Good, Bad & Ugly – Steelers vs. Colts Preseason Week 3
Here is my first thought after watching the Steelers/Colts preseason game for the second time: underwhelming.
I expect a lot more, but I can’t say it any differently. This is a Colts team that is bad in almost every aspect of the game. Their offensive line is, well, horrible. Their defensive line is bad, and their secondary is less than average. The guys playing quarterback are sub par at best.
What can I say positive about them?
They have an aging Frank Gore who looked like he was doing just fine during that first quarter.
Of course, there were bright spots to go along with the overbearing sense of foreboding I was feeling watching Scott Tolzien and Stephen Morris carve up the Steelers secondary at will. I really expected the Steelers to dominate this team, and that just didn’t happen.
Still, as sour as I may sound right now, there is a surprising amount of good to take away from that game. Let’s get to the nitty gritty of the good, bad and the ugly of the third preseason game.
Good
Landry Jones
It was better before it got worse.
C’mon, you understand what I’m talking about. Landry had a QB rating of something like 114 or so until he throws that late INT. His final stat line ends up looking like this: 21/31, 163 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, 77.8 Passer Rating.
Considering the limited amount of practice time he has gotten because of the injury he sustained in camp that’s not a bad line at all. You know I’m not a Landry apologist or defender but I also am not a Landry hater. I’ve said all along he is a more than capable backup. He was able to move the team, make consistent throws, and probably deserved a much better fate than what he got in that game.
I don’t know that I agree that shifting into that pass play that resulted in the interception, but I also don’t think it was fully his fault. The receivers, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marcus Tucker weren’t on the same page with Landry, and I’m more inclined to give the guy who has been studying the playbook for four years the nod there and assume the new guys (or at least one of them) screwed up the route.
He played above the line, and I think that it settles the question of who is the number two quarterback (not that some of us ever thought there was a question).
James Conner
Conner gets a “good” call out mostly for the immediate comparison between him and Knile Davis (see below). When Conner came in for the one series he played, he was explosive. He found the edge, made decisive moves and hit the holes hard. He also appeared to discard that spin move nonsense, thankfully.
He matched Davis with a long of 11 yards but doubled his per carry average (four carries for 26 yards – 6.5 average). Very limited work for the rookie, but quality. I would have like to see them throw a pass his way just to give him a shot at making up for the drops in the previous game, but clearly, they had other guys they wanted to look at.
Conner’s spot on the roster is safe.
Terrell Watson
Speaking of guys, they wanted to look at, Terrell Watson was definitely one. “The Nightmare” as Mike Tomlin has dubbed him, or “Fat Willie Parker” as we are affectionately calling him here at SCU (“Fat” is probably inaccurate, maybe we should just call him “Big” Willie Parker) had a nice game.
He has a running style which is really different from anyone else on the team. He is a one-cut back, sees the hole, makes a move and is moving uphill with authority. He was the leading rusher on the team (eight carries for 40 yards) and he ran with such power that I don’t understand not giving him the ball on that ill-fated pass attempt that might have given the Steelers a win. To cap all that off, Watson also caught four passes for 42 yards, giving him a nice total of 82 yards from scrimmage for the night.
With Fitz Toussaint injuring a leg, and really not doing anything to distinguish himself prior to that, there may be a path for Watson to sneak on to the 53 in that third running back slot.
Eli Rogers
I guess Mr. Rogers came back from vacation and returned to the neighborhood.
Eli Rogers’ hardhat has been a staple this preseason, but the player himself has been mostly invisible. It was nice to see Eli show up. He caught 5 of his 6 targets for 58 yards and was an effective tool across the middle.
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Please Nation, I’m begging you, do not make “Boo Boo” a thing. Yes, we had a bit of scare early on when Smith-Schuster took a nasty hit to the knee, causing it to bend in a completely inappropriate manner, and I know that he has been dinged up a bit more than we’d like, but can we please respect the fact that he did return to the game and contributed?
Leave Boo Boo as Yogi’s friend.
I think it shows that maybe Smith-Schuster is getting the fact that you have to be on the field to make the team. They can’t evaluate you if you are not playing. After returning to the game he made a few nice catches, but he’s getting a “good” call out simply for returning to play, rather than sitting out the game.
Bad
Starting Defense
I know it’s preseason, and I also realize that there are decisions and plays that we are making that we might not make in a regular season game. We are holding something back, but this is a bad Colts team, and maybe the worst offensive line in the league.
We managed one sack. One. Uno… and we didn’t get that until halfway through the third quarter (a sack split by Vince Williams and James Harrison).
I expected more.
I didn’t expect the combination of Scott Tolzein and Stephen Morris to carve us up for 266 yards. Where was T.J. Watt? Bud Dupree? Hargrave? Tuitt? Heyward? It was a bad look, and I’m not ready to panic yet, but man, they got some work to do.
Knile Davis
Davis was getting the bulk of the first team snaps, which makes sense because the Steelers really need to see what they have in Davis. Apparently, what they have is a guy who always wants to bounce the ball to the outside, and more often than not seemed incapable of getting there. Davis had one nice run of 11 yards which did go around the corner, but that success seemed to blind him to trying to do anything else. He ended the night with 21 yards on seven carries and 1 reception for nine yards.
I am giving him a pass on kick return decisions because there is a chance he was told to run anything he caught out (you can’t evaluate a guy taking a knee really well). Still, considering he was probably brought in to be a returner, an average of 20.3 yards on his three returns isn’t compelling.
Ugly
Alejandro Villanueva
Man, I hate to put Big Al here. He has been one of the more consistent pieces of the O-line all preseason, and I have no idea if something was off with him or what, but it was a bad night from the start.
It started off with what I only assume was a missed assignment as Villanueva blocked down, and allowed John Simon a free run at Ben Roethlisberger, resulting in a turnover. It didn’t get much better after that. The left side of the line just seemed to be a turnstile at times, and Al clearly was having trouble with the speed of Simon.
Hey, everyone is entitled to a bad game every now and then – I’d rather he has it in the preseason than the regular season.
Conclusion
I didn’t call out either Vince Williams or Ryan Shazier, even though this was the debut of “Shake and Bake”. Truth is, Williams was more active and looked better with Shazier in there, and that’s a good sign. Shazier’s play was limited, and he was rusty, but he also showed us his potential again with that great pick.
I also didn’t call out Cam Sutton, who got on the field and made some nice plays. Nor did I mention Mike Hilton, who saw some time with the varsity group. Hilton didn’t really stand out, but that can be taken as a good thing because if your name isn’t being called for good things, you sure don’t want it to be called for bad ones.
I can’t get too low based on preseason games – they just aren’t truly indicative of what the team is going to look like once the regular season starts. I think we have issues exactly where we thought we would (safety, corner, inside linebacker) and the Steelers have one more game, the annual preseason tilt with the Panthers, to sort it all out.
One more game and then it counts.
