new offense

ok we know we open with a tough and talented buffalo team, but with a new offense should or could we surprise them? they won't have much if any tape to look at besides preseason. can this help us early in the season jump on some of these teams? we know what to expect for the most part from them but they don't know what we will be bringing.

 

Well, since we won’t know what we are doing how can they plan for what we are doing?

 

By Q2 Ben will be running 4 wide Shot Gun on first down and all will be right with the world.

 

That sounds so beautiful to me.

 

I'm optimistic, honestly. As long as the line holds up, I think the offense will be solid. Ben is going to be much better than the pundits want to admit.

 

Buffalo better worry about Highsmith, just sayin.

 

Sounds like all the pass rushers are eating at camp, including Marsh. The new offense had better be 80/20 run to start the season or Ben is not making it out of the weekend.

 

I thought the same thing when I read that Marsh was making some noise in camp. Unfortunately, it’s probably because our tackles are struggling.

 

Biggest offensive question is the OL. Biggest defensive question is the secondary.

We can overcome shaky secondary play. We've done it for years. We just won't make noise late in the season or in the playoffs.

We can't overcome shaky OL play. Najee isn't Barry Sanders. He'll either struggle and look pedestrian, or get hurt by mid season. And Ben won't last beyond midseason either.

But if the OL puts it all together, no reason Ben and Najee don't finish the season smiling and we actually win a playoff game. And if the nfl gods smile on us and the secondary holds up its end of the bargain, we'll have the defense to compliment a dynamic offense. No ceiling.

In reality, however, I don't see us staving off the injury bug and we'll probably give Tomlin slightly better than a .500 season. It's nice to dream, though.

 

If you didn't notice, looked like all of the pass rushers were eating during the Cowboys game. 4 sacks and 9 qb hits, 5 tackles for loss.

 

I suspect that we do the opposite of last year and start bad but get our act together as the season progresses. Worst case is start bad and end bad. OL, Ben, and injuries being the X,Y,Z factors. Of course coaching / game management as well. Hard to tell since the regular season team isn't defined and really hasn't played together yet.

 

Buffalo, is one of the favorites to win the AFC title and possibly the Super bowl.
Any team is going to have their hands full with them. The Steelers OL will improve but they will have to
play with urgency week in and week out. Football is the ultimate team game, if all parts are not
on the same wave, then there will be problems. It is early in the preseason, I think we
will have a better read of what we have to work with in another month.

 

People really should not be surprised at how bad this O Line could be. On paper this is arguably one of the worst 3-5 Lines in the NFL. That doesn’t mean they can’t improve and guys like Green or Dotson can’t become decent players but……. This OLine is probably going to stink.

 

they can't stink much worse then last in the league like last year.

 

That's against their backups, I'm more worried about what's happening to our starters.

 

No idea what to expect but hopefully Harris can show a running threat and our line can gel. I really hope Ben does not need to throw 40 times for us to win games.

 

If he is throwing more than 35 times/game we are in trouble.

 

I will reserve judgement of the O-Line until they play meaningful games

They will be 3 things,

GOOD, AVERAGE, OR TERRIBLE

 

They certainly can if the tackle play and pass blocking is worse

 

That would make them so bad that they're good. They will confuse the opposition into making mistakes.

Our OL if it's worse than last year...

 

Pouncey and DD were terrible, Feiler And Big Al not much "better" than that... I'll also reserve judgement, No where to go BUT up!

 

are they going to add a team to the league? Last is last.

 

Last in run blocking they were not last in pass blocking statistics. Unless they have some combo formula?

 

Is that because of the 2 second release? 2.17 second release. Lowest since 2012. The Steelers were ranked 4th in pass blocking. Now those are relying on the release and sacks allowed numbers. Pressure and linemen being pushed back into the qb are not part of it. Remember we started pretty good at 12-0, it doesn't take into account the last 7 games ranking which probably was much lower.

further evidence of rankings shows haskins had the 4th ranked line he played behind. TBay was the 5th ranked line and KC was the 10th. Those two played in the SB. A year ago we were ranked 1st and ended 8-8. Let the process play out, we will see soon enough if the line can or can't do it.

 

No, this team has to come flying out of the gate.

First 6 games, 4 of them are at home, with 3 of those teams did not having winning records last year. And then week 7 is the bye week.

That extra preseason game should give a slight advantage to Pittsburgh come week 1. Win that game and a 5-1 start is not out of the possibility. We can't wait until the Buffalo game to start working the kinks out of Canada's new offense.