So what exactly does a WINLESS PRESEASON mean for the Steelers???

At the risk of being accused of being negative and/or overreacting to "only the preseason", I'd like to get my MB cohorts' opinions on what exactly is the meaning of a winless preseason by the Steelers. Does it mean:
a) Absolutely NOTHING! It's only the preseason.
b) We are severely lacking in depth as is indicated by the lackluster performance of many of our second and third teamers.
c) Our starters are not ready for the season as the preseason looked alot like the regular season last year in which the team seemed to come out flat and unprepared.
d) Both b&c
e) None of the above

If any of you want to add to these selections, please do. What exactly does a winless preseason mean for the Steelers in your minds? I'd really like to know what everybody's take is. I've heard opinions on this board ranging from it doesn't matter as long as we're healthy to the sky is falling. I think I'm somewhere in between but I haven't seen anything that gives me the warm fuzzies about the season quite honestly. Please don't shoot me, but I really see another .500 season on the horizon. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised but we don't appear to have any depth, especially along the offensive line and in the secondary. If some of our starters go down we're Curtis Brown (aka TOAST). I've seen stats that many want to discount that shows that teams with a winless preseason have about a 1 in 10 chance of making the playoffs. Throw that out the window if you'd like but that's what history shows. I know that's no guarantee of future results but there is a reason we look at stats like that.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to the starters being in for the entire game. I do have some concerns because our starters didn't exactly set the world on fire in the preseason and generally were outplayed by the starters of the Giants and Redskins. I think our starters outplayed the Chiefs starters but we did allow them to come back from a 10-0 deficit to tie us before the starters were yanked. Blame the officiating or whatever, but it happend.

Tell me, guys. What exactly does a winless preseason mean for this football team?

 

F) there will be a lot of Fbombs being dropped if they play poorly


utter dan dat D is a high possibility

 

It means all that talk of being hungry hasn't materialized yet.

 

I honestly dont think the sky is falling, but I do think this team has alot of work to do yet. The winless preseason in my opinion means nothing because if I recall, we went 0-4 in 2008 and won the Superbowl. I think that right now we are far from the best team in the division, but my belief is that in 3-4 weeks they will start to gel and will become a dangerous team! My biggest fear does relate to our depth because we appear not have much. If guys start to go down, we could see the same result from last season. Give the team time...we will know where we stand by week 4.

 

No, they did not go 0-4 and win the Superbowl. It's been well documented in other threads.

I'm ticked because whether it's preseason or regular, the Standard is the Standard and that should be winning football. I'm just not seeing the want to from a lot of these guys they have on the field.

 

i think it does mean something.

this is a team coming off an 8-8 season and had a ton of questions coming into this season and i dont think many of them have been answered.

1. the oline is the biggest question and it looked pretty bad at times in the preseason.
2. the offense looked out of sink and could not put points on the board.
3. the rb situation is still unsettled. i dont think anyone stepped up and took the lead. Dwyer had an ok preseason. Bell was hurt as was Redman. LSH and Jones are probably fighting for the 3rd down spot.
4. wr is the one position im excited about, but i was excited about it last year also and look how that turned out. i think AB and Sanders are #1 and #2. then it becomes a bit muddeld. in a good way i think. is it Cotchery, Wheaton, Moye or Brown. i think Moye and Wheaton really looked good and they will both pass Cotchery.
5. the defense is what they are. i just hope they can get more sacks and create more turnovers.
6. the lbs are the position im most excited about. they have Timmons who is going to be a beast this year, but then they have a huge question with Woodley. can he get back to what he was a couple years ago? Foote is solid, but old and who replaces Harrison? Worilds has potential, but i think a bunch of young guys looked real good in preseason.

all in all i think this team is gonna struggle again this season. i hope im wrong, but i didnt see anything that would make me think otherwise. i know some of you are gonna predict a 12-4 record, buts that because you are wearing the rose colored glasses. for the realists i think its obvious that this team right now is not a super bowl team.

 

A - it means nothing.

 

Technically it's A.

However D is what most people saw throughout the preseason and are dreading will most likely be the case on the regular season.

 

B & C

HINES

 

It means nothing yet but on Feb. 9th, 2014 at around 11 pm it will mean that we were the first team to ever go winless in preseason and then onto become SB Champs!

 

A-and part of B,
In the regular season you do not put the whole second string or third string into a game at once.
We do have a lot of work and most of the second string will catch on when they pair up with the starters.

 

To establish confidence and a winning attitude, winning in preseason is important from a mental perspective: Bruce Arians said in an interview, he wants to win these games, it is important to win every time you take the field, I think he's right because players can lose their expectation to win if they keep losing, this is after all a 75% mental preparation to get a winning attitude to carry over into the regular season.....And no fan watches a preseason game without wanting their team to win it, so to say, winning doesn't matter, those who say that are fibbing a little bit or maybe a lot...

 

I think it means a lot, it sets the tone for the season, I mean you go into the regular season thinking are we really this bad we can't win a game. No matter who is in there, 1st or 3rd stringers, they have that fear of not winning and that can have an effect of your play......I look at this team as not improving from last year except in a few positions. QB is prime time, running back is same as last year and that ain't good, wide receivers a drop off, tight end a drop off with Miller out, offensive line sure didn't look good in pre season. On defense, about the same except, older and some of our high draft picks from past years are not coming around as expected. Yeah we have a couple of new and promising players on both sides of the ball but they have both been hurt, it may be a long year but if Ben can stay healthy he can carry this team and that may be a different story.

 

with such an influx of new talent and starters at a lot of positions, it has nothing to do with last year. they were a much more veteran bunch that didn't play up to the standard and were ill prepared, coaches included.

this group is just mostly young, so the two can't be compared in my book. nor should it. preseason to these guys is about learning as will be a lot of this season and it should get better week to week.

to many are expecting instant gratification in a couple of weeks time, going from not to good and a lot of mistakes to SB champs by the following week. not going to happen. we will be good enough to hang in the race week to week I believe.

 

Yeah, Bob Labriola said something similar (the piece is on the Steelers front page).

For me, the preseason means that we're basically in for a season where new guys are learning the ropes, and that could be good, or it could be a car crash.

 

I'm feeling a little down on the season, but I refuse to call it dead before it even starts for real. My biggest concern right now is why we are seeing many of the same problems for the most part in both this year's new and last year's old starters. There may be a different bunch this year, but where is the link between them? Coaches? Lack of veteran leadership? Time will tell...

 

I think it is more of A. They were moving guys around, trying to determine depth at multiple positions and didn't really gameplan for their opponent. They showed flashes of brilliance and flashes of terrible. This is what I kind of expected with us being such a young team. Troy didn't play much this pre-season, neither did Ben. Did Ben even play the equivalent of a full 60 minute game over the pre-season. Are there reasons to be concerned, yes but I am not going to predict 1-15 just because they had an 0-4 pre-season. There is too much talent and pride on this team to have that bad of a season, unless injuries hit us super hard.

 

new coaches, new players, new scheme, in a fairly new offense. I don't think the defense has looked to bad this preseason. it is the most veteran of the two. we knew we would be very young on offense and I don't think we are in panic mode about it.

 

Unfortunately, I gotta agree with ya, Jack.
The biggest thing that bothered me about the pre-season, wasn`t that we didn`t win, it was just that it looked like a repeat of last year.
Entirely too many mistakes, penalties, and turnovers.
As fart as depth, I think that is mixed.
D-backs look like we have some depth, probably at nosetackle, too.
Offensively, not much depth anywhere, other than RB.
I still HOPE they will rebound, and have a good season. I still believe we have the talent, I just didn`t see anything to make me think they are prepared to fix the mental mistakes, and quit beating ourselves.
I was definitely more optimistic, BEFORE I saw us play, than I am now.
Hope I`m wrong.
GO STEELERS!

 

Really? You think we have depth in the secondary? After Troy, Clark, Ike and Allen, what do we really have? It appeared that our secondary got beat pretty regularly in the preseason, especially our backups. Am I missing something?

 

Well, actually I was thinking more about the play of our backup Lb`s, and including them, when I said "DB`s", but...
I`m hopeful Hawthorne lives up to expectations, Shamarko looks like the real deal, and even if they haven`t exactly shined so far, I consider Victorian, maybe Golden, Ventrone, Cromartie- Smith etc. to have potential.
Even if they don`t become great starters, at least we`re not completely lacking potential back-ups (like the O-Line)...
GO STEELERS!

 

Did Ben play into the 4th Q? Was Ben hurt?

It means nothing...as Ben is this team....and they will go as far as he takes them.......

HACK

 

Gotcha! And I totally agree with your assessment of the LBs. We seem to have some pretty good depth there.