Well that certainly didn’t go as planned.

Understatement? Maybe? I think the real determining factor is what the actual “plan” was?

If the plan was to try and force the run against a team that is consistently solid against the run, ignoring the complete lack of anything remotely successful (36 Total Rushing yards on 18 attempts for a glorious 2.0 ypr average) and continuing to run into a proverbial wall – well maybe it did go as planned?

Clearly they wanted to establish the run. There may be a difference of opinion on when exactly the game “dictated” that a change of philosophy should occur. Coach Tomlin said the blocked punt caused
“the climate to change”. I take that to mean that they were now far enough behind to warrant eschewing the run in favor of the pass.

I would put forth the idea that after a full half of ineffectual offense, and being down 13 points, the climate may have changed a bit earlier. In a discussion thread full of Steelers faithful, everyone was screaming from the 2^nd quarter on that the run wasn’t going to work, and maybe, just maybe we should use some short dump off passes to try and loosen the defense up. Use the pass to open up the run.

But heck Nation, that’s what arm-chair quarterbacking is all about, isn’t it? Second guessing the calls, second guessing the coaches, and the decisions. I just wish they wouldn’t make it so easy sometimes.

Alright, let’s get this over with so we can put this unholy mess behind us and move on to next week’s home (thankfully) game against the Cowboys. Here is the Good (what I could find), the Bad (limited to the really bad) and the Ugly (also limited to the really ugly or this column would go on for a long time) of the contest that occurred last Sunday.

The Good

The Defense

If you can overlook the aberration of allowing a 95 yard touchdown to Mike Wallace (didn’t I say something about not letting Mike Wallace beat you?), then yesterday was probably one of the better defensive efforts that the Steelers have put up this season. The Ravens were 4 of 17 on third downs, they only managed 50 net rushing yards, and minus the 95 yarder to Wallace, only 179 yards passing. Ryan Shazier had a great game. He was all over the place, and was delivering hits that made you go “Wow!”.  Lawrence Timmons looked really good. He and Shazier tied for the team lead in tackles with 9, and Timmons also had two nice pass defenses, one that probably saved a score. Artie Burns got his first pick of his career. The line was bringing pressure, and the secondary was playing pretty well.

Then there was James Harrison.

Deebo was, well, Deebo! 2 sacks (leaving him only a mere .5 sack away from the tying Jason Gildon for most sacks in team history), a strip fumble, 6 solo tackles, and the old man was, at one point, running his butt off deep down the field covering somebody (I don’t’ remember who).

The Defense was not the problem, and they deserve credit for really giving up only 13 points (I cannot put the blame for that blocked punt TD on the Defense – maybe they are responsible for the 2 point conversion, but hey, they really did play well, so I’ll leave that on the back of Special Teams).

The 4^th Quarter of Offense

Once the offense decided to go up-tempo, and switched to more of their hurry up, no huddle style, well things started to click. They scored 14 points, and actually had a chance to tie the game up if the ball had bounced (literally, if the damn ball had bounced at all! You know what I’m talking about!) their way. It was a nice show of fight, and if you care about moral victories, which I believe I have made clear that I don’t, this would have been one.

Look in the first half Ben had 50 yards passing. The announcers where near giddy explaining how the Steelers total yards of offense was see-sawing with their total penalty yards. In the third quarter he had 0. One flukey interception, and 0 yards.

And in the fourth quarter he went 16/31 214 yards, one passing TD to AB, and one rushing TD. Ben was Ben in the fourth quarter. But by then it really didn’t matter much. Still, it was nice to see the offense clicking at some point during the game.

For at least one quarter they looked like who we thought they were.

Mostly Jordan Berry

Every week I seem to say “Jordan Berry was really good”. For the most part he was really good yesterday. His leg must be exhausted. 9 punts. NINE PUNTS. An average of 47.9, net of 41.6 and two dropped inside the 20. He did his part during those nine punts.

Unfortunately, there should have been 10.

The Bad

There is plenty of bad to go around. The team looked flat, and unprepared. They looked out of sync. The looked like they really didn’t much care. I’m not saying any of those things are true, but that is how they looked. I could probably go on and on about the bad. But I don’t want to. There is enough negativity flowing through our national conversation right now, and I don’t want to add to it any more than necessary. So for both the “Bad” and the “Ugly” section, I’m going to highlight the one thing I can’t help but call out – maybe two things at most.

The Play Calling

I alluded to this in the beginning of this piece – ok, that’s not true – I blatantly called out the insanity of trying to run the ball when it was clearly evident that it wasn’t going to work. The drive chart in the first half was a study in futility. 6 3 and outs. SIX. The one time we didn’t go three an out, we went 5 and out. During those 7 drives, we amassed a whopping 67 yards of total offense. We also managed 30 yards penalty yards.

And what did we do in those 23 play attempts? 10 runs and 13 passes. That doesn’t sound so bad, it’s almost balanced in fact. It’s the manner in which we chose to execute those plays. At one point I actually screamed at the TV “Hey Diddle Diddle – Bell up the Middle!”

When we threw, we were forced to throw long, and when we couldn’t we would dump short passes off, and get a few yards, unfortunately that was usually on 3^rd and long, and the next play would be a punt. When we did manage to get a nice pass play on 1^st or 2^nd down, once we all stopped cheering we had to watch them walk it back, because of holding, or a false start, or illegal formation, or whatever else was getting called.

So maybe it’s not all that fair to call out the play calling. Maybe it is more accurate to call out the play “execution”.

Still, the runs up the middle, when there was no place to run were maddening.

The Ugly

The Penalties

Between the 2 teams there were 23 penalties totaling 193 yards. This was an ugly game. It was sloppy and poorly executed on both sides of the ball. The Steelers had 13 penalties for 99 yards, making them the winner of the penalty battle, which is not a battle anyone really wants to win.

The worst thing about it is that every single penalty was, or felt like, a drive killer. They all seemed to happen just after something good finally occurred. It made it impossible for the team to get any momentum or rhythm going. As soon as they seemed to finally start to click, BANG! They’d shoot themselves in the foot with a stupid penalty. And many of these were stupid penalties.

False starts, facemasks, illegal use of hands, illegal formation, roughing the punter. You name it. The penalties just devastated the Steelers throughout the first three quarters of this game.

Special Teams

Special Teams has not been a sore point this season. It was yesterday. It didn’t start out that way. Shamarko Thomas makes a great play downing Jordan Berry’s punt deep in the Raven’s end of the field. It looked like another good day on Special Teams.

Then came the roughing the punter penalty which thankfully didn’t cost us any points, but did give the Ravens a first down. Was it roughing the punter? Well there no longer is a “running into” the punter penalty, so I guess it was. Although I thought it was a call that could have been a “no call”.

And then came the blocked punt. That did cost us points. 8 to be exact. (6 for the TD, and 2 on the conversion). Who do we blame for the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody blocked Javorious Allen, who came in completely unobstructed and got the easiest punt block he was ever going to get. Who to blame for this? Sean Davis? When asked about it he said “I don’t have a comment on that. We’ll address it tomorrow.” Robert Golden? “I don’t know man. They out-executed us and that’s what it was.” I guess it’s nobody’s fault, but it sure as heck looked like somebody blew a block. I seriously doubt we have a punt formation called “Let’s make it easy for them to block our punt” formation.

And then came the onside kick try. Eric Herrmann has already covered this here, and if it had worked, it very well might have been legendary. Instead, it failed miserably, and is sadly comical. Even the Refs couldn’t’ keep a straight face.

So a really bad couple of mistakes now have the Nation calling for Danny Smith’s head. Headlines ask “Is his job at risk?” I seriously doubt it. Special Teams has NOT been a nagging problem this year. It just hasn’t. We’ve got a punter who is doing great things, and a kicker who is, well, he’s “The Wizard of Boz!” If you want to blame somebody, it probably shouldn’t be Danny Smith. Maybe the mystery blocker who decided to ignore Javorious Allen?

Conclusion

Well, the truth is that 4-4 is still good enough for a share of the division lead. That in and of itself speaks to the disappointment that has been the 2016 season so far. Next week the Steelers have an opportunity to right the ship, and make a statement that they are a contender. Another loss and frankly the outlook for this season becomes severely bleak. The fact is, if we don’t win our division, we aren’t likely to make the playoffs. The upside is we have a 1-1 record in division play, and we still have 4 games to go. The Ravens are 2-0 in the division, but have two games against the Bengals, and one more against the Browns, and then of course, we have them at Heinz field on Christmas. The division is still within reach, but additional losses, even non-conference ones, will begin to add up and make it that much more difficult. This team needs a win in the worst way. They need to remember what a win tastes like. Beat the Cowboys this weekend, and there is nothing on the schedule that says we can’t go 8-0 over the second half. Glass half full. That’s me.

Until next time Nation!