It’s do or die for the Steelers Sunday at home versus the Dolphins, as they have a shot not only to hurt Miami’s playoff shots, but also a shot to get to 6-7, and put themselves somewhat back in the playoff race.
The Dolphins haven’t played in Pittsburgh since the Rain Bowl of 2007, but are back now and looking to send the Steelers to their 8th loss of the season.
Today we look at the Dolphins, and what they bring to the table for the 1pm kickoff at Heinz Field.
1. A Young Offense Finding Their Way: The Fins offense ranks near the bottom of the NFL in terms of yards, but they are getting better in terms of scoring points, and showed it again last week vs the Jets, putting up 23 in a win. They have a young QB in Ryan Tannehill who will throw picks and make mistakes, but unlike year one, he’s being more patient and making less mistakes. Lamar Miller and Daniel Thomas lead the rush game, but the Steelers D should be able to have success against an offense that’s in flux.
2. Let The Bell Toll: If Le’Veon Bell is good enough to go, he should be able to have a decent day against a defense that seems to rank slightly better against the pass than the run. Bell has shown the last couple of weeks that fed enough, he could have the first monster game of his career. Something tells me that they will try to get him started right away, and if the line can at least give him a crack, it could be a huge day for Bell.
3. Treat The Ball With Care – The Dolphins have 16 picks over 12 games, and Wednesday Ben Roethlisberger admitted to the Miami media just how good the secondary is. “They’re really good,” said Roethlisberger, “I think people talk a lot about the front seven and those kinds of things but I look at that secondary like they’re making a lot of plays and they’re not getting beat.” The wind could be a factor, and Ben has to be careful not to give up short fields with mistakes to a secondary that has proven their worth.
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Jalen
December 4, 2013 at 10:39 pm
I just heard on steelers radio that the steelers, dating back to 2010, have had 26 different starting offensive line configurations?!?! That breaks down to a different starting lineup every 2.5 games over that 61 game span?!? That is absolutely the most absurd thingies ever heard in the realm of sports! I refuse to attribute an abomination of a statistic like that entirely to,bad luck and happenstance! No, sorry, with that big and skewed of a number, you have to do some finger pointing with that, as irrational as it sounds and as much as every sports media person reading this would poo-poo the notion, it is somewhat of a front office, administrative and coaching/personnel faux pas! Not saying it’s all of that and none of the aforementioned circumstance/ bad luck stuff, because you have to step in one helluva pile of unlucky shit to have that happen but what I’m saying is the number of different starting offensive linemen units is so, so, so astronomically abysmal, that you absolutely cannot possibly totally attribute it 100% to bad luck and circumstance. This regime refused to draft an elite LT for basically the entirety of bb’s tenure for reasons that I can only speculate is because management did not want to have to pay out the top two elite positions on the football field concomitantly (LT is second highest paid position on field behind QB). Now, with bb entering the final 3-5 years of his own tenure in Pittsburgh, there’s no reason to neglect that LT position in the first round because first round rookie contracts aren’t big money the way they used to be plus they last four to five years which means when it comes time to pay the LT the big contract, bb will be on way out. Steelers brass has also put big, overweight unathletic guys on line and they constantly falling over and into each other and injuring each other. Bb extending plays also contributes to extra time linemen are blocking and getting injured. Whatever the case, until they come up with a way to not be snake bit and do whatever they can to fix the problem, this will continue.