Pittsburgh Steelers Squeak By Chiefs: The Rub(bed Raw)
For all of those that crawled out from under a rock, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chiefs in a close one. It really came down to a last second play by Big Ben Roethlisberger, edging out the KC in a 43-14 victory.
With the Steelers up by 29 at the half, they received the opening kickoff and marched 75 yards to go up 36-0. The Chiefs took the field and didn’t panic. They decided it was time to mount a comeback and set a new franchise record. First play, that’s right, short pass to the left for no gain. No way we would want to take a chance with a long ball, these short passes are high percentage. And guess what, we get 5 yards and a new first down due to a defensive penalty. This drive ended in a punt after a total of 20 yards gained on 4 plays. I think the ball was thrown over the line of scrimmage 1 time in that series.
That was what we saw in the first half, if we were lucky and didn’t turn it over. I cannot understand why any HC/OC/QB feels the need to protect the ball when down 36 points. It is absolutely ridiculous. If there were ever a time to open the playbook and get crazy, that would be it. Does it feel any better losing by 36 rather than 56? I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, I think it is a great time to try all the long throws. If nothing else, we get game time experience on route timing, player confidence, player experience, and possibly score points in the process.
What I wrote was obviously in jest and not a serious attempt to spin that game as anything less than a complete and total, embarrassing failure, of epic proportions. My 3 takeaways are below.
Game Ready
What is it going to take to get prepared for a game AND start on time? This game showed a lack of preparation for the team we faced with the personnel we had available. And, to make matters worse, we came out and looked lackluster in approach, concentration, and fire. This is evidenced by the total disregard to the way the Philadelphia Eagles destroyed Pittsburgh the week before and the multiple turnovers, poor passes, and out of position defenders.
I can take getting beat if we give everything we have. If we show we learned from past successes and failures. If we have properly studied the opponent and are ready to play ball.
We didn’t see any of that in this game. What we saw was someone outthinking themselves. By this I mean something like, “Philly beat them using short over the middle passes, so we won’t do any of that, because they will be ready for it. What do we have in the play book? Oh yeah, short passes to the flat. We always do that, so they won’t be ready for it.”
We have Travis Kelce, Spencer Ware, and others that can go over the middle and succeed. We didn’t break that out until late in the third. And, guess what? We had some success, as was predicted in many articles written pregame. I don’t really want to hear about garbage time. The Steelers wanted a shutout and were playing for it.
On defense, we were down a starting corner and needed to play a rookie. No problems there, it happens. However, we were OK with a scheme of leaving Marcus Peters on the left, regardless of the wideout over there, and staying in man coverage because that is our defense. Guess what? The Steelers decided to test it. Perhaps we should have given the rookie some help with safety support and perhaps we should have had MP22 get in Antonio Brown’s hip pocket for the night. It surely couldn’t have been worse than what we witnessed. I feel bad for DJ White.
Another bit of defensive preparation should have been on disrupting routes with physical play at the line. The Steelers have speedy receivers. We needed to get real physical at the line. We didn’t. They ran all around us and scored lots of points.
What was sad was that I watched a lot of plays where our DBs were in a pretty darn good position; they just didn’t turn at the right time to disrupt the play.
Let the Wide Receivers Receive
Although it was late in the game, I saw lots I liked in Tyreek Hill and Chris Conley. Starting to get a bit of a man crush on these two. Check out these pictures that I think demonstrate their skill, determination, and will to win.
First up is Chris Conley.
This first picture is him going up for the ball. The defender is obviously in a pretty good position to break it up. His hand is on the ball and trying to push it out.
This second picture is just after he caught the ball, despite the defender getting a hand in the way, and is on his second step. He drags the toe for good measure too. If you notice, the defender still has a hand on the ball in an attempt to dislodge it and negate the reception. Also note, Conley doesn’t have the ball wedged against his body. It is just out there between his two hands. This continued about 8 yards out of bounds. Conley never tucked the ball, but kept it firmly in his hands all the way.
The play was challenged and upheld as a reception. Conley was ruled to have maintained possession all the way, never bobbling. What I also liked was he didn’t stop until well out of bounds, many whistles blowing, AND the defender stopped. How many times have we been burned by stopping too early?
This was only one play, but I think Conley will prove out to be a sure handed receiver.
Next up is Tyreek Hill.
This first picture is just after a reception when he made a move to his left going for the extra yardage. The Steeler DB was faked a bit, but got his hand on Hill’s leg. However, he wasn’t able to hold Hill long enough for support.
The second picture shows Hill breaking the leg tackle and diving for the end zone, arms extended for the TD. It would have been easy to go down on the 1, but Hill wanted the end zone.
These guys are showing skill, strength, and determination. We need to harness it and ride it. They are both downfield threats. We need to use that threat.
Instead we went through way too many passes to the backups and their backups. Too many short balls to the left or right. Too many .01 second reads and check it downs. I have no problem with a check down, if the receivers are covered, but Alex Smith didn’t give the guys a chance. It was like his progression was receive the snap and throw to the flat. Our WRs will have a real tough time catching balls that aren’t thrown to them.
We needed to put the ball up and back off the D. Instead we didn’t even try.
Coaching Smart, Coaching Hard
Lack of coaching leadership is hurting in a number of ways and it is our biggest deficiency and weakness. We aren’t ready for games, as I mentioned, but we also don’t game plan correctly, don’t adjust quickly enough, and don’t set the right level of player discipline.
The last few games we have taken way too many penalties and taken them at points that really hurt. In this game we took 7 for 40 yards and one declined. The one that hurt the most was when we were down 22 points and returned a punt for a TD. It was called back for an illegal block. That is the second week in a row to have one called back due to a penalty.
The game planning is weak in general. We aren’t ready to start a game. We don’t seem setup to attack the other team’s weakness or hammer away with our strength. We try the same old game plan and may adjust at half time. (Or may not)
This seems like Andy Reid is doing too many things. He doesn’t need to call the plays and doesn’t really even need to set the game plan. He has other coaches for that and they need to take those reins. If Reid is calling plays and has downfield expectations for Alex Smith, then he needs to either bench him or set him up to ONLY have downfield options.
I think AS11 is the best QB on the roster, but would be willing to put in either other QB to see what they have when we are down 5 TDs. Alternatively, I would call plays that had an empty back field and every route would be beyond 15 yards downfield. Although, now that I think about it, AS11 would probably end up with 200+ yards rushing.
The only good thing I saw here was that we used Jamaal Charles sparingly. Although I expect him to earn his paycheck playing when healthy, asking him to hit it too hard his first game back on a wet field is asking for another injury.
The Wrap
I don’t see this game as the end of the season, nor do I point anything positive in Conley’s or Hill’s play as the team playing up to par. I only point those two out as examples of why AS11 should be throwing downfield and Reid should be calling plays that exploit their talent.
If we don’t make changes soon, our predictability will be the end of the season. We don’t need to do anything more than attack the other team’s weaknesses with our strengths. Don’t over think it.
And there’s The Rub.
