for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read this

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Well not to disappoint you but I've seen the Bubble screen being used by many teams this past year so it must be an "In" thing right now although I'm sure the frequency of using it will diminsh I think the problem is some of the folks are stuck on the "Arians" element versus what I viewed to be the overall message in the article which is IF we go back to old time Steeler ball (Ground and pound) we will not be successful because it's a totally different game today or QB driven league if you will and even if you hated Arians I think it's really tough to deny that when you see who's having success and more importantly how they're having it ie., via the passing game.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

I think the article shows me three things that depict our ineptness on Offense this year and where we messed up.

1. Mendenhall - 1.6 yds after contact. This guy falls down upon contact and has no heart ( this may be rough but its what I see )
Redman - ranked second in yards after contact in the NFL and had half as many carries as Mendenhall ( BA used the wrong personel in situations )

2. Ben was still in the top 10 in ypa even being injured. However Ben should have sat out the SF game, that was just silly to see him try and play that night.

3. 21st in scoring and not enough offensive plays. Its obvious we moved the ball but we didnt score, if the offense could have figured out a way to score more points or extend drives, we probably would have went a lot further.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

The article to me points out to a tee the issues the Steelers had inside the 20. Look at Patriots, Saints, Lions, etc. - those teams run very precise offenses inside the 20 and thus score a lot of TDs. The Steelers, to my eye, seem to grab-bag at things. When you are inside the 20 it is critical to create matchups that favor you. A bubble screen isn't going to do squat when the safety can move up and CB can drop back and then disrupt the lanes where a guy really can't get free.

I never liked Arians because I always felt he didn't do enough to work with what he had, i.e. he forced guys into his system, rather than adjust to the strengths/weaknesses of the players he had. Heath Miller has a great set of hands, damn it to hell...he has to block so Wallace and Brown can get 20 yards downfield....Mendenhall as a screen option, nah takes discipline in building a blocking scheme.

Thus inside the 20 guys like Heath Miller, Mendenhall (as a passing threat), even Saunders, Hines and/or Sanders seem to be the 2nd or 3rd option or an afterthought after Wallace/Brown. But Wallace/Brown can be neutralized a lot inside the 20. So you need more options and the Steelers never seemed to be willing to explore and develop those options. Granted the line has had its issues and I still don't know whether Ben really is making the decisions he should pre-snap - but it was really a bummer. The TD Brady threw to Hernandez in the SB is a perfect example of where Brady is probably changing the play at the line of scrimmage because he sees the defense and realizes he can get the matchup he wants. Hopefully Haley can help Ben with this, because I view this as the main problem in the Steelers being able to score points with the Packers, Pats, etc.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

This is the best answer... and funny! Bravo!

 

ESPN Insider: Steelers must let Big Ben air it out

I merged this into this thread as the article is already being discussed. Nice to see how the article was meant to be formatted at least. -Ray D

Steelers must let Big Ben air it out
Pittsburgh must cut ties to some old views on offense and let Roethlisberger loose
By Peter Keating

The New York Giants won Super Bowl XLVI because ultimately, their receivers made big plays and New England's didn't. After 56 minutes of thrilling, occasionally sloppy, dink-and-dunk chess, the Patriots tried to go deep, and couldn't, while the Giants tried to go deep, and did.

And looking forward to next season, there is one team more than any other that should draw inspiration from the Giants' success: the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Like the Giants, the Steelers are a venerable franchise and a smart organization, run by old-school ownership and led by a quarterback drafted in 2004 who has made a boatload of clutch plays on his way to winning two Super Bowls. And like the Giants, the Steelers are proud of their blue-collar identity: These are teams with long traditions of smashing opponents at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. But while the Giants successfully morphed into a big-play offense this season -- Eli Manning not only threw for 4,933 yards, but averaged 13.7 yards per completion, third-best in the NFL -- the Steelers were in flux.

It's not just that Ben Roethlisberger suffered a broken thumb and a high ankle sprain, or that injuries kept Pittsburgh's offense from any semblance of continuity. It's that the Steelers kept relying on RB Rashard Mendenhall even though he completely lacked explosiveness, averaging just 1.6 yards after contact per carry last year, 46th in the NFL. (And you can't lay that on the O-line, because Isaac Redman ranked second in the league, but had fewer than half as many carries as Mendenhall.) It's that TE Heath Miller was effective but targeted just 75 times, 20th among tight ends, and often seemed to disappear toward the end of games. It's that WR Mike Wallace started out as a superstar, with 43 catches for 800 yards in the first eight games of the season, but then drifted to just 29 receptions for 393 yards in the last eight. Does Wallace need more help with double coverages? Does he need to run better routes? Did his rapport with Big Ben lose something when Antonio Brown arrived? Nobody's quite sure. But the bombs stopped falling his way after Halloween.

Steelers fans loved to bash former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians for everything wrong with their team, and last month Arians packed his bags and went back to work for the Colts, where he was quarterbacks coach from 1998 to 2000. But Arians wasn't responsible for the fundamental problem that underlies all of Pittsburgh's issues: The Steelers want to remain a running team, but they're more effective when they pass. Without Arians, the big question is: How should they run the offense under Roethlisberger now?

"If he were, I don't want to say 'allowed,' but his preference would be to throw the ball more, use the weapons we have and throw it," Roethlisberger said last April, referring to Arians. "We both think ... that we call a lot more runs because we know that's what we're supposed to do. And I don't know if that's 'supposed to' from the fans, the media, the owner, who knows?"

Well, we know. It's from all three. The Steelers define themselves as a hard-working, lunchpail kind of squad, and it's hard for their proletarian-identifying owner, their traditionalist fans and their stuck-in-the-days-of-Chuck-Noll beat writers to see them as anything but bruisers. But these days, if you're plodding forward, you're really moving backward, because your competition is probably taking to the air.

This season, we've analyzed how successful teams understand that offensive balance doesn't mean rushing and passing an equal amount of times, but maximizing total yards per play, and how the best teams are adding passing yards by throwing deep and by targeting new-breed tight ends. Yet at Art Rooney's behest and under coach Mike Tomlin's direction, the Steelers ran the ball on 47.4 percent of plays in 2010 and 42.8 percent of plays in 2011 -- huge numbers for a team with a quarterback many consider one of the five best in the league. (The Giants, Packers and Saints all rushed on fewer than 40 percent of plays this season; the Lions were at 33.6 percent.)

The statistical case for finally switching gears is simple. Roethlisberger can throw deep: Even with his injuries, he averaged 9.1 yards per attempt in 2011, seventh-best in the NFL. He has reliable receivers: The Steelers dropped just 2.9 percent of targets in 2011, the lowest rate in football. And those receivers make plays: Pittsburgh averaged 5.8 yards after catch per reception, sixth-most in the league. Wallace and Brown each averaged more than 16 yards a catch, and they're both just 25 years old -- and Emmanuel Sanders is a heck of a third wideout.

It's actually fairly amazing that with Roethlisberger, Wallace and Brown operating as effectively as they did, the Steelers managed to score only 325 points last year. But that's what conservative play calling will do: Because runs are generally less effective than passes, rushing too often in critical situations will kill drive after drive. Through most of last season, Football Outsiders ranked Pittsburgh as a top-10 offense based on how efficient the Steelers were per play. But while they ended the season ranked ninth in net yards per passing attempt (which includes sacks) and 12th in offensive yards, they were just 21st in points.

In contrast, the Giants scored 394 points, eighth-most in the NFL, despite a running game that averaged a league-worst 3.5 YPA and that was particularly horrendous in critical short-yardage situations. Why? Because adding deep throws allowed them to extend Manning's proficiency over a greater number of plays.

Advanced metrics indicate that approximately zero percent of you are going to believe this, but on a per-play basis, Manning didn't actually play better in 2011 than he did in 2010. Yes, he threw for more yards and more yards per attempt, with fewer interceptions. But, as we explored way back in September, Manning's 2010 was considerably better than it appeared from his raw stats: His picks were largely the fault of his teammates, and he was exceptionally good at avoiding sacks and fumbles. And many of Manning's passes in 2011 -- and in 2012! -- were so big and so exciting that at the moment, it seems like he has no flaws at all. The reality: Manning's Total Quarterback Rating, which takes into account all of a QB's contributions to every game, play by play -- the interceptions that were on Manning this year, and the extra sacks, as well as all the bombs to Victor Cruz and Jake Ballard -- was 61.0 in 2011, and 64.2 in 2010.

What changed this season wasn't Manning's efficiency, but the volume of his production. In 2011, he added an estimated 93 points to the Giants' offense through his passing, up from 66.1 points in 2010, because he was on the field more: 725 action plays, versus 654 a year earlier. Because Manning threw more -- and maintained his effectiveness as the number and depth of his attempts increased -- the Giants gained more yards and more first downs through the air, and more yards per play overall, than in 2010. The big lesson here is that passing generally keeps an offense going far more effectively than rushing. And because the Giants assigned Manning more responsibility, they got more out of his excellence.

Which brings us back to Big Ben. Roethlisberger had a QBR of 63.3 this year, but he was in on only 654 action plays. That might sound like a lot, but it ranked just 13th in the league -- and the 10 most active QBs had an average of 732 action plays in 2011, up from 677 in just the past two seasons. It's pretty clear the Steelers aren't getting as much as they could out of Roethlisberger.

Todd Haley, Pittsburgh's soon-to-be new offensive coordinator, has run some amazing offenses dominated by wideouts, topped by the 2008 Arizona Cardinals, who had three 1,000-yard receivers. His most important job now isn't to get Wallace straightened out or to involve the Steelers' running backs more in the passing game. It's to convince Rooney and all those who still see the Steelers as hard hats that it's time to take the cuffs off Big Ben. Maybe if Roethlisberger gets to air the ball out early, he won't have to scramble to win so many games late, reducing the punishment he takes. Or maybe he'll have a lot of fun doing both -- like Manning.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

My bad, I didn't see this. Feel free to delete my post if you want.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Just a couple of notes:

1. The bubble screen is not the problem. The stats prove that out. We averaged like 6 or 7 yards a pop on those plays. I have no problem with that. It is basically a running play where you are throwing the ball. The problem was that EVERY team knew we were going to run it. We had some big gainers on the play, but also had a bunch of negative and 0-1 yard gains as well. It didn't work against Balt. or a good defense. Even Phil Simms called it from the booth when playing Denver.

2. Everyone needs to forget trying to logically think about what we have done and are going to do on offense. I have seen way too many jumps in logic that aren't right. This is what we know to be true: whatever success we had in the last few years in our offense, it was due to passing the ball. What it does NOT mean: It does not mean that if we decide to be a RUNNING team next year we won't have success. Prior success in item A does not mean failure for item B. In all honesty it doesn't even mean continued success using item A. The items are not correlated. In addition, just because Green Bay, New Orleans and New England have success passing the ball as their primary means of offense, it does NOT mean the other teams cannot have success using RUN as the primary means of offense, Denver and San Francisco proved that this year.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

I know...I was showing the irony and being sarcastic at the same time. It's kind of like trying to sneeze and pass gas at the same time...you never know what you might get!

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

On point 1, it is not that the bubble screen is a bad play - it was that it was BA's only real short yardage play and he would go to it 3-5 times a game.

On point 2, I agree you can have a successful offense running the ball, but to lean on it too much is a problem mainly because a good defense will probably stymie the run and two, running the football a lot means you have to constantly string long drives which can be difficult to sustain. More passing, generally means more possessions and more opportunity to score. Personally I want some balance too - don't forget the Saints averaged something like 130 ypg, so even w/Brees throwing for 5000+ yards, they still had a pretty stout running game.

Biggest thing I think the Steelers need on offense is (1) More ability to be successful in the run in short yardage situations (2) A short passing game that is a component of the offense and is part of their identity....meaning a guy like Mendenhall should have around 40 receptions and Miller should be over 70 catches (3) Enough respect for a running game where play action can be used more often.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

You don't know how many times this year I watched us go 5 wide on 2nd and 2 and about threw a shoe through the TV? The perfect opportunity to use play action and get a good chunk or set up for the play action later in the game. What do we do? Remove the option of running the ball completely, and put Ben in the shotgun.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Man that article was Poo Poo. I got dizzy trying to read all that mess. Any article that tries to make excuses for what Arians and Ben did is a bunch 0f horse crap! There was no rhyme or reason to BA's offense, something they will soon find out in Colts Land. BA just plain refused to run the ball. One thing the article said that was right, the Steelers relied on Mendenhall to much, and not enough on Redman, that was the truth. Hopefully Mendenhall is through as a starter for the Steelers. Its time to move on from him like it was time to move on from Arians.

Also, all this crap about the league is a passing league and the Steelers WR's are so great that we should pass the ball more is another bunch of horse crap. A good run game will always help your passing game, play action, screens to your RB's, a short quick strike passing game, and passes to your TE's are all things that will help an offense succeed. Those were things that BA didn't do. All he did was Bubble Screen, 1 back formations, and zero back five wide formations, all things that did not work. He would pass in short yardage situations with those stupid formations. It was not a receipt for success. Thats why he's gone. Hopefully it won't take the Colts 5 years to get rid of him.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

And this is where we hope a real coach (and some acquisitions) will help.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

The Giants RBs ran for 109 yards in Super Bowl XLVI. Patriots backs ran for 62.

The Giants' rushing attack got bogged down by injuries during the season. Nevertheless, it isn't about yards as much as it is mindset. The Giants' ability to run the ball in SB XLVI really helped Eli and that offense in the second half.

The Steelers need to think of themselves as a blue-collar offense, which the Giants and 49ers are. This doesn't mean ignoring the pass. What it means is taking the field with the mindset that "we will overpower you." The Steelers of late have become a finesse offense. There's a big difference.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

DAMN some are never happy! when we had Bus everyone was wanting a QB who could pass instead of run all the time! now that we have the QB everyone wants a Big Steelers type back (which isnt really the steelers type because we HAVE NO TYPE!) to run all day SMDH

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Truer words have never been said. The mindset is what it is all abot. Like Joe Greene said, knowing you can run the football when you have too. Thats what it is about. See, the Steelers had no faith in their ability to run the football. They would give up the thought of running the football and start throwing the football all over the yard when they should have ran it. Joe Greene hit the nail right on the head when he said you have to practice on running the football to perfect it. Under Arians, they were to busy throwing the ball to get serious enough about running it. They need to get that blue-collar mentality back about running the football then the passing game will be that much better.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Thats right its all about "mindset" doesnt matter if we are averaging lets say 1.6 yds per carry...as long as we show we are tougher than the other team and show them the "steeler way" thats the right thing to do...while the other team is throwing for 300+ yds a game...as long as we impose our will on them thats all that matters?? that doesnt get it done in the NFL anymore sorry....

mindset alone doesnt win football games.... some people just cant get over that...

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Very good points and I'd agree with about everything you said

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

They sure used that mediocre run game effectively to score TDs when in the redzone.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Thats right its all about "mindset" doesnt matter if we are averaging lets say 1.6 yds per carry...as long as we show we are tougher than the other team and show them the "steeler way" thats the right thing to do...while the other team is throwing for 300+ yds a game...as long as we impose our will on them thats all that matters?? that doesnt get it done in the NFL anymore sorry....

mindset alone doesnt win football games.... some people just cant get over that...[/quote:1fhulta2]

1. Nobody is talking about mindset "alone"
2. I'm pretty sure the NY Giants had a pretty good "impose our will" attitude during the playoffs and that is why they're the champs
3. Running the ball is still pretty damn important in this league
4. Ask yourself why the godfathers of the modern NFL offense, the Houston Oilers of the 1990s, couldn't win jack. In Fact, ask yourself how they lost a 32-point halftime lead in the playoffs.
5. I'd argue that the Steeler way ought to be 30 rushes for 130 yards and 35 pass attempts for 270 yards and a 34-26 TOP advantage...NOT 15 rushes for 30 yards and 50 pass attempts for 300 yards.

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

Thats right its all about "mindset" doesnt matter if we are averaging lets say 1.6 yds per carry...as long as we show we are tougher than the other team and show them the "steeler way" thats the right thing to do...while the other team is throwing for 300+ yds a game...as long as we impose our will on them thats all that matters?? that doesnt get it done in the NFL anymore sorry....

mindset alone doesnt win football games.... some people just cant get over that...[/quote:3i0f7rym]

1. Nobody is talking about mindset "alone"
2. I'm pretty sure the NY Giants had a pretty good "impose our will" attitude during the playoffs and that is why they're the champs
3. Running the ball is still pretty damn important in this league
4. Ask yourself why the godfathers of the modern NFL offense, the Houston Oilers of the 1990s, couldn't win jack. In Fact, ask yourself how they lost a 32-point halftime lead in the playoffs.
5. I'd argue that the Steeler way ought to be 30 rushes for 130 yards and 35 pass attempts for 270 yards and a 34-26 TOP advantage...NOT 15 rushes for 30 yards and 50 pass attempts for 300 yards.[/quote:3i0f7rym]

Steelers Off. Averages

27 rushes for 120 ydpg 33 att for 253 ydpg

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

They sure used that mediocre run game effectively to score TDs when in the redzone.[/quote:zslvam2z]


they had 2 total rushing TDs in the playoffs....one was when they were up 30-20 against GB
the other was the bradshaw TD

ppl need to do their HW before posting

 

Re: for all u who want 3 yards and a cloud of dust read thi

they had 2 total rushing TDs in the playoffs....one was when they were up 30-20 against GB
the other was the bradshaw TD

ppl need to do their HW before posting[/quote:1jb37xji]

generally the giants are an efficient running team. jacobs was injured a good bit. gilbride was smart enough to know most teams were going to try and stop them from running and went to a passing game that caught alot of teams off guard so to speak. it worked effectively. they still ran the ball effectively enough and have a reputation of running it effectively, to open up the passing game. bradshaw is a good all around back that they did use in the passing game too over the last couple of years, again they made teams cheat up to watch for him in either the passing game or the run game and went over their heads with the ball. it worked well.

that's what i'm hoping we can start doing, keeping other teams guessing as to what we will do. it makes it very difficult to defense. you have to be efficent enough at doing both to make it work, something we didn't do enough of with BA. that's why he's gone. talking about balance isn't always about 50-50. it's more of like our 70's teams. we can beat you however we need to, because we can do both and show it to teams.