Steelers Today – A Pittsburgh Steelers blog

In an article that I wrote prior to today’s game, I said that Ben Roethlisberger was a better quarterback than Eli Manning.  And Big Ben did a lot today to prove that I was right, as he led the Pittsburgh Steelers to a 24-20 come from behind victory.

The Steelers played an unusually sloppy game in which they were penalized 6 times for 119 yards.  That’s almost twice as much yardage as the Giants were able to gain on the ground.  In fact, it’s only 6 yards less than Eli Manning passed for during the game.  So in some ways, the Giants’ most effective offense was the referees.

The refs called phantom helmet-to-helmet hits.  They called imaginary pass interference penalties.  They allowed arguable fumbles.  And they failed to call blatant clipping penalties.

Partially due to the terrible calls by the referees, the Steelers found themselves trailing 20-10 going into the 4th quarter.  Fortunately, the Steelers didn’t allow the Refs to snatch victory from their hands.

Mike Wallace outran the Giants’ defense for a 51 yard touchdown, and Isaac Redman scored a touchdown late in the game to give the Steelers a 24-20 win.

The Steelers probably should have had another score, but they failed to go for a first down on 4th and 1.  Instead, they opted to fake a field goal and have Shaun Suisham attempt to run for a TD.  The play failed miserably, and the Steelers got no points despite being in the red zone.

The hero of Sunday’s game was definitely Steelers running back Isaac Redman.  He ran the ball 26 times for 147 yards.  That’s a 5.7 yards per carry average.  Redman’s constant pounding seemed to demoralize the vaunted Giants defense.

Big Ben also outplayed his 2004 draft class rival Eli Manning.  Manning only passed for 125 yards, and end ended the game with a paltry 41.1 passer rating.  He also threw an interception.  Meanwhile, Ben threw for 216 yards, two touchdowns, and had a 98.8 passer rating.

The Steelers now trail the Baltimore Ravens by one game in the AFC North, but they face them twice in the next 4 weeks, so their fate is in their own hands.

Go Steelers!

The Steelers finally pushed their record above .500 when they beat the Washington Redskins 27-12 on Sunday.  More importantly, they made up valuable ground on the Baltimore Ravens, who are currently in first place in the AFC North.

The Steelers wore throwback jerseys during the game that made them look like human bumblebees.  But despite their unusual appearance, the Steelers played extremely well.

The Steelers were able to hold the Redskins to only 86 rushing yards.  Coming into the game, the Redskins had been the top rushing team in the NFL.

But even more impressive was the fact that the Steelers were able to shut down star rookie Robert Griffin III.  Griffin came into the game as the NFL’s 6th leading rusher, while also completing 70% of his passes.  That’s an incredible combination.  But against the Steelers, Griffin completed only 16 of 34 passes for 177 yards, and was held to only 8 yards rushing.  Of course, Griffin’s statistics weren’t helped by the fact that his receivers dropped 10 passes.  The Redskins receivers looked eerily like Mike Wallace looked last week.

Speaking of Wallace, he made a remarkable recovery from last week, and actually held onto the ball.  He ended up as the team’s top receiver on Sunday, catching 7 passes for 62 yards.

But perhaps the best performance of the day was turned in by running back Jonathan Dwyer.  Dwyer had his second 100+ yard rushing performance, as he ran for 107 yards on 17 carries.  But what has impressed me most is how Dwyer has been running.  He’s been a downhill runner who has started reminding Steelers fans of Jerome Bettis.

Now the Steelers have to prepare to face another NFC East opponent.  They will travel to New York to face Eli Manning and the New York Giants.  The Giants are the defending NFL champions, so this game is sure to provide a test for the Steelers.

Go Steelers!

Despite a terrible first half in which the Steelers didn’t look like they could catch anything (on offense OR defense), the Steelers rallied back  in the second half and beat the Cincinnati Bengals 24-17 (which was exactly the final score that I predicted for this game here).

The win takes the Steelers’ record to 3-3, which may not sound very impressive, but which actually gives them the 4th best record in the AFC.  Only the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, and Houston Texans have a record that is above .500.  More importantly, the Steelers are in 2nd place in the AFC North, and they only have one more loss than the Baltimore Ravens (who the Steelers still have to play twice).

In the first half of the game, things sometimes didn’t look like the Steelers were going to win.  The defense missed the opportunity to get several turnovers.  In fact, they dropped several easy interceptions.  Likewise, the offense didn’t seem to want to win either.  Mike Wallace, in particular, looked like he had completely forgotten how to catch the ball.  In fact, Wallace failed to catch almost half of the passes that were thrown at him (he caught 8 of 15 passes thrown to him in the game).  And Big Ben didn’t look so hot either.  He threw an interception, and also lost the ball on a fumble.

But despite how bad the Steelers looked in the 1st half, they looked like a completely different team in the 2nd half.  Big Ben came out in the 2nd half and started completing passes to everyone not named Mike Wallace.  Heath Miller, Antonio Brown, and Emmanuel Sanders each turned in a good performance.

But it’s probably fair to say that the best performance of the night was turned in by Jonathan Dwyer.  Dwyer ran hard, and at times, he made Steelers  fans think that Jerome Bettis had returned to the team.

Dwyer carried the ball 17 times for 122 yards.  That’s an average of 7.2 yards per carry.  Nothing demoralizes a defense worse than consistently making long runs against them.  That being the case, I’m certain Dwyer left them completely demoralized.

Because the Steelers were so busy shooting themselves in the foot in the 1st half, it was easy to mistakenly believe that the Bengals were playing better than they actually were.  But if you look at the actual stats from the game, the Steelers dominated the Bengals.

The Steelers’ offense gained 431 net yards, compared to only 185 net yards by the Bengals.  Moreover,  Bengals QB Andy Dalton was held to a mere 105 yards passing.  That sounds more like a rushing total than a passing total.

The Steelers also dominated the time of possession battle.  They once again held the ball for over 35 minutes, which is becoming a hallmark of the Steelers offense.  They held the ball for a full 15 minutes more than the Bengals did during the game.  When you do that, you have a very good chance of winning the game.

Now the Steelers have to get ready to play star rookie Robert Griffin III next week as the Washington Redskins come to Heinz Field.

Go Steelers!

If there’s one thing that I hate even more than a Steelers loss, it’s writing about a Steelers loss at 1:30 in the morning.  So I’m going to make this brief.

The Steelers lost 26-23 in a game that is going to leave them feeling embarrassed once they watch it on film.

The Steelers played badly on both sides of the ball.  In fact, they played badly in all 3 phases of the game.

On offense, they couldn’t run the ball effectively.  They accumulated only 56 yards rushing against a team that had been giving up 144 yards per game on the ground.  And injuries to the offensive line certainly didn’t help.  At one point, it looked like Heath Miller was going to have to line up as an offensive lineman.

And the wide receivers didn’t help much either.  Neither Mike Wallace nor Antonio Brown seemed like they were interested in catching the ball.  Sure, Mike Wallace had an 82 yard touchdown reception.  But outside of that, he and Antonio Brown caught only 6 of 14 passes that were thrown to them.

On defense, the Steelers couldn’t stop anything.  Ike Taylor and Keenan Lewis looked more like Abbott and Costello.  Is it just me, or is Ike Taylor getting beat on just about every play this season?

And the run defense wasn’t much better.    They allowed Chris Johnson to break out of his slump, just like they let Darren McFadden break out of his when they played the Oakland Raiders.  Players who are not having a good season shouldn’t suddenly find their groove against the Steelers.

And of course we have to mention special teams.  A blocked punt?  Really???!!!!

Heck, even the coaches can take some heat for this one.  Was a 54 yard field goal the right call when a miss would give the Titans good field position with almost a full minute to march down the field?  I’m sure that Mike Tomlin is now rethinking that decision.

The kick is good! Titans win.

The Steelers are now 0-3 on the road.  More importantly, they’ve lost to teams that have a combined record of 2-10 when they aren’t playing the Steelers.  So let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that they’ve lost to the Ravens or the Patriots.  They’re losing to bad teams.

There’s still time for the Steelers to turn things around.  But with 3 losses to AFC opponents, and two games left to play against both the Ravens and the Bengals, the playoffs are going to be hard to make.  Frankly, I don’t even care about the playoffs.  I’d just like to see the Steelers make it through the season without any more major injuries.

Go Steelers!

I hadn’t realized how much I missed Rashard Mendenhall………until after he returned to the Steelers.  Without Mendenhall, the Steelers struggled to gain yards on the ground.  Calling their running attack impotent would have been an insult to impotence.

But in his first game back, Mendenhall reminded Steelers fans why he has been the starting running back for the Steelers since 2009.  Mendenhall rushed for 81 yards on 14 carries.  That may not sound particularly impressive, but it was an average of 5.8 yards per carry.  Isaac Redman and Jonathan Dwyer struggled to gain 5.8 millimeters per carry in Mendenhall’s absence.

Mendenhall would have had over 100 yards rushing in his return, but he had a 24 yard run called back due to an illegal formation penalty on Mike Wallace.

Not only did Mendenhall’s return rejuvenate the Steelers’ running game, but it also seemed to rejuvenate the Steelers’ offensive line.  After each of his successful runs, you could see the offensive linemen smiling and congratulating Mendenhall.

Mendenhall runs wild!

But despite Mendenhall’s successful return, all did not go well for the Steelers.  Troy Polamalu seemed to re-injure his calf muscle, and didn’t return to the game.  LaMarr Woodley also went down with a hamstring injury.

The Steelers played pretty sloppily on both offense and defense, and they were penalized 9 times for 106 yards.  Fortunately Michael Vick’s play was even sloppier than the Steelers’.  Vick fumbled the ball 3 times during the game, and 2 of them were recovered by the Steelers.

The Steelers led the Eagles for most of the game.  In fact, they led until there was only 6:38 left in the 4th quarter, when the Eagles scored a touchdown and took a 14-13 lead.

Fortunately, the Steelers still had time for one final drive.  The Steelers marched down the field on a drive that consisted primarily of runs by Mendenhall and Isaac Redman.  The Steelers drove the ball all the way to the Philadelphia 16 yard line, and then with 3 seconds left, they called on kicker Shaun Suisham to win the game.  Suisham put the ball right between the uprights with no time left on the clock, and the Steelers had a 16-14 win.

The Steelers are now 2-2, and are in third place in the AFC North, behind Baltimore and Cincinnati.  They only have 4 days to prepare for a Thursday night game against the Tennessee Titans.

Go Steelers!