Heroes and Goats in Cleveland

[Edman]

Steelers win 24-9 and snap the losing streak. 5-5.

Tomlin beats a bad team on the road! With Baltimore losing, The Steelers are back into a tie atop the North.

Ben, Bell, and Brown are heroes. Efficient day on Offense.

Defense and Keith Butler get props for mixing it up today. Eight Sacks on Defense. Harrison clearly upgrades the D as a whole. Jarvis Jones is who he is, and is not fit at OLB. Lawrence Timmons is clearly better at OLB than what he is at ILB right now.

[86WARD]

Tomlin is the goat. The defense and Bell get game balls. Special game ball to Harrison for the sack record! Well deserved!

[GBMelBlount]

Game Ball to Bell and Defense.

Ben has been underwhelming imo.

[WCSteeler]

Game balls to Artie Burns and the front 7
Goats- an offense that just barely did enough with some help from the refs at the end of the half

[Psycho Ward 86]

Bell gets my gameball. Honorary mention to Tuitt for leading the charge on defense today. Still a sloppy ass game but at least the losing streak is over. Indy will be a far more formidable challenge. Im concerned especially with our sloppiness on the road

[st33lersguy]

Balls: Front 7, Bell, and Artie
Goats: The rest of the offense and Tomlin

[Iron Steeler]

Game ball: moats bell tuitt
Goat: tomlin and his refusing to kick a fg

[Steeldude]

Hero: Team

[Steel Peon]

It's hard to get excited about beating a team that looked as helpless as any NFL team that I can remember, but Harrison got the all-time team sack record, as well as my game ball, which he's had to earn the tough way in a tough division (most years) for a great many years.

I can only cite goatish red zone efficiency for the offense, who really played the kind of ball control style we need to in order to limit the amount of time our defense stays on the field, but more TDs would've been nice.

[zulater]

Game Ball to Bell and Defense.

Ben has been underwhelming imo.

The wind was brutal today. You can't expect great passing numbers when it's blowing like that.

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Bell obviously was the best player on offense today.

On defense how about Artie Burns? A pick and 3 passes defensed.

[Devilsdancefloor]

D gets the ball

[GBMelBlount]

The wind was brutal today. You can't expect great passing numbers when it's blowing like that.

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Bell obviously was the best player on offense today.

On defense how about Artie Burns? A pick and 3 passes defensed.

Good points and ecstatic Burns seems to be coming along.

Still seeing them march down the field on the worst team in the NFL and kick field goals was a bit disappointing for me.

[Hawkman]

Honorable mention to Boswell for going three for three in that wind.

[Mojouw]

Hero: Keith Butler and the defensive staff for getting creative with their schemes and player usage. We haven't seen the Steelers D coordinator play "craft wizard" in some time. Nice to see. Here are a few bits I think I saw:
1. Timmons sliding outside to OLB in some packages to pass rush with Jarvis Jones sliding inside to assume zone coverage responsibilities. This is, to me, a fascinating development. What does it mean for the rest of 2016 and 2017? Is there a line of thinking to "rehab" Jones as a run stuffing zone coverage 3-4 ILB? What about Vince Williams? Do you give Timmons another contract to come in and assume the Deebo role as a rush backer? Or was it all just a one game "thing" that means nothing? Regardless of what the long term impact could or will be, it worked well today and one can only wonder why it took this long to get unleashed. I think many around here have floated some version of this over the past few seasons.

2. McCullers got to see the field and it was glorious. Big man likely won't show up in the stat sheet too often, but he simply stands up O-linemen and moves them about the field. He needs to be incorporated moving forward. Maybe Hargrave gets snaps at DE and McCullers plays DT? Again, why this has not been tried prior to this point is frustrating.

3. They are finally playing their most athletic starting 4 DBs (Cockerell, Davis, Mitchell, and Burns). Not certain if it is really the "best" 4 as Gay and Golden are likely more assignment sound, but if you want splash plays from the back 4 - it is going to come from those 4. I would like to say the Defensive staff say "screw it" and roll Gilbert out there, but that is another story I guess.

4. Someone needs to teach Chickillo a pass rush move besides run real fast right at the tackle. I think he is more athletic than Jones, but they have the same staggeringly undeveloped pass rush style. Nice to see that the coaches seem to recognize this and got some more snaps sent Moats way.

[BackyardSteel]

Game Ball to Bell and Defense.

Ben has been underwhelming imo.

I think the game plan went as planned - Ben was not the key to this game. Short passes and overuse of Bell. Ben did not need to make big plays. Although it happens every game to every team, there were a few dropped balls. The two PI's in the EZ for example. No interceptions on the road - and average stats against a division rival in a tight division race, I will take that. Much more than last week's stats with an "L."

[Born2Steel]

Gameball to the steelers for ending a 4 game losing streak. On the road. Against a sub .500 team.
Gameball to James Harrison. Franchise sack leader. Just think about that and let it soak in.
Goat to the wind in Cleveland.

[BigBen2004]

I made the trip to the game today, from my home in Cincinnati, and that wind was NO JOKE. It was freezing there, lol.

A few thoughts:
This defense is not really that bad. Their mistakes, when they come up, are mental errors not a lack of ability. This has to do with youth and so many moving parts. They were swarming today. Flying around and laying some punishing hits. It was incredible to see.

For everyone complaining about the offense today, did you see the game? Watch the post-game interviews? The plan was to run the ball down their throats, and make plays in the short passing game. They excelled in both areas. Sure, it was nothing exciting. But given the weather, the environment, and the Brown's inability to stop the run, it was what was necessary. Why take chances in this game? Why try to air it out and get flashy when you're playing the damn Browns??? I was satisfied with the offense, all things considered.

Everything broke our way in the division today, so, it was a good day. However, the real test is Thursday night. On the road against a good offense, we'll see what the defense can do. Being in a dome, with no excuses, we'll see if the offense can live up to it's potential and light it up.

If they beat the Colts, I'll believe they're turning a corner. If not, then this team truly is just mediocre.

Keep the faith!!!

[teegre]

Hero: Team

I agree.

[Mojouw]

I made the trip to the game today, from my home in Cincinnati, and that wind was NO JOKE. It was freezing there, lol.

A few thoughts:
This defense is not really that bad. Their mistakes, when they come up, are mental errors not a lack of ability. This has to do with youth and so many moving parts. They were swarming today. Flying around and laying some punishing hits. It was incredible to see.

For everyone complaining about the offense today, did you see the game? Watch the post-game interviews? The plan was to run the ball down their throats, and make plays in the short passing game. They excelled in both areas. Sure, it was nothing exciting. But given the weather, the environment, and the Brown's inability to stop the run, it was what was necessary. Why take chances in this game? Why try to air it out and get flashy when you're playing the damn Browns??? I was satisfied with the offense, all things considered.

Everything broke our way in the division today, so, it was a good day. However, the real test is Thursday night. On the road against a good offense, we'll see what the defense can do. Being in a dome, with no excuses, we'll see if the offense can live up to it's potential and light it up.

If they beat the Colts, I'll believe they're turning a corner. If not, then this team truly is just mediocre.

Keep the faith!!!

Great post. Hope you had a great time!

I mean it could've been worse. They could've went full "Arians" and thrown the ball 45+ times! I seem to remember that being an issue a few seasons ago in basically the same conditions!

[steelreserve]

Bell, Tuitt and Timmons if I had to pick three.

I don't think it was the result of any particular standout performances, we were just better than them and ground them down overall.

My optimism has to remain cautious, as I don't know how much of what we did is going to work against other teams. For example, we certainly aren't going to get 8 sacks just for the hell of it - I mean, quite a few of those were just BAD on the part of their QBs and blockers. But it was a nice turnaround nonetheless.

[j-d-s]

Goat: tomlin and his refusing to kick a fg

Have to disagree there. We kicked field goals in the red zone twice before halftime, so we needed to stay aggressive and try to punch it in from inside the five, even with only a couple of seconds remaining. I would have even contemplated to run it with Bell, like we did last year in San Diego (but that was at the end of the game, not only the first half). Because this is a five-point swing, just think about that. Before the fumble recovery in the endzone it would have been 12-9 instead of 17-9.

By the way, in reality we only had one untimed down, the first one should have had one second on the clock, they would have added that second in replay (when the ball hit the ground there was one second remaining), but it made no difference because of the penalty.

Game ball to Timmons, he dominated outside. But rest of the front seven and Burns also played very well.

[DesertSteel]

GOAT: Browns for not being our opponent every week.

[steel striker]

A good team win and, the defense made some plays.

[Moose]

Game BALL - to the Defense for keeping the brown's from scoring alot of points.
Game GOAT - to Tomlin and OFFENSE for not putting these Brown bottom feeder's away early in 1st half. ( if you plan on doing anything in play-offs, teams like cleveland should be a cake walk ).