Well boys and girls if the losses of Pitt and the Pens weren’t enough for ya on Saturday, we also got served a hot steaming pile of garbage by the Steelers on Sunday afternoon. After sitting around and watching the home teams lose on Saturday, I remember thinking, gee at least the Steelers are playing the Jets tomorrow so I still have that, and the weekend isn’t totally ruined. Sadly, I was wrong, and for those of you that know me, I am sure you're shocked to see me write those words, as me being wrong is such a rare occurrence and all. I digress back to the Steelers whose bed shitting on Sunday against the hapless Jets frustrated me to no end.
I don’t know what is with the 'Lers, but it’s pretty obvious that they are not getting very fired up on the road against non-divisional opponents. The Steelers are lacking motivation on the road and I’m not sure if it is because of the weak record of their road opponents, or because they are missing that team leader that can properly get them frenzied to the point they are ready to destroy anything that moves. I agree, some good choices were made in this game, such as the decision to pooch kick all day and avoid Leon Washington returns, but the good choices or plays were few and far between on this disappointing Sunday.
The game started out a lot like last weekend with the Browns, and another QB no one has ever heard of prior to this year, moving the ball down the field quickly and getting out to a quick touchdown lead on a play action pass to the tight end on second and goal. The action was slow moving in this one folks, with the Steelers stalling out on drives. The blitzing linebackers and secondary of the Jets defense, which came ready to play, were constantly bombarding Ben on third down. Furthermore, the Jets secondary managed to keep our wide receivers in tight coverage all day, especially after the loss of sophomore phenom Santonio Holmes, which may keep him out of the game against the Dolphins Monday night. This tight coverage and the fact that the Steelers kept extra tight ends and backs in the backfield to block limited Ben’s options and resulted in him being sacked 7 times on the day (the Jets had just 9 sacks the entire first half of the year).
Catch the F-ing ball jagoffs...
Two of the main problems for the Steelers on Sunday were offensive line play and big defensive penalties. Early on in the game the Jets were confusing the Steelers o-line by continuously bringing pressure from all over the field and staying in the face of Big Ben. This approach was working nicely as Ben’s patented, scramble out of the pocket and heave one down field passes, were limited and mostly resulted in drops, bad passes, sacks, or a throw away. As for the defense, the penalties came at the worst possible times and they allowed the Jets to hang around and stay in the game. The worst one coming when Larry Foote was called for defensive holding on a play that would have resulted in the Steelers regaining possession after Keisel smacked Clemens and he fumbled the ball out of the end zone. Holding calls, pass interference, and roughing the passer were all calls that crippled the Steelers on Sunday.
All in all this game sucked for the Steelers, even though we came back and had a chance to win the whole thing, this had to be their worst game of the year. The 'Lers have to step their game up next week because even though Miami is winless this year they will be hungry for a win and surely will try to give the Steelers their best knock out punch on national TV Monday night.
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