Brother, you need a vacation.Originally Posted by Mojouw
I have much, much more confidence in James Washington.
Array title="Shoes has a reputation beyond repute">
Brother, you need a vacation.
I have much, much more confidence in James Washington.
Array title="GBMelBlount has a reputation beyond repute">
Confidence Level?
We can beat anyone if our defense gets straightened out and Ben plays to his potential.
Any ideas that might cause me to want to slit my wrists Fire Goodell, 86 Ward and Bng Hell?
Last edited by GBMelBlount; 12-04-2018 at 07:18 PM.
"With love, with patience, and with Faith
....She'll make her way" ~ Natalie Merchant
Well, I meant this jokingly before, but after seeing this team literally give away 2 games...PLAYOFFS? I just hope we can win a game
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Bengals win the division at 9-7...if they win versus the Chargers this weekend, they have a real good shot at running the table.
Battleball Champion!4 games left, if they lose to Patriots and Saints that means a 9 win season. Ravens could easily overtake them.
“They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.”
― Clint Eastwood
Array title="GBMelBlount has a reputation beyond repute">
Thank you. We are doomed...
"With love, with patience, and with Faith
....She'll make her way" ~ Natalie Merchant
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Array title="GBMelBlount has a reputation beyond repute">
Craic, there is nothing I enjoy more than a thread started with the intent to initiate good debate.
You have delivered!
"With love, with patience, and with Faith
....She'll make her way" ~ Natalie Merchant
My confidence level has not changed one bit. None. Nada. Zilch.
In the Denver game:
-Conner fumbles for no reason
-Grimble is an ass hat
-AB is held on a Ben INT
-Ben throws an awful INT
-Washington jumps for a ball (instead of catching it in stride and waltzing in for a TD)
... and the Steelers still only lost by a TD to a very good Broncos team.
Likewise, in the San Diego game, the Chargers got:
-a TD after a false start
-a punt return TD where two blocks in the back occurred
-an INT bounce into a TD
-supposedly had Haden off-sides on a FG
-a missed TD to a wide open Hunter
-a phantom hold called on Foster which negated a huge run by Conner that converted a first down (but, instead the drive got killed)
...and, the Steelers still only lost by a FG to a very good Chargers team.
SUMMATION:
It took a shitload of flukey plays for those two teams to beat the Steelers.
Get out of here with your excuses. Clearly there should be a crisis intervention and at least 3 firings and wholesale benchings. This is the only proper response to losing. Anything else is arrogance and rampant homerism.
Array title="Craic has a reputation beyond repute">
While you're correct on both of those. The problem is, we can also say the same thing about the tie. Once is a mistake, twice a coincidence, three times is a pattern. Somehow, something's being missed that is allowing these things to happen. We gotta clean it up whatever it is. I agree we're not as bad as some are making us out to be, but unless we clean this stuff up, we're not going to be as good as we should be, either.
Perfectly said, we have yet to play up to our potential...Carolina game to me was kind of a fluke because I really don't think Carolina was that good to begin with...true test is against good teams
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Array title="Shoes has a reputation beyond repute">
The thing is this team, coaches and players can't pull it together and play 60 minutes of football. When there is a leak in the dike they flounder and throw darts blindfolded. There doesn't seem to be a strong chain of command and I think that includes players and coaches. This has been going on for years. I don't buy we need to just add this player for this position, I've heard this for years about the offense and we've had one of the best in the NFL for many seasons and still flounder like a JV team multiple games each year. To fix it you have to face the fact that there is a problem, push that pride in the river and owner, coaches and players need to go on a retreat and try another way. But that isn't going to happen imo
My confidence level is - They're what they have been for years. A consistent #3-6 seed that will always fall short of the super bowl. Yes I get it, they're a good team that has the ability to beat anyone. Just like Martavis Bryant could be the best WR in the league. Will it happen? No, this team it's just proving once again they're the same Steelers that shoot themselves in the foot in crunch time.
THIS EXACTLY!!! and let's add to your list that on that last FG the long snapper moves the ball all 3 times and the refs excuse it by saying "He's done it his whole career, we aren't going to start calling it now", so they not only don't call penalties on them when they should, they make excuses for them when they want to. What a freaking Joke.
Last edited by 86WARD; 12-05-2018 at 07:49 AM.
Boswell will most likely contribute to a loss in a playoff game. Guy has 4th worst FG percentage in the league and he’s missed more XPs than any other kicker...lol.
If they can win 3/4 coming up and then get on a hot streak for 4 games...but when was the last time they did that and can they win 7/8 and win the “right” 7?
Bingo!!!
Apparently, the Chargers’ punt team has been blocking people in the back “their whole career”... which is why the Chargers didn’t get called for it.
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Last season.
The Steelers won 10 of 11, with the only loss being the “Jesse caught it” game. So... unless Al Riverton intervenes, it can indeed be done.
True
In that game, Boz missed an extra point early in the game, and a FG that would have given the Steelers the victory.
COUNTER-POINT:
The pattern is: it takes flukey plays to beat the Steelers. If the Steelers play even slightly-less erratically, they win out (and, if the Steelers play mistake-free, they blow ANYONE out).
No, I’d like our chances even less...if you’re dominated, you have no chance of winning.
We weren’t dominated, we blew two games...that doesn’t inspire confidence going forward.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
That sword cuts both ways - Chargers and Broncos losses balanced out by last second Jags and Bengals wins
Steelers have played two Super Bowl contenders (Chiefs & Chargers) and one other team currently above .500 at Heinz and lost to all three. Signature win is over a 7-5 team with a QB controversy - the Panthers blowout was fun but like other Thursday night games that was impacted by a team getting behind and saying screw it after a short week to recover.
With two more good teams left (New England & Saints) Steelers once again probably are in the position of hoping Denver loses once and/or the Ravens twice to make the playoffs
No shame in hoping to squeak into the playoffs with above the standard parts on offense balanced out by a defense with major flaws, inability to generate turnovers, a QB who has become a turnover machine, and a RB situation that had little margin for error after a reasonable gamble to squeeze one more productive season out of Bell that did not pan out. The season could have cratered after the Ravens home loss and I give Tomlin credit for rallying the team to stack wins against a soft part of the schedule.
Given that here in Atlanta we have experienced the worst collapse in Super Bowl history and UGA giving up second half leads of 13 & 14 points to Alabama in 2018 I have seen more dispiriting performances than the Steelers doing what they can with what they have.
So for me this season is not a major missed opportunity to get to the Super Bowl like Franco & Rocky being hurt in 1976 or the recurring Cowher AFC championship losses but a flawed team scrambling for a playoff spot.
Hope they make it so I will have a rooting interest in January for something other than rooting against the Patriots.
I have more confidence in last years team.
Seriously if the Steelers could clean up their mistakes they can beat anyone in this league. Look at the Cowboys. They played a near perfect game against the Saints and won holding them to only 10 points (and the Saints got away with a push off on their only TD).
This week is a perfect chance to prove it. The Raiders are horrible. If the Steelers are serious they should blow them out. But will they?
As bad as they've been the last three weeks we easily should have beaten the Broncos and Chargers. Bad turnovers and horrible officiating killed us. We definitely didn't deserve the Jags win but all that said we could easily be 9-2-1 right now and this thread wouldn't exist.
If the team comes out this Sunday and shits the bed they are toast come playoff time. I still think we win our division at 9-5-1 (wins against Raiders/Bengals) and beat the Chargers at home, then KC on the road finally losing (in a blow out) to the Patriots in Foxboro.
Hey it's better than the beginning of the year when our defense couldn't stop anyone. I really thought back then we'd finish 5-10-1.
Not sure I would consider what happened in the wins against the bengals and jags as fluke plays rather winning in the closing seconds. To me a fluke play is when the guy with the ball has a clear path for a TD, but instead decides not to take the path of least resistance and ends up not only fumbling the ball but doing so in the endzone so we get a complete reversal of fortunes. For SD it was the interception that was not only lost but ends up bouncing directly to the now open WR for a TD. I guess for me a fluke is a bounce of the ball good or bad. Like a defender being blocked so badly off the line he ends up in the passing lane and gets an Interception.
The bengals game was a last second pass that resulted in a TD but there wasn't anything fluky about it same with Ben's TD it was last second but not really what I would call fluky. Maybe lucky that he was able to cross the goal line after being hit, but not sure I would call that fluky.
Another point is there were at least 3 calls that lead to chargers scores that were not flagged. 1. False start 2. Block in back 3. False start on center for game winning fg tries. Steep odds for any team to over come those types of calls. Add that there was also a bs holding call on our guy and how do you over come all this? Give the chargers all the credit you want but they were on the right side of a badly officiated game. Don't for a minute think this is only a Steelers issue with officiating either. The cowboys vs redskins Thanksgivng game was just as bad.
As for KC we were not playing very good football at that time and we only ended up losing by a TD. We may meet them again in the playoffs. I aint scared, nor am I scared of the pats or the saints who suddenly came down to earth this past weekend. Don't buy the media hype on teams the teams seldom live up to it.
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While the record was better the competition was not. I have much more faith in this year's team. For some reason we just seem to do better with a tough schedule. I could be wrong but I just feel better this year.
Array title="pczach has a reputation beyond repute">
You are correct about all of that. This team has been snake bitten with some of the worst luck on a football field I have seen in a while.
I completely agree with everything you said, but there are some underlying problems and some reasons why things are happening IMO.
First: The coaching adjustments need to improve. This is not a "fire Tomlin" statement. This is just seeing coordinators doing things that make zero sense. The decisions Butler makes....particularly late in games just isn't good enough. Covering elite players like Keenan Allen with a LB should be grounds for going to prison for 18 months. We keep seeing this surface nearly every game. It's simply not good enough. This isn't hard. Do what you can to take away the other team's best weapon and make other inferior players beat you. This is football 101. Tomlin sees the same things we do. How is he not grabbing Butler by the lips and saying "If I see a player wearing fifty something on his jersey guarding Keenan Allen one more time, you'll be serving Gatorade for the rest of the season."?
Ben needs to stop throwing the ball to the other team. I know that INT's are going to happen, and that some of those haven't been his fault. I'm talking about the inexcusable INT's like the floater in this last game. You have to see that coverage unflold. He can't just assume James is going to rush. He just had to see James coming off the edge and then let it go. Ben makes incredible plays, but the boneheaded stuff needs to be cleaned up.
I think James Washington needs to play...period. He's not learning anything not playing, and he's not going to improve without playing. Unless there's something else going on behind the scenes with him that hasn't been reported, the team needs that talent on the field and he needs to figure it out. DHB is not, and never will be the answer. They need a consistent deep threat to emerge to create space for everyone else.
I think we are seeing some things surface because of an underlying problem. All we do is concentrate on what we see, but we forget about the why. The defense losing Shazier took away the one playmaker they had on that side of the ball. They added Watt, but we never got to see this year's Watt with Shazier on the field. His loss set this team back. Hargrave is starting to emerge as a disruptive force up front, but they lack players that take away the football. They need those players that create turnovers.
The team's worst fears just occurred as James Conner is injured. They don't have proven quality backups behind him. This is why I'm giving Fichtner a pass for now. There is really no way to correct the situation. Let's hope Conner gets healthy quickly.
Here's where the Bell situation crushed this football team this year. They hoped Bell would come back, and they would be able to have depth at the RB position. I think the lack of running game recently is them trying to preserve Conner a bit. That's the only real explanation for the lack of carries lately. Bell would have been the best backup in the NFL, and they would have been able to optimize both of these guys and not overwork either one of them.
From the financial side of things, Bell took up $14.5 million in cap space that could have been used to get a playmaker or two for the defense. There is still a lot of talent on this team, but the Shazier situation combined with the Bell situation has really limited them this team. There is a lack of quality depth and playmakers on defense.
With all that said, I still think they can get their shit together and make a run. They need to really examine what they are doing schematically defensively in crucial situations, and improve how they attack offenses. They need to play better situational football on both sides of the ball. More guys need to make plays...period. Stay aggressive and put teams away.
I've said it in some other threads, but next year is THE year if Ben is able to play at a high level. They will have lots of cap space as Bell is off the books and Shazier is likely to never play again. They can use that money to sign big free agents or make a huge trade. They can supplement that with another draft, and some of the promising young talent will be a year more experienced and ready to make a difference. This team should be able to build a roster that will carry on beyond Ben.
Array title="AtlantaDan has a reputation beyond repute">
Great post
Array title="Rotorhead has a reputation beyond repute">
And the Ravens still have the Chargers and the Chiefs to play. Which ever team gets an upset wins the division.
At this point I don't even care if we lose to the Pats at home. We aren't getting anything higher than the #4 seed at this point simply because the Pats and Houston have cupcake schedules remaining and are too far ahead of us.
I actually want the #4 seed now. As I said above we would get the Chargers at home and we hopefully get a different set of officials and win. KC on the road without Kareem Hunt and playoff Andy Reid coaching.
If we lose to the Pats at home it should motivate them to play better in Foxboro come late January! Then we get revenge on the Saints in the Superbowl. Hey it could happen. I also could be abducted by a spaceship full of supermodels that need me to procreate with them to save their planet (it could happen I saw the same scenario on Cinemax once)!
Last edited by EzraTank; 12-05-2018 at 09:59 AM.
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#PlayoffsStartSunday!
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Unleash hell????
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