Steelers lose to Broncos in overtime
@#%^&!@#$!!!!!!!
You all saw it. The Steelers lost to the Denver Tebows 29-23 in overtime, on a play that they never should have allowed to happen.
I’m so upset right now that I don’t even want to write a recap of the game. So this is all I’m going to write about it.
That is all.
Time to start talking about the NFL Draft.
They were outplayed. This team needs to get younger in spots, as it seems like we have a roster full of injured players every year.
1Greetings from Colorado!!! You all wrote us off. You all wrote off Tebow. Admit it. It was a great game. You guys were hobbled. Denver rose to the occasion.
2Tebow has the fire in the belly that more pro athletes need.
See you next year!!
No one player ever wins or looses a game, but Ike Taylor had the worst game I’ve ever seen from a Steeler corner. I don’t think he was at all mentally ready for this game – he’s got too much talent to give up that many plays to wide receivers of that caliber. Loosing Keisel and Hampton obviously hurt real bad too.
3@Dan,
Yup. It seems like we’ve been saying that same thing for quite a few years now. And it looks like they’ve finally started moving in that direction.
A few more young offensive linemen, a young nose tackle, a young safety, and further development in our young cornerbacks, and the Steelers will be back on top.
4Kevin,
Welcome to Steelers Today. Never let it be said that Pittsburgh fans don’t have class. So I welcome you, and I congratulate you. The Broncos outplayed the Steelers, and Tim Tebow surprised me. He ate Ike Taylor for lunch.
Good luck against the Patriots. Steelers fans hate the Pats, so there will be a lot of them rooting for you guys next week.
5Barry,
I can’t begin to explain what was going on with Ike today. He had been having a Pro Bowl caliber season all year long. Today came as a total surprise. He stunk up the joint.
Oh well. It’s over now. Ike will probably think about this game during the entire off-season. Hopefully it will make him work even harder.
6It should never have even gotten close to OT – the blown call on the reverse pass to Wallace was a 14-point swing in the Steelers’ favor. Game should have been over by the fourth quarter.
7Another thing to mention: In different situations in the game, the Steelers had their 5 OL pass protecting with a TE or RB in to block. The Broncos rushed 3, AND STILL GOT PRESSURE! That’s 2 blockers per pass rusher, and they still couldn’t get it right. This team still needs OL help.
8After 60 years as a steeler fan, I will change teams if they do mnot take 3 corners and 3 olineman inthe first 6rounds of the draft. They have ignored this glaring problem far to long no. Do they really be lieve Ike is good . Watch every play yesterday and last years super bowl, now see what you think. The closest any one play has come to loosing a game. They were two beauties
9@Dan,
Yeah, I noticed that as well. The rushers were often outnumbered by the blockers, yet the Steelers still succumbed to their pass rush.
However, I think part of the problem is Big Ben’s movement in the pocket. When he moves around, it’s hard for the offensive linemen to know where he is. So they’re in essence blocking blindly. The pass rushers, on the other hand, can see where Ben is, and they change directions accordingly.
10Sandtrap,
Give the Steelers credit where it’s due. They have drafted cornerbacks and offensive linemen in the past few years. It’s just that some of them didn’t work out the way the Steelers thought they would.
Curtis Brown and Cortez Allen showed good things this year. Next year, when they get to experience a full training camp, they’ll be even better. Keenan Lewis and William Gay both showed good progress this year. And remember the Steelers drafted Crezdon Butler and Joe Burnett at cornerback in recent drafts. So they have tried to address the problem.
Same with offensive linemen. They took guys like A.Q. Shipley, Chris Scott, Kraig Urbick, and Tony Hills, but none of them worked out. However also got guys like Maurkice Pouncey and Marcus Gilbert in recent drafts. And they got Ramon Foster as an undrafted free agent.
What’s really hurt the Steelers O-line has been injuries. Injuries to Max Starks, Willie Colon (repeatedly), and Maurkice Pouncey have all hurt the team at various times over the past 2 seasons.
And of course, the team needs to finally say goodbye to Chris Kemoeatu. His mental mistakes have gotten old.
11I always said if you want to beat Pittsburgh throw at Ike Taylor, he is absolutely the worst and he was exposed yesterday. As always he is clueless and when he can’t defend a pass he causes a foul, thats how bad he is……….please draft corners next year
12A lot of things led to this disasterous loss: injuries, a pitiful pass rush, ineffective pass blocking, poor play by Wally and a total collapse by Taylor, but one thing stands out in my mind–an utter failure to make defensive adjustments after it became apparent that we could not defend the long ball without safety help and that Tebow would continue to kill us by rolling to his left. When a scheme plainly does not work, as the second quarter painfully demonstrated, why don’t we try something else, anything else, or better yet several other schemes to confuse the inexperienced Tebow. It appeared to be a surprisingly simple-minded defensive gameplan against a rookie quarterback.
13I quit watching after that bad roughing call against Harrison. The Steelers need to face it, ever since Goodell became commishiner the NFL has targeted the Steelers play like no other team except maybe the Bears. He doesn’t want hard hitting football anymore he wants two hand touch girl football. I hope he leaves before he tears the NFL down. Congrats to Denver they played well and good luck next week because we all know the NFL has their lips on Brady’s butt and you can’t hit him like you did Ben cause they will flag you everytime.
14Anyone see Big Ben’s fedora at the Press conference????did he lose a bet??? anyone who would wear that hat , should lose….priceless????
15As a lifetime Steeler fan, I was embarrassed on how the Steelers lost especially to the Tebow Broncos. I love my Steelers and always will but this is one of the lowest points in Steeler history. Number 1 defense? I know who Sean Kugler is, he played at UTEP and was an average player. Why the steelers gave him a contract then I don’t know. What I do know is that, the offensive line has to get better than any part of the team and Sean will not get it there.
16@Dan Reisner
I’ve noticed that the Steelers don’t adjust on defense very well. When they’re getting beat, they just keep doing the same things without any change.
17The Broncos beat us (to our dismay) hands down. I was there and our Steelers looked abysmal. There’s plenty of blame to go around beginning with Tomlin. Bruce Arians’ play calling was horrible. There was no sense of urgency nor the no huddle, hurry up offense Ben’s great at. We allowed Denver to gain momentum in the second half. Gay got burned as usual and gave up a decidedly huge play. We should have never resigned him. When Taylor got stiff-armed, that blew his psyche and he just gave up. Bruce Arians needs to get fired and replaced with a quality OC. Hopefully he gets replaced SOON!
18Let me clarify myself. As an old school Steeler fan I make no excuses for my Steelers lose. No excuse, it is what it is a lost game now we move on and get better. “Go Back and Re-Load” NO EXCUSES!!!!!!!!!!
19Quit whinning you bunch of losers!!!!!!!!!!! The Shitsburgh Squealers are the dirtiest team in the league and I am happy as hell to see them sitting their asses at home. And stop the bitching about the thug Harrison and bad calls. You a holes WON a Super Bowl on BAD CALLS, and damn near did this game also(whistle blew on backwards pass my ass). Can’t wait till your hero Ben rapes another woman so you bunch of retards can defend him again. GO PATS!!!!!!!
20In defense of Ike Taylor, I don’t really know how he could’ve had any better coverage on that first bomb to Thomas. It was just a perfect pass. It would also be good to point out that Ryan MUNDY was making his first start at FS in place of Ryan Clark. It didn’t help either that we were without 2/3 of our DL, which opened up the run game for the Broncos and limited our pass rush as well, two phenomenon that make it harder for DB’s.
The bottom line is that there is a very fine line that separates good plays from game changing plays. The Steelers dominated offensively and defensively in the first quarter and came out with a 6 point lead; the Broncos hit two relatively flukey big plays and they were ahead. A third flukey play on Ben’s lame duck INT, Tebow takes advantage of the inuries to the DL and it’s a two score game. That’s the way the ball bounced.
The one thing that surprises me is that LeBeau allowed the Broncos to score on a big play on the first play of overtime. Given the Broncos managed only two FG’s all game without the aid of big plays, you would think he would hammer into everyone’s head “don’t give up the big play!” and call an accordingly conservative defense. Even if the Broncos had chewed up the field in the run game, we would’ve been able to clamp down in the redzone once the threat of a deep pass is removed. And under the new rules and FG on the opening drive doesn’t win the game. That was just bad coaching in my opinion more than anything else.
21Tomlin made a comment that they were not in cover-zero, that Mundy was near the line at the snap but was supposed to run back to cover the middle of the field, which explains Ike’s outside technique on his receiver. The Broncos had the perfect play call with the play action pass that fooled Mundy and left Ike all alone and out of position to cover the crossing route into the middle of the field with him on the outside. It was a poor playcall because it left Ike helpless againt any deep route except an out and placed way too much pressure on the inexperienced Mundy to decide between pass and run defense unless Mundy was instructed to backpeddal to the middle of the field automatically and he failed to listen, in which case it would be his fault.
22Well, personally I have decided not to try to assess blame. Without knowing what defense was actually called on each play, and what each man’s assignment was, it’s pretty hard to accurately determine who was at fault anyway.
As someone mentioned, Ryan Mundy didn’t have a lot of experience, particularly in a crucial situation like that. If Ryan Clark had been in there, perhaps things would have been different. Or if Hampton and Keisel hadn’t gotten hurt. But that’s all just speculation.
The Broncos beat us, and I have to give them credit for that. But the one thing that is pretty certain for me is that the Steelers are going to have to continue to address their issues with aging players. Aaron Smith made one of the decisions easy when he got hurt. So did Chris Hoke. And it has yet to be seen if Casey Hampton can recover from an ACL injury at his age (and weight).
It’s going to be an interesting off-season. We’re going to have lots to talk about.
23Doesn’t matter how hard it is to believe-it’s true. We lost to the Broncos and we are done. My questions start & end with our coaches. (Never been an Arians fan – so I won’t start there.) My questions have to do with Mike Tomlin. He has proven to be an average in-game coach based on our lack of half time adjustments and clock management. He has proven that he is not a strategic coach by his inability to think ahead as in not sitting Ben down in SF; nor keeping him & Pouncey out vs Cleveland. Lastly his drafts have been average to below average as measured by the success of players taken from round 3 on. (To be fair Colbert gets some blame here too. Take a look [http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/fulldraft?teamId=3900&type=team] 31 picks from Rounds 3-7; 2 Stars – Wallace & A Brown; 7 contributors Gay, Dixon, Mundy, K Lewis, DJ, Sanders, & Sylvester. If we leave off the 2011 unproven guys (Brown, Allen, Carter & Batch) that are still on the team, that leaves 18 of 31 as busts. Throw in some #2′s like Urbik and Sweed and you can see how we got old fast in a lot of positions. So, with the most interesting off-season in a while coming up, let’s see what Tomlin is made of. (Bringing back Arians may be all the forshadowing I need!)
24John#21,
You’ve touched on some of the things that we’re going to be talking about during the off-season.
I have mixed feelings about them bringing Arians back. He has supercharged the Steelers’ offense. Ben came into his own under Arians. However, Arians hasn’t maximized his return from the running game. He also has proven to have a problem capitalizing on trips to the red zone. He has to fix both of those things.
I don’t quite agree with you on how bad the Steelers have done in the draft. It’s hard for young players to make a good team (like the Steelers). Many of the guys who didn’t make the team are still in the NFL (e.g. Kraig Urbick, Tony Hills, Crezdon Butler, Joe Burnett, Bruce Davis, Matt Spaeth, Ryan McBean, Anthony Smith, etc.).
I would criticize the Steelers if their draft picks failed to make the NFL. But that’s not the case. They are NFL players. But it’s hard to make a veteran laden team like the Steelers. Look at how many years guys like Hines Ward, Aaron Smith, Casey Hampton, James Farrior, Ryan Clark, Troy Polamalu, and Heath Miller held onto their positions. Even backups like Chris Hoke stuck around for years.
Frankly, maybe the Steelers should have started their youth movement sooner. But it’s too late to worry about that now. I’m sure we’re going to see some veterans saying goodbye this off-season. It promises to be one of the most exciting off-seasons in years.
25The steelers coaching is to blame. They could not play a basic defense and beat Denver. They are assholes
26Sell out on the run????? It’s freaking Denver?????? Tomlin??? LeBeau??? Terrible job…………………..
27Thanks for the comment. I agree with the youth movement – accepting that knowing when to say good bye to a veteran is a difficult thing to do. This is my point – back to Tomlin-he hasn’t proven that he can make the tough decision. Tomlin has to show something that he hasn’t up to this point if the Steelers are going to transition and stay competitive (see the Patriots.) Last year, we took a positive step with guys like Hood, Heyward, C Brown, C Allen, A Brown, & Saunders getting playing time. That’s good. We need to continue along those lines. But now we have to bid fairwell to some stalwart veterans (Smith, Ward, Farrior, Hoke, etc)-tough for a ‘players’ coach’ to do.
We could debate the draft all day! None of the guys that you have noted have been anything more than average to below average players. (Though Butler may develop into a contributor-we should have kept him IMO. Hard to believe that Urbik & K Williams ['11 draft] were worse than who we kept on our O-line. We HAVE to get better here–please!)
My main point is about Tomlin: Where does he bring his most value for the franchise? What is ‘his plan’? We have had success so there has been no scrutiny. Simply put, we need to become more of a proactive organization (best example of how REACTIVE we are–decisions @ our O-Line: Flozelle; Starks; Essex; J Scott as a starter??)
However, we are at cross roads that will require a real plan and the tough-love leadership to execute it. Who believes that Tomlin can get it done?
28The Steelers getting 18 of 31 picks is better than what most teams do. It is very, very hard to do with the draft being such a crapshoot. The one thing that irritates me is that Urbik is doing well in Buffalo while we toil with Kemoeatu and Essex. Ugh.
As far as the draft goes: We have needs on the OL (surprise!), NT, LB, and S. Honestly, another CB for competition’s sake would be neat. But I’m not sure.
29Also: Tomlin is fantastic. We have had quite a few headcases on this team (Harrison, Holmes, Ben before the Georgia incident) and Tomlin has handled it very well. I think the inability to adjust was mainly on defense, and that falls on Lebeau. Tomlin sat Arians down to remember the running game a bit, and that worked well enough to where the running game was at least a threat (Steelers not being a running team isn’t offensive to me at all) so hopefully he’ll sit Lebeau down about adjusting at the half.
I think during the games he lets his coordinators do their job.
Just because this team has a first round exit and some age does not mean the end of the world. The Steelers will do what they always do: reload through the draft.
30I agree with Dan. The Steelers haven’t been perfect in their drafting, but they’ve been a lot better than most teams. Has anyone ever thought about how amazing it is that the Steelers are constantly in the playoffs, despite always drafting in the latter half of the draft, yet, teams like the Browns, Bengals, Panthers, Jaguars, and Raiders seem to draft in the top 10 every year, but they never seem to get any better? That says a lot about the quality of the Steelers organization.
Sure, Kevin Colbert misses on some of his picks. But most GM’s probably wish that they were right as often as Colbert is.
As far as John#21′s point about our need for a youth movement, I couldn’t agree more. I was really disappointed this year when the Steelers started the season with Aaron Smith as a starter. After the season that Ziggy Hood had the year before, I thought that he should have gotten to keep his job. I know that Aaron is almost a legend, but when you have a good young player, and a good old player, I believe that you should almost always go with the good young player.
Frankly, I think it may be time for Stevenson Sylvester to supplant James Farrior. I think that Cameron Heyward ought to be given a fair shot at taking Brett Keisel’s position. I think that one of the young cornerbacks should replace William Gay as a starter. And I think that Casey Hampton shouldn’t be the starting nose tackle next year (even though I don’t believe that our long-term replacement for him is on the roster yet).
Tomlin has got to learn how to be a “players’ coach” but still make the tough decisions when it comes to aging veterans. Personally, I think that has been his greatest shortcoming so far as a coach.
31The Steelers have always been apprehensive about putting in younger players over vets, ever since the Cowher days at least. Tomlin may be leaving in a few too many aging veterans, but he’s bringing in more young guys than what we’re used to.
32Clarification – Dan- 18 of 31 have been BUSTS! One thing tconsider is that we have to have to be better than other teams in drafting because -almost exclusively it is how we re-stock. We don’t trade for players and we rarely sign impact UFA’s. So, our draft is our future. Lately, it is our present and future. Our young guys will have to step up – as you said-like never before. It is time unfortunately for a lot of great veterans to say good bye. Time for coaches to ‘coach ‘em up’!
33Tomlin is a bust too ………. He never played in the NFL, he drafted a punter far too early and his inexperience and living off Cowhers old team is finally exposing who he really is ……….Nothing more than a lower end assistance who got Dungy coffee
34Doug O,
I’m afraid that I’m gonna have to call you out on that comment.
What difference does it make that Tomlin has never played in the NFL? Bill Bellichick is considered the best coach in the NFL, and he never played. Bill Parcells is another coach who is considered to be among the best of all time. He never played a down in the NFL.
I also don’t understand fans who say that Tomlin is “living off of Cowher’s old team”. What does that mean exactly? They’re not Cowher’s players. They’re Kevin Colbert’s players. But even so, what difference does it make who drafted them? Do you recall that Bill Cowher went 8-8 in his final season with “his players”?
Just look at the Steelers most recent season. Who were the playmakers? Guys like Antonio Brown, Mike Wallace, Emmanuel Sanders, and Rashard Mendenhall are all Tomlin’s players. So is Isaac Redman. And Maurkice Pouncey. And LaMarr Woodley. And Lawrence Timmons. And while Ben Roethlisberger and James Harrison were both on the team when Cowher coached, Roethlisberger was barely allowed to throw the ball under Cowher, and Harrison was sitting the bench behind an aging Joey Porter who Cowher refused to bench. So I think that both of them would say that they are “Tomlin’s players”, and not “Cowher’s players”.
The only one of Cowher’s players who is still particularly relevant are Troy Polamalu, Ike Taylor, and Heath Miller. Others like Casey Hampton, Aaron Smith, Hines Ward, and James Farrior are the exact players who will likely be cut during the off-season.
While I do appreciate your comment, I have to say that it wasn’t a particularly well-supported one.
35Doug O,
I forgot to mention that I agree with you that we took Dan Sepulveda too early.
I didn’t want you to think that I was attacking you unfairly.
36