Who Are These Guys?

With the game well in hand for the Chargers in the 4^th quarter  yesterdays; the skies started to spit rain on the depressed crowd. Though I don’t think it was rain, I think it was Mother Nature crying, crying because she couldn’t believe what she just witnessed, none of us could. The Steelers had just lost a very important game to a lesser team, at home. Not only did the black and gold lose, but they barely showed up. 

The final scores was 34-24 but the game was never that close. It was 27-3 and 34-10 at one point. This type of loss, in such a pivotal time of the year really makes you take a step back and ask who are these guys?  We’ve seen them play 13 games and at 7-6, we still don’t know who the real Steelers are.  They have gone on the road and beaten the Giants and Ravens (with Charlie Batch) and they’ve lost on the road in horrible mistake prone fashion to Cleveland and then again yesterday at home to San Diego. 

I was sitting in the stands yesterday and I can honestly say that it was the worst game I’ve ever seen them play in all my time going to games in Pittsburgh. For much of the day the team looked uninspired and played like they were anything but professionals. 

Once again I will say this starts at the top with Tomlin. Why wasn’t this team prepared? Did they automatically assume a victory against a lowly Chargers team with Big Ben returning? They made mistake after mistake, again lacking discipline. They lost the turnover battle and committed another 8 penalties.  Unfortunately the Steelers are continuing to copy the formula for losing to bad teams. Throw in some turnovers, pour on the penalties and play like you don’t care. That’s all you have to do!  Well the Steelers have perfected that this season just as their leader Mike Tomlin continues to perfect the art of making coaching mistakes.

Let’s look at yesterday’s blunders from Tomlin.  The first one could go either way but I felt it was the wrong move. Down 10-0 late in the second quarter with an offense that had done nothing all day, Tomlin elected to go for a 4^th and 1 on the Steelers 48.  If you don’t get it, you hand San Diego the ball with a little over 2 minutes to go on your side of the field.  Sure enough the team didn’t get it and San Diego gained a field goal out of the blunder.  Two more mistakes involve the failure to attempt a 2 point conversion on a couple of occasions. The game was out of hand at 27-3 in all reality, however in the 3^rd quarter the Steelers scored a touchdown to make it 27-9, meaning Tomlin Should have gone for 2 for the shot at making it 27-11. 27-11 would have meant the Steelers could have tied the game with two touchdowns and two 2 point conversions.  Easy to do? No. However, you have to try it. Instead he kicks the extra point meaning the team needed to score 3 times rather than the potential two times.  He did the same thing when it was 34-10, the Steelers scored a touchdown and he kicked again instead of going for 2. What is the guy doing? His head is clearly not in the right place in my opinion. Why make it harder for both your offense and defense in those situations? 

Furthermore, when it was evident the game was over; why not remove Big Ben, Antonio Brown, Troy Polamalu and the other starters who have been banged up this season?  Tomlin says it’s because they are competitors. Yeah, I get that but don’t you want them to compete next week and beyond? He’s lucky nobody got injured. 

I also worry about the locker room atmosphere that Tomlin is overseeing.  It’s a rare day in Pittsburgh when there are any locker room issues however Brett Keisel came out and said he had a feeling they’d lose this week. What? Tomlin, your players think you may lose this week?! That can NOT happen. You have to have them believing they can win every week. It also came out this week that Mike Wallace has trouble focusing when he’s not getting enough balls thrown his way. Wallace came out and said that himself.  Now, saying that’s on Wallace, and as a side note, for a guy playing for a big contract, that was a rather moronic thing to put out to the public. However, it’s Tomlins job to keep this kind of stuff from getting out there in the first place. His players need to know what to say, when to say it and how to say it. Look at Bill Belichik, stuff like this doesn’t happen there. It’s all controlled. Sure, it may be boring for us on the outside, but it’s smart and it’s hard for controversies to start in locker rooms like that. 

Tomlin doesn’t play the game however, he coaches it or at least attempts to.  The players failed to execute yesterday.  The defense was atrocious. The leagues number one defense couldn’t get to Rivers more than one time yesterday. The Chargers have a makeshift offensive line and Rivers has been sacked a ton this year. Not yesterday. The defense couldn’t force Rivers into a turnover. He leads the league in turnovers since the start of last season yet the Steelers D couldn’t get one. 

For all of the Steel Nation who has blasted Ike Taylor over the years, what are you saying now? The team sorely missed him yesterday as Cortez Allen couldn’t cover anyone. If Taylor isn’t back soon, which he probably won’t be, expect that to be a trend until Allen steps up.  Taylor always covers the top receiver on the other team and does a pretty good job. Now that falls to Keenan Lewis who’s’ good but not great and it means Allen must come in and start, which appears to be bad news.

Offensively the team looked bad as well. They didn’t get a run game established, Ben looked a little rusty early and it’s hard to see what the game plan was. Antonio Brown didn’t seem to be in the game plan as much as he should have been; it seemed that they were worried about appeasing Mike Wallace and getting him more catches. Sure, he had a big game statistically but he had drops when the game mattered and catches when it didn’t. That’s not lost on me and it shouldn’t be on you either. Miller wasn’t used enough and Plaxico, who caught his first ball since coming back, isn’t being used properly at all.

With 3 games left on this season the Steelers still control their own playoff destiny, which is lucky at this point. However, with both the wins they have and the losses they have it’s still hard to say what the identity of this team is. They better decide they are the team that can beat anyone, starting this week or they will turn out to truly be the team that just got embarrassed by the Chargers.

NEWS, NOTES and SUPERLATIVES:

FIRST: It was the first time the Chargers had ever won in Pittsburgh during the regular season.

HURT: Willie Colon, again.

CAN HE PLAY: Cortez Allen, he looked bad yesterday.

ROOT FOR: Anyone who plays the Bengals, we need them to lose.

7-6, up next at Dallas (who’s fighting for the playoffs too)