Steelers: We learned our lesson in '09

[polamalubeast]

There's an unwritten rule in the Pittsburgh Steelers' locker room this week: No peeking.

Months removed from winning the Super Bowl in 2009, the Steelers admittedly overlooked the worst-record teams on their schedule. They wound up losing to nearly all of them, falling to the Chiefs, Raiders and Browns _ bottom-of-the-standings teams that had six wins among them when they played the Steelers.

The ensuing five-game slide triggered by those losses ruined Pittsburgh's once-promising season following a 6-2 start and kept the Steelers out of the playoffs.

James Farrior and Hines Ward insist it won't happen again.

Ward flashed a puzzled look Wednesday when asked if he's worried the Steelers (7-3) might get caught looking ahead to next week's important game against Baltimore (7-3) and ignoring Sunday's game at Buffalo (2-8).

"To be honest, I didn't know we were playing Baltimore next week," Ward said Wednesday. "That's been our mindset, one week at a time. Last year overlooking Kansas City, overlooking Oakland, that's the reason we were on a five-game losing streak."

read more

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/206/2010/november/24/steelers-we-learned-our-lesson-in-09.html

[zulater]

http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?offensiveStatisticCategory=KICKING&archive=false&seasonType=REG&defensiveStatisticCategory=null&d-447263-o=1&conference=null&d-447263-s=KICKOFF_RETURNS_AVERAGE_YARDS&d-447263-n=1&season=2010&qualified=true&Submit=Go&tabSeq=2&role=TM&d-447263-p=1


People forget a big reason we lost many of those games was poor special teams play. Didn't we set a record for giving up td's on returns? Anyway contrast that with this year where our coverage units are an assett rather than a liability. We're our coverage teams as piss poor this season as they were last year we'd probably be no better than .500 this season too.

[fansince'76]

People forget a big reason we lost many of those games was poor special teams play. Didn't we set a record for giving up td's on returns? Anyway contrast that with this year where our coverage units are an assett rather than a liability. We're our coverage teams as piss poor this season as they were last year we'd probably be no better than .500 this season too.

Yep. For example, we started the game against KC in a 7-0 hole as they returned the opening kickoff for a TD. :doh:

[steelreserve]

We learned our lesson in '06, too.

Let's just hope we have to learn our lesson a third time in '11, since that means we'd win the SUper Bowl again this year, plus '11 is probably a lockout anyway so we get a free pass.