My thoughts on reg season wk 3..

Really, really really.....you do know who was right below us on take aways last year......Vikings . You talk out of your a$$
Some of you people are nuts.
Some of you act like takeaways are some magical things.....well if it is, we are pretty magical since we alway are up there most seasons with them. Again it's not coaching, it's magic. LoL

 

Tomlin told the media they talked about it during the week that Stevenson is a fumbler, which is why the defense went after him but according to some fans they don't do any preparation or anything .

 

No, I said something positive about Warren. I've never said anything bad about Najee, or that Najee didn't fight for yards at all. You're clearly misunderstanding.

 

The team is doing a lot of stuff worse this year so far. Takes more than one guy to make the offense click.

 

So funny, I swear I could hear kissing sounds when I read this, LOL.

 

He's just a lot harder to bring down. Both in space and in action.... The talent difference between the two is pretty staggering. Its just too bad that we can't open any lanes for him. As soon as there is a crease Warren is taking it through for a number of big gains. As a whole, the OL has just been so atrocious that there is just nowhere to go.

 

Hard to feel great about this one. The turnovers were more giveaways than takeaways tbh... We should have lost (and I dont think the Pats are that quality of a team). We struggle to stop anyone, we give up tons of yards, can't get off the field, etc.... its been an embarrassing showing by the defense so far this year. WAY too talented to be this bad. The offense kinda stunk it up pretty hard too. We have a lot of work to do....

 

The D has been pretty bad in all 3 games but got the fumbles today obviously that won’t always be the case. The offense has gotten progressively worse each game. The OL is just brutal. Is any of the 5 playing well? Maybe Frazier?

 

The run defense I think they can fix, but it will take time, what concerns me more is teams have no problem throwing to the middle of the field on them.

that is where we are really missing Minkah.

 

You forgot to put Drake Maye look like Tom Brady

 

What's his YPC? I mean you guys kept bragging about it when he was RB2 .

 

What game were you watching they forced those turnovers by going after the ball it wasn't some fluky bounces.

 

Guys are WIDE OPEN not a Steeler in the screen. Maybe Elliot and Porter will help.

 

If you watched this game and come away thinking the Steelers are even remotely a contending team I don’t even know what to say.

 

But Ramsey is so 'versatile'....

Coming to hate that word out the coaches mouths.

 

Lot of fingers pointing at Rodgers for his INT. But look who was mostly at fault.... again!

 

Yep, this is exactly my point. And if the O-Line was playing better, his YPC could be amazing.

 

The OTs are clearly struggling but Aaron has some blame there. Pull it down, climb the pocket and find another option.

 

We did lose to the Jets and Patriots as far as I'm concerned. The defense is the worst in the NFL and pure luck had everything to do with those wins. Do you really believe Steelers will defeat a team with an elite QB?

 

My thoughts on the game.

- The Steelers came roaring out in the first quarter and put up two touchdowns while stifling the Patriots offense.
But they ran out of gas. Where did that 1st qtr team go?

So, let's talk about the offense.
The offensive line play went straight downhill on a sled after the first half. At one point, Rogers was yelling at Mason McCormick who apparently was missing his assignment, Rogers called timeout and when play resumes, McCormick still whiffed the block, and the defense nearly killed Jaylen Warren on a TFL.
There has to be some animosity in the huddle, but it was uniform bad blocking across the line as I also saw Rogers with a few words to Broderick Jones who whiffed a block and got Rogers hit.

All said, it was tough sledding as on drop backs, Rogers had the defense in his face right away. The horrible blocking caused a really ugly pass by Rogers to be intercepted.
Warren was getting hit while taking handoffs. So, both phases were not having much success
At the end of the day, the ground game produced a measly 64 yards despite some very good effort by Warren.

The Patriot's defense isn't great. Former Steeler LB, Robert Spillane was doing Lambert impersonations, leading NE tacklers.

On the Defensive side, Austin's defense should have played the lottery. They were that lucky.
Takeaways are great but that doesn't happen a lot.
It's even more frustrating when the defense gets a takeaway and the offense does nothing with it.

There were some promising moments.
Jabril Peppers looks like he might be a good discount pickup. He did have a chip on his shoulder for New England.
Heyward and Watt forced fumbles and got sacks.
Slay got badly burned but made some really nice places as did Echols.
I never heard Ramsey's name and didn't think of him till this moment.

The Interior Linebacker positions are a question mark.
Queen did make some plays this time out and was the leading tackler.
Payton Wilson just gets blown out on running plays and isn't much of a blitzer. Jack Sawyer is a liability in the pass game, any chance they could be morphed into 1?
Harmon made his debut and was a presence. He was the recipient of a gift sack but did make his presence known when in the game. Hopefully Austin sees that he's needed on the field more.

Other notes
The Patriots have both Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper. Henry torched the Steelers pass defense for 98 yards and 2 TD's.
The Patriots are a good team and have Drake Maye who is looking like a solid QB, they need a few pieces to make this team a playoff caliper team. We beat them, as we should have but it was a struggle.
The Patriots aren't very good in pass defense and were missing a key player, Arthur Smith's offense started attacking them with the run which should have setup the pass. The offensive line woes are not helping but I am concerned with the design of this offense. We have pieces missing too but should be better.
How do you like getting punched in the face and not being able to squat about it? The Patriots were 4 of 5 on 4th down conversions, the Steelers were helpless. On the 1 that they didn't convert, I'm not sure what the Patriots were thinking, Maye could have snuck it for a yard easy.

All said and done, the Steelers won a game they should have over an inferior opponent. Winning ugly is not a bad thing.
8 Penalties for 59 yards is a little concerning.
4-9 3rd down conversion is more concerning.
The Steelers ran 49 offensive plays which is awful and kept the defense on the field for 71 plays.

 

and that scrub echols.

 

His YPC is pretty much the same as what Najee's has been over his career. Not good.

He does provide more of a threat on the ground for big plays, but not much more. Like Najee, he hasn't shown that he can break big game breaking runs.

He's much better at getting bigger plays through the air than Najee does. This season, he already has a play that's about twice as long as Najee's biggest play from scrimmage in his career even though Najee has had 1112 carries and 183 receptions.

Najee was not a bad RB. He was a guy that was going to give you average results very consistently. With elite ball security. And he was insanely durable for us.

But the reasons not to give him the 5th year option were (1) he's not an elite guy / game breaker so it doesn't make sense to pay him and more importantly (2) playing RB destroys human bodies...and we gave him an insanely high workload while he was here. We'd pressed our luck (shout out to SteelLion69) for 4 years with him. How many RBs go 5 years without a major injury. Not many...

I really liked what we know about Najee as a person. Seemed like a good guy. And it's nice to be able to root for a guy you think is a good human.

But he was just OK as a RB.

And I wonder about how he was in the locker room. They never talk about this kind of stuff, but it is interesting that he lost being a captain (something voted on by the players IIRC).

 

Agree. I was glad the Steelers won, but that lack of running game and the poor pass defense is going to get exposed against the better teams and makes the other games coin flips.