Just an awful day, and it didn’t get much better in Baltimore in the third quarter. The first Steelers play they fumble on what looked to be a nice play by Haloti Ngata, and right away the Ravens get the kill with Flacco hitting TE Ed Dickson for a TD.
Then if that’s not bad enough, they go for and run in a perfect fake on the PAT kick, but why you would use that up three TD’s on opening day is beyond me.
Ray Lewis then gets a pick on a tipped pass, and at least that time the D finally made a play on 4th and 1 to stop Rice and stop any scoring for Baltimore.
Roethlisberger gets down the field with some nice passing, but of course on a broken play throws his 2nd pick of the day, this time right to Ed Reed who was waiting for it as it was intended for Heath Miller.
The rest of the quarter was a complete waste, as until it got chippy at the end of the quarter, you might as well have taken a nap. Quarter ends with the Ravens up 32-7, and I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Tomlin talks to the team after the game.
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Pete
September 11, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Has someone taken Jay’s shoelaces away from him? Goodness he has issues. Its game one of 16 folks. Please keep it in perspective, i beg of you. Although, after reading Jay’s comments from a few posts ago, i am sure he is squatting on the site, firemiketomlin.com.
DrGeorge
September 11, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Good quip, Pete. And you’re right. We do need to keep this loss in perspective. But we must also recognize that the Steelers were not ready to play today. Harrison and Aaron Smith have not fully recovered from their surguries and probably should not have been asked to play. For the rest, there is no excuse. The team looked as lethargic as they did against the Redskins in preseason. Tomlin must accept some responsibility for that, and he will, but the problems go beyond motivation.
Statistically, the game was lost on turnovers, but that is misleading. The turnovers resulted from Ben and his RBs trying to do too much in order to compensate for weaknesses elsewhere on the team. The problem areas continue to be exactly the ones we have discussed here for a long time: the lack of a pass rush, a corner who can’t cover, an inconsistent offensive line, and a D line that is much over-rated against the run. If we see the problems, Tomlin sees them. What he doesn’t see are any answers on the roster that will fix them.
Arians and LeBeau will also take heat for this debacle, but a coach is only as good as his talent, and today the lack of talent on the two lines and at CB showed. No doubt the Steelers can play better, but at the moment, the team is not playing like the contender we expected. How well the coaching staff addresses these issues over the next two weeks may well determine the outcome of the entire season.
Jay
September 11, 2011 at 6:48 pm
Really, Doc, I mean, Really? Objectivity is/are for the coaches and diplomacy is for politicians…civility is better left to those who watch the opera and passionate fan(atic)s like to rumble and get loud! We all know what the problems are. We (should also know) that we won recent past SB’s in spite of things, not because of things. BB had a bad day but why, after 7 plus years, are we still waiting for him to get good protection?!?! Why do we fail to address, sans last fucking year, the interior of the offensive line and in lieu of putting talent out there, we put bums like Legursky and Kemo…J. Scott is maybe the worst starting LT in football and Colon, well, plays like a colon! I guess I’m in the minority here, I guess I’m the one deluded and irrational, letting emotions lead me; running rampant with issues. It’s no one else, you’re all right it’s me, i’m the one blowing things out of proportion. I guess we’ll see. I guess I really don’t care because this organization stumbled across two of three super bowls and has been running with it where the only reason Pittsburgh has any rings since the 70’s is Big Ben, period. without him, this is an average team over 16 games with garbage in the depths offensively and over the hill, washed-upedness in the depths defensively…Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to convince my five month old how not to become a Steeler fan!
The Tony
September 12, 2011 at 8:39 am
The holes on the offensive line and secondary is blatantly obvious. The lackluster play of the two will inevitably be the down fall for the Steelers in this new era of pass happy football. I agree with Jay that it was absolutely ludacris that we did not even attempt to fix these problems
Craven
September 13, 2011 at 10:53 am
I suspect that thegiant Holes that were shown in the Offensive and defensive lines by the Ravens who played a magnificent Game. I do not believe that the Ravens have ever played a better one. The Point is I do not think that you will see this batch of holes go away especially with Colon gone for the season. You may even see a team like Seattle do things to the Steel Curtain that have never been seen or expected before. I dont expect the team to roll over and die or anything but they looked really tired out there and with little new meat to put in for the starters it could get really ugly