sit out there and watch the defense and you see James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley getting around the edge like every play, and guys are just grabbing onto their shoulder pads and pushing them from behind. “There are so many plays that are holding, but they don’t call them. It happens so often. I don’t know if the refs come to expect that, that they’re just going to get around the corner every time, and they just don’t call it or what.” Said linebacker James Farrior: “We can’t get caught up in the referees. That’s something we can’t control. We cry and gripe and more stuff like that, the more likely they will be to not call it. We have to keep our mouths shut, play our game and, hopefully, they’ll start calling ‘em.”