Steelers lose to Texans
The game ended over 6 hours ago. But I still don’t want to write about it. I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to forget about the debacle in Houston.
The Texans beat the Steelers by a score of 17-10. But anyone who watched the game knows that it was much worse than that.
In case anyone missed the game, suffice it to say that the best players for the Steelers were wearing Houston Texans jerseys.
The Texans repeatedly shot themselves in the foot with silly penalties (9 in all). Twice the Texans had touchdowns called back because of penalties. It seemed like every time the Texans made a good play, it was called back due to a penalty. If it hadn’t been for all of the penalties, the score would have been much, much worse.
After last week’s game against the Colts, when the defense made Colts’ running back Joseph Addai look like Jim Brown, I thought that it couldn’t get any worse. But I was wrong. This week, they made Texans running back Arian Foster look like Barry Sanders. I haven’t looked at the box score yet, but I’m pretty sure that Foster ran for over 1,000 yards in this one game.
Okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating. In truth, the Texans only ran for 180 yards. So while I may have exaggerated a little, I didn’t exaggerate much.
But the defense wasn’t the only unit that was completely overwhelmed. The offense was equally over-matched.
The Steelers’ offensive line couldn’t block anyone. In fact, I’m not even sure if they played today. If they did, they certainly didn’t make their presence felt.
And Rashard Mendenhall didn’t play much better. Last week Mendenhall was held to a mere 37 yards rushing. But as if to prove to us that he could do even worse, Mendy rushed for only 25 yards this week.
Initially, I blamed the offensive line for Mendenhall’s poor performances. But Isaac Redman and Mewelde Moore seemed to have no problem running behind the same offensive line in both games. So perhaps the problem isn’t with the offensive line. Perhaps the problem is Mendenhall.
Perhaps the worst performance of all was given by #7. Ben Roethlisberger played terribly.
To be fair, the offensive line didn’t give him much time. It’s no coincidence that Roethlisberger was sacked 5 times. But Ben still played badly. He and his receivers don’t seem to be on the same page when it comes to “hot reads” when the blitz is coming. On several occasions, Ben tried to get rid of the ball quickly because a blitz was coming, and the receiver didn’t even look back for the ball. Clearly, that’s not Ben’s fault.
The thing that’s been most concerning this season has been Big Ben’s tendency to turn the ball over at the least opportune times. If he’s not throwing an interception, he’s fumbling the ball. Knowing that he’s playing behind a porous offensive line, Ben either has to throw the ball away, or secure it so that he doesn’t give up a fumble.
Okay, that’s enough. Rehashing the game is making me upset, so I’m going to stop now. But that’s probably a good thing, because it leaves me time to go out and buy a new TV before the stores close tonight. I threw my shoe through my old TV during the game.
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I couldn’t agree more—-the only upside I could find in this game is that once again Isaac Redman has proved he deserves to tote the ball, not “Rushyard” Mendenhall. The local sports scribes keep saying that Redman isn’t as talented as Mendy, and I don’t know what that’s based on—-Redman never gets enough time to prove he’s not a flash in the pan.
1Whatever Isaac is doing to sour Coach T and super-genius Arians, I wish he’d stop—I love watching him run downhill when he gets the chance!
Coach T is treating his team like the Coaches of the local kids teams around here they get a player they think are the best and never remove him from the field until they are carried out or the player takes himself off the field,I guess in Coach T’s eyes and mind the Steelers would have to give up the whole rest of the season if anything happens to Big”hold on to that ball” Ben. They could save alot of money by not having a back up QB seeings how they never use him.
2