Brian Roach’s Good, Bad & Ugly – Steelers vs. Browns (2017 Week 1)
1-0. That’s how to look at this game. We are 1 and 0. September football at it’s finest (please denote that this is sarcasm. I know it doesn’t always come across).
The Steelers went to Cleveland on Sunday, played a less than perfect game, and still won. It was a game that going into the fourth quarter many fans may have thought was going to be one of those games that slipped away. “Let an underdog hang around” as the saying goes.
In the end, they found a way to win.
So, let’s look at the good (yes, there was some), the bad and the ugly from the Steelers season opener against the Browns.
Good
Antonio Brown
There were only two guys on the field who looked like they were in sync when the Steelers had the ball, and that was Ben and AB. That connection has become something special and it showed again on Sunday as Antonio Brown had himself a game: 11 catches on 11 targets. 182 yards.
The only thing he didn’t do was score.
When Ben needs a play, he looks to AB. Even triple covered, he makes plays.
He is simply the best receiver in football.
The Outlaw Rides
So much was made of the trade for Vance McDonald. The problem is, he hasn’t had a chance to really integrate himself into the offensive dynamic yet.
Jesse James made his case for trying to keep it that way. James was the Steelers second leading receiver on Sunday, with six catches for 41 yards and two touchdowns.
Still, my favorite thing that James did was to try and put a Le’Veon Bell like juke move on a defender, planting a foot and then cutting back. Even the broadcasters were laughing.
It was Sacktackular!
Seven sacks: two from T.J. Watt (who we will talk about more in a moment), two from Anthony Chickillo, and one each from Joe Haden, Cam Heyward, and Javon Hargrave.
And all of that was after Stephon Tuitt (who looked like a man possessed for two plays) left the game.
The front five (or six) looked good. They contained the run well allowing only 57 yards on the ground and had rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer under constant duress most of the game.
Last year it took us five games to get to seven sacks. And this wasn’t against an O-line that was supposed to be bad. Some experts (cough, he said while containing a giggle, cough) even had the Browns O-line rated higher than the Steelers. That’s just silly, but they are and should be better than last season.
Yet the Steelers got seven sacks.
Yes, that is right, it was Sacktackular!
Watt a Debut
2 sacks, 1 INT, and 6 tackles: T.J. Watt had an impressive debut.
Was that first sack a coverage sack? Yes, it was. And if T.J. doesn’t get it, somebody else might have. Doesn’t matter, he made the play when it was there to be made, and that’s good.
One sack came against All-Pro tackle Joe Thomas, and the second sack was all motor. Watt took on a tight end, a running back, the tight end again, and finally tracked down the quarterback. As Bob Labriola is want to say, what matters is if these young guys look like they belong.
T.J. Watt looks like he belongs.
But that dance… that might not belong.
Special Teams
I am so pumped about the special teams! I can’t imagine how pumped Danny Smith is. Solid coverage, consistent pressure on punts – blocking one for a TD and getting really close to a second block.
For as often as I had to throw special teams under the bus last year, it’s a great thing to see them starting the season as contributing part of the team, rather than a stumbling block they have to overcome.
Bad
Tuitt’s Biceps
For two snaps Stephon Tuitt looked like a monster. A near sack, and a tackle for a 9-yard loss.
Then it was all gone. Tuitt left the game with a biceps injury and did not return.
Thankfully it appears the Steelers and Tuitt have dodged a bullet and the injury isn’t season ending. Tuitt is “week to week” and that is good news for a Steelers front line that was looked good even after he left the game. Imagine how many sacks they would have had with Tuitt playing the entire game!
Le’Veon Bell
Is it fair to call it rust?
Probably not. However, despite Mike Tomlin’s protestations that Bell’s woes (32 yards on 10 carries) were in large part due to penalties (to be fair, they sure didn’t help), there were signs that Bell was not fully up to speed.
Bell had only a few days to get prepared to play against Cleveland, and the team as a whole only a few days to work as a unit, so it’s not a surprise that things weren’t smooth.
Bell didn’t look like the best running back in the league, however, and he dropped passes he normally would catch. It wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t good.
Let’s Look At The Replay
Let me get this off my chest real quick. In the post-game podcast I started a thought that was going to go something like this “I was all ready to not give the refs too much grief, but then they had to look at a replay before calling a personal foul”, but I got distracted (it happens) and never really finished the thought. Anyone who listened to me last year, or read the GBU’s from last season knows my opinion on the refs in general.
They stink.
However, that being said, this wasn’t the WORST performance from the zebras. Despite what many think, the calls (for the most part) were legit, even if they were ticky-tack. Other crews may not have called them, but this crew did, and by the letter of the law, the penalties were penalties.
Except one.
You aren’t supposed to be able to “go to the tape” and then make a call for a personal foul. I don’t care what the refs say, that’s what they did. Joe Kuzma tells a great story about soccer refs doing the same thing, and I think that’s what happened here. Nearly 45 seconds to a minute elapse AFTER the play was over before the yellow flag flew.
That and the fact that the game didn’t really feel like it was being called the same way for both teams earn the refs another spot on the “Bad” list.
So, despite the guy who called me a dumb ass, I never intended to say the refs called a good game. If I take out the “Tale of the Tape” penalty, I would have to say it’s a mild improvement over last year. But that’s like saying having 1 hemorrhoid is a mild improvement over having 4.
The refs stink. I only hope they stink less this year than last year.
Ugly
Offensive Cohesion
I almost don’t want to talk about it. You all saw the same game I did. They looked like a team who hadn’t played as a unit the vast majority of the preseason.
They were!
Conversely, the Browns looked more polished and ready because the majority of their starters did play during the preseason. This is why these first few games in September are called “September football” It’s not about the month, it’s about the fact that they are still working out the kinks.
Hopefully, they can expedite that process.
The Penalties – My God the Penalties
They had too many penalties. Way too many. This must not continue.
To quote Stan Lee: “’Nuff said!”
Conclusion
The team we saw Sunday is not the team we will see next week. That team will not be the team we see the following week.
And so on, and so on.
They are evolving. They are still growing. They have a lot of young guys, and they have a lot of new pieces. And even the old pieces haven’t spent a lot of time playing together so far this season.
They will get better.
While they go through that process, let’s just be happy that instead of dropping a game they should have won, they found a way to secure the victory.
