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https://www.steelers.com/news/week-6...eport-chargersOriginally Posted by pczach
While Anthony Chickillo (foot) returned to practice in a limited role, and Steve Nelson (groin) was also limited, several others didn't practice including Mark Barron (hamstring), Vance McDonald (shoulder), Justin Layne (illness) and Roosevelt Nix (knee). Maurkice Pouncey also didn't practice, but it was not injury related.
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Thanks buddy!
Man is Nix ever coming back?
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Three 1-4 teams Pit, Den & Atl
Two 0-4 teams Mia, Nyj
Two 0-5 teams Cin, Was
Where will the Steelers finish? Well, there sure isn't any stress watching the games now.
Yes somebody has to run the Wildcat soon in Samuels absence.
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Article linked in tweet is paywalled - multiple salty skirmishes today as Steelers practiced in pads for first time since before Bengals game. Heyward says the defense wants to maintain an edge - DeCastro not pleased and Foster says Allen putting Conner on the ground today along with Kelly nailing JuJu is something that is acceptable in camp but “idiotic” in regular season practice.
No surprise these guys are pissed off and frustrated - hopefully they take it out on the Chargers rather than each other
The Defense has taken over and is dictating the direction of the team. The D finally has edge and is showing signs of playing up to its potential after sitting in the passenger seat to Ben, Antonio Brown and the Steelers Offense for so many years. They have really improved since Seattle. Offense has done nothing but pussyfoot around. Dropped passes. Fumbles. Failing in short yardage. Wildcat plays. Dumb turnovers. The Defense is just trying to get the Offense to grow some balls and play harder. The team is backed into a corner and have nothing to lose with a Charger team waiting on the West Coast Sunday Night.
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What was ironic was the entire season was held together by a defense that played lights out while the offense could barely score at times. We needed several defensive scores that season to win games. Doing this from memory, Dallas was one game, the Ravens in the playoffs was another (well, we were up by like 3, I think, it's been a long time). But in the big game, in the second half when we needed that one last big stop so the offense could then run out the clock, we didn't get it. Instead, they scored. Then, our inept offense gets on the field with perhaps the worst starting line to every play an NFL SB. And, the first play out . . . holding. Backed us up to like our 10 or something. Maybe even closer. Then, Ben puts the team on his back and marches them down the field. Santo. Holmes had perhaps the best 2 minutes of football in his entire life on that drive. And, they marched right down and put the ball in the endzone. After failing to be able to be that type of offense all year long. And, after the defense failed to make a stop; the first time they failed to come through in a close game, if I remember right, all year long as well.
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What do you want? Those wildcat plays won us the game against Cincinnati because they were unprepared for it. And, as for the fumbles. You do realize the fumbles are mainly from players fighting for every yard they can get, right? It's not from being lazy. It's from being too aggressive. JuJu and company needs to learn to go to the turf sometimes rather than fighting for extra yards. And, after all, what are you expecting this offense to do when they're playing a QB with two starts, and then lose him as well to a QB with no starts?
Offense deserves to be put on the ground and hit...lol
Thing is...the QB play excuse is irrelevant. The QB with two starts and the one with no starts have been just fine...it’s the “veteran guys” that have been the problem.
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This article about more than simple frustration to me. There is the point that this defense has been ridiculed and put down for a while. Now they are having a pretty decent run early on and the offense is not holding up their end. And that is and should be frustrating for players. There is also this element of practice. Practice SHOULD be at game speed or as close as you can get. Non padded, non contact, walk thru practices are killing the NFL. How do you get better at hitting, blocking, and tackling in shorts and no pads? Get out there and hit somebody! I’m a fan of Foster but not going all out at practice is what’s idiotic.
If they aren’t practicing hard, that falls on Tomlin.You Play Like You Practice.
Play Like A Champion, Practice Like You Want To Be One.
Practice Like You’ve Never Won, Play Like You’ve Never Lost.
Practice Like You Play, Play Like You Practice.
Wildcat plays may have worked against Cincinnati, but everyone with half a brain knew that the Ravens would be prepared for the Wildcat. It was trotted out to miserable failure.
It wasn’t the inexperience of our quarterbacks that has been the problem. Mason and Hodges have done quite well (excellent even) and put the Steelers in position to win. Which is more than what we can ask for from them. While their over body of work still needs a bit more, They have delivered.
It’s been our experienced veteran players and supposed strength who have failed the team. James Conner has dropped off considerably, Juju can’t hold onto the football in critical situations, and the Offensive Line has no killer instinct at the point of attack. The Steelers Offense has become quite soft and has no identity. They were pushed around by the Ravens Sunday, and their Defense is nowhere near the level of the Ray Lewis Days. Two horrible turnovers deep in their own end have led to easy Raven points and their win Sunday.
The Defense has been a punching bag on this board for a while now. Now that they finally have something going, the Offense decides to bog down. The Defense has taken over the team and wants the O to develop some balls.
The country club days like in the Ben/AB Days is over. The team is 1-4 and staring certain death in the face. They need to find ways to win. If more physical practices are what is needed, then so be it. They need to try something. Because what they’ve been doing isn’t working.
we talkin bout practice man
on a side note, they didn't even need the wildcat against Baltimore, Conner was running over those guys, they should have stuck with conventional
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Fichtner hears you and is going to go deep into his bag of tricks with an unprecedented offensive concept
Even with the transition to Rudolph – and to a lesser extent, Hodges – the Steelers have run the ball 85 percent of the time out of the shotgun. Hodges rarely lined up under center in college but, with the Steelers struggling to find an identity running the ball, he could be asked to line up more under center.
Hodges and Maurkice Pouncey spent some time in practice Thursday working on the quarterback-center exchange.
“You can run a full offense when you’re capable of doing that,” Fichtner said
https://triblive.com/sports/randy-fi...s-taken-at-qb/
As opposed to the less than full offense the Steelers presumably have been running since week two. Too bad there are not any offseason opportunities to work on these concepts.
Running the ball doesn’t win a Super Bowls in this day and age...it’s actually the least important part of the game when it comes to winning a Super Bowl so it makes sense that Fichtner would use it the most.
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Maybe. Hard to know. Padded full contact practices are limited by the CBA. Players basically locked themselves out of the team facilities and all the fancy expensive workout rooms during the offseason and did away with full contact practices during the season. Everybody wants to point fingers and shout ‘his fault’ but the league AND player union have both contributed to making it harder to get teams ready for the season. Just look at all the just plain bad football this season so far.
Count me in as well!!! Great post!!!
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That’s how the Pats won last year . . .
Yep and being able to run the football in the playoffs seems like a huge plus. Agree and Pats was good at it the whole season last year as well.
Yep, they beat the Chiefs by running the ball too. If anything, the running game is the most overlooked part of winning in the current era.
It’s actually not as important as one may think though. There are several analytics articles out there stating how running the ball isn’t as important as one may think and in actuality, teams will sometimes let the opposing teams run the ball more. When Belichick was with the Giants he told the defense to let Thurman Thomas run for over 100 yards in order to burn time off the clock...
It’s actually surprising. I’ll try to find a link to the one article that talks about Belichick.
That’s deceiving though...the difference from 2017 to 2018 was really only about 15-20 yards a game...
Brady still threw for over 4000 yards.
Another "statistics and empirical data" that "dispels the myth" of running the football effectively. Some do buy into the analytics, and unfortunately the Steelers are one of those teams. Which is more ironic because this week they're facing the team that beat them last season after running the ball despite down 16 points.
Battleball Champion!The 0-16 Browns were just a few breaks away and non-fumbles away from 8-8.
“They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.”
― Clint Eastwood
Why did the Chargers run the ball is the important question. It wasn’t to simply just hit a certain number of carries or impose their will or bleed clock or whatever. It was to keep the Steelers base defense on the field. Then they manipulated that defense into the match-up they wanted — a LB on Allen.
Same with the Patriots. Their lack of WRs morphed them into a running team last year. Then they built out of that run look to take teams apart with their FB and deep shots to Gronk. The sequence of plays that essentially won the SB was all out of the same formation and player movements. It suckered the defense into thinking one thing and then doing another. This year, the Patriots are running more 3 WR sets and not as much power run looks because their TEs are not good.
Running just to run is the Washington Redskins feeding old Adrian Peterson for no real reason. Rushing to manipulate the defense into doing something stupid — that’s almost always the goal of teams.
As compared to the Steelers, who went out of their way to impose their will with their passing game, and they were shut down the rest of the half while the Chargers gained steam. The Chargers didn't need to respect the Steelers' run game, because the Steelers didn't want to win by running. They wanted to pass to win and follow the analytics.Why did the Chargers run the ball is the important question. It wasn’t to simply just hit a certain number of carries or impose their will or bleed clock or whatever. It was to keep the Steelers base defense on the field. Then they manipulated that defense into the match-up they wanted — a LB on Allen.
Same with the Patriots. Their lack of WRs morphed them into a running team last year. Then they built out of that run look to take teams apart with their FB and deep shots to Gronk. The sequence of plays that essentially won the SB was all out of the same formation and player movements. It suckered the defense into thinking one thing and then doing another. This year, the Patriots are running more 3 WR sets and not as much power run looks because their TEs are not good.
Unfortunately, the Steelers have a valet puppet OC who takes this approach and has no sense of imagination at the NFL level.
Here's to Randy Fichtner dialing up 10-20 deep/intermediate shots for Hodges tonight despite mediocre and depleted receivers.
I could make points about getting your multi-WR sets on the field last season in order to move the safeties around and isolate either Juju or McDonald on an overmatched sub-package DB. And how that was far more effective at scoring points than rushes behind the guard.
I could point out that the Steelers repeatedly tried to run the ball early in drives against the Chargers but due to getting stuffed and repeated penalties, they had to abandon running the ball because of down and distance.
I could point out that for some reason we are talking about the Chargers run game when the passing attack was what beat the Steelers last season.
I could point out that if you listen to coaches, GMs, players, and tape watching analysts, no one is talking about how much they do or don’t run the ball. They are talking about effective, efficient offense that scores points on a high percentage of possessions. You know, the exact thing the 2018 Steelers had over the course of the season.
But, why would I do that? You have no interest in an honest discussion. You have preselected an opinion and decided to just repeat it over and over again.
Browns just can't put it together. They have the highest ceiling of any AFC North team they just can't put it all together. Likely going to be the 2nd year in a row Baltimore wins the AFC North only because the team better than them in the division completely self-destructed. Of course the officiating is helping Seattle.
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