We teased, and teased, and teased some more heading into this game, but guess what? It’s not funny anymore.

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The famous Star Wars quote, when the Rebels came upon an ambush by the Empire, felt a little like today: it was a trap (game).

However, the Rebels had a better chance to at least do something.

I’m not one to “yinz” but every single person, from the Steelers organization down to the casual fan, has to be shaking their head at how they can allow themselves to play so poorly, against poor teams.

Here’s the quick bullet points, or “yinzing”, before we head into this week’s in-depth analysis.

Stopping the run

The Dolphins were atrocious on offense all year. Yet, Jay Ajayi became only the 6th player ever to post a 200+ yard rushing game on the Steelers defense.

The Dolphins controlled the line of scrimmage all day long, and for a team which came into today’s game with 105 less offensive plays than their opponents, out-touched the Steelers 68-53.

Shocking, because the Steelers also had a stellar run defense; we don’t want to make excuses, but losing Vince Williams midway, and not having Cam Heyward, in addition to many other injuries (Mike Mitchell left and returned, and Lawrence Timmons “lost his lunch) definitely set this team into “shell shock” just as it had when similar moments occurred against the Eagles earlier this season.

Inability to get to the QB

I don’t have an official number as of yet, but I believe the Steelers only hit Miami QB Ryan Tannehill twice in the entire game.

Tannehill had been sacked 17 times prior to this game, over a 5 game stretch.

This is with a Dolphins offensive line which had 5 starters playing together for the first time this season, including rookie Laremy Tunsil.

Again, not having Heyward hurt, but it appeared the Steelers were back to the two down linemen, and 4-man rushes we saw hurt them earlier this year. The difference is, the Dolphins converted a number of big plays due to the lack of pass rush: 21 plays of 10+ yards to be exact.

That’s not going to get the job done at the end of the day.

Field position

Some were pointing out that Pittsburgh punter Jordan Berry had one of his worst games to date. Yet, I want to point out that Berry shouldn’t have been punting at all, if the Steelers offense had done their job properly.

No, it’s not Todd Haley’s fault. Le’Veon Bell still had the kind of game we expected from him, with over 100 yards from scrimmage, and a 2 point conversion catch.

It was more, or less, all on the offensive line, who allowed Ben Roethlisberger to get their woes. Ben was sacked twice, hurried many times, hit on occasions, ended up leaving the game hurt, threw two picks, and pretty much any time the offense picked up a decent amount of yards, it came back due to a holding penalty, or similar.

By the way, I will give an assist to the referees for the rhythm of the Steelers offense as well. It appeared as if this crew of seasoned professionals had to take a smoke break to figure out what the calls were.

On a hot day, with an offense prone to running no-huddle, this didn’t help the pace either. In fact, it gave Miami’s defense a chance to breathe between the plays, while Pittsburgh dug themselves a hole.

Conclusion

A disappointing loss, these are the type of games that the Steelers should win, but it also builds character. This was the longest trip Pittsburgh will make for a road game this season, and it’s doubtful they’ll play in as hot of conditions again either. Miami on the other hand, fixed what was broken on their end, and had the luxury of the 2nd of 4 straight home games. Sometimes the chips fall as they may

When you play undisciplined football, and commit more turnovers than the opponent, you can expect an ugly result.

Fortunately, Miami also committed penalties, or the result may have been worse.