Gameballs: Heyward was ok.
Goats: OLine. Just terrible run blocking. More of what we have been seeing, but worse.
Ben has been regressing the past 3 or 4 weeks. Idk if it's age or teams figuring out that if they take away the dink and dunk our passing game is very pedestrian...Probably a little of both. A lot of people are blaming his arm strength, but I actually think it's mostly his lack of mobility. Any sort of pressure up the middle completely shuts Ben down because he can't move.
Gameball: Juju
Goats: Everybody else, especially Ben
Maybe I'm just being emotional, but I think we saw Father Time stick a fork in Ben Roethlisberger.
Gameballs: agree on heyward, juju also
Goats: no one in particular, just too many injuries to the defense and Ben showing his age.
Yep. Not good at all.Originally Posted by Mojouw
Goats Fichtner and Ben
Prepare for disappointment come playoffs.
If they don't kick the shit out of Cincy next week then good lord. We're basically the Pats of last year, started strong with an élite defense and shaky offensive but fell apart late in the season.
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It's kinda irrelevant but TJ Watt may have lost his DPOY award. Really needed a big game tonight in a primetime matchup, got shut down.
Its a bit of both. Ben is
A. Immobile
B. Inaccurate
C. The victim of a one dimensional game plan.
Ben has given Steeler fans a dozen great seasons but as another member poster "Father time" has proved he cannot be dodged.
Feiler and Dotson both with pec injuries.
Injuries are piling up.
Whoa!......so are we saying the window has closed again??
That's a safe bet.
Whoa!......so are we saying the window has closed again??
Gameballs: Heyward and JuJu
Goats: Ben, Fichtner, and O-line
I feel like the offense is in a full on death spiral and they will not recover this season. My gut tells me that the offense needs a major overhaul starting next offseason. They have a very good group of young recievers, so sign JuJu and keep that unit strong. The O-line needs youth. Pouncey and DeCastro make a lot of money, and neither look like pro bowlers anymore. Their salaries are not commensurate with their play, so I think they may be candidates for release due to reduced cap. The RB room is weak. Conner I think is good, but he is a free agent.
The biggest and toughest issue is Ben, and I do not see how this team can pay him as a top 5 QB next year if he does not retire. It's sad to think about it because the guy is a legend and one of the greatest of all time, but all things end. Fichtner needs to go regardless of anything else.
Not really. Make the playoffs and who knows what may happen. Get healthy and they've got just as good of a chance as anyone else I guess.
Whoa!......so are we saying the window has closed again??
But Ben Roethlisberger no longer plays like a QB who can drag his team to significant comebacks and surprise victories.
He can't move or throw deep. Wether that's from injury, age, or a lack of a proper off-season post surgery, we won't know unless someone pulls the curtain back.
But if I can notice it, I'm guessing NFL defenses can.
Gameball: Sutton made a nice play and Heyward may have been the only reason they were up at one point.
Gamegoats: The rest of this team. Starting with the INT the entire team rolled over and died. Another December swoon which is becoming a yearly tradition for this team. The entire team sucked ass.
Biggest Goats
Ben- He's so sad to watch anymore. He's done, he's fallen off a cliff. He needs to retire. It's like watching Troy in 2014. A franchise cornerstone who used to be elite but now is way past his prime and who you just want to retire just so you don't have to see more bad tape from him.
O-line- This team can't run block. Looks more and more like the late 2000s o-line
Tomlin- For appearing to be orchestrating yet another December swoon but he surpassed his goal of 8 wins so it's all good
Fichtner- Might as well engrave him as a perpetual game goat every week until this team wises up and fires him. Maybe we can offer Ben a bunch of money to be the offensive coordinator next year. Whatever, I am down for it as long as it involves Fichtner being permanently banned from calling another play ever again for this team. Remember that Jet Motion stuff that worked so well for this team early on? Where has that been? Remember Mapletron? The guy who had only 10 offensive TDs in his first 10 career games? Where has he been? Why hasn't he been involved at all? No let's keep running the same dive plays and bubble screens because after they failed the first 21 million times, odds are it works at some point soon right? Seriously, give this guy a cognitive test, because the way he runs offense, his functioning is probably equivalent to that of Joe Biden's. There's an idea, maybe starting next offseason, the NFL should mandate cognitive tests be administered to all current coaches and then mandate them for all new coaching hires with retesting....we'll say every 3 years
They're dropping like flies right now. The glass isn't half full. It's panic mode time. You don't win games in December and January with no running game and a QB that's on his last leg. C'mon...you can't possibly believe this team can compete with KC, let alone get past the 1st round of the playoffs?
Wisniewski just got signed on the Chiefs active roster yesterday, bummer.
The Claypool hype died down quickly....
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Couldn't watch much after halfway through the 3rd quarter. More than anything, I think this team needs a bye week. If they clinch the north, the should sit all the starters in week 17. This is a team and a QB that's out of gas.
Get some guys healthy. Try and rest up sometime someway and who knows. The NFL is a weird thing. Just get in the playoffs and you never know what happens next.
Not much to hype. The kid is still a star, but Ben clearly had more juice in his arm in the beginning of the year when we was stronger and the weather nicer. Ben is done and I'd hate to see these receivers waste another year with him throwing to them. Sign/draft his replacement immediately, fix the offensive line and win.
Well when you got a deep threat + a QB who can’t connect over 10 yards it kinda does
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don’t talk about playoffs I just hope the Steelers can win a game
Last edited by Fire Goodell; 12-14-2020 at 12:58 AM.
Paragraphs are your friend man.
Needless to say, there was a reason why Mike Tomlin was given a one year extension.
He’s Marvin Lewis with a better track record. You can chalk it up to injuries and bad luck or whatever, but once again he is leading his team into a December Death spiral. You can ignore the Importance of the run game as much as you want, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring it. One dimensional offense year after year that can’t get the job done.
Gameball: Marcus Allen.
Goat: 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers.
I mean if Randy Fichtner doesn’t get walking papers at the end of this season, Tomlin has some serious problems and maybe isn’t that great a coach after all?
Enthroned Into The Good Old Boys Club - 2024
I'll say it realistically we had a better chance with Duck to win the game.
Having a year off from football and based on the fact that the balls he was throwing were pretty damn good at the beginning of the season; could he be suffering from fatigue? You see it happen in rookies around this time. In general he looks tired and his arm strength doesn’t look as crisp as it was in the beginning of the season. Just a thought?
This game can basically be encapsulated with two plays:
Ben’s INTs
On 3rd-&-10, after the defense jumped (I’m not sure why we didn’t get a free play), the Steelers run the same formation, same play, same everything on 3rd-&-5. Due to this, the defense got a quick look at where the receivers were going to go... and the Buffalo defender jumped the route for a pick-six. If you want to pour salt into that wound, Claypool was WIDE OPEN for a TD.
Washington has his man beaten by 5 yards. If Ben leads him, it’s a TD. At a minimum, Ben throws it inside, it’s a reception of 25 yards. Instead, the throw is behind and also it goes to the outside (right at the defender).
SUMMATION:
The first play was a swing of 14 points, and the second was 7 points left on the field.
Considering that we were starting a SS at ILB, the defense played well. Gotta give credit to the Bills for making halftime adjustments to target this area of the field. They ran Diggs into that zone over & over... and by the time we figured out how to stop it, it was 23-7.
Yes, Nelson and Sutton both slipped on the outside (which allowed Diggs to get two of those receptions / it wasn’t just the middle of the field), but the point is the same.
Speaking of Sutton, that field fumble that he caused was indeed a fumble. The refs blew a quick whistle to kill the play (making it non-reviewable). In other words, aside from one slip up (literally), he had a great game.
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Perhaps he injured his elbow again because his passes look like presurgery.
Stop.
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