What happened to Archer?

We used him so much in the first half against the Browns, then he got hurt but now that he is back, it seems that we are not utilizing him like we did. I will note that when we played him agasint the Browns, our offense was the most explosive it has been all year, even more potent than the ground and pound against the Panthers.

Other notes:

-A win is a win.

-Shout-out to the secondary. 2 picks? Are you kidding me? A defensive TD? Am I in heaven? Granted they were matching up against a rookie QB and WRs, but hey, they played very solidly.

-The front 7 and pass rush again failed, due to the inept defensive line. You all know my thoughts here. The players are bad and we will continue to have trouble pressuring the QB until they are replaced.

-Harrison looked better tonight, even though he only had 1 tackle. There were times where he hit the QB and may have gotten a sack had the QB not gotten rid of the ball so fast.

-Need more passes the Heath and Wheaton. Wheaton did have that drop in the first series, but AB did have one too on the next and later on in the second quarter. They seem to key in on AB and defenses are starting to notice. Use the other weapons please!

-And Justin Brown is not one of those weapons. He had those three catches on that one drive sure, but that does not take away from his pure ineptness in the beginning of the season which included a fumble and many drops including a TD drop against the Bucs which could have turned the tide. I want more Moore, DHB, and I want to see what Bryant can do, especially in the redzone. I don't want to see more of JB.

-I know everyone wants the establish the run, but seriously. You can't run on first down, get stuffed, try again on second down, pick up 2 yards, then throw...where we take a sack or dont even pick p the first down if the pass is complete, mainly because the pass selection will be a bubble screen. This play calling simply is uninspired and unintelligent.

-WE PUT UP 27 POINTS IN ONE HALF AGAINST THE BROWNS, MAINLY THROUGH THE AIR, AND THE BROWNS HAVE A DEEP SECONDARY, and a solid team as a whole. Why can we light up a pro bowl CB but not crap ones? The Browns defense is better than both the Bucs and Jags combined in terms of stats and talent, and yet we move the ball and score like we did against the Browns. We have the same player! Nobody is hurt (maybe Ben is dinged).

-Lack of overall consistency has been the trend for the past few seasons, and that pretty much underlines what frustrates most of us the most. One game the Offense scores 40 points, the next they score 6. One game the D has 3 turnovers and holds the opponent to 10 points, the next they give up 40.

Those are pretty much my take-aways from the game. It was extremely boring and not much new developed. I think the "ingame" penalties are ridiculous, yet Tomlin wont think that they are an issue, only the "post play" ones. It seems we get an illegal block in the back every time we return a punt. Holding is happening too much, and illegal formations are ridiculous.

 

Coming in to the game today I think he had one rush for 4yds.

 

Sure, but when they lined him up against the Browns, the play calling was creative and effective. He might be a decoy, but the overall gameplan felt more intuitive and intelligent.

 

Yeah I was saying today that it just doesn't seem like there's gonna be a lot of room for him in the backfield since Bell and Blount are doing so good. Then if you line him out wide it pretty much shows your hand. So it's sort of a dilemma for him. Then on ST he just watches kicks sail through the end zone. Maybe he's not totally healthy though?

 

Screw Bell and Blount if inserting Archer generates the same point production that we saw in the first half against the Browns! Or helps to at least..

 

Well Haley seemed pretty set on getting Bell and Blount involved today. My fear is that Archer is another waste of a 3rd down pick. I know it's early to say that but it's just hard to see how they are gonna use him if they just keep feeding Bell and Blount. OH and the occasional asinine play to Johnson up the middle for no gain when Bell and Blount have been running well all day. THAT was a headscratcher for sure.

 

Agreed.

 

I meant to say 3rd ROUND pick there. LOL.

 

You think he gets it together or would you say at this point you are "skeptical" of the pick. It just seems to me we keep going for guys that we expect to have burner type speed but can't really use them.

 

I think we typically ran a crappy pass play on 1st down then a draw on second down way too frequently. I do not think we ran on 1st down enough.

 

I think for Archer to be effective you need to get him in the slot with bell in the backfield, he will then create better mismatches, as far as when he comes into a game alone, players key on him too much.

Other than that he is still raw, give him sometime.

 

What happened to Archer?

well, maybe he's not very good. Small guys rarely are much more than flash-in-the-pan in the NFL.

But, he tantalizes fans, like Stefan Logan and Chris Rainy before him.

 

is too early to define archer but we had other needs in the 3rd round

 

He is a rookie, 3rd on the depth chart, and he has had to learn two positions (RB, WR).

At some point Blount and Bell will miss a game, due to suspension (DUI) or injury. Archer should get more snaps then. Let's hope he makes the most of that opportunity.

 

Does he warrant a third round draft choice?
When we have so many other glaring needs(CB)'s

 

Pretty much what I was going to say - man I would have liked to have seen them pick up a corner for that 3rd round pick.

Also, another thing to think about, how good an idea is it to draft a guy who's speed and elusiveness is heavily mitigated by (1) the fact that the game has heavily reduced the kickoff return and (2) half of the games the Steelers play are at Heinz Field which often times resembles a bog and is not conducive to speed and elusiveness.

 

The little guys like Archer only succeed in the NFL when they are also tough as hell and can run over a few guys when they have to...

A guy like Darren Sproles comes to mind or Maurice Jones Drew.

Guys in the NFL are fast too.

He is better off as a WR, but he will never be the #3 WR here (like an A.R.E.) so unless he is an elite return specialist he is just wasting a spot on this roster.

 

archer will be fine as he gets more touches. I really believe this offense has to spread this ball around more to guys like willj and archer to become a high powered offense that give teams fits to defend.

 

I was with Logan, I thought the potential there was good but he was misused all the time. I still remember the game where they did three fake reverse, HB handoffs with Logan in there. Everytime they gave it to Mendenhall for minimal gain and by the third time nobody even followed Logan which would have been the time to give it to him. I look at Archer much the same as Moye last season. They have to give it too him more than just a few plays because if you don't it takes the guess work out of it. Last year Moye came in for what a handful of plays that weren't the redzone? In the redzone he only ran the fade route and everyone knew it. FOr Archer to really work he has to be a solid fixture for the offense so they have to second guess whether he will get the ball or not.

 

Agreed. I also think he needs to see more snaps even as a decoy. When he plays so few ,teams know he is getting the ball and that kinda negates his speed.

 

They shouldn't have drafted him in the first place, and addressed the CB position.

 

I was never tantalized either. As a matter of fact, I wasn't happy with the Rainey pick at all. Regardless of his speed he had enough character issues to make a team pass and it turned out that those came back to bite us. With our lack of depth right now it would have been nice to have taken someone that was maybe a little more dependable. However, I'm not sure who we COULD have had instead so it's really hard to say that we would be in a better position today if we had passed on him. I will say I was pretty interested in Logan because I thought he would help our ST and we really needed that at the time.

 

Archer CAN be DANGEROUS! But he has to have more snaps obviously even if it's just to disguise what's coming eventually. Lull em to sleep then pow, now the focus changes the D's approach. That is what makes sproles special, he's always on the field and the D has to account for him but is always guessing... Frees someone else up every time. Got to be made an actual threat first to make it work.