Brian Roach’s Good, Bad & Ugly – Steelers vs. Vikings (2017 Week 2)
You may not have noticed with the amount of complaining being tossed about, but the Steelers are 2-0.
There is no doubt that the first 4 games of the season (Browns, Vikings, Bears, Ravens) are not overflowing with top-tier talent. Still, with that being said, the Vikings are a playoff caliber team, and even without Sam Bradford, that is a playoff caliber defense that they roll out on the field.
Don’t undersell the Vikings defensively, even if you can (to a degree) write off their offensive performance to having to play with a backup quarterback. That doesn’t mean that the Steelers were performing on all cylinders. They were not.
I’ve been repeating this mantra for the first two weeks, and I will continue to do so for at least another two weeks (that’s my personal threshold for getting their act fully together) – they are not a finished product. The first quarter of each season is really just extended preseason where the games count.
With that being said, the team was better than last week, and that is what you want to see – improvement week to week. Let’s take a look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from Sunday’s Steelers/Vikings game.
Good
Welcome Back @ThaBestUNO
When you look at the basics of Martavis Bryant’s day, 3 catches on 4 targets, you are not overwhelmed.
However, when you remember that those three catches were for an average (YES, AN AVERAGE) of 30.3 yards per catch, that suddenly becomes a much more interesting line.
Bryant showed off his explosiveness in a 27-yard catch and run slant where he simply blazed past the Viking secondary to waltz into the end zone. He also had a 51-yard bomb from Ben that was a reminder of what a real deep threat looks like.
Even the target where he didn’t make the catch was a benefit to the offense, resulting in a 49-yard pass interference penalty. Add that play into the mix and Bryant had 4 targets for 4 positive plays for 140 yards and with an eye-popping average of 35 yards per play.
Last week I noted that Bryant was going to have to make some plays to keep defenses honest, and this game is an example of that. Even taking Antonio Brown essentially out of the game for the better part of 2 quarters, Bryant made them pay. That will keep teams honest as we move forward in the season.
Welcome back Martavis, indeed!
Hines Ward Déjà JuJu
Was that JuJu Smith-Schuster or Hines Ward?
JuJu deserves to be called out for a solid game with positive contributions (how do you like that Tomlin-speak?). He scored his first professional TD on a shovel pass from Ben that was similar to the play Jesse James scored on the week previous.
He also had a catch that moved the chains for a first down, but none of that was really what earned him a place with the “goods”.
The highlight was the block he threw later in the game. It was like Déjà vu. It was Hines Ward-esque.
No, it was Déjà JuJu. Do a quick search for Smith-Schuster Block and you’ll see this is nothing new for the young wide-out – he is just continuing the type of play he produced at USC.
Dirty Red with a Special Pass Defense
It’s fourth down 4 in the fourth quarter with the Vikings on their own 36-yard line, and the Vikings have lined up to punt.
BUT IT’S A FAKE!
Blake Bell slides out to try and convert on a pass from the punter – first down, right?
In years past, it would have shocked no-one to see that play work.
Not this year. This is a different special teams unit. And that is in large part to the maturation and evolution of one Tyler “Dirty Red” Matakevich. Matakevich is not the most athletic or talented player, but he is smart as smart can be. He sniffed out the fake punt and follows Bell out and with a surprisingly athletic play he breaks the pass play up.
That’s two Dirty Red sightings in two weeks. Nobody is happier than Danny Smith.
A Tale of Two Bens
When taken as a lump sum stat line, Ben Roethlisberger had a pretty good day. 23 of 35 for 243 yards, 2 TDs, and 0 INTs, and a QB rating of 104.8.
You’ll take that every week. However, it was really a tale of two halves with Ben.
In the first half, Ben ended with a stat line of 9 of 18 for 81 yards and 2 TDs/0 INTs. His passer rating was 99.5. Again, that’s not really a bad stat line, but the problem is those 9 incompletions, the timing of them and the situation. At least twice when the Steelers had the ball, Ben went deep on second down, and then again on third down. I had to wonder if the PI call Martavis drew put visions of super bombs in the eyes of number 7. I had to tweet out that “10-15 yard passes are OK too!” because it seemed that everything was going 40 yards down the field.
I’d have to watch the game again to try and see if the reason was simply that there was nobody open underneath, but somehow, I doubt that was the case.
Things changed in the second half though.
You can do the math as well as I can. Ben was 14 of 17 in the second half. No touchdowns, but consistent play that moved the ball down the field. Yes, the stalled out and had to settle for field goals, but give some credit to the Vikings defense. They are good. They might even end up as being a top 10 unit by seasons end.
On a side note, I was laughing when the announcer stated that “with this victory, Ben Roethlisberger has 125 regular season wins, which ranks third among active players, and is seventh all time”. The statement is true, but it didn’t happen yesterday. Ben was 16 wins ahead of Eli Manning for third place before yesterday’s win. He was also 6 games ahead of Joe Montana on the all-time list before yesterday.
Just to put it in perspective, Ben currently has 125 regular season wins (third active) behind Brady (184) and Brees (131). It also ranks him seventh all-time. He has 70 home wins (third active) behind Brady (101) and Brees (71). Again, that is seventh all-time.
For the sake of completeness, Ben’s 55 road wins are also the third active, behind, you guessed it, Brees (60) and Brady (83). Unsurprisingly, that also places him seventh all-time. I don’t know why it was important to mention that yesterday when it wasn’t actually anything new. I guess they just needed something to talk about.
Cam Heyward is a Man among Boys
The performance of Cam Heyward is not one that is going to show up in the stat line. Heyward ended the game with 2 solo tackles, 4 assists, 1 tackle-for-loss and 2 QB hits. He didn’t notch a sack but was very close a couple times.
The thing is – Cam was everywhere.
He absolutely abused Vikings guard Nick Easton. More than that, he showed us what we were missing when we lost him last year to injury. Cam was in the Vikings backfield so much you wondered if he was also there during their huddle. Stephon Tuitt may very well end up being a better player when all is said and done, but right now Cam Heyward is a man on a mission, and he played like the captain he was voted to be.
My love for Cam Heyward knows no bounds. #TheBromanceIsReal
Bad
Run Blocking
When you weigh 300+ pounds and it’s 85+ degrees, football is not as much fun as you’d like to think it is. Alejandro Villanueva and Marcus Gilbert both had to leave the game at times due to heat (and in Big Al’s case lingering illness) related issues, and Chris Hubbard came in and performed well.
Le’Veon Bell was better in this game than he was in the last game, but the run blocking, at times, didn’t look as good as we would have liked. Bell seemed (in my view) to have better luck up the middle than he did trying to reach the corners. I don’t know if that’s due to poor blocking on the outside from the TE’s and WR’s, or it’s that the pulling O-line men simply weren’t getting in front of the play. Regardless, the Vikings ate those plays up for the most part.
Still, it was better than last week, and I expect as the seasons turn, and the temperatures dip, the O-line will start to perform better. Quite frankly, the real test will come in two weeks when they face off against what is really shaping up to be a dominant Ravens defense.
Penalties
I almost didn’t want to harp on this.
Again, it was better than the week before, and frankly, they didn’t feel as egregious as they had during the Browns game. There were no 15-yard penalties for personal fouls, but Artie Burns did get pretty handsy with Stephon Diggs a few times and got nailed for two pass interference calls (1 accepted, 1 declined).
Overall the Steelers were penalized 10 times for 72 yards (being outdone by the Vikings who were penalized 11 times for 131 yards). It’s better than the week before, but still a below the line performance.
Ugly
Tumbling Dice
I almost didn’t have anything to put here. Almost.
Let me just say that I like celebrations. I really do. Yes, I made fun of T.J. Watt’s version of the “Backpack Boy” dance. (I don’t know if that was any better or worse than Bud Dupree’s sack dance this week to be fair).
The thing is that choreographed stuff like the celebration with Martavis and the boys playing dice after his touchdown…. well, that just feels forced to me. I like spontaneous celebrations – not staged stuff designed to simply make a highlight reel. To top it off, despite what Mike Tomlin said in his press conference, I am not sure that the delay of game penalty the Steelers got that forced them to forget about going for two wasn’t partially the result of that extended celebration.
That, and it didn’t make any sense to me. Not that it has too.
Conclusion
There were actually so many good performances I had to leave some out. Bud Dupree returned to get a sack. Vince Williams played well, and also notched his first sack of the season. The Wizard of Boz went 4 for 4 on field goals, and Jordan Berry and the coverage team were able to drop a dime at the one to pin the Vikings way-way back. (Watch the post-game podcast to hear my views on why maintaining that play was better than accepting the penalty and trying for a 48-yard field goal).
The team is improving, and that’s a good thing.
They travel to Chicago next weekend for a game against the Bears, and while it should be a case of the better team winning, the Steelers have managed to win once in Chicago in the history of the franchise.
Yep, just once.
Oh yeah, and Mike Glennon beat us once too.
So enjoy a week where you get to hear the words “Trap Game” repeated endlessly (because after the Bears, the Steelers travel to Baltimore).
