be interesting to see how the Russian athletes are received Frid

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- When Big Ben doesnt have his `A Game, the Pittsburgh Steelers showed they have a more than capable Plan B in continuing their late-season playoff push.Thats `B as in Bell.With quarterback Ben Roethlisberger struggling once again with his accuracy on the road, the Steelers resorted to handing the ball off to LeVeon Bell in sparking a 27-20 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.Despite a slick, snow-covered field, Bell had no trouble with his footing to score three times and set a franchise record with 236 yards rushing.The Steelers (8-5) won their fourth in a row to keep pace in the AFC playoff hunt.How much can I appreciate it? About as much as any Steeler fan. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome, Roethlisberger said of Bells performance. When youre running the ball as well as you do, might as well stick to it.After Roethlisberger threw two of his three interceptions in the first half, the Steelers opened the third quarter fully committed to feed Bell.He delivered by rushing nine times for 72 yards and cap an 82-yard drive by waltzing into the end zone untouched from 5 yards out to put the Steelers ahead 21-7 . Add in 62 yards receiving, Bell accounted for 298 of Pittsburghs 460 yards, and he single-handedly outgained Buffalos 275 yards.The loss left Buffalo (6-7) on the fringes of contention and placed the team in jeopardy of extending the NFLs longest playoff drought to 17 seasons.The Bills faltered on both sides of the ball, raising questions about the futures of both coach Rex Ryan and quarterback Tyrod Taylor beyond this season.Ryan was noncommittal in saying, well see, when asked whether Taylor will remain his starter.Ryan was defiant when asked about whether he deserved a shot to continue on the job beyond his second season.What do you think Im going to say? Youre dang right I do, Ryan said. It hasnt gone exactly the way I wanted it to go, thats obvious. But we have three games left and well try to win every one of them.BAD BENThough Roethlisberger improved to 4-3 on the road this season, he continues to struggle away from the friendly confines of Heinz Field.Roethlisberger went 17 for 31 for 220 yards against Buffalo, and is 147 of 247 for 1,618 yards with eight touchdowns and eight interceptions on the road. Hes 4-1 at home, where he is 136 of 193 for 1,636 with 17 touchdowns and three interceptions.HITTING 100Steelers coach Mike Tomlins regular-season record improved to 100-57, making him the 40th NFL coach and third with Pittsburgh to reach 100 wins.I congratulated him. I gave him the game ball, Roethlisberger said. Theres a lot of coaches that have coached this game and probably wish they had 100 wins, for him to get it, its awesome.The no-nonsense Tomlin didnt think much of the milestone, saying: It means Ive been here awhile.NO OFFENSEThe Bills had minus-1 yard through two series in the first quarter, becoming the NFLs first team this season to have negative yards through the first 15 minutes.Buffalo didnt get into positive yardage until its first snap of the second quarter, when LeSean McCoy had a 9-yard run.Buffalo combined for seven first downs and 87 yards net offense on its first nine possessions. That included Sammy Watkins 8-yard touchdown catch set up by Stephon Gilmore returning Roethlisbergers second interception to the Pittsburgh 7 midway through the second quarter.Taylor finished 15 of 25 for 228 yards with two touchdowns and an interception.Definitely didnt play my best, Taylor said. I let the team down a couple of plays, but gotta move forward.NO DEFENSEThough the Bills had three interceptions, not much else went right on defense.Bells 236 yards rushing were the most allowed by Buffalo in team history. That eclipsed the 224 yards set by Miamis Ricky Williams on Dec. 1, 2002. The Bills also allowed 200 yards rushing twice this season, after Miamis Jay Ajayi had 214 in the Dolphins 28-25 win in October.Its very hard to swallow, cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman said. I dont know how to take this right now. But its going to take some time.SACK ATTACKLinebacker Bud Dupree had two of Pittsburghs five sacks. The Steelers have 31 sacks this season, with 18 coming in their past four games.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Tim Beckham Jersey . -- If Henry Burris has his way, he will be the starting quarterback to lead the Hamilton Tiger-Cats back to the Grey Cup next year. Austin Adams Mariners Jersey . With their top three point guards and Kobe Bryant all sidelined by injury, the Lakers signed Marshall out of the D-League on Friday before their home game against Minnesota. https://www.cheapmariners.com/845k-jim-presley-jersey-mariners.html . Colin Wilson had two goals and an assist, and Mike Fisher scored a goal and helped set up two others in the Predators 6-4 victory over the Red Wings on Monday night. Nelson Cruz Jersey . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. Justus Sheffield Mariners Jersey . The news was first reported on Gonzalezs Twitter account and confirmed by the Rockies. Gonzalez has a six-week window before position players have their first workout at spring training in Arizona. RIO DE JANEIRO -- Russia will walk into the Rio Summer Games opening ceremonies Friday, a tad depleted but still nearly 300 strong, in its accustomed place: late in alphabetical order and high in geopolitical influence.Russian whistleblowers Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov will watch from their temporary home in the United States.That split-screen visual has felt preordained for months now. It is the embodiment of the near-complete undermining of an 18-year effort to harmonize performance-enhancing drug regulations across borders and continents.The evidence of state-sponsored doping across all Russian sport gathered in two separate World Anti-Doping Agency investigations over the last nine months is compelling and detailed. While time constraints kept the latest chapter from being exhaustive, it should have been enough to sideline the delegation.The entire Russian team in Rio represents an exception to the rules hammered out since WADA was born. Or rather, a rewriting of the rules that has taken place in a matter of weeks. The solution to the eligibility question was jammed through an ad hoc quasi-legal pipeline created for one purpose: to make sure as many Russian athletes as possible received the benefit of the doubt, a benefit many thought should be forfeited.International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach spoke of justice and individual rights at a packed media briefing Thursday. He says he has a clean conscience. For me, the guiding principle was, after this decision, you have to be able to look into the eyes of all the athletes, he said. During my visits to the Olympic Village, I have been looking into the eyes of many athletes.If thats the case, its hard to imagine he didnt see a lot of disappointment staring back.So much information, so little time to process it. Such a shame. We must protect the innocent. That has been the drumbeat from IOC officials up to and including Bach.The absurdly conflicted entities responsible for safeguarding clean sport shielded their eyes instead of pulling out binoculars, starting in 2010 when Russian Anti-Doping Agency employee Vitaly Stepanov began corresponding with WADA. Because WADA -- twice -- didnt act until its hand was forced by investigative journalists. Because it was in the IOC leaderships interest to make that timeframe as compressed as possible, to avoid a major doping scandal on the eve of the Rio Games.They almost succeeded.The normally genteel world of Olympic governance has seen an extraordinary bloodletting over the past few days. The IOC has turned on WADA, correctly accusing the agency it created of foot-dragging, while conveniently neglecting the fact that their interests are deeply intertwined.WADAs former chief investigator, former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency special agent Jack Robertson, eviscerated WADA for a lack of interest in pursuing the truth, and similarly castigated the IOC for ignoring it when it emerged.The action the IOC took has forever set a bar for how the most outrageous doping and cover up and corruption possible will be treated in the future, Robertson told ProPublicas David Epstein. Those involved in running sport are former athletes, so somehow I figured that they would have honor and integrity. But the people in charge are basically raping their sports and the system for self-interest.Completing the accusatory circle, Richard McLaren, the Canadian law professor who led a compressed but still informative probe that began in May at WADAs behest, Thursday accused the IOC of misrepresenting his findings.McLarens mandate was to probe the extent of Russian state involvement in doping beyond track and field -- an effort that the WADA Athlete CCommittee had asked for months before.dddddddddddd His assignment came only after ex-Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov revealed the creative, concerted sabotage of drug testing at the 2014 Sochi Games in an interview with the New York Times.McLaren made substantial progress in a short two months. He found a scratches and marks expert to prove that tamper-proof urine sample bottles used at the Sochi Games were not adult-proof. He detailed the steps taken to cover up positive tests, and showed that systemic doping had touched a wide range of Russian sports.His report prompted WADA to call for the exclusion of the entire Russian delegation. A coalition of national anti-doping organizations, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, also advocated a blanket ban.The IOCs Executive Board promptly abdicated responsibility and punted the dirty work of determining one-by-one which Russian athletes were clean to their respective international sport federations.McLaren, a veteran arbitrator who generally comes across as a measured academic rather than a firebrand, is deeply disturbed by that outcome.Look at what is there and what the data is and make a decision on that basis and dont turn it into what it isnt -- a doping results management investigation of specific athletes, McLaren told The Guardian.He also took issue with continued references to his report as allegations, a term Bach repeated Thursday.I wouldnt put anything in the report that I didnt have evidence of and wouldnt meet the criminal standard in any court around the world, McLaren said.Bach defended the process again Thursday with a rhetorical question: Can you hold any athlete responsible for the wrongdoing of his or her country? That misses the point. The athletes and national machinery are too intertwined at this point to separate with any fairness or logic. It defies belief that a government-sports-industrial complex would open its doping toolbox to some sports and not others, especially when that complex was succeeding at hoodwinking the world.Handing off to the international federations was specious from the start. Did anyone really expect individual sports fiefdoms to buck Russia when the IOC wouldnt? Or that fencing would defy the Russian oligarch who serves as its president? Judo made Russian president Vladimir Putin its honorary president, and swimming conferred its highest honor on him.It will be interesting to see how the Russian athletes are received Friday. However, their entrance will not be the most dramatic of the evening. That distinction will belong to the Refugee Olympic Team, a group of athletes the IOC granted special dispensation to compete.The Refugee Team is an example of the spectacular symbolism that sport can provide, and illustrates that the IOC can bend and shape the eligibility rules for its showcase event any way it wishes.Yuliya Stepanova could have been shown that same consideration by being allowed to run the 800-meter event in neutral colors. She is rusty and injured and not a medal threat. It would have been an easy gesture, a way to thank her and her husband for exposing corruption and becoming forced exiles.Instead, the IOC interviewed her by phone and twisted her words. Asked whether she would compete under the Russian flag, Stepanova said she would, but didnt think she would be welcome, given the level of hostility against her and her husband. The ensuing IOC statement portrayed her as unwilling.Since shes not here, we will be left to wonder what Thomas Bach would see if he looked into her eyes. ' ' '