My thoughts on regular season wk 12

1. Games are won or lost up front, and for most of the game both of our front lines were totally controlled

2. 1st half play calling was awful

3. We made Lamar Jackson look like Jameis Winston and Jameis Winston look like Lamar Jackson

4. Russell Wilson should know better than to hold the ball as long as he did most of the game

5. Cleveland coaches moved Miles Garrett up and down the line to free him up, while our coaches left TJ Watt in the same spot getting chipped all game.... Yes, we were out coached

6. Classic Mike Tomlin trap game

7. I sincerely hope the team remembers this when we see them again in 2 weeks

8. Corliss Waitman's shank pretty much sealed our fate

9. Not sure if the coaches actually know when and how to use the Justin Fields package

10. That soft zone in the secondary was picked apart.... Not a good scheme when the front 7 isn't getting much push

11. This team better start acting like they want to go somewhere

 

Two plays late really hurt the team late:
Having Justin Fields throw an incompletion on a long pass on third down after the Jackson interception, why not just leave Wilson in the game for that call
And of course, Waitman waits until the most critical time of the game to shank a punt to give the Browns good field position on their last TD drive

 

Cleveland stacked the box whenever Fields was in the game. They don't respect him as a thrower......because he isn't a good thrower.

 

I think Russ is waiting for deep routes to pen up…

2weeks in a row they allow pass rush up the middle consistently.

Is Zach Frazier not making the right protection calls?

 

We still lack a reliable 4th and short play.

Every time they run the Justin Fields package, I feel like I'm watching Rudy and they're telling him to stay out there on the field. It just seems so seat of the pants.

The teams that seem to have the most success against our defense stack up two guys on TJ most of the game. Why don't we do the same thing against their best defense players when they have someone that's a significant threat like Miles Garrett? It's the old belichick strategy of taking the other team's best player out of the game by shutting them down completely.

I'm really starting to feel that when we get down to the red zone, the coaches all look at each other and say " now what do we do? "

 

Think that is more of Defensive Coordinators scheming up ways to take advantage of the lack of lateral mobility Pittsburghs IOL have; particularly in the case of Isaac. Washington did it some, Baltimore picked up where Washington left off and Cleveland had the best weapon to deploy against Frazier. That said, Frazier may be making the right protection calls but could also be reacting a bit too late to some of the stunts/loops thrown his way. Didn't affect him nearly as much prior to tonight but again... Myles Garrett is going to defeat any Offensive Lineman 1 vs. 1; doubly so a Rookie.

 

yeah, they made Isaac look bad tonight

 

Tomlin's Clock Management should be on here though that would be a massive disservice to the list for that much has been both well known and well documented. As for the list itself, another aspect to add is that this is Arthur Smith's worst called game to date overall; doubly so from a situational standpoint. RedZone the team finally got something going but the situational downs were bad.


Again, moon shots alone are not going to be enough. More conventional runs inside plus more zone beating passing concepts should be integrated into the playbook A.S.A.P.


Final note?! As much as I admire him very much so, someone wanna send out an SOS to Minkah Fitzpatrick?! Not so much in terms of turnovers but just being near the football as a whole. He has been M.I.A. in that regard since early of 2023.

 

Yeah I expected some new wrinkles after the bye, but haven’t seen any

 

the number of WTF? calls and decision to accept penalty - really poor. Usually not on the Tomlin's gotta go train but tonight there were too many head scratchers.

 

The entire game it looked like we were stuck in 2nd gear. Everyone was really slow and sluggish. And this was before the bad weather. Maybe it’s the short week

 

Why is everyone so hung up on accepting the penalty? They hit a long pass on the next down. If we couldn't hold them to less than 7 yards, what makes people think we could hold them to less than 2?

 

Different play cal on 4th and 2, than 3rd and 7. I suspect, we might've stacked the box on a run blitz and sold out on a 4th and 2 than relying on our zone coverage scheme on 3rd and 7. Gave Austin praise last week, took two steps back tonight

 

My thought is that this is not a surprise when playing on the road on a short week.

 

Especially after coming off of a physical game against their biggest rival Baltimore.

 

It was a gamble either way. 4th and 2 with Chubb running it or 3rd down and hoping to stop them further back to make the kick longer. We lost the gamble.

 

No, its not... but it still sucks. Teams lose to inferior opponents all the time, and Thursday Night games are notorious for favoring the home team....

But it sucks the way we lost. Offense scored nothing in the first half, got back in it in a matter of minutes, then the defense lost the game on the field again with another late game drive with under a minute left.

 

Our prep sucked on a short week. These gimmick 3rd and short Fields packages have to go: he sucks as a passer. I’d let him walk in the offseason.

Agreed with our OP about the line of scrimmage, it was a disaster on offense and TJ was a no show basically on D. Seemed like the pass rushers were playing in slow motion: no burst. Or so it seemed.

 

we didnt make them pay for doubling TJ then. No blitzes, no stunts for TJ to the inside, like the browns did for Garrett.

Seems like our coaches are just not good at in game adjustments.

 

I’d be blitzing Queen and Payton Wilson up the middle way more, we got no pressure today.

 

This is a 9-8 caliber team unfortunately we got off to a very lucky start which will make this finish brutal for everyone.

 

1. The OL got no push. I saw our "best offensive lineman", Seumalo, get blown up at least twice ,that I noticed, on short yardage runs. Straight freakin backwards. And he wasn't alone. Their DT's ate our lunch, not to mention Mr. Human-Garbage.

 

Again when we have only 4 defensive rushers and the QB is throwing and killing us on short and medium passes all game why, why, why do we not blitz another person. When we do it works, 4th quarter after the no intention grounding by Winston he was almost sacked by Queens blitz, then its 3 and 7 and I am screaming to blitz because we not getting there with 4 rushers all game, really doing the same thing over and over again with no balls Austin. That was the game and poor defensive coaching from us.

We did the same thing with all our loses against the Dak Prescott, Joe Flacco, and now Winston. I praised Austin last week as we blitz Lamar quite a bit but this week Austin and Tomlin stunk up the joint. And this is the only the defensive part of the game.

By the way do we still think Minkah is playing like an all pro. Really

 

4 for 4 4th down converted Browns did.

Were they all unlikely catches in the snow?

 

we looked like we were playing at half speed. herbig was kind of jogging in his pass rush at times. wow.