0-4 and Going to Lose More

When it was all said and done, the Steelers left Wembley Stadium in London, England with the same number of wins they entered it with, zero.  The team once again failed to deliver in all facets of the game, this time a lot of the blame has to be shared by the defense as well as the offense.

The game plan against the Vikings must always be to stop Adrian Peterson, or at the very least limit him. The defense failed to do either. Peterson torched the black and gold for 140 yards, including a 60 yard run where he looked like Usain Bolt compared to the guys wearing white chasing him. He also put up two scores against the Steelers to add to his impressive output. Two more were scored by Greg Jennings and in total the defense gave up 34 points. 

Giving up 34 points typically means you lost and that’s what happened again, for the 4^th time in as many games. Failing to gain a turnover for the 4^th time in as many games was another contributing factor to the team’s inability to pick up a win.  Its blatant this defense, which looked strong the first couple of weeks, isn’t good enough to get the job done.

They, however, are not the biggest issue on the team. The glaring deficiency remained the offensive line as they allowed Big Ben to be sacked five times, hit five more and hurried all game long.  The underwhelming play of the line has forced Roethlisberger to turn the ball over at a rate we haven’t seen since his third year in the league.  He threw another pick and lost another fumble. His throws were off and his decision making was spotty at best as he simply doesn’t have a second to make a play. 

The few times Big Ben was able to get the ball out of his own hands; the best playmaker on the team, Antonio Brown delivered again. Brown grabbed 12 balls for 88 yards.

Another bright spot to come out of the game may be the output from LeVeon Bell at running back. In his first ever game, Bell carried the ball 16 times for 57 yards and scored two touchdowns.  That output was by far good enough for the best performance by a running back all season long.  Bell will be the guy moving forward and that could be a good thing for this team in the future. In the short term it may just be enough to keep games a little closer.

While the running game improved some, the coaching is going to need to improve an enormous amount if this team even wants an opportunity to win any games this year.  It’s evident that Mike Tomlin has lost his ability to motivate. It’s evident that Dick LeBeau, yes the one and only, has lost some abilities to get the most out of his stars, it’s evident that Todd Haley just shouldn’t have been hired in the first place and it’s most evident that Jack Bicknell should be canned over the bye week because his offensive line is the worst in the league. 

It’s hard to say what changes will occur as the Steelers head into the off week but it’s easy to say the bye couldn’t have come at a better time. The team needs to refocus, re-energize and come out of the bye with a new sense of pride. Kevin Colbert insisted in the offseason this was not a team in transition and he couldn’t have been more wrong. This team is in transition alright, they are transitioning into the worst football team in the league and all we can do is watch or change the channel.