Steelers Slip By Dolphins 23-22

It wasn’t always pretty out there today but the Steelers slipped by the Dolphins in Miami 23-22.  It may come at a cost though as it has been disclosed that Aaron Smith tore his triceps again and is out of the remainder of the season. This is definitely  a concern down the line but we’ll worry about that later. For now, let’s discuss this win. It helped the team get to 5-1 and hold their lead in the AFC North for another week. The offense looked pretty solid in the air as Big Ben was 19 out of 27 for 302 yards and 2 TD passes.  7 of those 19 completions were to Hines Ward for 131 yards. Ward was fantastic today, his TD catch was a work of art as he caught the ball on the outside, juked two defenders, ran about 12 yards and pushed his way into the end zone. Later in the game he pulled a ball off the top of a Miami defenders head, only Hines can do something like that. He’s now caught a ball in 184 straight games, he’s a great one!  Wallace caught a beautiful 53 yard TD as he burnt past the defense. He’s as fast as they come and the team needs to look his way a little more often.  On the ground, it was pretty sad this week, Mendenhall only had 37 yards on 15 carries and the team only totaled 58 yards on the ground. That is NOT Steeler football and it’s something we think and hope will only be a one week thing.  Reed did his job in the kicking game and the defense did enough to win but looked a bit sloppy today. Ike Taylor and Bryant McFadden tied for the team lead with 6 tackles. That is a scary stat when both of those guys are your starting cornerbacks. We wanted you to keep an eye on James Harrison and this is the first time we’ll ever say it, and hopefully the last, he was dissapointing. He was off his game and only had 4 tackles. Part of that is due to the Miami offensive game plan as they threw more than they ran, as we talked about in Game Day, but still, Harrison almost looked a bit tentative out there. We hope he shakes that off. 

Moving on to some issues, Big Ben is great but he HAS to learn to hold onto that ball. He had 3 fumbles, one he lost and one could have cost them the game at the end.  Yes, that was a fumble, we agree with that call, the black and gold got lucky the rules are what they are as it did seem the Dolphins probably recovered the ball. But hey, a win is a win and you take them how you can get them.

Another issue we have is let’s get rid of Randle El on punt returns, he just doesn’t have it anymore. The way Emmanuel Sanders returned the kickoffs today, sans the fumble, he should be returning punts.  Randle El is nothing more than a number 3 of 4 receiver at this point, use him appropriately. That said, it’s a coaching decision to put him back there and we have a few issues this week with the coaching. What the hell were they doing at the end of the first half? Why, at 17-16 and the team moving the ball down the field did the coaches all of the sudden become content with the lead of 1 point? It was absolutely ridiculous and in the end it could have cost them the game. You need to play all 60 minutes and it appears the Steelers took the last minute of the first half off. We didn’t like it. We also have to question why the team would call a QB draw on the 3rd and goal at the end of the game that Ben fumbled the ball on? Do they have no memory of the Redskin game a few years back when that same play resulted in a shoulder injurty to Big Ben? Either throw the ball to Heath or hand it off to Redman but don’t put Ben and the team in that situation!

Finally, losing Smith is bad, it’s concerning but that means Ziggy Hood and Nick Eason will have to step it up the rest of the way. The team did also lose Woodley during the game and he didn’t return so we’ll have to see what that means. It soundled like it was a hamstring so that could be a few weeks. 

But hey, as we said, a win’s a win, overall the team is in great shape and they need to keep this momentum rolling.

5-1, next up: New Orleans