“That” won’t happen again!
While some of these things may happen again at some point this season, they won’t all happen in unison again and the Steelers will still be a Super Bowl contender:
- Six turnovers, five of those by Ben Roethlisberger.
- A blown 14-point fourth quarter lead, largely due to those turnovers.
- Pouring rain.
- An offense that wasn’t clicking due to not really playing together since January.
- An injury to Joe Haden, the teams’ best corner, pulling him from the game.
- And a missed field goal by Chris Boswell.
It was literally a perfect storm for the Cleveland Browns to snap a 17-game losing streak…without winning.
It was also a wakeup call to the black and gold who expect far more from themselves than a tie to the Cleveland Browns, no matter how many catastrophic events combine all at once.
This team will be in the mix. This team will still go 10-5-1, or better. The tie will not prevent a Super Bowl run.
It may, however, prevent a first round a bye.
It may also prevent the team from resting starters in the final week or two of the regular season, which after last years’ playoff loss and this season opener, is that really a bad thing?
The black and gold will be fine.
Roethlisberger is usually lights out after a bad game such as this and he’ll turn it around against Kansas City this week at home. We all know Antonio Brown will put up numbers and at this point, I’m more than confident in saying JuJu Smith-Schuster will too.
James Conner looks like the real deal, which doesn’t surprise me one iota and once Le’Veon Bell returns to the team, which he will, the team will have a two-headed monster at running back that will be unrivaled by any other duo in the league. (They will need to hope Bell checks the drama at the door though)
If the team can run the ball more and take some throws away from Big Ben, the statistics say they have a better chance to win.
That’s what they will do this week against Kansas City.
Chiefs have a susceptible defense and the Steelers are angry, you should fully expect a bounce-back game with a victory this Sunday. You’ll see a new game plan. You’ll see more Conner. You’ll see a better Big Ben and the usual A.B. You’ll see over 30 points scored by the offense.
And you’ll see that dud from last week fade into the rear-view mirror.
The team will not have a game like they did last week. They won’t have one like that this week or for the remainder of the year.
That many bad things happening all at once is an anomaly, and oh yeah, they didn’t lose!
It just won’t happen again. This team is too good and too motivated to allow it more than once in a year. Be thankful it happened when it did, in the opener against a Browns team that is probably the only one in the league that couldn’t turn that Steelers blunder into a true victory.
That may happen again for Cleveland, but it won’t for Pittsburgh.
