When the highlight of the weekend is a 2-1 shootout loss by the Penguins against Marian Hossa and the Blackhawks, you know the weekend is shitty.
We like to say a loss is a loss, but these weekend was much, much worse. Pitt holder drops an extra point with 1:40 left in the game to put Pitt up 6, which of course resulted with Pitt losing to Cincinnati by one point ending all hopes of a BCS bid. The "vaunted Steelers defense" (laugh) lets fucking Bruce Gradkowski lead the fucking Oakland Raiders down the field in 90 seconds to win. And both these happened in Heinz Field. I feel sick.
Pitt was up 31-10 in the first quarter against undefeated Cincinnati. Immediately after going up by 21, Pitt pulled what is a common theme in Pittsburgh football this year: giving up a kickoff return for a touchdown. Despite a 47 carry, 195 yard, three TD performance from the amazing Dion Lewis, and the Pitt offense putting up 44 points, the special teams absolutely choked. The gave up a huge kick return for a touchdown, they continued to kick to the unstoppable Mardy Gilyard, including a pooch kickoff directly to Gilyard at the 40 yard line which he returned to the Pitt 20. Of course, there was the holder flat out dropping a fucking perfect snap. It makes me sick.
The Steelers? What the fuck is going on.
Actual question to Mike Tomlin at press conference from reporter: "What is your opinion on the playoffs".
Tomlin laughs and responds with "You know Coach Mora's response, that's how I feel."
Exactly.
How do you lose a must win game at home to the Oakland Raiders playing Bruce Gradkowski at quarterback. Fucking Bruce Gradkowski. He's throwing to Louis Murphy, Johnny Lee Higgins, some guy named Chaz and some guy named Watkins. Not exactly a recipe for "offensive explosion". In the 4th quarter though, Bruce throws a 77 yard touchdown to Murphy on 3rd and 2. Then, with the Steelers nursing a 3 point lead and with the Raiders at their own 10, the "vaunted Steelers" defense lets Bruce and Company go 90 yards in about 90 seconds using no timeouts to win the game.
How does that make us feel?
Fucking angry.
Let's talk this anger out.
The Steelers have the ball right inside the Oakland 10 with just under 2 minutes left. The Steelers are behind 20-17. It's first down and the Raiders have one timeout left. Mendenhall is over 100 yards and has a touchdown on the day. What does Bruce Arians do? He calls a pass play. Of course he does, he's Bruce Arians. The play resulted in a touchdown even though a strong case could be made that there was an offensive penalty on the play. I understand you want to score, but what's wrong with giving the ball to Mendenhall and taking some time off the clock? 90 second in the NFL is an eternity. It leads to one of the Steelers major problems: Bruce Arians.
So the Steelers go up 24-20 with about 90 seconds left. A penatly gives the Raiders the ball on their own 10 yard lines making them go 90 yards. Now last year, there would be no chance the Steelers defense would let anyone, let alone Bruce Gradkowski go 90 yards on them. This year, I half expected them to. It was like the first Bengals game all over again. Now Dick LeBeau has been amazing for so many years, I'm hesitant to point the finger at him, but there's something missing with this defense. They can't consistently get pressure on the quarterback. When you combine the lack of pressure with the zone defense the linebackers and secondary play, well that's a recipe for disaster. Ike Taylor, William Gay and Deshea Townsend consistently play 10 yards off their receivers making the zone easily exploitable by quarterbacks like Bruce Gradkowski.
The secondary is an absolute joke, especially without Troy. Ike is supposedly one of the fastest players in the entire NFL, but there he was getting burned by Louis Murphy for 77 yards. Was Ike supposed to have safety help on that play? Probably, and that's another absolute joke. I think Ryan Clark is underrated, but he's clearly more dynamic when playing next to Troy and not trying to be Troy. With Troy in, Clark is fantastic at laying people out. The other safeties? Tyrone Carter is a serviceable backup: solid in run support, awful in coverage. Ryan Mundy is fucking terrible. I think anyone who watched that game wouldn't argue against that. As for the secondary in general, I've never seen a set of defensive backs with worse hands. Without Troy, there isn't a single player who's a threat for an interception back there.
For the sake of brevity and posterity, let's point out the other embarassing shit about this team (which I fully intent to cover more this week):
Kick-Off Coverage
The Inability to Pull Away In Games
The Inability to Protect 4th Quarter Leads
The Inability to Tackle
Limas Sweed's Hands
The Lack of A Fullback
Bruce Arians
The Absence of Any Screen Plays in the Offensive Playbook
I'm done. This weekend was miserable. It's a great way to start my comeback tour on Operation Shutdown. Now it's time for me to kill a bunch of 13 year old's in Modern Warfare 2 and to make sure Riley is still alive.
Thanks Pittsburgh Football for giving me my weekends back.
No comments:
Post a Comment