Steelers Today – A Pittsburgh Steelers blog

If you’re wondering why there are question marks in the title of this article, it’s because I’m still not certain whether the Steelers won or lost Sunday’s game.

Let’s review.

The Steelers dominated the time of possession, just like they’ve done in the first two games of the season.  Once again, the Steelers held the ball for over 36 minutes, while the Raiders had it for less than 24 minutes.  That’s a twelve minute advantage.  That’s pretty impressive.

Ben Roethlisberger threw for 384 yards, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 123.2 passer rating.  He completed passes to 10 different receivers.  Heath Miller caught 2 touchdown passes.  Mike Wallace had 123 receiving yards, and a touchdown.  Antonio Brown also scored a touchdown.

Meanwhile, Raiders’ quarterback Carson Palmer only passed for 209 yards, while being sacked once and throwing an interception.

Surely that type of statistical disparity resulted in a Steelers win, right?  But that’s where the confusion begins.  You see, according to the final scoreboard, the Raiders won the game 34-31.  Obviously that had to be an equipment malfunction.

Heath Miller had 2 TD’s

The Steelers couldn’t possibly have allowed Darren McFadden to take a hand-off from Carson Palmer and run it 64 yards for a touchdown.  And Jonathan Dwyer couldn’t possibly have lost a fumble deep in Steelers’ territory that allowed the Raiders to score a short touchdown.  Nor could Antonio Brown have possibly fumbled a reception that then led to another Raiders score.  And there’s no way that the Steelers could have been penalized 10 times for 81 yards, while the Raiders only had 3 penalties for 25 yards.

Nope, I’m 100% certain that the Steelers wouldn’t allow that many terrible things to happen in one game.  So I’m just going to go to sleep for a bit, and when I wake up I’m sure that I’ll find that it was all just a terrible dream.  Frankly, that’s the only possible answer.  After all, the Steelers couldn’t possibly have lost to the Raiders, could they?

The NY Jets scored 48 points last week against the Buffalo Bills, so the Steelers were probably expecting a better offensive team than they ended up facing.  Frankly, only one word comes to mind to describe the Jets team that faced the Steelers; impotent.

The Steelers dominated the Jets in every facet of the game.

Probably the most telling statistic was the fact that the Steelers converted 8 of 15 third down attempts.  If an NFL team can’t stop a team on third down, they’re probably not going to win, and the Jets simply couldn’t stop the Steelers.

Another telling statistic was the time of possession.  Despite being down 7-3 at the end of the first quarter, the Steelers actually controlled the ball for most of the quarter.  They held the ball for a full 10:12 seconds, while the Jets only had the ball for 4:48.  The fourth quarter was even worse for the Jets.  The Steelers controlled the ball for a full 12:17.  The Jets’ offense was only on the field for 2:43.  It’s pretty hard for an offense to mount a comeback if they’re not allowed to set foot on the football field.

And if you need further evidence of the Steelers’ dominance, consider the fact that the Jets’ offense only crossed midfield once in the second half.

LaMarr Woodley sacks Mark Sanchez

The interesting thing about the Steelers offensive performance was that there were really no individual offensive heroes.  The leading rusher for the Steelers only had 28 yards rushing.  The leading receiver only had 79 receiving yards.  But this type of performance seems to be indicative of offensive coordinator Todd Haley’s offense.

In the two games that the Steelers have played so far, Haley’s offense seems to be based on spreading the ball around.  5 different runners carried the ball in the Steelers offense, and 10 different receivers caught the ball.  While this approach probably keeps the opposing defense guessing, it also doesn’t seem to be particularly conducive to producing big offensive number for any individual offensive player.

But besides the concern about generating individual statistics, it’s pretty hard to find fault in the results the Steelers’ offense generated.

The Steelers defense was equally dominant.  They held Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez to a mere 138 passing yards.  Sanchez completed only 10 of 27 pass attempts, and ended the game with a meager 66.6 passer rating.

Contrarily, Ben Roethlisberger completed 24 of 31 passes for 275 yards, and a 125.1 passer rating.

The Steelers don’t have time to celebrate their victory.  Instead, they need to start preparing for next week’s game against the Oakland Raiders.  The Raiders are 0-2, and should present a very beatable opponent for the Steelers.

Go Steelers!

It wasn’t the opening result that any of us hoped for……or expected.

The Steelers lost to Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos 31-19.  And in a painful reminder of how last season ended, Demaryius Thomas ran past Steelers defenders on a 71-yard touchdown reception.

There were some things that went well for the Steelers.  For example, they held the ball for a full 14:24 in the third quarter.  That left the Broncos with a mere 36 seconds to try to do any damage.  Unfortunately, it was during that 36 seconds that Manning hit Demarius Thomas for that deja vu  touchdown pass.

The defense also had a few positive moments, like the sacks by Larry Foote and Jason Worilds, and the fumble recovery by LaMarr Woodley.  But overall, the positive points in the game were few.

New offensive coordinator Todd Haley probably didn’t have the debut that he was hoping for.  His offense looked lackluster at times.  For example, the Steelers were only able to rush for 32 yards on 15 attempts in the first half, despite the fact that at times it looked like they had completely abandoned the passing game.  The offense only generated 75 rushing yards in the entire game.

The passing game looked very similar to what we saw in the preseason.  It mainly consisted of Roethlisberger throwing quick, short passes.  Gone were the long bombs downfield to Mike Wallace that had become so popular under former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians.  In fact, the only time the Steelers’ offense looked exciting was when Big Ben went to the no-huddle offense.  That’s when he started slinging passes to Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

But there were a few things that looked far too familiar, and may prove to be a cause for concern.  For example, Big Ben was sacked 5 times during the game.  And the offensive line was plagued by injuries and often struggled during the game.  And the offense seemed comfortable settling for field goals instead of touchdowns.  And the Steelers’ cornerbacks often seemed completely incapable of defending the pass.  They allowed Peyton Manning to complete 19 of 26 passes for 253 yards and a 129.2 passer rating.

All of those things were problems that we thought would be fixed this year.  But apparently, they’re still works in progress.

It’s only one game, so it’s much too early to get down on the Steelers.  They have plenty of time to turn things around.  But Mike Tomlin and the Steelers’ coaches are going to have plenty of things to try to fix before next week’s game against the New York Jets.

Notes:  Offensive linemen Marcus Gilbert and Ramon Foster both left the game with injuries.  Gilbert had a knee injury, and Foster suffered an eye injury.

The Steelers’ backups beat the Panthers’ backups 17-16 in the final preseason game of the year.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details of the game, so I won’t go into it in very much detail.  However, I will highlight a few things that Steelers fans need to be aware of.

1)  Charlie Batch will probably be the #3 QB.  Batch played very well, completing 11 of 14 passes, including a TD to Emmanuel Sanders.  That likely sealed a place on the roster for Batch.  So enjoy your 15th season in the NFL Charlie.

2)  Chris Rainey lights it up.  If you look at the statistics from tonight’s game, it will look like Chris Rainey didn’t do very much.  But statistics don’t always tell the full story.  Rainey ran back two punts for touchdowns.  One was a 78 yard return, and the other was a 90 yard return.  Unfortunately, both runs were called back due to penalties.  But fans and coaches know what Rainey did, and it probably won him a spot on the 53-man roster.

3)  Sean Spence gets injured.  Third round draft pick Sean Spence was carted off the field with a left knee injury.  Spence had been lighting it up all through training camp, so this is a big loss for the team.  I’m no doctor, but Spence’s injury looked far worse than David DeCastro’s.

4)  “Big Snack” comes back.  Nose tackle Casey Hampton made his 2012 debut tonight, following an injury at the end of last season.

5)  Curtis Brown got hurt.  Brown left the game with an injury, but it doesn’t look like it’s serious.

6) Terrence Frederick probably played himself out of a job.  He hasn’t had a particularly good preseason, and by getting beat on a 79-yard touchdown pass, he may have ended his career with the Steelers.

7)  Jonathan Dwyer improved his status.  He hasn’t played well enough to bump Isaac Redman from the starting spot in Rashard Mendenhall’s absence, but he’s proven that he’s a capable backup.

Now that the preseason is over, it’s time to cut the team down to the final roster, and then get ready for September 9th against the Denver Broncos.

Go Steelers!

The Steelers got off to a slow start, but went on to beat the Buffalo Bills 38-7 in the team’s third preseason game.

The Steelers’ starters struggled in the first quarter, and Buffalo actually led 7-0 at the start of the 2nd quarter.  The Steelers were only able to convert one 3rd down in the entire first quarter.  But Isaace Redman scored a touchdown for the Steelers halfway through the 2nd quarter to tie the game, and then Antonio Brown scored another touchdown just before the half, and the Steelers never looked back from there.

Byron Leftwich threw a 39 yard touchdown to Antonio Brown on the Steelers first play of the second half.  Leftwich tossed another TD to Derrick Williams early in the 4th quarter.  Daniel Hrapmann kicked a 40 yard field goal to put the Steelers up 31-7.  And then Chris Rainey made a 41 yard touchdown run to put the final nail in the coffin.

On defense, Troy Polamalu and Robert Golden each got an interception, and Chris Carter and Corbin Bryant each contributed a sack.  Lawrence Timmons also forced a fumble that was recovered by Ziggy Hood.

But all of the news from the game wasn’t good.  In fact, some of it was terrible.  First round draft pick David DeCastro left the game with a right knee injury.  He was scheduled to get an MRI following the game, but Mike Tomlin’s description of the injury was that it was “potentially serious”.

David DeCastro suffers injury

I’ve been following Coach Tomlin long enough to be fairly good at interpreting his comments.  My gut tells me that when Tomlin says that DeCastro’s injury is “potentially serious”, what he really means is that the kid is likely out for the rest of the season.

There are no medical reports to confirm that, but Tomlin is known for having a gift for understatement.  So when he says that an injury is “potentially serious”, fans shouldn’t expect to see that player again until next season.

Most of the Steelers players who were asked about DeCastro’s injury said that it didn’t look good.

I guess we’ll all have to wait until tomorrow to hear the results of the MRI, and to see just how serious the injury really is.