Still stings.

There are a couple of teams that you really just hate to lose to. For me, that’s the Patriots, the Ravens and the Cowboys.

Yes, I don’t like losing to the Bengals, but it still doesn’t sit in your gut the way losing to the Cowboys does.

Losing at all is really annoying, but there is a special kind of nausea that goes along with losing to Dallas. Hold on a second… gotta go purge again.

So I’m going to approach this week’s Good, Bad & Ugly review just a little different. I want to end on a positive and so, as I am sometimes want to do, I’m switching the order, and this week we’ll do Bad, Ugly & Good.

Bad

Chasing Points

The Nation is just beside itself about the 2-point conversion attempts. Let’s be fair guys: had we gone for extra points, we’d still have lost 35-34.

I read a post somewhere by someone arguing that it changes the whole dynamic of the game, and there is some truth to that. I’ll counter with this: one of the things we (those of us who aren’t haters) love about Tomlin is his aggressiveness. I don’t have a problem with them going for two, and trying to start with the pedal to the metal. This was a really good team, maybe the second best team (some might argue the best, but I still tend to favor Seattle) in the NFC.

Look at it from the flip side. If we had made the four 2 point attempts, we’d have won 38-24. (And yes, I know, had we made the first one, we likely don’t go for the second, third or fourth – still that would have likely meant we were at worst, tied).

Don’t be mad that the went for two, because you can be sure many citizens of the Nation would have been screaming just as loud had the gone for one and lost by one. Instead, be mad and frustrated that we were 0-4 in two point conversions. That is more aggravating to me than the fact we went for it. I applaud the mentality, and question the execution.

Splash Plays and Disciplined Defense

I have read the following statement more than a dozen times in the last few days: “Our Defense Sucks”.

No, they do not suck. They have issues, and the number one issue in my book is that the refuse to stay disciplined. We failed to set the edge effectively against the Cowboys, failed to maintain consistent lanes, and failed to avoid what has become this defenses Achilles’ Heel – Splash Plays.

83 Yards on a screen… never should have happened.

53 Yard TD pass to Dez… because we got burned by a blitz (which didn’t get home thank you very much, but hey, you live by the blitz, you die by the blitz).

If you exclude the splash plays, the defense played very well.

Unfortunately, you can’t exclude the splash plays…

Penalties

…or the stupid penalties.

Sean Davis had played a pretty solid game (he may have been a little out of position on Dez’s bomb, but I think he had to cover the middle, so maybe it was just what it was), but that gets thrown away by that facemask penalty at the end of the game. That penalty against Witten was absurd.

Ross Cockrell’s late hit out of bounds for another 15 yards was absurd.

These are mistakes that come from lacking discipline (in my opinion).

I’ve said this repeatedly all season long, this is a young group, and you get undisciplined play from young players. Burns, Davis, Hargrave, Cockrell (even Shazier is still young, and so is Chickillo) are all very young guys.

They will get better as time and experience helps them learn and understand how to play at this level. It’s painful while it’s going on, but it will get better. It has to.

Ugly

Refs

Fire all the refs and just let them play ball.

No really, I’m almost to that point. If the NFL doesn’t think having crew chiefs who are full time (minimally) or full time refs (ideally) who can benefit from spending their work week staffing practices across the country, and in classrooms refining their understanding of the rules (which clearly they do not understand completely) well, that’s just a special kind of crazy.

They sucked.

If you want to say someone sucked on Sunday, there you have it. The refs sucked.

AB is nearly thrown out of the end zone on one of those two point conversions, but that’s okay – no flag.

They do flag Dallas for a phantom holding call on Shazier (look, let’s be real – that was not holding).

So, they are ignoring calls that are clearly penalties (and Dallas was tugging and holding and interfering with our receivers the whole damn game) and calling penalties that are obviously not penalties?

And you wonder why viewership is down!

Let’s be honest, when Troy Aikman says 3 or 4 times “The Cowboys got away with one there” you know the refs are making mistakes.

Fans

Nation – I am calling us all out here. Yes, it has been a disappointing season, and yes we expected more, but the mindless need to blame someone when there is no one person to blame; the tunnel vision to focus on specific single issues and state categorically that this is why we lost… well it’s gotten out of control.

They were cheering “Here We Go Cowboys” in our house.

WTF!

Adam Crowley has, and I have chided him for this (even though I agree with him) that we are spoiled.

We are.

We have forgotten what the wasteland of the 80’s and 90’s was like.

We’ve forgotten that other teams are very good as well, and just because we want the Steelers to win, and expect the Steelers to win, does not in fact mean the Steelers will always win.

The coaches are not perfect, and I have called out Tomlin and Haley before when I think they are wrong. I would still take Tomlin over almost any coach in the league. I think Haley has prolonged Ben’s career and made him a better quarterback.

His best seasons have come under Haley.

It is not easy to build a team when you are always drafting in the lower half of the draft. One guy I was conversing with in a Facebook thread countered my argument about youth by saying that the Cowboys are starting 3 rookies, and they are 8-1.

Why aren’t we?

Apples to apples people.

They are starting rookies who were high draft picks (I know Dak was a fourth round pick, but come on people, he’s benefiting from that offensive line, and from a great running game). These are guys that were considered “can’t miss” guys.

We starting guys who were lower round picks, and who have great upside, but by no means were considered NFL ready when they were drafted.

It is going to take time.

I expect the calls to “Fire Tomlin”, “Fire Haley”, “Trade Ben” or whatever else gets chanted to continue on until we win a couple games. But please, let’s get real here – none of those things are going to happen, nor should they.

Do you want to be the Browns, who have a new coach seemingly every year?

Do you want to be starting over constantly?

No, I didn’t think so.

Tomlin is a very good coach. He has a really good staff, and they have a very young team. He needs to get them in line, I agree with that. They need to start showing some fire and some grit.

But it’s nowhere near time to give up on them, or the season.

Haters gonna hate – I know. It’s just unfortunate that we can’t just stay focused on supporting them through this season, and let’s see where things wash out by the end of the year.

Wouldn’t you rather look forward with hope, than with negativity?

Good

The Killer Bees

The offense was good. We scored 30. That should have been enough.

AB played well, Le’Veon played well, and Ben played a great game.

We got lucky with Le’Veon’s fumble, and we were in some ways hamstrung by the officials allowing Dallas to mug our receivers, but the offense still produced, and it was the Big 3 who did it: Ben, Bell and Brown.

It was good to see Ladarius Green out there, and getting some catches. I expect his contributions to improve as the rest of the season progresses.

Yes, there were still some disappointments. The 2-point conversion attempts aside, we had way too many false starts (WTH is up with that?) and we still sputtered at times, but really the offense was good.

Not great, but definitely good.

They played at a level that could have won the game, and that’s about all you can ask of them.

Conclusion

Nation, it’s been a bad four weeks, but next week we get the Browns. Look, I’ll be honest – if we lose that game in Cleveland, I’ll be singing a different tune come next week, but I don’t see any way that happens. We will not give the Browns their first win of the season. No, I cannot accept that.

It may be a bumpy ride, but we’ve got winnable games the next 7 weeks, and we could end up 11-5 (even though I expect a stumble somewhere along the way). There is hope, so keep your chins up and your black and gold right out front where everyone can see it!

Until next time Nation!