harbaugh has balls , Tomlin not so much.
harbaugh has balls , Tomlin not so much.
What makes it worse is they held them to 3 and out once, but one first down by Raiders after FG ran out clock. It seems Tomlin doesn’t get odds. Holding a team to 2 ,3 and outs tougher than getting a yard. plus only one time out. I rarely bash Tomlin I love the guy but extremely frustrating. Rant over, bigger issues. Also tired of Ben apologizing to fans. It’s pathetic
What o line do you guys watch?
They’ve looked young but not aggressive or fresh legged. I’ve not seen one of these dudes push anyone around in 8 quarters of football. Much less all 5 at once.
The line couldn’t get 1 yard consistently last season. Right now, this group is worse.
Pre-Ben, this is how they played late game. Punt and ask the defense to win the game.
That’s an alternative. Point is “alternatives” are out there. If they choose not to take them…again, falls on ownership.
Philip Rivers, Cam Newton, Alex Smith, Deshaun Watson (for a price), Nick Foles (for a price)…there are alternatives if the QB room they have can’t run a full offensive playbook.
Salary cap is a lame excuse. They find money when they want to find money. I mean how many times do we keep hearing: “they are up against the cap”, “they have no money” and they continue to sign players after players after players?
Regardless…point is, alternatives (even cheap ones: Moore, Bortles, Minshew) are/were out there. The only way there aren’t alternatives out there is if none of these guys can run the Steelers “complicated” playbook.
You have a quarterback who refuses to or is just incapable of running a sneak.
You only run the ball twelve times all game.
Defenses stack the box and do not fear your passing game.
You quarterback is only capable of throwing at specific spots to the field to certain receivers.
Your quarterback is only only capable of making certain types of throws a game.
The receivers can only run certain routes to help the quarterback.
The TE has to stay in and block to help the Offensive Line give more time to the Quarterback to find someone open.
And we're wondering if the Offensive Line is fresh-legged?
I just looked at the starting QBs for all 32 teams and I only found 3 that I would not pick over Ben - Tua, Dalton and Winston. Every other QB, I'd take as the starter over Ben. I'm not necessarily saying that Ben is the 29th best QB, but I'm not saying he isn't either.
Sure, but he was unfortunately the best option, with his contract value that was going to saddle the Steelers this season, whether he was on the roster or not. Mason Rudolph wasnt going to be much better and fans would be 10X more angry if they were staring at a 4 win season.
They will get some guys like Tuitt, Haden, Watt, Bush back in the next few weeks and be better, but its been pretty clear that father time has been tugging on Ben's jersey for a few seasons now, despite the hopeful MVP talk for Ben early last season.
Pretty much. The team made the best of a rugged scenario for 2021. It wasn't my preference, but I see the logic behind what they are trying to do. Ben was $$$ no matter what. So load up and try and drag the HOF SB winning QB into the postseason one more time and see what happens. The Saints, Broncos, Giants, Colts, etc. have all tried versions of this recently with varying degrees of success.
Still a ton of football left and it could get better...
Honestly, I think it is one issue. Alleviate that issue and the rest of this stuff clears itself right up.
The defense looks like a unit where everyone is trying to make a game winning play on every snap rather than just do their job. So they cheat a step here and hesitate a half-second there.
Offense is just bad QB play.
The Steelers have the Bengals and Packers on deck these next two weeks. Followed by the Broncos and Seahawks.
If Ben doesn't have his shit together by Seattle in front of a National TV audience. It'll get ugly real fast and I expect a change to be made soon. The Steelers will be home again this week, and I think the Heinz crowd won't be very patient with the Offense if they continue to stink. It's the Bengals. There has to be some improvement. Somewhere.
They're pretty much forced to make game winning plays because...you already know why.The defense looks like a unit where everyone is trying to make a game winning play on every snap rather than just do their job.
Even if I go back to the first few games last season where the offense and Ben seemed OK at the time, I seem to remember even then that the offense was predicated on the quick short passes that got the ball out of Ben's hand quickly. There were a few longer throws to Claypool and DJ running straight down the sideline mixed in but that seemed to be it based on my memory of those games. The limited options were likely there even then, but it took a few games and film watching before teams realized exactly what was happening, and then teams crowded the first 10 yards from the line of scrimmage and brought both safeties way down and counteracted the short passing game............and things went downhill quickly for the Steelers offense then and have remained that way ever since.
Darnold, sure. The other 3 guys are really just a stopgap or "never will be" that still likely have the Steelers as the #3 team in the AFC North at best.
This way its, pay Ben and keep the fanbase happy with optimism that he is still 2007 Ben. Then see that he isnt and when the fanbase is ready to move on, due to his declining performance, then you start 2022 with lots of cap room and very few fans saying...."I think Ben has 2 or 3 more good seasons in him".
Lots of problems all around, but I still cant stop chuckling at Benny Snell and a classic Benny performance. 2 Att, 1 Yard, 0.5 YPC.
I had just about totally forgotten Kent Graham took the field as the Steelers staring QB in the later part of the 90s after Neil O'Donnell left, but those were some lean times at the QB position and the offense in general outside of having Jerome Bettis. I remember Jim Miller also got some playing time at QB around then.
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but why were no time-outs called before the end of the 1st half? There was roughly 1:50 on the game clock with Vegas already in scoring position, so why not have faith in your D and save some time for your O to get back on the field and get some points? You're going to give the ball right back to Vegas after the half, so why let them drain the clock and then score? Am I alone in thinking we shoulda' used our last 2 time-outs here?
“They say you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. So I got rid of everything to see what I had.” ~ Steven Wright