What a Difference a Week Makes

What a difference a week makes.  Just one week after an 8 turnover, 9 penalty, mistake filled game against the lowly Cleveland Browns, the Steelers came into Baltimore with the season very much on the line and took care of business.

Charlie Batch came prepared to play and he delivered a 276 yard, 1 TD and 89.6 rating performance.  He wasn’t perfect and missed a few wide open receivers but he came up big in the second half completing 16 of his 20 throws and bringing the Steelers back from a 10 point deficit. 

A week after blasting Mike Tomlin, I’ll give him credit, he had his team ready to play and some of the moves he made midweek seemed to pay off. Tomlin elected to shuffle the offensive line this week due to some injuries and that included moving all pro center Maurkice Pouncey over to left guard.  The result was a line that only yielded two sacks against a rabid Raven defense. 

He also elected to finally pick a featured running back and made the right choice with Jonathan Dwyer.  While I don’t think they gave Dwyer enough carries, he had 16, I think he did enough to keep the starting job. Dwyer had some very powerful runs and gained 49 yards and made a beautiful TD run that will go on his career highlight reel.  He was supplemented by Isaac Redman who carried the ball 9 more times for 43 yards. While I liked the way Redman carried the ball and his production, I’d like to have seen Dwyer get at least 4 of those carries to give him 20.  I maintain that the key to success for a running back is having a lot of attempts and it would have been nice to see what Dwyer could do with those additional carries.  In addition to choosing his top two backs, Tomlin benched Mendenhall. I thought it was a great statement to the rest of the team. He put everyone on notice that if you don’t deliver, no matter who you are, you won’t play. 

The team did deliver however, and you can thank the defense for a lot of it.  Sure they gave up 20 points, but they battered Flacco, forced him into an interception (his first vs. the Steelers in 4 games) and a fumble. They sacked him 3 times and made him force some bad throws. The defense looked dominant at times and was able to pick up some key three and outs.  James Harrison continues to get back to old form and was a real force, leading the team with 7 tackles and a sack.

While statistically he may not have made a difference, Troy Polamalus return was a big reason why the defense was able to do a few more things yesterday. Polamalu enables the team to blitz more guys because they feel more comfortable in the secondary with him back there. When he lines up at the line, the offense doesn’t’ know if he’s rushing or dropping back, he’s a wild card and it rattles the opposition. It showed yesterday and it’s no coincidence the team picked up two turnovers for the first time since the Philly game early in the year. 

The penalties certainly improved dropping from 9 last week to 4 this week and while the turnovers had to improve, with 8 last week, they still had 3 more this week and I’d say that is still an area of concern moving forward. 

The most important stat of the day however was not the 276 yards by Batch, the TD run by Dywer or the fact that Mike Wallace, Antonio Brown, Heath Miller and Emmanuel Sanders all caught 5 balls apiece. The most important stat was the time of possession. The Steelers held the ball 9 minutes longer than Baltimore and if you can do that more often than not, you can win a good amount of ball games.

Moving forward the team still must scratch and claw their way to the postseason as catching Baltimore is all but impossible. The team clings to the 6^th seed at this moment but are tied in the standings with Cincinnati who has been rolling. With some more players going down to injury, yesterday, specifically Ike Taylor, they’ll need to make sure everyone stays focused, in tune and on the same page.

The matchup vs. Cincinnati may very well determine who’s in and who’s out as long as Pittsburgh can win their games leading up to that point. Only time will tell, but let’s hope yesterday was the game that put the Steelers back on track.

NEWS, NOTES and SUPERLATIVES:

Player of the Game: Batch-What a performance!

Play of the Game: The Heath Miller TD catch, nice dive Heath!

Injured: Ike Taylor, he’s said to be out 4-6 weeks.

Can’t be a starter yet: Emmanuel Sanders-He put up good numbers but he fumbled for the 3^rd time in 2 games. I’m sorry but that can’t happen out of the wide receiver position. 

Get him some balls in the red zone: Plaxico Burress-2 games and no catches. I know he’s the 4^th man on this receiving corps but right now he’s been utterly useless

Needs Recognition: Shaun Suisham-He’s having a pro bowl year and has been coming up big in the clutch.

Root For: Anyone who plays the Bengals and Colts, those are the teams we are competing with for the last 2 playoff spots.

7-5, up next vs. San Diego