Steelers Lose To Saints 20-10 in Poorly Played Game

The game in New Orleans just ended and we are now watching the bottom of the 9th of the World Series to try to calm down. Quite frankly the game tonight sucked. The Steelers went into New Orleans and played like garbage. They left with a 20-10 loss and a 5-2 record. Look, we realize that 5-2 is a good record and this is certainly not the end of the world for the Steelers, an NFC loss is far better than an AFC loss and the Saints are a good team, despite that loss they had last week to the Browns. That said, the game sucked! 

The pass defense HAS to improve. It has to. They came into the game 24th in the league in that category and they’ll probably leave with a worse rank. They allowed Drew Brees to go 34 of 44 for 305 yards and 2 TD. You don’t win many games when the opposing qb puts up numbers like that. It’s a rare day when Troy messes up, but he made some mistakes tonight, that won’t happen too often, but it happened tonight. It’s quite obvious to us that William Gay can’t play ball. Sure, he had six tackles, you know why?  He had six tackles becuase he kept getting burned, he is awful and it’s obvious why the Steelers demoted him this year. They need to demote him to the position of ‘left out’ as far as we’re concerned. Lawrence Timmons was stellar again and lead the team with 12 tackles, he’s been their best player on defense this year and we love what we are seeing out of him.  It was also great to see James Harrison with that huge sack in the first half, that’s the Harrison we know and love.  The late hit call on him was questionable at best, if he’s fined on that though, there will be an uproar. 

Offensively the team was relatively unimpressive.  Ben didn’t deliver the way the team needed him to this week. A lot of it was the lack of time he had because of the offensive line getting beat. The Saints do have a good defense and Ben hasn’t played a D like that yet this year, but they needed more balls downfield. Hines, Wallace and Randle El tied for the team lead with 3 catches and Ben had to spread the ball out to a total of 8 receivers tonight, but when your team leader(s) in recetpions for the night have three, you’re in trouble.  When Heath Miller fumbles, you’re in trouble. Heath never fumbles, we suspected the game was over when that happened.  The offensive line appears to be a disaster, giving up 3 sacks and several more pressures and hurries.  It’s fixable, but tonight it apparently wasn’t. Is Flozell Adams made of glass? The man gets hurt on a weekly bassi so it’s obvious they need more depth on the line to help out. Maurkice Pouncey looks fantastic though. We love what he’s done so far in his first season.  He’s already a team leader and he seems to be the best player on that line!

We have a real beef with this team not being able to put the ball in from the 1 foot line. Seriously this has been a problem since the Bus left and we are sick of it. How many times do they have to fail at the run in that particular situation before they try to roll Ben out?  TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!  That’s on the coaching staff. Hey, Arians, ever watch the film? Do you know what works at all? Probably not because you keep doing the same thing over and over and over. You should know what doesn’t work at this point though, running the ball up the middle with a porous line! Apparently when the game film comes up to the teams goal line situations you’re sitting on the can. Oh, and Arians, in those situations, your team plays like what you left in the can. Yeah, crap. They play like crap in goal line situaitons. FIX IT!

Mendenhall finished with 71 yards but 38 of those were on that great TD run. Other than that, he was non existent. A lot of that falls on the O line and their inability to block.  We think Rashard is a great back, he just needs some blocking.

On special teams, we’ve said it for weeks, can Randle El PLEASE be pulled from punt returns? We know Emmanuel Sanders seems to fumble here and there but he is by far and away a better return man at this point, he needs to be the guy on all kick returns. Jeff Reed, we’ll give him a pass, it was 51 yards. He needs to make those more often than not, but we’ll give him a pass, it’s not why they lost.

Ok, ok the rant is over. They are still 5-2, they still have a great D and a potent O. Sometimes it’s not your night and this was one of those times. The Steelers are a veteran team and they have been through games like this before and bounced back. They will look at the film and figure this out and move on from there. The Saints had absolutely no running game today only rushing for 30 yards and 21 carries. That’s good to see with Aaron Smith and Brett Keisel out. The team will need to improve on pass defense and we think they can. They have the players to do it and we will always believe in this team!

HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!

5-2, up next Cincinnati