Some positivity in a sea of gloom

I was so happy with the start they had in this game.One of the rare time the steelers had a big lead early in the game,so they were ready to play....The problem was after that!

 

that final drive, capped with the Austin back shoulder TD pass, maybe was the best drive of the season. Was vintage A Rodgers.

 

Good read. Agree and excited about his quick hit about eventual line of Harmon, Black, Cam...don't really agree on his take about not signing Calvin already. Love the kid, but don't see him getting some significant contract.

 

that DLINE SHOULD come together. YOUNG STRONG talent there, we will see....

 

Have to wait until the end of the season to make that statement Cam.

If he progresses as a #2 then they can see about giving him a nice contract but not crazy money. He is a free agent after the year and only making 1.2 mill.

 

Benton will be the the first out of the bull pen at this point. I feel Harmon and Black are going to be monsters.

 

New England won the TOP though. At one point in the game, New England had over 10 minutes compared to Pittsburgh. That said, i do agree that starting fast in the First Quarter was good to see.


Hopefully the Offensive Line can continue to gel. It will not get any easier for them.

 

Kaboly must be reading this board because fans like you and DJBaller all you guy do is whine and complain, can't even enjoy a win before the lame 9-8 takes come out .

 

The middle zone defenders are still a complete mess and at this point its about communication because there are guys not doing their job. How many 3rd and a mile attempts did the Pats have yesterday that they picked up just by targeting the known weak areas in the Steelers zone. 4th quarter Queen takes Diggs and half a second later Wilson tries to take him as well completely leaving the guy running into the middle from the other direction uncovered. 3rd and 13 and you dont have your 1st level of defense in front of the 2st down marker nooe let's concede that 1st down yardage and protect the deep play. That final 4th down play was pure luck that his knee hit the turf as the defender had a hand on him otherwise he gets it. They are in real need of a smart field general to wear the green dot.

 

The steelers defense have major communication problem almost every years since LeBeau is gone after the 2014 season

 

The article hits on some points.
I was on the game thread and although it is tough to keep up, there were some comments that made one wonder, 'is this person even watching the game?'
Holcomb made some plays. He was never a marquee type player but more of the solid guy. I did see him in on some key plays.
Patrick Queen had a good game, got some pressures, a TFL.
Peppers was a pleasant surprise... He signed Sept 10th.

Winning is not easy in the NFL, I imagine the Chiefs are learning that now.

The current early AFC Big Dogs now:
Bills
Chargers
Colts

Teams that could come on
Ravens
Chiefs
Jags
Patriots
Broncos

With 14 games to go (used to be a season) where do we rank? Things can change dramatically down the stretch.
The Steelers are stumbling out of the gate, but if things were to gel, they can be right in the midst of things.
Winning ugly counts as a win and you need to win a few ugly games during the season.

 

Here's how I view the Steelers now:

they're like one of your kids that you hope they can become a doctor and have a super successful life. So you try hard and give them all sorts of school options, extra tutoring, etc. but they simply can't do good in school. Eventually, you realize that you should just be happy for them to graduate from high school cause even that seems like a huge stretch for the kid.

Steelers are like that now... no point even hoping/thinking about winning a playoff game or SB... we should just be happy if they win whatever game is coming next.

 

Patrick Queen got eased out of Baltimore because he could not handle being the communicator and brain in the middle of the defense. Have to speculate that a great deal of the communication is on him. Can further assume that some of the reason(s) he plays slower than he should is that he is thinking too much. His best year in Baltimore was when the Ravens brough in Roquan Smith and stripped Queen of doing anything but running to the ball.

Figure Cole Holcomb gets the dot before the end of the season. Wilson ends up as the odd man out and plays in sub packages.

 

For me, this year does have more promise than the last several years. I’m not sure if that will translate to a deep playoff run, but we will see.

The defense has been missing 3 or 4 starters for most of the games we played so far. That surely has an impact on our scheme. I am withholding judgement on the defense until some of the other pieces come back.

On offense, so much comes back to our offensive line. Will they gel as the season progresses?

I like Warren’s speed and shiftiness, but that doesn’t help when he is met at the line or in the back field. Likewise, I think Rodgers can do some things, but the line has to keep him upright with some time to throw the ball.

 

Yes, it was refreshing to see the defense stop someone on the first drive of the game. It was also nice to see the first drive end in a TD. That hasn't happened much (in either respect) in the past few years. The problem is that we fell apart. I understand that the OL is young and will take time to gel. I get that the defense has some newer players and some injuries.... but it is hard to be as optimistic as this take is. The defense didn't necessarily come to play. We gave up nearly 400 yards of offense to a pretty poor Pats offense. They'e better than they were last year, but this isn't some offensive juggernaut. We essentially jumped on all 4 times the ball hit the ground (league average is that the offense recovers about 55% of their own fumbles). 3 of the 4 fumbles were more giveaways than takeaways. The INT was a tipped ball (great job by Heyward, but still a tad fluky nonetheless). The defense got had. Again. The Pats just got a bit careless with the ball and we took advantage.

Offensively the problems come mostly from the OL unit. Poor blocking has caused a decent amount of sacks and QB hits while opening no lanes for either RB. This was a better unit last season and I am not sure why they are worse. We have nearly all the same players except we subtracted the worst LT in the league for Jones (who might be the same caliber player at this point) and have Fautanu on the right. Other than that, its the same line. It should be a lot better than it is, especially since we were effectively a middle of the pack unit last season. It's regressed and its killing our offense. Warren/DK/Austin have all been bright spots (and Rodgers is clearly better than Wilson), but there hasn't been much else. Defensively, it appears that Watt, Heyward, Ramsey, and Queen are it. That's the whole defense. Everyone else has been relatively poor. If they aren't making big plays and creating turnovers or TFL's, then our defense is getting methodically marched down the field into our endzone. Our scheme appears soft and basic. It was nice to see Harmon look like a quality player in his snap-limited debut. Hopefully increased playing time for him helps us immensely.

I'll take a win where we got outplayed over a loss where we were the better team every single day of the week. Trust me, I am not complaining. But this team doesn't look good. We don't look like we are going to be able to stop average to good offenses from gaining yards and scoring points, and our offense doesn't look particularly capable of moving the ball against average or better defenses. This is the team that I am most worried about in terms of actually having a losing season. Our previous teams had losing QB play, but had good teams around that QB. This team looks like a losing team. Just my opinion of course. Its early and we can improve to change that.... but this team is very lucky to not be 0-3.

 

We have basically had one good offensive game this season (week 1) and each game has been poor for the D (sans the turnovers yesterday) but are 2-1. I hope the players will improve but I have 0 faith in the coaching staff.

 

I hope you don’t have children

You apparently know nothing about kids

 

Some positivity: Boswell is still our kicker. Waitman is a good punter. Harmon is good, but can only play 5-7 snaps per game.

Other than that... can't think of anything positive.

 

I don't get gloomy. It's not me, and I laugh at people kinging one team, and saying another team is done in week 3. LoL Week 3.
Many on here tried saying the Packers were the best team in football last week, and they turned around, and lost to the Browns who gave up 41 points the week before. It's a long season, many , many , many things can happen. Just not too long ago I watched a 0-2 , and later a 5-5 team win a SB, and I watched another 8-0 team not win another game. It's over when it's over.

 

i recall you saying you only have a niece… and a pile of dogs.

 

We won

Sometimes that seems to escape a lot of people here

 

Ok some of your brain cells are functioning

Be the best you can be with what god gave you