zulater
08-22-2014, 10:44 AM
Last night was ugly. No argument there. And I'm not going to blame it on the distraction that Bell and Blount created. Though I do think that may have been a tiny contributing factor. Snow ball effect being what it is. But at the end of the day I'm not going to dismiss everything I believed to be true of this team prior to yesterday based on one really shitty game. If we're to going on last night the Eagles are the 85 Bears and the Steelers the 76 Tampa Bay Bucs. I doubt either to be close to true.
So what do we take from last night? Perfect storm. One highly motivated team coming off a poor performance playing at home- playing a team that was slightly distracted, but more to the point maybe a lot too smug. How did they get so smug? By rights they shouldn't have been. But the local papers have been slobbering over them for the past month, and just recently some of the national media has tepidly jumped on the wagon too. But even more to the point I just got the sense lately that this team really got high on themselves. They had a great week of practice leading up to the Bills game, the joint team practices the Steelers mostly dominated. And ones versus ones both against the Giants and Bills in the first two preseason games the Steelers clearly were the better team.
But a couple other things also played in. The Eagles are a pretty good team when they bring their "A" game. And if you're not familiar with them and the unique up tempo offense they play, and don't game plan against it, if they're on, then you're probably going to have a hard time of it. In other words the Steelers defense was completely lost out there last night. Every time they thought the Eagles were going to zig, they zagged, and vice versa. When the Eagles are on their game you can't stop them without game planning their tendencies. Shazier was lost out there. He's a rookie and looked it last night.
Some teams you just don't match up well against. I think this was one of those. I still think this is a solid division contender. A team who's defense should grow stronger as the season goes on. I still see Ben as elite, the offensive line as growing , and the running backs as solid. My main questions are what receiver will step up to compliment AB, is Jones an NFL player, and does Ike have one more year left in him? Also the kicking game concerns me.
Anyway long story short I see the 2014 Steeelers as a 10-12 win team. Last night will be forgotten.
So what do we take from last night? Perfect storm. One highly motivated team coming off a poor performance playing at home- playing a team that was slightly distracted, but more to the point maybe a lot too smug. How did they get so smug? By rights they shouldn't have been. But the local papers have been slobbering over them for the past month, and just recently some of the national media has tepidly jumped on the wagon too. But even more to the point I just got the sense lately that this team really got high on themselves. They had a great week of practice leading up to the Bills game, the joint team practices the Steelers mostly dominated. And ones versus ones both against the Giants and Bills in the first two preseason games the Steelers clearly were the better team.
But a couple other things also played in. The Eagles are a pretty good team when they bring their "A" game. And if you're not familiar with them and the unique up tempo offense they play, and don't game plan against it, if they're on, then you're probably going to have a hard time of it. In other words the Steelers defense was completely lost out there last night. Every time they thought the Eagles were going to zig, they zagged, and vice versa. When the Eagles are on their game you can't stop them without game planning their tendencies. Shazier was lost out there. He's a rookie and looked it last night.
Some teams you just don't match up well against. I think this was one of those. I still think this is a solid division contender. A team who's defense should grow stronger as the season goes on. I still see Ben as elite, the offensive line as growing , and the running backs as solid. My main questions are what receiver will step up to compliment AB, is Jones an NFL player, and does Ike have one more year left in him? Also the kicking game concerns me.
Anyway long story short I see the 2014 Steeelers as a 10-12 win team. Last night will be forgotten.