Steelers fall to Ravens
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The Steeler coulda won. The Steelers woulda won. The Steelers shoulda won. But ultimately, the Steelers didn’t win.
The Steelers fell to the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 17-14, and now find themselves tied with the Ravens for 1st place in the AFC North.
The Steelers had a chance to go 4-0 without Ben Roethlisberger. A very real chance. In fact, only 34 seconds separated them from that goal. But a late touchdown pass from Joe Flacco to T.J. Houshmandzadeh spoiled the Steelers’ hopes of going undefeated with0ut their starting quarterback.
The game was yet another hard-fought battle that has become typical for this rivalry. And for the fifth time in the last five meetings between the two teams, the margin of victory was 4 points or less.
There are lots of reason why the Steelers lost. Too many penalties. Predictable play calling on offense. Missed field goals by Jeff Reed. Ineffective coverage by the defensive backs. Not enough pressure on Joe Flacco. Charlie Batch’s inability to find receivers. Blah, blah, blah.
But the point is not to place blame. Yes, we lost. But Baltimore had something to do with the loss too. It wasn’t only due to the things that we didn’t do. It was also due to the things that they DID do.
Ultimately, we win as a team, and we lose as a team. So trying to assess blame is counter-productive.
Rather than focus on why we lost, I’ve decided to focus on how close we came.
Without our franchise quarterback, the Steelers were within 34 seconds of being 4-0. Not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, it’s something that we should all feel very proud of.
The Steelers played a very tough Baltimore Ravens team to a virtual standoff with what was effectively our 4th string quarterback. How much additional offense would Big Ben have accounted for? There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I don’t think there are many who believe that he wouldn’t have generated more offense than Charlie Batch did.
Yes, Jeff Reed missed two field goals. Making one of those kicks would have tied the game, and the second would have potentially won the game. But Reed didn’t miss them on purpose. Reed is usually a very accurate kicker, and Heinz Field is a very difficult place to kick field goals. There aren’t many kickers in the league who could do much better than Jeff Reed does under the conditions at Heinz Field. So despite what happened today, next time there is a game winning field goal to be made, I’m going to trust in Jeff Reed to make it.
Steelers' kicker Jeff Reed
Bruce Arians’ play calling may have been too predictable, but now that Ben Roethlisberger is returning to the lineup, Arians should go back to being his usual pass-happy self. And because he had to rely on Rashard Mendenhall during Big Ben’s absence, perhaps Arians has gained a new-found appreciation for the running game. In fact, we may have a born-again offensive coordinator on our hands; one who values the run, as well as the pass.
So regardless of what happened against the Ravens, the real season starts now. Ben Roethlisberger is back, and the team is 3-1. The defense is playing great. The running game is working well. And now our franchise quarterback will be added back into the mix.
The Steelers survived Ben’s suspension. And the team fared much better than most expected them to. But Big Ben is back now, and it’s a whole new ballgame.
Look out, NFL! The Steelers are at full force now. And they’re coming after you.
Here we go, Steelers! Here we go!
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I applaud your optimistic viewpoint. While I never thought we would go 16-0, there is extreme disappointment because of the importance of this game (2 up on Balt & Cincy) and that we had multiple opportunities to win. While in your words, ‘assessing blame is counter productive’ if we don’t fix the mistakes, we don’t get better. You very clearly pinpointed our shortcomings. Execution mistakes are hard to fault. Mental errors are another story. You can’t have those false start penalties and holding calls on critical plays. THAT is counterproductive. Whatever it takes that has to be fixed. I have never been a BA fan-his play calling never makes sense to me. (Maybe Ben’s audibles will make him look better.) But the 3 straight runs was akin to a fold in poker, the bomb to Wallace when we needed 3 yards (to be fair maybe that was on Charlie) and opening a series with an end around (don’t you do that after you establish a flow of running the ball and the defense is over-pursuing to the ball?) represent the fact that he watches a different game.
1Well, if we couldn’t complain, we would keep it all inside. Hopefully, the Steelers and their fans get it all out of our systems now. If finish each quarter of the season 3-1….all will be good in Title Town.
John #21,
The penalties were definitely stupid. I almost threw a shoe through my TV when Flozell Adams false started that one time. And Kemo’s false start was just as unforgivable. But I’m sure that Tomlin is ripping them a new one for that, so I’m not overly concerned about it. Frankly, Kemo is much better than he used to be, and I think we’re just going to have to live with Flozell’s false starts.
As far as Arians goes, his play calling was atrocious. The conservative running plays at the end were just unforgivable. It’s already hard to run on Baltimore, but when you basically signal to them what you’re going to do, then it’s unforgivable. Bruce Arians showed absolutely no confidence in Charlie Batch on that last drive. And was it just me, or did they completely freeze Hines Ward out of the game. Did he even play on Sunday? He is very dependable when we need short gains. Why didn’t they go to him?
2Yeah, we really had the game at the end, but killed ourselves with penalties. Giving the Ravens credit, Flacco was really clicking with his receivers today. The fact is there’s not a lot you can do to defend a well executed out pattern. BMac tried to jump the route and it turned out to be a double move on that particular play – end of game. If it HAD been another out pattern he would’ve been the hero of the game, but I think that the proper strategy there was to let them complete the short passes and try to keep them in bounds to either run out the clock or make your stand on the goal line with a shorter field to cover.
The major thing in this game, though, was that we started drives on the Ravens 27 and the Ravens 33 and got 0 points out of each of them. Only one of those was really a makeable field goal (the other was outside 50, which has been done only once at Heinz), so I’m not blaming Reed. The problem is that (just like at the end of the game) when given an opportunity to win the game with a first down, the offense went three and out.
3Great comments Don & Matt–you guys are right on target. Since we are among friends…I have to vent a bit. I know it’s unfair to focus on one play (especially when there were so may!) but will someone call out Flozelle for not completing his block when Charlie scrambled. Stopping & turning around in the middle of a play when there is a defender to block right in front of him. Maybe Jerry Jones encourages his guys to stop and tale a peak at the mega-jumbotron in Dallas but in Pittsburgh, you keep playing your but off until the whistle blows!!
4If we are a championship team, we won’t adopt a ‘we’re happy, we are 3-1’ attitude. Every man is focused on how he can play better Vs Cleveland. You think the Browns are going to up for us?
Ditto John#21
Funny how Nobody on that coaching staff will trust Charlie because he is the only one who has repeatedly played well for us in backup situations. There was an obvious boost when he took over for Dixson (which I have to say again, I told you so) And to think that after showing he could make the passes Arians and/or Tomlin refused to give him the chance to pass out of that hole there at the end and get the 1st and start kneeling.
5