I feel like I’ve been saying “this game is tough to write about” a lot lately. There were a lot of positives in this game, but they were unfortunately overshadowed by a lot of negatives. Like their past losses, this game was littered with questionable coaching decisions and players making crucial errors.

There will be in-depth breakdowns of the game posted over the next few days, but for now here are some quick thoughts.

Offense

The Steelers offense didn’t lose them this game. Sure there were some questionable calls and seemingly a lot of screen passes, but if your offense scores 30 points that’s nothing to complain about.

Let’s start off with the elephant in the room: 2 point conversions. Nobody knows the method to the madness for Mike Tomlin’s decision for going 2. Maybe it’s  just his gut. Going into today the Steelers had one of the most successful 2 point conversion rates in the league, which makes it bizarre that they were 0-4 today. The whole thing was a mess today, and frankly i’m glad the Steelers lost by more than 4 because otherwise Steelers Twitter would be rioting more than… you know…

Last week Antonio Brown let his receivers know that they need to step up there game, and this week they did. Eli Rogers made some great catches today and scored a touchdown. Cobi Hamilton had an impressive leaping grab late in the game as well. I’m not sure what to make of Sammie Coates. He was invisible most of the game except for a deep ball where he almost scored. Going into the season I was extremely skeptical about Coates. Early in the year he was proving me wrong, but now he seems to be proving me right. Hopefully we see more from him soon.

Le’Veon Bell continues to be a freak. The two things he is known for are his patience and his versatility – both were on display today. You don’t see many running backs split out wide and scoring a touchdown on a slant route.

I was bummed we didn’t get to see more from Ladarius Green, but he did fairly well in his limited role – ending the day with 3 catches for 30 yards. Surely over the next couple weeks his role will expand.

Defense

The defense is where the team let me down. Their play was up and down, getting a 3-and-out one drive and then giving up a 50 yard touchdown the next.

The Steelers run game improved last week with Cam Heywards return, but they had trouble with Ezekiel Elliot. Even when the Steelers would stop him, he would often fall forward for extra yards. The game was also capped off with a 32 yard touchdown run where Elliot ran through the line untouched.

The pass defense was also up and down. Gay, Cockrell, and Burns all had some great plays, but they also gave up a lot of yards. The most noteworthy play being Artie Burns’ getting toasted by Dez Bryant for a 50 yard touchdown. Which brings me to my next point…

Splash plays. Chunkability. These were major factors in the Steelers loss today. The Cowboy’s touchdowns included an 83 yard screen pass, 50 yard touchdown catch, and a 32 yard run. When your defense has a “bend but don’t break” mentality, these plays are unacceptable.

Final Thoughts

I have to admit I’m starting to worry about this team. I’m trying my best not to be like many who declare the season over and want the coaching staff gone, but it’s tough.

4-5 teams have a 12% chance of making the playoffs – not good. The Steelers are very lucky that the AFC North is weak this year.

I’m sure there are a lot of things I forgot to write about here, good and bad. That’s what this article is though, just quick thoughts about the game. Special team’s had a lot of rough moments, Ryan Shazier had some great plays, and the ref’s were all over the place today. That fake spike touchdown too, that was so cool!

Going into today I thought to myself “I hope I only watch The Walking Dead once today.” The Steelers weren’t dead today, they weren’t doing the mannequin challenge on the field. As rough as this game was at certain points, they did have good moments and flashes of brilliance. This isn’t a bad team. They played hard and lost to one of the best teams in football right now.

I’m not trying to excuse all of the mistakes made today, but i’m an optimist. I still have faith in this team. The Steelers are still capable of being a playoff team if they can fix their mistakes.

The best thing we can do is look at the positives from today’s game, hope they learned from their mistakes, and pray the rest of our division starts losing.