Lots of ugly, some good, and some bad in Steelers victory over Colts
I woke up Saturday morning in Florida. A week’s vacation under my belt, with sore feet but still feeling more relaxed than I have in months. My one goal, get home in time for the Steelers game against the Colts at 1:00 pm Sunday.
Normally, we’d stop and rest on the 16-hour drive back, but no, I couldn’t risk it, and I decided to drive 16 hours straight through.
At least they won.
In what continues to be a narrative for this season, the Steelers played two totally disparate halves of football. One good, the other, well, not so much.
As Pittsburgh Dad said in his take on the game – “This game is boring. I mean you know a game is boring when they keep cutting away to highlights of the Browns.” All I could keep thinking was “I drove 16 hours for this?!?”
For what it’s worth, let’s break down the good, the bad and the ugly from Sunday’s contest.
Good
Second Half Ben
Roethlisberger’s final stat line isn’t actually that bad:
19/31 for 236 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, Passer Rating of 92.9
But that doesn’t tell the tale. Because this was his stat line at the half:
7/15 for 72 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, Passer Rating of 33.2
At one point in the first half, and it was fairly deep into the first half, Ben’s passer rating was 2.8. TWO POINT EIGHT. When you break it down, in the second half Ben was 12 of 16 for 164 yards with 2 TDs and no INTs (Yes, I can do math).
It was definitely a tale of two Ben’s. While they didn’t fall behind in the first half solely because of Ben, you could make the argument that they ended up winning the game in large part because Roethlisberger got some of his mojo back in the second half (the last completion to AB was vintage Ben – guy tugging his jersey while he finds the open man).
In addition, that isn’t even mentioning the short-armed drop that AB tossed in. (Darn it, I wasn’t going to mention that, but then I went ahead and mentioned it. Oops).
Second Half Defense (minus one brain fart)
The first half defense wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t good either. They allowed the combination of Marlon Mack and Frank Gore to get sizeable gains on first down, leaving the Colts in second and 5 or 4 far too often, and it helped the Colts move the ball a bit. Yes, the first mental breakdown was the long pass to Moncrief, and Artie Burns got burned on that one.
Whether it was Mike Hilton or Coty Sensabaugh who gave up the second half touchdown, let’s blame it on moving parts and brain farts.
Outside of that, they cleaned up their rush defense in the second half allowing 21 yards on the ground, and their pass defense was much more effective (other than the above-noted issue), as they sacked Brissett 3 times, intercepted him once and made him look like a player with limited experience (which he is).
If only these guys could put a full game together it would be something to see.
Bad
The Entire First Half
I don’t really want to talk about it. I just don’t. It was a sad display of football. They looked disinterested. I don’t know if the Colts threw some things at them they weren’t expecting, or changed their protection schema’s, or what, but the Steelers really were out of sync on both sides of the ball.
Luckily for them it only ended in a 10-3 lead for the Colts.
Broken or Fractured?
How can you not feel bad for Joe Haden? I think Trent Green said “Joe Haden is the happiest player I know” and why wouldn’t he be? I mean, he’s on a team that’s 7-2, not 0-9. C’mon, the world was Joe Haden’s oyster, wasn’t it?
Then he got hurt.
Now clearly there is an assumption that break and fracture are the same thing. As our resident medical guru Terry Fletcher points out, they are not the same thing.
That’s the upside of all this, is that maybe Haden will be back, maybe even sooner rather than later. Still, you couldn’t help but feel for the guy. Haden has been a critical piece of the Steelers defense so far this season, and his loss is going to be felt. All I can say is “Get Well Soon Joe!”
Ugly
I Smell Something Odoriferous, Oh It’s the Refs!
WTF is going on!?!? You know what I’m amped up about, you have to. When did “Forward Progress was stopped” become the go-to call when the bozo’s in stripes realize that nobody knows what just happened? Hasn’t the mantra of the replay era been “let them play it out, and if we screw it up they’ll fix it with replay”?
Vince Williams should be angrier than I am. But he’s probably a better person. He definitely is a better Tweeter. He was robbed. There should be an investigation into stupidity. Seriously. I love Mike Tomlin’s explanation for why he challenged something that can’t be challenged:
I just wanted the discussion. It’s a frustrating element. Sometimes judgment is not up for review. I understand that, but sometimes that judgment is cloudy.
Isn’t that just the nicest way of saying “YOU ARE A BUNCH OF MORONS!”
Frank Gore should buy those guys dinner, because they sure pulled his bacon out of the fire.
I know you want me to say it. I’ve been saying it all year. I said it all of last year. It remains true. It’s a constant of the NFL universe.
The Refs Stink.
Conclusion
Would you rather have a pretty loss or an ugly win? (Admittedly, I don’t know what a “pretty loss” would look like, but you get my point).
These are games that in season’s past the Steelers would have lost. They tried hard to lose that game on Sunday. Heck, even Chris Boswell got into the act, boinking a field goal off the goal post.
And yet, they won.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are the current number one seed in the AFC, and own the second-best record (tied with several others) in the NFL. They are finding ways to win games they would have lost in previous years. They show just enough explosiveness and defensive grit to keep us wondering if they are just a week away from really blowing the doors off this thing.
Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. I don’t know anymore. Mike Pelaia wrote an excellent piece on whether the Steelers are simply not as good as we think they are. Maybe they aren’t.
Maybe it’s not that Mike Tomlin and Todd Haley are “squandering a roster full of talent”. Maybe we have over evaluated who they are and what talent they have? It’s possible.
Or it’s possible that they are still a work in progress, as seems to be the case at this point every season. Teams run hot and cold. Look at the rest of the league. The Raiders were going to be contenders for the Super Bowl (they are 4-5). The Broncos had the best defense ever, and would ride it into the playoffs (they are 3-6). Dak Prescott is the greatest quarterback to ever be drafted in the fourth round and the Cowboys will roll (umm, 5-4).
The Steelers may not have looked like we wanted them to look. They may be underperforming. They may even not be as good as we expected them to be.
But they are 7-2, and at the end of the day, I’ll take that.
