Hard to swallow. It would also have been a painful loss If it had been with a close margin, as it seemed to be a trademark for these games, but we got pounded. And no one saw that coming.

“Two early hits lead Baltimore to victory on what was almost a shutout” could make a nice header for any billboard . And I’m not talking about baseball.

First series: Ben gets hit by Upshaw. 8 plays later, we reached Baltimore’s 17 yardline with a deep pass from Ben to Miller, which was called back by a holding penalty (DeCastro). One play later, Stewart hits A. Brown. That set the tone for the game as two plays later, on what had been an 8 minute- 65 yd drive, J Brown lost the football at the Baltimore 15 yard line.

That series pretty much foreshadowed what happened the rest of the game: We lost three major categories that usually decide who wins these kinds of games: Hits, penalties, turnovers. And most of that is execution.

The Steelers executed some pretty conservative playcalling, both O & D. I’ll elaborate:

Offense: Is run up the middle our solution to every down situations?

Bell not used at his potential. Bell had an average game, even though he averaged more than 5 yards per carry. He had some decent runs and a couple of nice catches. Why wasn’t he involved more in the passing game? He’s in clear advantage when a LB is covering him. Why are we still trying to rush him up the middle, when his biggest ability comes when he runs outside?

Where’s the deep pass threat? If Baltimore was without their best CB, why didn’t we challenge their secondary more often? No pass for more than 30 yards was intended, and D Heyward Bey was ignored most of the time (he had a holding penalty too).

Passing situations- only 3 targets? We usually went with only 3 receivers on passing downs (RB and TE stayed on pass protection), and while we had 7 people protecting Ben, the Ravens defense usually pressured with 5 and still made it to our QB. While you can blame playcalling for this, it’s also an execution problem from our OL, RB and TE for not blocking them. Particularly, Gilbert (yes, our RT who recently got a contract extension to ‘protect’ Roethlisberger through 2019) was abused all night by Dumervil.

Defense, dropping too many into coverage: all day to throw, open lanes to run.

Where are our Blitzes, part II? No sacks, no pressure on Flacco all night. The hardest hit he received came on a QB sneak, trying to score deep into the 4th Quarter. He wasn’t hurried and didn’t experience a knockdown. Coach DL dropped 7 men into coverage most plays, and tried to create pressure with 4. When none of your front 4 is able to win one-on-one matchups, either you excel in coverage, or you’ll end up giving the opposing QB enough time to let one of his receivers get open.

Lot of respect to their WRs… while covering them with 7 men? So, let’s get back to the dropping 7 man into coverage part of the equation: if you drop 7, why are your DBs giving 10 yards of separation from scrimmage to each one of their receivers? That allowed Flacco to make audibles and adjustments to throw short, quick passes that created an open field opportunity to their receivers challenging our tackling abilities, which were exposed for the 2nd week in a row.

No, our DL is not generating pressure. They are not a solid unit. Where are our Blitzes from our LBs and DBs?

The Plays Inside The Game

You will not win many games when you lose the turnover battle. If you also lose the penalty battle, your win probability chances get slimmer. And those two are exclusive responsibility from the players.

Our 3 turnovers were costly, as two of them were inside their Red Zone, ending potential scoring drives, and Millers fumble was at our 25 yard line, leading to the field goal that put the game out of reach for the Steelers.

Individual Spotlights

Bright spot: Wheaton. This kid is developing into what Sanders was supposed to be, and he’s making a good impression, both on the coaches and Ben’s confidence. Yes, also within the fanbase.

Brown and Bell had good games too, but we already expect that from them. Here’s hoping Wheaton soon falls into this category, where we always expect a big game from him.

Dark spots: Mitchell hasn’t shown anything for him to be called a younger, faster version of Ryan Clark. I’m starting to think W Allen or Golden, or even Shamarko (who is a SS that hasn’t had enough reps at FS) could be a better option for us.

M Gilbert: One of your coaches will soon be calling for Mike Adams, to see if he can do it any worse. Pathetic performance from a guy who had the confidence of Coach Munchak (who will be under fire until his unit develops a complete game).

J. Brown had issues with route running, as he seemed to be off-spot on at least 3 passes from Ben, as well as his fumble. Last week he had some nice receptions, but seemed to take a couple of steps back. Could be on his way to the be deactivated on gameday as soon as Bryant and Moore get healthy.

Stats Of The Week

0 turnovers created by our D.
0 3 & outs from our Defense on the 2nd half.
2 turnovers lost at Baltimore’s Redzone
2nd consecutive season where what’s happening at PNC Park seems more competitive than what happens at Heinz Field.
6 Quarters without a TD.
6 Sacks given up by our Oline in 2 games.
20 Penalties in 2 games
37 passing attempts, and only 4 players with more than 1 reception

What to expect next?
While we have a lot of issues and priorities, the ones to highlight among them:
We have to stop the run and pressure the QB. If our players aren’t good enough to win individual matches, our coaching staff needs to get creative.

Our Oline needs to improve from within. We’re not getting any help from free agents. We’ll soon start hearing proposals about benching Gilbert in favor of Adams, even though It will not make our FO look smart (while they gave Gilbert a contract extension recently).
If we are not able to fix those issues, it will be a long season.

Suisham’s FG can make us forget his miscues during preseason (if anyone watched them), and also make us breathe, as we got the W.

Some thoughts after today’s game:

Is Le’Veon Bell aware he must play with a chip on his shoulder?

His 197 yd effort (109 rushing, 88 receiving) made a statement, and should continue that way. Steeler Nation is a huge, diverse crowd. While some say there is no problem with him, many people think that every Steeler player should be a role model on and off the field. Forgiven but not forgotten, he can put away that incident by consistently playing like he did today. He knows that he’s under public scrutiny (at least, for those considering the role-model basis as a must approach) after the incident prior to the 3^rd preseason game. Big Ben can give him advice about handling these issues.

More targets: a legit #2, and a battle for #4?

A-Brown had a monster game. The usual from him.

News for me: Ben’s confidence in Wheaton (96 receiving yds , 31 on the last 2 plays from scrimmage in the last drive). He threw Wheaton one high pass (grabbed), one tight spiral (caught) and a couple of deep throws (caught one for 40 yards). He must do it for at least a couple more games before establishing himself as our #2, but started pretty soundly.

Our #3 is Lance Moore, if healthy.

About our #4 and #5: Based on what we saw today from J-Brown, should it start a debate between DHB, J-Brown and Bryant deserving these reps?

Oline problems

Lack of depth within our Oline means we have to stick with what we have. We gave up four sacks, and they were: one on the first series (3 & G at Cle 14), two while trying to extend the lead (27-17) on consecutive snaps (3^rd Q, 2^nd & 6 at CLE 38), sacks for a loss of 5 and 13 yards respectively got us to 4^th and 24 at our own 44, and on the 4^th quarter, Steelers 27-Browns 20. 3^rd & 10 at our 10, Sacked for a 5 yd loss.

Ben-Brown magic: a consequence of our lack of protection?
A nice 35 yd TD-pass from Ben to Brown put us up 17-3 early in the 2^nd Q. Yes, they have a ton of chemistry going on during those kinds of plays. Unfortunately it seems to be a consequence of our Oline making Ben have to run for his life.

Is our D able to hold leads?
Give up 183 yards rushing, make Hoyer look like Montana during the 2^nd half: Scheme? Execution? A bit of both. Hoyer had time, and our coverage was not even close to their receivers, particularly on bootleg plays (our LBs late-reaction to cover TEs, and our DBs biting too early on their routes).

Our ILBs were well blocked most of the time (run plays). From 27-3 to 27-27, against a shortened Browns (No Josh Gordon, No Cameron, No Tate… No Manziel? –not sure if the last one is really in place to say they were shorthanded). If it was Baseball, that was a blown save for our D.

This is when we should be getting turnovers and sacks (playing with a lead).

… And: Is our O able to hold leads?
After a halftime lead, this is what happened to our offensive series in the 2^nd half:

• 1^st drive: 3 & out
• 2^nd drive: first 5 plays, 42 yards. Next 2 plays, consecutive sacks: Punt.
• 3^rd drive: 3 & out.
• 4^th drive: an early 1st down, then 3 & out (fake punt, we get another first down), 5^th drive: 3 & out.
• 6^th drive: we get into their 41 and, on 3^rd and 1, Cleveland stacked up the middle. You can say it wasn’t a good call from Haley (run up the middle by Blount), but Ben should have called an audible. Result: run for -4, Punt.
• 7^th Drive: Passes from Ben to Wheaton and then our 41 yd game winning FG.

With the way our D is playing holding a lead, our O will have to do much better.
During the 2^nd half, we had 6 runs through the middle for less than 2 yards each, gave up 3 sacks and had 3 drives for 3 & outs, without running out the clock or establishing drives.

Penalties: how many is too many?

11 Penalties for 96 yards. While offensive holding penalties can be drive killers (opening drive, a TD called back for a penalty, settling us for a FG instead), defensive penalties can resuscitate a drive, particularly when they are committed on 3^rd down. Also, several ST Penalties were called, hurting our field position.

Other random thoughts:

Nice, early presence from Kiesel pressuring Hoyer.

Heyward had a B game, getting blocked on some runs, a couple of rushes to Hoyer and a critical sack on their last drive that got things going our way.

Worilds and Jones both had sacks, and both had costly missed tackles. We’ll need more consistent plays from them in order to generate pressure.

M. Mitchell he misread something on that Cameron 47 yd reception.

Shazier made some nasty plays (one tackle for a loss and another one creating havoc on their running game).

If the Ravens watched close, expect them to use a lot of TEs going inside to get them 1 on 1 with Timmons, who looked slow (both running and reacting) covering Cameron and Dray.

Is it time for Taylor to be the #3 CB? Everyone knows Taylor can’t catch, but he was far away from his receivers during the 2^nd half. Can Allen and Gay be the starters?

Coaches getting outcoached, or just pushing the Safe Button too early?
The story of the 2^nd half will not calm the debate around Coaches LeBeau & Haley. There’s no excuse for getting outscored 24-3 in the 3^rd and 4^th quarters , even if you are playing the Super Bowl Champions (or the only team that hasn’t hosted or played in a SB). Our offense had a pretty different gameplan for the 2^nd half, and that’s ok… if it works. If it doesn’t work for the first 2 series, it’s time to go to Plan B, and it should have been: do what has worked (see video of 1^st half). We need to keep scoring points, even with a lead.

Defense: our lack of ability to create pressure and to stop the run should be concerning. Does it start with our front 7, or our coverage issues? LeBeau knows the answer better than anyone: if your DBs can’t cover, help them by dropping more people into coverage (what he did), or create pressure. Where is our DB blitz capability?, or our exotic LB blitzes? Playing with a lead enables the luxury of doing both.

Our special teams were special today. Brown, Archer and even our fake punt. Brown should have gone to the sideline and scored, instead of remembering us Karate Kid (to the older ones) or Kung Fu Panda (to the young ones). Although it doesn’t seem to be on-purpose, we must wait to see what Mr Goodell thinks about it. Reminder for him: it’s not the same to beat a punter than to beat your wife (just in case he’s wondering about it).