At 0-2, Is The 2013 Season Already Over?

After two weeks; the black and gold have found themselves in a 0-2 hole that doesn’t appear will be easy to climb out of.  The team went to Cincinnati on Monday Night and failed miserably for the second time in as many chances.

The loss, again, was on the offense as the defense played well.  Troy Polamalu looks to be back in old form, Ike Taylor played extremely well, LaMar Woodley appears faster and stronger this season and the rest of the defense has played very solidly thus far. However, it appears they are going to have to limit the opposition to 10 points or less if this team is going to win, at least for the time being.

Offensively the Steelers looked lost and overmatched.  There is no existence of a running attack. The team managed 44 rushing yards on 16 carries.  The lead ball carrier was Felix Jones, who only touched the football 10 times. That’s simply not enough to get into rhythm. A logical person might think the team would have learned that after last years’ running game woes, however, it appears that is not the case.  The coaches even got “creative” to try to jump start the ground attack and elected to run a wide receiver reverse….with their slowest and oldest receiver, Jerricho Cotchery.  The play lost five yards. 

Adding to the rushing attack problems is the clear lack of talent on the offensive line.  Since 2011, the team has utilized a first round pick and two second round picks on offensive lineman. Those linemen have failed to show up. David Decastro, while still very early in his career and not many games in, has looked overmatched and confused. At this juncture, he’s been nothing short of abysmal. Marcus Gilbert and Mike Adams have fared slightly better than Decastro but they too have not proven they are worthy of the high round pick that were spent on them.  The game against the Bengals proved that as the offensive line allowed Big Ben to be sacked twice, hit six more times and generally hurried all game long.  There doesn’t seem to be any chance that the Steelers franchise quarterback is going to make it out of the season in one piece the way things are going.

To add to the offensive woes is the blatant fact that the team lacks a deep threat. Antonio Brown is most effective on screens and Emmanuel Sanders, while talented, can’t take the top off the defense. Markus Wheaton may be the guy later in the season to step up and take that role but he has yet to see any significant action. The loss of Mike Wallace is looming larger than many thought it might.

Finally, the play calling and general lack of adjustments by the coaches, namely Todd Haley has been disappointing.  Haley is not implementing the proper offense for the players on this roster, mostly Big Ben. The schemes have been terrible, the general unwillingness to attempt a medium range or deep throw more than a couple times a game is confusing and the shear lack of in game adjustments has largely impacted the offensive results. Why they won’t put Big Ben in shotgun formation more often is dumbfounding. With the offensive line issues, it’s the only way the team can buy Ben more time to release the ball. When the team runs the two minute drill and allows Big Ben to call his own plays, they actually move the football. When Haley calls the plays, they typically go three and out. The question certainly looms, did the team hire the right guy for the job?

At 0-2, Mike Tomlins’ club is certainly not out of it, they have a lot of football games left and in the last 25 years the team has actually dropped the first two games of the season four other times and managed to finish with a winning record in each case, even making the playoffs in three of those four seasons. There is nothing on film that indicates this team is capable of that kind of season but there is a lot on paper that suggests it can be done. They’ll need to start Sunday night before the hole gets a little deeper and a lot harder to climb out of.