Steelers' safety Smith guarantees Sunday win versus Patriots
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
By Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Safety Anthony Smith not only thinks the Steelers have a chance to beat the undefeated New England Patriots Sunday, he guarantees it.
"We're going to win,'' Smith said today after practice. "Yeah, I can guarantee a win.''
Smith, a hard-hitting free safety who replaced injured Ryan Clark as the starter midway through the season, said he's not worried about any motivation he might be giving the 12-0 Patriots with his words.
"Now we have our swagger back on defense and we're playing great ball and they're playing great on the offensive side, too,'' he said of the Steelers. "I think we have a real good chance to win the game and we will win the game.''
Not only that, he said while New England's receiving corps of Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth is good, it isn't as good as the one the Steelers played Sunday against the Bengals , featuring T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson and Chris Henry.
"I think we were facing great receivers last week too and we shut them down,'' Smith said. "Those three guys, I don't think it gets much better than Cincinnati's corps of receivers. We've already seen the best."
Smith added a little more lumber to the fire when he said New England's receivers haven't been hit the way they will be hit on Sunday.
"They said Baltimore was their most physical game but I think we hit harder than Baltimore, so they haven't seen nothing like us yet.
"They should be worried about us. We never worry about receivers. We're the ones doing the hitting. They have to run routes. We're attacking them, they're not really attacking us."
He's secretly being paid off by the NFL, you know, as part of the growing conspiracy to guarantee that the Patriots are still undefeated for the NFL Network game...
We'll just have to see what other teams do when they have a chance to gameplan for him. 
