My thoughts on reg season wk 7

It is unreal
They will go down with him and the ship
Refs fault we gave up 450yds

 

Flatout embarrassing game by the Defense. Whatever money they spent on the defense in the offseason, owners should demand a refund. Pitiful.

 

He saw it and tried to jump too late. How the heck does that happen? He had great position and Rodgers put it in a perfect spot.

 

Felt like one of those Playoff collapse loses.

 

There were many culprits last night, but the play of the entire front seven was the most egregious. It wasn't just that they let Flacco get comfortable most of the night. It was that they couldn't stop the league's worst running game. Some of that was coaching. They were not aggressive enough between the 20s, giving up some third-and-long completions because they only rushed four and Flacco had all day to throw. They never adjusted to the running game, either. That said, Heyward and Watt were largely invisible. Queen had a really bad night. He seemed confused at times, including making a terrible read and running right out of position on the touchdown to Fant. It wasn't just the line. The linebackers were horrible, too.

 

They didn't show enough on the replay but it looked a lot like the guy that was behind DK had arms draped over both of DK's shoulders holding him down. I'm going to have to watch the replay or something to see for sure.

Edit: I looked multiple times. 7 defenders, 4 Steelers there. DK was the last Steeler to arrive and the pass was thrown past him. So he had to jump for it while going into the end zone. He kind of jumped into the defenders which prevented him from getting up like he needed to. It was a good throw by Rodgers. Gave his receivers a chance.

 

Every single time we were on third down, I would just look at the TV and say oh, here comes the crossing route to Chase for a first down. I was right most of the time too. I didn't even need to see how they were set up. It was just what they did every time and we still gave it to them every time.

 

Almost forgot on my list.......

One of these days the defense will cover the middle of the field on 3rd and long

 

They did adjust to some zone last night. That was actually worse. They moved guys around and adjusted coverages, didn’t work.

Zero of the so-called playmakers on defense could make a single play against one of the worse offensive lines in the league. This game was lost because of the front 7 more than the secondary. You can’t give a QB that kind of time when they have a receiver like Chase who frankly is just better than our players.

As far as the Bengals running game goes, most of their big plays came off horrendous tackling and missed tackles. That’s 100% on the players.

 

In the first half, Jonnu Smith seemed to be the only one that helped his quarterback out by coming back to catch a pass from a scrambling Rogers.

Watt is it great player. But it seems incredibly easy to take him out of the game by chipping on him for a lot of teams. The teams that do this consistently seem to shut him down.

There is a big hole in our zone defense right in the middle of the field. This hole has existed for the past 10 years. Quarterbacks that have a decent wide receiver or tight end frequently exploit this area over and over.

We gave one of the worst run offenses in the league a great game. Their lead rusher had 11 carries for a 108 yards, averaging 9.8 yards a carry. That is beyond unacceptable. It's just pathetic that we gave that much up. Our secondary is a bit beat up right now, so what happened with our very expensive and highly rated defensive line against the run?

It was nice to see Roman Wilson get involved too.

Excited or not, you don't take your 300ish lb ass and jump on your 41-year-old quarterback and knock him to the ground...... In fact, if I was the boss I would be putting a stop to all of the smacking players on the head too. It seems really stupid to be smacking people in the head when you are concerned about head injuries. Some of those players are hitting each other pretty hard on those celebratory bangs on the head.

 

We see the steelers play down to opponents and lose games they should win every year. Nobody should be surprised. The players change but there is one constant. We all know who that is.

 

My thoughts go along with the OP.

The NFL wanted parity, and parity is what they are getting.
Across the board the NFL looks watered down.

The Bills choked up against the inferior Patriots, and lousy Falcons.
The Steelers choked up to the dreadful Bengals, making them look like a power run juggernaut.
Washington lost to those same crappy Falcons.
The Eagles look like a farce.
etc.....

No team has really stepped up. We see a lot of 4-win teams.

So, last night.
Cam Heyward is right; the run defense was putrid. They allow some guy named Chad Brown to run all over them.
Joe Flacco bombed the secondary as if it was Iwo Jima.
Meanwhile Teryl Austin, a guy whose defense set a record for points scored against over a 3-game stretch as a Bengal, looked clueless.
The Steelers are the better team, but they had no fight when the going got tough.

I think blame goes across the board.
The Defense had a lead with 2:21 and gave up an 8-play 52-yard drive for the winning FG. 61 yards were through the air (a few run stuffs).

 

TOMLIN is the common denominator year after year but you are not wrong. That defense should be ashamed with how they played.

 

The entire Defense was azz. You can't pinpoint a specific group. No pass rush. No rush defense. No coverage.

and blaming Rodgers for that interception is fair, but he did play pretty damn good. Who else sans Big Ben keeps the Steelers in the game until the end.


Also, the Pickens infatuation is annoying. I see Metcalf balling out every play. George was 25%.


We all knew Flacco was going to take them down the field for the win. Coaches fault entire game.

 

Pickens is outplaying Metcalf so far this season. That is inarguable among the sane. Metcalf also played very poorly last night. He had a fantastic chance to be the hero on the Hail Mary and blew it. He handed the Bengals a turnover by failing to secure the ball on a beautiful throw by Rodgers. The former mistake is understandable. The latter is not.

The defense definitely fell apart, but the offense was awful in the first half. The Bengals have no pass rush at all. They cannot stop the run. The Steelers stopped themselves repeatedly. Despite the defense, they still should have been able to win the game in a shootout.

 

I said in a game thread what was Metcalf looking at on the hail Mary? I just don't know.

 

I’m not absolving Tomlin from blame. I just think the players own a big part of this one.

 

The same Pickens that single handedly cost the Steelers a win against the Bengals at the end of last season by dropping every pass thrown to him .

 

Typical Tomlin egg laying - all the typical criteria were met beforehand, so this one was easy to see coming.

Defense is absolute ass, and its not talent, it's coaching.

Porter shows again why I didn't want him, too handsy, if you come into the league with that rep, and then use your hands you're going to get called time and time again.

Nice to see Warren showing how much better he is than Slowee, and nice to see the line gelling and some nice TE play, Rodgers clearly still has it.

Muth has to get down, we could not stop them.

 

They blew a great opportunity to take control of the division now the Bungles are back in the race.

 

I really wish they would blitz with way more players, and at a minimum, disguise who's coming. This is needed when the 4 man rush is as useless as last night.

The worst thing that happens is for the Steelers to take a decent lead in the first quarter/half because that causes Tomlin to turn on Turtle mode with a big serving of vanilla on top.

The days of being 108-1-1 when leading by 10 points seem so far away... like 2 decades ago... Or was it 11 points... damn that 1 point!

 

Bengals will fall apart... only we can make Flacco and their running game look that good.

 

At 10-0 I had us in the Super Bowl!

 

The whole front seven was on a milk carton this game