A Season Lost In A Game That Was Won?

A win for the black and gold has never felt as bad as it did on Sunday afternoon. Nobody in Steeler Nation wanted to think about it, but in the process of winning the game, the Steelers season could have been lost.

It happened midway through the third quarter, Big Ben Roethlisberger went to the ground and clutched his knee in obvious pain.  The collective breaths of Steeler Nation were held in silence, the thought of a season filled with potential lost to an injury that couldn’t be afforded.  

While it appears the Steelers franchise Quarterback is not lost for the entire season, he will be out a significant period of time and that might just be enough to cost this team a shot at the playoffs.  With Roethlisberger behind center, the offense flows like a well oiled machine. It’s arguably the most potent offense in the league.  Without Roethlisberger, well, we don’t know what they’re capable of but the ceiling certainly isn’t as high.

The black and gold now turn to Mike Vick, a 15 year veteran who has had success in the NFL but was unsigned until the end of the summer as he’s well past his prime. He’s not nearly as accurate as Big Ben, he’s certainly more turnover prone and he’s only run the offense for a month, meaning he’s not nearly as versed.  The offense will be scaled back and Todd Haley will probably lean on the run a bit more.  Fortunately with LeVeon Bell and DeAngelo Williams, the Steelers have a good opportunity to control the clock and run the ball efficiently. 

Vick will need to manage the game and may be called upon to use his feet a time or two as well.  With outlets like Antonio Brown, Heath Miller and Martavis Bryant coming back soon, if Vick can put the ball in the vicinity of the receiver, they’ll take care of the rest. 

It all starts this Thursday night, at home, vs. the Ravens in a game that provides the Steelers with the chance to burst the Ravens bubble and send them to an 0-4 start, virtually ousting them from any playoff hopes just a quarter of the way through the season.  After that, they face the Cardinals, Chargers, Chiefs, Bengals, Raiders and Browns before heading into a bye week.  Ben could conceivably miss all of those games, which is an extremely tough stretch of games to have the star of your team miss.  Let’s say he does miss those games, if Vick can lead the team to a 4-3 record in that span and hand a 6-4 team back over to Big Ben, the Steelers still have a shot at something special.

If Vick can’t manage that, this season could all be lost in a game that was won.

What We Learned

 

We learned and reaffirmed several things in the Steelers throttling of the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday afternoon.   The first of which, the Steelers are a decent football team. 

There were some questions coming out of the loss on opening night about the validity of this team. There shouldn’t be any longer, they’re a good team.

We learned that this offense is as good as advertised. Big Ben carved up the 49er secondary like it was Thanksgiving Turkey. He passed for nearly 400 yards, three touchdowns and he connected with Antonio Brown for 195 yards and a score. 

We learned Heath Miller still has plenty in the tank.  His numbers may not reflect that, but he was Ben’s security blanket when needed.  We learned that Darrius Heyward-Bey has some ability. He was a good deep threat for the black and gold on Sunday and caught more balls vs. the 49ers than he did all of 2014. If he can play at that level, the team will be even more dynamic than we initially thought.  

We learned that the offensive line is pretty solid, they didn’t allow the 49ers to get anywhere near the franchise quarterback. They can only improve with the return or Maurkice Pouncey later this season.

We reaffirmed the offense is going to be scary when LeVeon Bell and Martavis Bryant return. Adding those two playmakers to the mix is going to make this team nearly impossible to stop.

DeAngelo Williams confirmed that he’s an excellent backup for Bell as he put up another 77 yards and 3 scores. 

Defensively we learned that the Steel Curtain isn’t dead just yet.  Many pundits claimed after last weeks’ loss to the Patriots that the Steel Curtain was ‘dead’.  Utterly ridiculous to claim such a thing after one game.  It would be utterly ridiculous for me to proclaim it’s alive and well after just one outing against the 49ers too but what I will state is it’s not gone just yet. Keith Butler had his men ready to play and boy did they. The pressure they put on Colin Kapernick was fantastic. They were in the backfield all day long.

We learned that Bud Dupree should probably start over Ryan Moates, he’s had 2 sacks in 2 games so far. We learned that Stephon Tuitt can play defensive end really well and is a good guy to be starting on the opposite side of Cam Heyward.  We really learned that Ryan Shazier is a manimal. Yes, manimal. He put up 15 tackles and was all over the field, claiming this to be the best game of his NFL career to date and who’s to argue with him. 

But with all the good, we did also reaffirm one bad.  The secondary isn’t good. It might be masked by a 25 point victory but they were torched.  They allowed well over 300 yards passing and this was with all the pressure the front seven were getting. Imagine if the backers and ends didn’t get into the backfield? 

If the secondary doesn’t improve by leaps and bounds, that just might be the unit that costs this team from going to very special places. They have 14 games to go and time to improve.  But at the moment, that unit is the Achilles heel.

As long as the offense does what it can and the front seven on defense do what they can, they can go far but if they have an off day at the wrong time, the secondary is going to cost them.

We learned this team is really good but we reaffirmed they aren’t great just yet. 

NEWS, NOTES and STATS:

Big Ben tied Terry Bradshaw for most wins by a Steeler QB.

Antonio Brown extended his streak of games with at least 5 receptions and 50 yards receiving, all in the first half.

LeVeon Bell returns this week vs. the Rams. 

Predictable Outcome In New England

Raise your hand if you thought the Steelers were going to win this game before kickoff even happened.  Anyone? Anyone?  If you’re raising your hand right now, you’re either an extreme optimist or a liar. 

The truth is, the Steelers were never going to win this game. They never beat the Patriots, especially on the road, they never beat Brady and the Patriots rarely falter when they come out of a scandal and are anxious to show the world how good they are.  Add in the fact that the defending Super Bowl champ typically wins the Thursday opener and this smelled of trouble from the minute the schedule makers handed this game to the Steelers. 

I’m ok with that. I’m ok with the loss.  I’m actually pretty happy with the offense too.  They moved the ball relatively well. Big Ben made some tremendous throws, Antonio Brown was Antonio Brown, with another massive game (9 catches, 133 yards, 1 TD), DeAngelo Williams was very impressive, gaining 127 yards on the ground and the offensive line played fairly well too.  So the notion this offense can move the ball was confirmed this evening.  The issue that arose was clock management at the end of each half as well as the inability to put points on the board with two missed field goals and the inability to score from the one yard line.  Those issues should resolve themselves however. 

While I’m ok with the offensive performance, I’m not pleased with the defense, in particular the secondary. Tom Brady did what he always does, torch the defense but I don’t think it’s just Brady that can do that against this squad. By the end of the year, everyone will be very familiar with William Gay, we all saw the back of his jersey many times.  Additionally, it’s no secret that Rob Gronkowski is the best tight end in football but it must be to the black and gold. How many times did they leave him completely open? The coverage on him was unacceptable.  The pass rush was limited, gaining only two sacks and four quarterback hits and once again the team failed to gain a turnover. 

Conspicuously awful was Jarvis Jones. He had one tackle. It’s time to wonder, is time running out on the former first round pick being anything worthwhile?  It’s only one game in to his third year but one must begin to ask the question.

One must also question why Mike Tomlin continues to put Antonio Brown back to return punts? It’s absolutely moronic to have the best receiver in the NFL returning punts, which is arguably the most dangerous thing to do in sports.  I’d rather put Dri Archer back there and have him fair catch every punt all year long than risk an injury to AB.  It’s mind boggling to think that Tomlin is willing to take that risk, it’s very interesting.

Also interesting is the fact the Steelers had head set problems where they picked up the Patriot radio broadcast. It’s completely unacceptable and it’s sad to say, it needs to be investigated. You just can’t trust the Patriots in any facet of the game.

The headsets, however, were not the reason for the outcome and all in all it was a loss, an expected loss at that and just like we could have predicted the loss, we could have predicted the offense would play well and the defense would falter.  It’s now time for the black and gold to take a few days off, rest up and move on to San Francisco.