Steelers dominate Jags in close game
No, you didn’t read that headline wrong. The Steelers did actually manage to dominate a game, and also keep it close. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
The Steelers had almost twice the total yard that the Jaguars accumulated. They outgained them 315-68 in the first half alone. They held the Jaguars to only 76 net passing yards for the game. They sacked Jags’ QB Blaine Gabbert 5 times. Rashard Mendenhall rushed for 146 yards. Sounds like total domination, right?
Most sane people would read the paragraph above and assume that the Steelers won 28-3. Or perhaps they’d assume that the Jags had been kept off the scoreboard completely. Maybe 31-0. But that wasn’t the case. Believe it or not, the Steelers barely won. The final score was 17-13, and the Jaguars had a chance to win on the final play of the game.
So how did a game that should have been a blowout turn into a nailbiter? The answer lies in the second half statistics. After racking up over 300 yards on the Jags in the first half, the Steelers were held to only 70 yards in the 2nd half. Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger only completed one pass in the 2nd half. That’s right, one. And to make matters worse, he was sacked 3 times in the second half.
It isn’t often that a quarterback finishes a half with more sacks than completions. In fact, prior to this game, I would have assumed that it was impossible. But Big Ben proved me wrong.
That was really the story of the game. The Steelers suffered from schizophrenia. In the first half, they were a determined, prepared team that was set on winning an important game. And in the second half they were a tentative, unprepared team that seemed like they were trying to lose.
Perhaps the Jaguars made some amazing adjustments at the half. But shouldn’t the Steelers have made adjustments to the Jaguars adjustments? Instead, they appeared to be completely inept for the final 30 minutes of the game.
A win is a win, and we have to be happy any time the Steelers can leave with a victory. But to be honest, this was one of the least satisfying wins I can remember.
You can see it in the penalties. It was too easy for the Steelers in the first half and they lost focus. That happens to most teams. The coaches utterly failed to refocus the team, and they bare a lot of the blame. Arians silenced a lot of critics by getting the team to the Superbowl last year (largely because the emergence of our young WR’s finally enabled us to actually run the kind of offense he’d been trying to run without them), but he’s still the same old Bruce. I don’t think the Jaguars made any amazing adjustments; they just anticipated Mike Wallace would run deep routes and Mendenhall would run to the right. I don’t know what the runs to the right were all about, but it’s no secret that once Bruce sees a big play all he can think about is trying over and over to do it again regardless of how the offense suffers for it. In spite of all logic and common sense he kept looking deep, even when the defense was set up for it, even when we had a very comfortable lead that called for clock burning, even when his quarterback was cold, it never occurred to him to call for a slant, dig, or even a WR screen to get his qb back in a rhythm, keep the clock rolling, and give his speedy receivers a chance to move the chains with YAC.
1Matthew,
Excellent points. I think Arians is going to take heat for as long as he remains offensive coordinator. He has openly admitted that he sometimes gets too focused on the big play. And I agree with you that the Steelers seem to only run to the right. I know that we’ve had offensive line issues, and that may have something to do with it. But if we can all see it, then I’m sure that opposing coaches see the Steelers’ tendency to run to the right.
BTW, I do recognize that right handed runners prefer to run to the right. But you have to mix it up just to keep the opponent guessing.
It amazed me that Big Ben only completed one pass in the second half. I was surprised that Arians didn’t seem to do anything to help him get in a groove.
21st half offense: powerful running game, quick timing passes.
2nd half offense: run 1st down, bomb on 2nd and 3rd, punt.
Why? Was it Arians calling it, or Ben getting bored and taking chances?
3“1st half offense: powerful running game, quick timing passes.
2nd half offense: run 1st down, bomb on 2nd and 3rd, punt.”
Dan,
4I’m gonna report you to Bruce Arians. You’ve obviously stolen a copy of his playbook.
LOL. It was like Spurrier’s old fun’n'gun offense in the second half, just haphazardly throwing it way down field.
5In the second half, however, and also late in the first half if I remember correctly, Ben had several opportunities to hit open receivers with bombs that would have scored or setup TDs. For that we must blame Ben. He said after the game he failed to adjust to the winds by putting additional spin on the ball.
6He was definitely throwing deep in the first half too.
7Ben did throw deep in the first half. However, let’s face it. Ben has never been particularly accurate on his long balls. He has under-thrown Mike Wallace on more deep balls than I can even count. If he could hit him in stride, they’d have twice as many touchdown passes as they currently have.
I know that Wallace is fast, but Ben has to learn to throw it earlier or something. By throwing it short, he brings defenders back into the play who should have been beat badly.
8I think he overthrew it on at least two of his deep balls this time. It’s something he just has to get right if we want to go far in the playoffs. Because we have 3 guys who can get open deep consistently, we need to either complete several bombs each game or make defenses respect the threat so they keep both safeties deep and open up the ground and short passing game. This is especially true in games like this past Sunday when Ben has time to throw.
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