Don't look for the Steelers to use any of the pony formation tonight as they did when Ben Roethlisberger was having injury problems a year ago.
Head coach Mike Tomlin hates the formation.
© It's a little windy and cold here at Arrowhead Stadium, my favorite venue in the NFL.
© Cincinnati had to deal with a little emotional letdown today after playing the Steelers and Ravens in back-to-back weeks.
To the Bengals' credit, they found a way to win at home against Cleveland.
The bad news is that they now have to face the Steelers again next week - in Pittsburgh.
© LaMarr Woodley is down again tonight for the Steelers. Emmanuel Sanders is active.
Also out for the Steelers are Dennis Dixon, Stevenson Sylvester, Al Woods, Jamon Meredith, Chris Hoke and Arnaz Battle.
Wtf was that shoving match?!? Poor form Chiefs.
ReplyDeleteLooks like greedy, bombs away Ben and/or Bruce and the underachieving offense are back.
ReplyDeleteVery fortunate to win that game. Defense came up with the big pick at the end to seal the win,
ReplyDeleteIf the Chiefs had decided to have the offense meet in Kyle Orton's hotel parking lot & have a walk-through, maybe draw up some plays on somebody's iPad, give him some cue cards to learn everybody's name, etc., instead of starting Palko, they would have won.
ReplyDeleteThe offense was absolutely pathetic. Undisciplined, sloppy, sometimes even ridiculous (Dale, please find out whose decision -- I guess Ben's -- it was to call that timeout before the punt -- unbelievable!).
At first I turned off the sound because I was sick of hearing about Ben's thumb. His thumb is fine. Check his brain on that interception, but his thumb is fine.
Anyway, turned it back on, Collinsworth had finally stopped talking about the thumb. However, several times he mentioned what a great job Romeo Crennel was doing stopping the Steelers offense, as if the Steelers offense was something special. Please.
This -- the Ben-Bruce offense, this is its FIFTH year -- is a mediocre offense. End of story. Yards are for losers. Ben is a top 5 QB, sometimes top 3, who is often great and can win against anyone on any given day. But as far as having a consistent SCORING offense (the way the defense consistently is ranked at the top in SCORING, despite their slipping some and blowing the Ravens game), it's never going to happen.
And I'm fine with that, it's good enough to keep us a playoff team with a Super Bowl chance every year as long as our defense remains top 5 or so. But it is SO FRUSTRATING!
Anyway, that wasn't fun to watch. Will take the win. At least we stunk against a bad team.
Tackling with your head gives you concussions.
Sorry to scribble on your blog, Dale. I really appreciate it and your allowing us to do so.
Also, I wish Mike Wallace would just shut up about Hines Ward, stop fighting before the game, and not drop a touchdown pass.
ReplyDeleteanother ugly win
ReplyDeletethis is getting old. I'm almost shocked this was the result. I'll give Palko all the credit in the world for being a competitor and not giving up. But, he is terrible and he almost beat them. Thats not a knock on the Steelers D, they did what they had to do. But something is wrong with this team when thats the case.
I also can't believe we saw this team beat the Patriots like they did and play this game in the same year.
has McCledon replaced Hoke as the main backup? or is he hurt?
ReplyDeletehe played good tonight though
I know the way Troy plays is to launch himself, but have the coaches even tried to talk to him about using his arms instead of his head given his concussion history?
ReplyDeleteHate to say this, but Wallace needs a seat on the bench. I don't know if he's reading his own press clippings or what, but he's been bad the past few games and dropping that TD pass...
Legursky was overrun at both G and C. He should go back to the bench next week. Kemo might not be as smart, but he's much better at handling those big DL.
Dale,
ReplyDeleteWas this a perfect game to convince Kevin Colbert to draft OL back to back in the first and second round?
Also, how many TE's or WR's in this league can make the catch that Wesley Saunders made on his TD catch? Why aren't he and Heath Miller the prime targets for the Steelers in the red-zone area?
agree with everything adamg said except maybe Wallace doesn't need the bench but a gut check. I thought he disappointed badly in the superbowl and has been again lately. Likely the numbers are due to game planning by the other side, but dropped balls are a different story.
ReplyDeleteBen's timeout on 4th down was a complete surprise. He's normally very sharp when it comes to those things...
ReplyDeleteWell this is the third game this year that we nearly lost against a journeyman/rookie quarterback. (Jacksonville/Indy/KC) I think we always play down to the level of our competition. What is really frustrating is our lack of being able to pick up first downs at the end of a game by running the ball up their gut.
ReplyDeleteWe had some good runs in the game but as it is always, there is a lack of commitment/execution at the end of the game in running the clock out. It seems like every game our defense has to bail us out, when our offense can't put together a few first downs to ice it. Usually we win, but against the best teams we lose, like in the Ravens game. I don't know if it is having the right offensive linemen or just sticking with a shorter passing/running game plan. It might be both, but it is a consistent problem.
Mrs. Isaac Redman
Dale, I know this might sound crazy, but is Wallace getting on the Burress-Holmes express out of town? I was surprised that he was the only major FA the Steelers did not re-sign after the lockout ended and wondered why. I've been loosely following the Desean Jackson saga in Philly and it seems Wallace is acting at least a bit similarly. For his own sake, he needs to lose the pre-game trash talking and start making plays again.
ReplyDeleteThe offense is a trial to watch. At some points of the game I actually asked myself if we deserved to win at all. I guess the defense earned us this one.
ReplyDeleteJust wait for the day when Lebeau retires and Arians is still coaching the offense, now thats gonna be ugly!
I was surprised that Harrison didn't do more. Brandon Albert isn't a great LT.
They need to develop a technology to fuse the Eisntein-like brain of Doug Legursky with the physical strength of Chris Kemo.
ReplyDeleteHow come this offense with so much talent can not score more points? I am tired of hearing everybody gets pumped up when they play the Steelers. Last night was a dismal 13 point display. 13 points!! They put it on tape but there is no change next time out.
ReplyDeletevery disappointing, especially coming off a bye week.
ReplyDeletei was back in pittsburgh this weekend and got an interesting perspective on why the steelers don't run as much these days. my dad thinks it's because they know they can't run that well anyway. the o-line is slow, except for pouncey, and no one really gets to the next level, except for pouncey.
i have also converted to the redman camp. mendy just doesn't run hard enough, imo. for example, he caught that swing pass inside the ten and tried to dance around the defender inside the five. i about jumped off the couch yelling "put your shoulder down!!"
anyone that thinks this is a "high octane" offense is mistaken. they have the talent at the skill positions, but the o-line is only average and the OC is average as well.
i hope pouncey, woodley, and troy will be ready for next week, they will need them.
This is one of those games where you look at performance and you just have no choice but to blame the players and the coach. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot with poor execution and bad penalties. That being said, BA frustrates me with his lack of ability to call a game after the first drive.
ReplyDeleteFirst Drive 80 yards on 9 plays. Things were going well...then it all fell apart with the fumble. We gave away 7 points in the RZ.
The 2nd possession they ran 7 plays...7 for a total of -4 yards. How do you run 9 plays for +80 one possession and then come out so clueless the next possession to go backwards. Many would argue that we tried to run the ball more. Yep, 1 more time, but the rush offense was actually +7 on the possession. Don't think that was the problem.
3rd possession we got the ball at the 7. Ran 3 plays and got...4 yards and 3 points.
4th possession we finally get the TD, but we only moved the ball 29 yards.
5th possession 9 yards.
6th possession as the half ends. We have 4:30 to work with, run 8 plays, 7 pass and get 47 yards and 3 points.
So on our first possession we move the ball 80 yards. The other 5, we go for a total of 85 yards. Strangely enough had Moore scored a TD rather than fumbling, that first possession would have equaled the rest of the half. I don't know about anyone else, but that is sad.
The rest of the game was the offense without a plan. Let's kill the clock, let's try to score. What was the goal in the 2nd half? INT first possession trying to go long when they didn't need to. Running the ball on 1st and 20 and 2nd and 25 on the 2nd possession. No purpose for the 3rd and 4th possessions.
I don't know how you can do what we did to NE and then come out and give us this offense in the same season. It was putrid.
where is the high octane offense? They barely outscored a horrible QB who turned the ball over 4 times. How is that possible?
ReplyDeleteSomeone also please explain the timeout to me before the punt by Ben. Poor play, poor coaching
FTR, the AFCN leaders have lost on the road to Tenn, Jax and Seattle and they still have games at Cincy and Cleveland.
ReplyDeleteThe Steelers, otoh, are 4-2 on the road and have beaten the teams they were supposed to beat albeit not too prettily. Just sayin'...
from what i could tell, the game plan for the chiefs defense was to be super aggressive up front and bully the steeler's WR's all the way down the field. and it worked.
ReplyDeletethe o-line is the offense's weakness and was exploited. the WR's could not get separation often enough and the run game wasn't there either.
i won't say BA can't gameplan, because they obviously are very successfull on their opening drives. but he cannot adjust. crennel out-coached BA and the players did not execute well either. poor performance all the way around.
I think when the DL is very aggressive and the DBs are running with their backs toward the play, that leaves the middle of the field open as well as providing an opportunity for draws, delays, traps, sreens and misdirection plays. Except the Steelers rarely execute those plays well for whatever reason.
ReplyDeletesteelers o-linemen may be too slow to run screens and traps effectively. it showed last night when the chief's d-linemen were blowing the trap plays up.
ReplyDeletehowever, the dump offs to the RB's were very effective. they should have stayed with those more to force the chief's to adjust.
miller was getting mugged in the middle. there should have been more holding calls than were actually called.
remember, wasn't crennel the DC when the pats mauled the colt's WR's in the playoffs one year. that effectively resulted in the 5 yard contact rule the next year.
McLendon has passed Hoke on the depth chart.
ReplyDeleteWallace wasn't given a new contract because he is going to be restricted. He's not going anywhere. He'll get a new deal next year.
At the beginning of the year, I'd have agreed with you about Wallace. Now, I'm not so sure. He's starting to act like a head case and getting into arguments and fights with opponents before the game even starts. Add to that, he's not making plays as much this year either. Yes, some is attributable to the heavier coverage and attention he's getting from defenses, but he's dropping balls he's getting his hands on, too.
ReplyDelete